Church Of The AntiChrist Special Presentation:

Spidy Sense

By Tejun 'The' Fowler

The phone rings it is about one-thirty A.M.  Why are they so late calling?
         "Hello, George here."
         "Hey George, this is Karen from Desert Medical Center E. R."  
         "Hey Karen, what can I do for you tonight?"
         "We need thirty two units of Black widow anti venom."
          "Thirty-two?" This is highly irregular.
         "I know, I know, somehow a whole mess of black widows were released in a rest home
and we have a minor epidemic on our hands.  We are sending a courier over as we
speak. Can you have it ready for us?  Some of these elderly people are going
critical." I am so shocked I could shit myself, god damn Lenny!

        If you live in Tempe Arizona you are more likely to be stung by a 

scorpion than any other place in the world.  In fact, Tempe, statically, is

 totally fucked when it comes to getting bit by any poisonous bug America 

produces.   A deadly little hive of scum and villainy. .

        Spend enough time admiring creatures who have no other purpose than killing, soon
you admire death as the 'higher-power' that is responsible for intelligent design. 
 
        Spiders are brilliant and valiant. Easily proven by their webs hanging from the
corner of my house.  Intricate patterns aside, the most amazing thing is the one 
strand that's twenty feet long, stretching across the sky, connected to my
neighbor's tree.  Imaging the journey is mind blowing, down my siding, onto the
lawn, over the fence, across my neighbors lawn, and up his tree!
 
        As a child I explored the vacant lot next door.  Darting between patches of drying
grass turning over old boards lying on the ground.  Like a little chimpanzee
looking for food my hands greedily snatch up creatures who flee from me.  When the
correct specimen was chosen I would run over to the corner of the house, and
feeding time would begin.   
        My breathing slows approaching the abode of an Araneomorph funnel Web Spider.  She
was a master builder, creating giant works of art almost nightly. Engineering
master pieces that would be the envy of any architect or artist. Motivation for her
wasn't society or soul, it was survival.  
        This web wasn't your classic spiral orb webs, it was the kind laid over the ground
like cheap Halloween decorations.  My eyes follow the weaves natural flow locating
the tunnel appearing like water circling a drain.  Creating a dark cavern
containing something that evolved to one of the top spots in the bug world. 
Bending low, feeling legs pushing against the tips of my fingers, I blow softly on
the web.  The resulting wave jostles the structure. In the blink of an eye three
legs appear at the hole's mouth. Grandma holding her skirt looks for me yelling
from our backdoor George time for lunch!

        There's the creepy little bastard.  He flails his fore pinchers out and raises his
tail, like all three inches of him would actually dissuade me.  Scooping him into
the cup with as much if not more skill than my douche bag boss, George.  He hires
me to go out and collect, Latrodectus mactans, Loxosceles reclusa, and Hadrurus
arizonensis.  He says he doesn't have time to catch them anymore, business is
booming in the anti-venom world, and that means business is booming in the
poisonous bug catching world.  Some people would think twice about catching the
nation's most poisonous creatures while infused with a mixture of three different
scripts.  Not me though, I think it helps actually, making me more relaxed, making
them relaxed, I ain't never been bit.  George is almost his own biggest customer.

   Easy girl tenderly grasping her smooth body in between my fingertips.  She moves
a little in response to my touch.  Running the end of my tube over her legs
pushing them apart.  Slowly I bring the shaft up to her waiting mouth.  Nuzzling
it against the orifice, looking into all her eyes as she gazes back blankly,
drugged, almost unconscious.  If she could she would probably kill me.  A couple
quick pokes into her mouth and she reveals her fangs.  I literally need a
microscope to see my tool as I manipulate it over her toxic teeth. 
         This whole process is pleasurable but it needs to be more profitable.  That is
where my creative genius comes in.  No one questions the frequency of poison
spider or scorpion bites.  No one.  You can have up to two a week in a city and if
it is the right victim they will definitely need anti venom.  If you keep it lower
than the number of rapes but higher than the number of murders, not one detective
or officer will be the wiser.
        But between milking, gathering and planting bugs, I was wearing myself ragged,
hence, my new employee, Lenny.  He works for prescription pills and isn't smart
enough to ask for anything else.  I had to hire Lenny knowing full well, one day, I
might have to shoot him in the back of the head. 
        

         George calls me a prescription drug addicted wretch, handing me a clear plastic
vial, "Now be careful not to shake it Lenny.  You could injure it."  I grasp the
container and smile at my new pet, "Stop that, this isn't a pet."  Turning my
mini-mag light on illuminating the black widow's obsidian body.
      Seven of her eight legs are rigid like structural beams holding her aloft. 
The remaining one taps against the plastic with threat, "Lenny do you remember
when that guy kicked your ass because they thought you were gay?" I was drunk
I don't even remember that night, "All that pain you whined about for weeks?"
Yes, yes, "One bite from her is going to hurt ten times worse." 
           "I know."
         George the bug freak emphasizes how much more he knows about bugs than me, "Lenny
listen, it hurts, it feels as if someone is stretching your bones.  You don't want
to get bit." Stretching bones?  How the fuck does anyone know what that feels
like?   
        George is a dick.  A big fucking dick.  He thinks he is so cool because he went to 
U of A and he has a big fucking degree in Entomology.  Hell I didn't even graduate
high-school but at least I ain't milking bugs for a living.  Great fucking life
choice man, go to college for six years, so you end up sucking juices out of bugs
and selling the shit.  A business, I might add, that doesn't generate enough money
to get by.  That is where I come in.
        
        
        Lenny has no clue about life all he looks forward to is the next Hydrocodone,
Methadone, Morphine or Percocet.  If you don't give him step by step instructions,
he will skip something totally obvious and respond with, but you didn't tell me. 
He is one of those guys who has never done anything wrong.  There is always an
excuse or someone else to blame.  Only people who screw up all the time become
skilled at making excuses, and he is a Journeyman excuse maker.  
        If he wasn't wholly addicted to prescription pills I'd probably never use him.  His
habit is so advanced it's almost primal, and so out of some inherent survival
instinct he actually accomplishes the tasks I set before him.  As long as I keep
the pills coming he is my bitch.
        "What time are you going to do it?"
        "Around nine-thirty.  There is this old bastard who called me a faggot the other
day.  I am going to make sure she bites his cock while he is assed out."  Lenny
smiles at the spider again, I wish he would stop looking at her like that.
        "He isn't going to die is he Lenny?" Lenny rolls his eyes at me, he knows the
number one rule, try not to kill anyone.  Off goes Lenny to another rest home where
he volunteers on an infrequent basis.  Simply because he is busy at other rest
homes in the city.  Here he can clip a script from some old fuddy duddy who doesn't
even know any better and at certain times not too often, sometimes only once, let a
scorpion or spider loose in some unsuspecting senior's slipper or bedding.

        I jump into the cab watching George go back into his house relieved he won't be
around me for at least six hours.  I don't care, I would rather deal with
slobbering delusional elderly people and spiders than him.  Quickly unzipping my
backpack and slipping the vial into it suddenly noticing the segmented container I
forgot to give George.  Each compartment was occupied by freshly imprisoned
wildlife.  Soon to become George's little play things.  Maybe I should have the cab
turn around?  No, they will be fine till morning.

        That is strange there are two cars coming up the drive, now three.  Walking out
onto the porch squinting against the approaching headlights.  Raising my hand, are
those two police cars?  The man driving the courier vehicle comes up to me and I
hand him the anti-venom as the cops exit their cars adjusting their belts and
talking to their shoulders.  The driver indignantly hands me a receipt and makes an
exit.
        "Mr. Steinbeck? George Steinbeck?"
        "Yes?"
        "Can you turn around and place your hands behind your back please?"  He doesn't
wait for me to say yes, calmly spinning my stunned ass around.  My arms offer no
resistance as he moves them one by one behind my back and cuffs me.  "You are under
arrest."
        "What for?"
        "Attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder." He stops talking suddenly and says
to his shoulder, "Go ahead 2, 4." A pause as he tugs on the steel cuffs then he
shake his head, "One of the old people just died, so you can put murder on that
list now."
        Under my breath, "God damn Lenny."
        "Yeah, your little partner decided to try to stick one of your spiders inside some
old Korean War vetran's boxers.  The old codger was a little more spry then Lenny
gave him credit for beating him with in an inch of his life, breaking open some bug
zoo inside Lenny's backpack."  Yup Lenny fucked me over.  "For the first few hours
nobody noticed the bugs scampering out of his backpack.  It got knocked into a
clothes basket.  We just thought Lenny was some gay pervert who was molesting old
men.  It wasn't till midnight, when people started screaming in agony and dropping
like flies."  Was he trying to be funny? "As soon as he was confronted with the
fact he was volunteering at three other rest homes where old people had been
victims of poisonous bites he spilt the beans."  Should have shot him in the back
of the head.
        I lived my life respecting and learning about one of the most prolific killers in
existence.  Making a nice web for myself, but all this time I failed to realize the
spider's most important attribute. The truly amazing thing about that spider on the
corner of my house is he tugged that line all by himself.  Down the siding, across
the lawn, over the fence, across my neighbors yard, and up my neighbors tree.  He
didn't hire fucking Lenny to do it.

                                The End