I had the dawn watch. Waking up in the middle of the night and leaving Debbie for the keep while she was still warm and naked in my bed was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I must have had a little spring in my step because John chuckled and threw a stick at me as I came up to where he was standing near the campfire by the pens.

“Noticed Debbie didn’t make it back to the keep last night. I was half expecting you not to show for your watch tonight, Jack.”

“We got to talking and lost track of the time. It wouldn’t have been safe to walk home in the dark so she bunked down in the loft at my place.”

“I’m sure that’s why you look so chipper this morning. All that conversation leaves a man feeling good about himself.” He spit against a fence rail and squinted at me in the dim light. “Threw one of my hatchets at a wolf who was worrying at one of the fence rails about an hour ago. Missed and he took off,but he might still be out here somewhere. I’m back to bed until dawn. Night, Jack”

“Night, John Boy.”

“I’m not a Walton, asshole.”

He left muttering at me, and I grinned in the darkness. Damned if life wasn’t good even stuck in this video game. I walked around the area every now and then trying to stave off boredom, but the wolf never came back and it was a dull shift until the first hints of predawn started to glow in the distance.

Steve was the first to leave the keep. He hit the tree line and then headed back inside the keep, I guessed breakfast was on the way. Allison and Sam came out a little while later and they took different paths to the tree line, and then headed over in my direction. I was sitting on the top of the picnic table, and I got up and jumped down to sit in one of the seats on the end so they could join me.

“Morning princess, morning Allison. Ya’ll rip raring to go this fine day?”

Sam slumped into his seat and laid his head on his crossed arms. “How have ya’ll not bought coffee with all those XP points you had?”

Allison chucked his shoulder and laughed when he glared. “Coffee is for the weak. I wouldn’t turn down a triple venti white chocolate mocha right now, but everyone who has a serious addiction has stashed theirs and won’t bring it out in front of potential moochers.”

His head perked up. “Somebody has coffee in this camp. Who?”

“No way. I’m not going to rat them out to you.”

Sam turned to me. “Jack, battle buddy, you know who’s got a coffee jones around here?”

I thought of the little french press I’d seen in Debbie’s wagon and then shook my head. “Sorry, Sam. I see nussing, I know nusssing” I said in my best Colonel Clink.

Debbie came up carrying her bow in one hand and a steel thermos cup in the other, putting the lie to my words. I stood up when she approached and moved to meet her.

“Good morning.”

“It is, isn’t it. I figured you had watch when you weren’t there when I woke up. Was planning on giving you this.”

She leaned in and kissed me then. I was conscious of the other’s eyes on us, and broke the kiss and leaned back, one hand still on her hip. Sam’s voice destroyed the mood when I heard him say, “Now I want some of that.”

“Mother fucker.” The words came out of my mouth unplanned and I stepped back towards the table with my fists clenched before I even thought about it. Allison cut in and stopped me before I’d made it very far.

“Take it easy, Jack. He was talking about her damn coffee.”

Debbie reached up behind me and tried to flick my ear, but I shied away at the last moment. When I glared at her she gave me a steady look. “Even if he wasn’t, I’m perfectly capable of defending my own honor, thank you very much.”

I looked at the three of them and then raised my hands in surrender. “My fault, guys. It’s early in the morning and I made a mistake.” Desperate to change the subject I turned to Allison. “We’re exploring Tim’s map today, given any thought to where we want to go?”

She nodded and gave me an expression that said she knew what I was trying to do, but was letting me get away with it anyway. “The closest symbol to us is another predator marker on the other side of the lake. I figured we’d take the boats over there after breakfast and check it out.”

“In that case I’m gonna go ahead and go get geared up. You going to wear that?” When she nodded yes I shook my head and turned towards Sam. “I assume you’re my relief, Sam?”

“You are relieved, my blue falcon friend. Good luck with the predators.”

“Aww, I’m just gonna let them snack on Allison. I’m gonna be wearing armor while she’s in booty shorts and a t-shirt.”

I ignored her indignant, “These are not booty shorts” while I said goodbye to Debbie then headed back to my place.

Debbie had left her wagon parked next to my front door and I grinned. Not the intrusive give me a drawer in your nightstand move of leaving her stuff all over my place, but a clear indication she intended to return and felt kind of possessive. The smile remained plastered in place on my face as I moved through my cabin, gathering up gear.

For the first time since getting stuck in this whole mess, I was determined to be ready for a fight. I switched out into the leather pants for that added protection, then strapped on my shin guards and flak vest. I laced up the crabadillo bracers I’d made earlier and even remembered to cast obsidian skin on myself. I shoved everything that seemed like it would make a decent weapon into my messenger bag and then headed back up to the keep.

I got a couple of catcalls for my fancy new tactical gear when I made it back up to the picnic tables, but I just bowed as if they were applauding. I grabbed a plate and sat down next to Debbie to eat. Some of the chickens had actually started laying and there was a small portion of scrambled eggs split amongst the group. Debbie startled me when she leaned over and ran her fingers over the skin on my neck. I looked over at her with a what the hell expression and she shrugged.

“Your skin looks kind of shiny, Jack. And a little darker too. Honestly, it looks kind of like . . . did you use spray on tan when you went back to your place?”

“Hell yes, just before I got my bikini wax. Gotta look good for you.” I chuckled and shook my head. “It’s that obsidian skin spell. Makes me impervious to magical attack and mitigates physical damage, whatever that shit means. Apparently makes me look like I’ve gone spray tanning too.”

“You could do with a little prettying up, Jack” She reached up and ran her hand through my hair before grabbing a handful and shaking my head a little. “Starting to look a little out of regs I bet, and there might just be a hint of gray now to.”

I pulled her in closer to me and kissed her forehead before leaning back and looking at her hairline intently. “So we’re at that point in the relationship where we point out gray hairs?”

Her hands went up immediately and her face paled. “You shut your mouth, Jack. I do not. I’m only thir. .” she paused what she was saying in the middle of a number that sounded like thirty something, and looked at me. She seemed to consider a moment then restated. “I’m not old enough to be going gray. You better be messing with me, Jack.”

I leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Debbie. You’re still beautiful, for an old woman.”

I was out of my seat and moving away from the table before she could retaliate, and I hollered out to Allison, “Meet you at the boats” as I left.

Allison chose to forego her kayak to ride in my john boat with the trolling motor. As we puttered across the lake, she took the time to review a copy of Tim’s map she’d made, and outlined her plan.

“From this it looks like we’re only an hour or so away from its territory. Probably easiest to just parallel the cliff wall for a couple of miles then break off straight east. It’s a longer walk but with an easier bearing than trying to shoot straight for it. Either way the map’s not super accurate, it took us casting around for a while before we found the mineral deposit. General vicinity is the best we can hope for.”

“Huh, that assumes we really want to find it. I’m all for XP but remember the cave bear was marked with the same symbol as whatever this thing is. Just me and you would have gotten our clocks cleaned by it. Even with all my fancy schmancy armor I say we should just scout this time. Figure out what’s here, then scoot. Come up with a good plan or come back with more numbers once we have some intel.”

“That actually sounds reasonable.”

“Uh-huh, and I’m sure there’s a reason you sound shocked by that, but I don’t particularly want to hear it. We’re almost there. Game face, Allison.”

Here close to the falls the sheer rock walls meant I couldn’t just run the boat aground like I usually did at the river. Instead I pulled up parallel so Allison could get out, then I did the same, careful to keep one hand on the boat even while on shore so that it couldn’t drift away. I let the current swing the boat around until it lined the runners up and I shifted my grip to the front and did a cling and jerk type pop with my legs to yank the prow up out of the water. After that it was relatively simple to drag the rest of the boat onto dry land. Allison had watched the whole process but stayed back to avoid getting in the way, and she shook her head now.

“I think I’ll stick with my 20 pound kayak, thank you very much. That kind of looked like a pain in the ass.”

“Uh-huh, let that tiny little cork roll just once when you’re in it and the fish’ll strip you to bones before you bob back up to the surface. A nice stable flat bottom boat works just fine for me.”

“Ready to head out?”

“Yep, hour or two out, look around a bit, hour or two back. In camp in time for lunch. That’s the plan, right?”

“Of course.”

We started following the cliff face south, and honestly this side of the river wasn’t much different than the other. The same plant life, sounds, and smells came from the forest. Allison killed a crabadillo with her bow, and I spotted a venus man trap that we gave a wide berth. After a while I guess Allison started to get bored, because she drifted over closer to me and started a conversation.

“Back at the camp, it looks like you like to live dangerously, Jack.”

“Cause I was teasing Debbie? She’s all bark and no bite, probably.”

“Not what I meant. I was talking about starting a relationship with somebody in the group. I know Hunter and Jeri are an item, but I just don’t see how you can take that risk with a group this small and being constantly thrown together if it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t matter how great the temptation.”

Part of me knew we should be trying to ninja around scouting and not gossiping while we explored new territory, but the other part thought this was too good to pass up. I ignored my instincts and let my inner old woman out to play.

“How great the temptation? Don’t tell me you like somebody in our group?” She actually blushed and I laughed. “Okay, you’ve gotta tell me who it is.”

“None of your business, Jack.”

“Well, it’s not exactly hard to figure out, Allison. I’ve hooked up with Debbie, Jeri and Hunter are joined at the hip. You must have a thing for Helen?”

“What the hell, Jack. Why do you assume I’m batting for the other team?”

“You’re not? I mean, you’re friend Sheryl was putting out a pretty clear vibe, and you’re all gung ho outdoor tomboy acting. I just kind of thought you were a well. . you know..”

“Lesbian” she said, dragging out the L in an exaggerated manner. “You can’t even say the word? Oh my God, it’s like you got sucked in from a time warp in 1950.”

“So you’re telling me Sheryl wasn’t a dyke?”

“Asshole, yes I’m fairly sure Sheryl is a vagetarian. So what, one of my friends is a carpet muncher. A muff diver, a bean flicker, a dick dodger, a member of the Melissa Etheridge fan club, if any of those are easier for you to say, since lesbian seems to be beyond you. Does that mean you think I caught the gay? Plus I’m pretty sure Helen has a thing for John. If it makes you feel any better the person I like is Sam. A guy so you ought to approve, but he’s black. You judgemental enough you have a problem with that too?”

The Helen and John thing was out of left field and I dismissed it as a distraction. The part about Sam sounded sincere though, and I had a hard time picturing those two as a couple. Not because of the interracial thing, but because outdoor barbie and Gary Coleman’s skinny bald twin brother was just not what I’d been expecting. I wasn’t dumb enough to say that out loud.

“Rock on, you can date Buster the llama if you want to. I give zero shits about who does what to whom as long as it’s consenting adults. Although I think Doris would be pissed and I’m not 100% that llamas are actually capable of consent.”

“Asshole isn’t a strong enough word. What could Debbie possibly see in you?”

“Did I mention my tongue is double jointed and I can breathe through my ears?” I answered without thinking about it, and then winced when I realized who I was talking to and rushed on. “Look, I’m sorry if I made an assumption and offended you, or Sheryl, or Helen, or whoever I might have insulted by it. I’m not really sure who the victim there was, maybe Buster? To focus on the original point, I think a relationship is worth the risk.”

She didn’t respond to that, and I decided I’d managed to redirect the conversation and breathed a sigh of relief before I expanded on it. “We’re here indefinitely as far as I can tell. You really want to spend the rest of your life here alone? Maybe you and Sam can find some happiness, maybe not, don’t you even want to find out?”

She looked over at me and shook her head. “So when Debbie finally realizes how much of an asshole you really are and ditches you, you’re saying it will have been worth it? You realize she runs the company and you’re basically gonna have to pack up and move or live in a state of perpetual awkwardness if it doesn’t work out?”

“What if it does work out and we live happily ever after? What if the monsters start coming in unstoppable waves and we die repeatedly till the end of time? What if they turn off the game and we all get booted back to our real lives? All this trapped in a RPG bullshit is an enigma. We don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is I’ve got a chance for happiness right now with Debbie, and I’m gonna hold on to it and her as long as I can. Take a chance on Sam or don’t, that’s up to you, but don’t let fear make your decisions for you. There’s a hell of a lot scarier stuff than a breakup you could be worrying about.”

“You know if John had said that instead of you, it would have sounded just like Dr. Phil.”

“He does have that same cousin fucking accent, doesn’t he?”

She grinned at me and it felt like we were on better footing now. I nodded at her and tried to focus on the trail and let the soap opera stuff fade away to the back of my mind. We’d been following the cliff face and making good time. There was the occasional loose rock to watch out for, but most of the brush started well back from the face and it was mostly level hard ground to travel over. Allison pointed to a spot up on the cliffs just visible in the distance where it looked like the cliff took on a more gradual slope and turned to me.

“I bet if we went far enough South you could make it up on top of the cliffs. We might want to try that someday and travel back up North, see what’s directly above our outpost.”

“It’d be a hell of a trip, and I doubt we could take the boats up, even your kayak. Have to figure a way to cross the falls and I bet there’s rapids up there. Definitely ain’t on the agenda for today, but I agree somebody ought to scope things out from up there just in case.”

“Think we’ve gone far enough down to cut east now?”

I pictured Tim’s map in my head. Even though it wasn’t exactly grade A cartography it had still seemed pretty accurate so far. “Yeah, this is probably pretty close. Head straight towards the sun for an hour or so and we ought to be in predator territory. Can’t tell how far the territory extends or what we’re looking for, so hand signals from here on out. We’re going total stealth mode here.”

She flipped me the bird. “This is like the only one I know. I’m not GI Joe, remember?”

“And apparently you’ve never watched an action movie?” I held up a clenched fist. “This is stop.” patted the air, “Get down” made like the three stooges at my own eyes before pointing. “That’s look over there. Use common sense and it’s like playing charades. That good enough?”

She hesitated and then sighed and shook her head like she was unsure of the idea. “What’s the signal for we’re fucked, let’s run away?”

I grinned at her and poked my index finger into my closed fist in the time honored crude gesture and then made a running motion with two fingers of the closed hand. She shook her head in negation but smiled back, I’d managed to lighten the mood.

“You’re an idiot, Jack. Let’s go.”

We headed into the woods, finding denser and denser brush as we travelled. One significant difference form the North side of the river seemed to be that the vegetation was a little thicker on this side. I kept a slow and careful pace, wary of thorns and nasty plants like the venus man trap. The forest was quieter than I expected, missing even the soft click of crabadillos that I’d come to expect. It felt like we were ghosts floating through a completely dead forest. Over the course of close to an hour, we’d gone maybe a half mile when Allison took one hand off her bow and held up a clenched fist. I drifted to a stop and followed her check that out gesture to see a whiteish gray lump in the hollow formed by two tree roots. I pointed at her then the ground in front of her and patted my back, trying to give the stay here and cover me while I check that out message. She looked a little confused but I shrugged and went ahead anyway.

She didn’t follow me so I guess she must have figured it out. The lump was misshapen but kind of spherical, and at first I thought I was looking at some kind of fungus. Visions of flesh eating spores parasitizing my brain flashed through my head and I was moving at the speed of smell as I moved closer and crouched down before it. At close range I could tell it was layers of something else not a single structure like a mushroom and I relaxed. I slid the tip of my antler sword forward and poked at it. It took more force than I expected to rip a tear into the outer layer, and a blob of brownish green fluid dribbled out. I looked back at Allison and waved her forward, then gave a crouch down signal with my hand.

She came and knelt down next to me, staring at the mass and I stuck my face up to her ear. Her hair tickled my cheek as I said in a soft voice. “Spider web.” She sucked in a sharp breath that was louder than my spoken words and leaned back away from the cocoon. I sat my sword down and pulled my knife to cut into the webbing. I had to get pretty physical to split it all the way open and I was glad of the leather gloves as the stuff splashed over the edge of the sack. When I’d torn open the bundle I cleaned my knife on the grass and then used the point of my antler sword to stir through the goop. Nothing was left of the creature’s meal except the goop and a couple of hard bones I could feel with the sword. I levered out what looked like a wolf skull and looked over and made eye contact with Allison to make sure she saw it before I let it drop back into the pile.

She leaned her bow back against her chest and started to vigorously thrust her finger in and out of her other hand, giving me the we’re fucked let’s get out of here we’d agreed on. I shook my head no and pointed to my eyes then at the forest around her. I flashed several fingers up, then shrugged and held up 1. I held up my fingers a couple inches apart, shrugged, and then spread my hands apart in a ‘the fish was this big’ gesture. I was trying to tell her we needed more information, we didn’t know how many there were or how big they got. We needed to keep scouting. Unfortunately, Allison sucked at charades. She looked at me confused and gave a shrug, then repeated the let’s get out of here sign.

I moved in close to her again and with my mouth to her ear said, “Need intel.” She shook her head violently side to side, then grabbed my shoulder and moved to my own ear.

“We need to get out of here, Jack. There are wolf eating spiders around. That’s plenty of intel for me. We don’t need to know anything else. Let’s go.” She’d whispered it so the sibilants would carry, and delivered it in full sentences like she was performing an entire damn monologue. I wondered what part of the don’t talk thing had confused her. She moved okay in the woods, but her tactical sense was for shit. At this point I thought the safest bet was to retreat. We could come back in force or I could come back on my own for a solo scout to figure out what we were up against. I nodded at her and pointed back the way we came.

She shook her head at me and pointed due North. I frowned, pointed up at the sun, then back west the way we’d come. She grimaced grabbed my shoulder and started to lean in again. I stopped her, put my finger to my lips in a shush gesture. She shushed me back and then gave me the finger before leaning into my ear. I didn’t fight it. Apparently she had something worth risking our asses to say.

“River closer, go North.”

At least she’d figured out that fewer words was better. Her message made sense as well. I’d thought she’d panicked and gotten lost. Instead she wanted to make it out of the woods in the shortest possible way, then follow the shoreline straight up to the boats. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I was pissed at her and tired of arguing. I gave a short nod and gestured in an after you kind of way. Her knuckles went white on her bow, but she nodded and stood up, heading due North.

I followed her, trying to look in every direction at once. The morning light glinted off a strand of silk and the path we were walking, and Allison and I seemed to see it at the same time. She stopped in place and I drifted up beside and past her, trying to follow it to the end. The stuff was thin enough it was a little hard to spot, but once I knew it was there I could make it out. It was running from the ground up to a small branch and from there back to the stem of a weed. There was a loose pattern to the design that seemed familiar, but I didn’t see a spider present and this was sized for insects. There was no way a web this small had taken down a wolf. I tried to convey that to Allison by shaking my head while holding up my thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. She stared back at me and shrugged, so I took over point, swiping the webbing free with the toe of my boot at the bottom and walking through the open area.

Staying hyper vigilant wasn’t wasted though, because a few minutes later I saw a much thicker strand of silk crossing the game trail we were going down at ankle height. I held up a hand to stop up and knelt down to examine it. It was almost blueish white color like you saw in pictures of ice cubes sometimes, but rarely in person. The strand was a tad thinner than a pencil and looked kind of spongy like it had a porous texture. I turned my head and looked in each direction trying to determine where the web ran. Off to the left it splayed out in a dozen thinner pieces, anchoring the line to the trunk of a large tree, but what I saw to the right made me suck in my breath. It rose up higher into the trees just below the canopy, and joined dozens of other similar strands. There was a giant nest built of webbing suspended between the trees. Each of the individual strands of silk came from the surrounding forest and tied into it. Snatches of a long ago documentary from Netflix flashed through my head and I made the connection. I hadn’t spotted a regular spider’s web meant to trap me in place, but a series of tripwires meant to alert something in that nest of our presence.

I pulled back a cluster of leaves that were in her line of sight and pointed at my discovery for Allison. She saw it and her face was a study in disgust and fear. I was starting to suspect she was not a spider fan. I pointed north, but a little to the west now. We could cut around the direction the visible strands came from, and try to avoid the spiders. She nodded energetically but motioned for me to lead the way. I paused and pointed at the trip wire while I made eye contact. I waited until I was sure she was watching before I stepped over it, and then watched to ensure that she did the same. We had to avoid three more in the next fifteen minutes or so, and I felt like I was getting good at predicting them

They were always placed where they could be anchored on something substantial, like a half buried boulder or a tree trunk. They tended to run at either a low angle across a natural opening in the path, or almost vertical in front of a horizontal barrier like a fallen log. Natural selection or just game programming, these things had figured out the most efficient place to lay a trap for an animal wandering around in these woods. Luckily I could figure it out too, and that’s where I looked for webs. For quite a while I managed to find them. As Allison and I continued to travel in silence and the vegetation started to thin back out, the webs became a lot less common. By the time we hit the treeline and the river was in sight, I was convinced we’d made it out of the danger zone.

I felt my body start to relax and tension I hadn’t even realized had built up in my muscles finally unwound as we walked out of the trees and onto that sandy area that bordered the river. I shook myself like a wet dog. “That got pretty intense there after a while.”

“Giant spiders. That has got to be the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of. Can you imagine how big they must have been?”

“Can you imagine how dangerous it was for you to be nattering on when we were supposed to be quiet, and how bout chickening out in the middle of a mission? We don’t even know how big the actual spider was cause we didn’t stick around long enough to see one. What the hell was that all about, Allison?”

“Bullshit! You listen to me, Jack. There is no way in. . .”

The ground exploded before she could finish her sentence. I dropped to my belly while I screamed “IED!” Allison’s reflexes were a little more on point. She sprinted to the side and screamed, “Spider!” The flying clods of dirt and sand that had pelted us came from a spider the size of a cow bursting out of a trapdoor under the ground at our feet. I was at a huge disadvantage lying on the ground, and I frantically swung my sword at the monster as I started to roll onto my back. An arrow slammed home into its torso as it parried my blade with an oversized mandible. One of its forelegs slapped into my flack jacket, and slammed my back flat on the ground and I lost my breath in a single gust from the impact. I was sure I was about to die when another arrow sprouted out of one of the spider’s eyes.

It reared up above me then, swiveling it’s body to get a better look at where the arrows were coming from. I’d dropped my sword when it had stomped me back down, but I sat up and rammed my knife into its thorax as it jumped. Fear had my knuckles locked around the handle in a death grip, and the blade lodged in its exoskeleton. When the spider leaped it dragged me off the ground with it. Another of the legs hit me with punishing force on the thigh, but my unexpected weight destroyed its balance and we both slammed to the ground well short of Allison. It had come down on its side and I was mostly standing up now, so I stepped back from the spider and tried to get some distance from its flailing body.

I was unarmed but not out of the fight and I threw a punch at what passed for a spiders knee as it thrashed to get back upright and one of its legs passed in front of me. The leg was covered in some kind of chitin and it hurt when I connected. There was an audible crack and I didn’t know if it had been a bone in my hand or the leg. As I dug into my messenger bag for my axe I figured out it had been the latter. The leg buckled when the spider came upright, but there were still 7 more and it didn’t seem much hindered. Another arrow came from Allison and drove through the joint where the bulbous body joined its head. The thing had learned its lesson and didn’t turn away from me this time.

It oriented towards me and skittered forward, but I had my axe out now and I stepped in to meet it. I slammed the axe down two-handed in an overhand blow. It had been moving faster than I could respond and I missed the head, but I still landed on the body with enough force to drive the entire thing to the ground. I dodged a leg that swung at me and used the opportunity to level a vicious muy thai style kick at the opposite leg it had planted to hold its weight. My shinguard was a hell of a lot sturdier than my fist, chitin shattered and ichor splashed. The spider kept coming. It was inside my guard now and I couldn’t get much force behind it, but I rammed the handle of my axe down into its head as it got to me. The oversized mandibles still hit my flak vest as it knocked me to the ground.

The beast followed me to the ground, trying to shove the serrated edge of those jaws through my armor and into the soft flesh underneath. I didn’t lose my weapon this time. I couldn’t sit up or get a clear shot, but I swung it blindly to the side and felt it crush another leg. I grabbed the arrow sticking out of its eye with my other hand and tried to shove it off me, but didn’t have the leverage. I continued to tug and swing the axe in my other hand blindly at its abdomen. The spider wasn’t about to back off and let me hurt it more unfortunately. It collapsed down on top of me, content to smother me or eat through the thin candy shell to the good part inside, whichever came first.

Allison saved me. She’d given up on her bow when the arrows didn’t seem to work. She pulled her machete and run back toward the beast, and narrowly missed being decapitated by a wild swing of my axe I later learned. Neither the spider or I saw her until the last second when she came in from the top and stabbed down square in the middle of the spider's head with her blade in both hands. The precision was enough to accomplish what nothing else had. The spider continued to thrash for another second or two, but the coordination was gone and the monster was dead.

She helped drag me out from underneath until I was clear enough to move on my own. I immediately got to my feet and backed away, rubbing at the rents in my armor to assure myself nothing had gotten through.

“Holy shit. I fucking hate spiders now too. You saved my ass, Allison.”

She shuddered. “It’s so gross, Jack. I kinda like it better than the little ones that can crawl into your ears when you sleep or something though.”

“Thank you for that disturbing image. You want to try and butcher it or anything?”

“Eww, no. It’s a bug, Jack. Let’s just get back to our side of the river.”

I was looking at the treeline to make sure nothing had heard the ruckus and come to join in. When she said that I turned to look back at the spider and moved forward for a quick kick to ensure that it was really dead.

“Asshole spider borrowed my knife and never gave it back. Give me a hand flipping it over?”

“Nope. I’ll buy you a new knife though if you insist, but I am not touching that thing.”

I grinned at Allison, her hands already wrist deep in spider gore from the killing thrust. “You’re such a wuss. I think I can get it.”

The legs were oddly fragile and I snapped one off when I tried rolling it over. I looked closer and realized there was zero give in the joints, a potential weakness? I shrugged and changed my grip to wrap around the thicker hairy part and tried again. That did the trick and I grunted and shifted forward until it had moved enough I could get to my knife. The blade slid out easily like it had never been stuck at all and I shook my head. The struggle must have dislodged it, but it would be nice if that had happened earlier. From this vantage I had a better angle on the body of the spider and I realized something that made my stomach drop.

“You know much about spiders, Allison?”

“Some of them are poisonous and can make parts of your body fall off.”

“Damn, you are just full of deliteful little tidbits like that. I’ve got something better for you. Those little things on their butt that make webs are called spinnerets. This kind of spider doesn’t have them.”

She walked around towards the back end, looking at it but appearing not to enjoy the experience.

“Maybe only the boys or only the girls have them or something.”

“Hold on a second.” I pulled up wikipedia and started reading up on spiders. I found what I was afraid would be there. “Nope, if it's a species that does webs,both sexes have the organs. This giant trapdoor spider asshole is a different kind of spider than whatever built those big ass webs.”

“Time to cross the fucking river, Jack. I’m done with this adventure.”

“No worries, I was just pointing it out. It’s definitely time to head back. Maybe walk careful and spread a little further apart till we make it to the boat though.”

It was a good strategy, but probably unnecessary. We made it back up to where we’d beached the boat without bumping into anything else. She had shoved it into the water before I’d even caught up, and I hurried up just in case. Allison seemed to finally relax once I had the motor in the water and we were puttering towards our side of the lake.

“That was horrible. I don’t even know what I’m going to name that spider thing.”

“What you’re going to name it, Allison? It tried to eat me you’ll recall.”

“Uh-huh, but I’m the one that killed it. Plus Debbie told me to name anything we found. Apparently you give stuff stupid names.”

“I do not.”

“Oh, great comeback, Jack. What was the name you used, giant trapdoor spider asshole? You really want to have to use a name that long, how dumb is that. Or are you thinking maybe call them GTSA for short?”

“That was a description not a name. I wouldn’t use a name that long. I think we should call them Charlie.”

“What?”

“You know, like the viet cong. It’s short enough. They live in tunnels, jump out and occasionally try to kill some poor innocent american. You could say the markings even look a little bit like pajamas.”

“The markings are black and brown stripes.”

“I know, I had a pair of pajamas that looked just like that.”

“Just, don’t. We can call them trapdoor spiders, okay? That’s pretty close to what you started with.”

“Fuck that, GTSA or Charlie, your choice.”

She ended up going with GTSA to present to the group, but I knew in my heart I’d always think of them as Charlie.