Everyone froze.

  “Are those—?” Caroline pointed at the wrapped masses sitting in the chairs. There was one in each of the six chairs around the table. She mouthed the word “people”.

  Laura crept closer to the table, bending down to peer at the hand clutching the glass. It looked pristine, its skin still supple and a healthy color. Laura gently prodded the webbed mass in the chair with one finger. The webbing was sticky but tough.

  “Agnes,” Laura said, waving her over. “Can I borrow your knife?”

  Agnes handed over one of her knives, and Laura contemplated where to begin. She’d have to be careful—she wasn’t sure how thick the webbing was.

  A rustling sound made Laura jump and everyone looked around the room. One of the windows on the far end of the room was open and the curtains waved in a gentle breeze. Oliver crossed the room and shut it.

  Laura turned back to examining the mass closest to her. She used the knife to try to shave off a portion, hoping to carefully peel it back layer by layer, but the webs were exceedingly difficult to cut through. Nate took over the knife, digging it under some of the fibers and leaning his whole weight until they tore apart under the blade. He went for the top, near what might be the head. Laura winced as he stuck the knife in, but the webs were so tightly packed that it took some work to split even a shallow layer open.

  Oliver frowned and looked around again. “This is taking too long.”

  “Almost got it,” Nate ground out. He ran his hands over the top front. “I can feel something,” he said. “Something different.” Then he dug his fingers and pulled and twisted as hard as he could until he tore open the final layer, revealing a nose and mouth.

  Everyone crowded around while Nate held his hand up to the nose and mouth. He shook his head. “I don’t feel anything. I don’t think they’re breathing.”

  Laura started to get a bad feeling. “Can you open it just a little more? I need to see their whole face.”

  Oliver stepped in and with a sharp tug ripped the opening wider.

  Laura’s stomach dropped. “I know them,” she said.

  Caroline put a hand over her mouth and nearly doubled over. Then put her hands on her knees like she was trying not to pass out. “It’s one of the guys from that first group that went in.”

  Laura couldn’t remember his name. She was pretty sure she’d never learned it in the first place. It wasn’t Mitch or Russell. But looking around the table she had a pretty good idea where they were.

  “Do you think they’re all…dead?” Graham said, clearing his throat.

  “I think we have to assume so,” Oliver said. “Explains why we didn’t run into them. They’ve been here this whole time.”

  Caroline tilted her head to one side, still doubled over. “What’s that though?” She pointed under the table.

  There were multiple thin filaments coming off of each mass. They were only really visible under the table, and they all connected to a bucket under the center of the table. Laura was getting a little light headed from bending down and craning her neck to examine it, so she sat down directly on the carpet. The smell of mildew threatened to choke her as she scooted herself farther under the table. She examined the bucket. A text box popped up with the label “Food Source”. But was that stuff going into the people, or coming out of them?

  Laura heard more rustling. She clambered up from under the table. She moved to the next mass at the table. This one also had a hand jutting out of the webs and holding a knife. On instinct she grabbed at one of the filaments on the mass and pulled. The hand twitched.

  Laura yanked her hand back. The hand twitched again and clutched the knife tighter, its knuckles turning white from the pressure. The mass began to shift the tiniest bit from side to side.

  The rustling sound grew louder.

  “I think they’re still alive,” she whispered. “At least some of them.”

  Several drops of liquid dripped onto Laura’s shoulder. They burned. Laura tipped her head up, and froze.

  A massive black spider clung to the ceiling. Plaster flaked down from where its legs dug into the far corners. Multiple eyes glinted, staring directly down at them. Fangs dripped acid on either side of a tube-like mouth opening.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Boss - Spider: Level 8.

  Weaknesses: sharp objects, loud sounds.

  More liquid dripped from between the spider’s fangs and landed on the webbed mass at Laura’s side. Some of the wrapping frayed and split as the liquid ate through the first layer. Laura hesitated for just a moment, reaching out towards the webbing before she was forced to dodge another glob of acidic liquid.

  The spider hanging above them made a single horrible sound.

  Spiders poured in from the far doors, mobs ranging from tiny Level 1s with legs like delicate filaments and bodies barely larger than Laura’s pinky nail, all the way up to Level 5 chunky spiders the size of cats.

  The tide of mobs surged forward sending the group retreating back towards the door to the dining room. Several smaller mobs skittered towards Laura until she felt many legs tickling her ankles. She quickly used her blow torch to light the handful of Level 1 and 2 mobs on fire. She hadn’t known spiders could scream like that.

  Nate punched a Level 4 spider so hard it immediately bowled over and its legs shriveled and curled in towards its body.

  “We can’t just leave them here!” Laura said, looking at the hand still twitching on the table, grasping its knife and even weakly swinging it like it was trying to join in the fight.

  Oliver looked grimly determined as he tried to push back towards the wrapped bodies around the table. A Level 5 mob had climbed up one of the bodies and sat fat and heavy on top of the mass of webs. It leapt at Oliver, and collided with him with a thud.

  Oliver went down, the back of his head cracking against the polished wood floor, the spider’s legs wrapping around his chest and its fangs—smaller than the boss but still vicious looking—buried in his chest.

  Graham shot multiple rounds at the mob squatting on Oliver’s chest while Oliver moaned in pain. Oliver’s health bar was dropping fast. The mob’s multiple eyes focused on Graham, and it ran towards him, legs blurring, leaving Oliver on the floor covered in tiny spiders who’d followed up behind the larger mob.

  Agnes ran over to Oliver, taking out two more larger mobs hovering over him with her knives.

  Graham stood frozen in fear, watching the Level 5 spider barrel towards him. It hissed and clacked its fangs as it ran.

  “Heads up!” Nate barreled through, slamming into the mob and intercepting it before it could get to Graham.

  Graham stood shaking in the aftermath, his face pale.

  Nate tussled with the spider, rolling around the floor. One of his hands was wrapped around where its head joined its body, keeping the fangs from getting close to him. With the other hand he formed a fist and repeatedly pummeled the spider.

  Nate wasn’t able to get enough leverage to put his full strength into it, but with each hit its health bar still dropped by a chunk, until finally it was in the red. But soon Nate began to flag and had to focus all his energy just to keep the fangs from inching closer to his neck.

  Brett stood frozen near the door to the dining room.

  “Shoot it!” Laura yelled at him. Brett didn’t move.

  She grabbed the slingshot out of his hand, but just got a message.

  Your stats aren’t high enough to wield this weapon.

  She threw the slingshot back at Brett.

  The Level 5 spider’s fangs were starting to scrape into Nate’s neck and he let out a scream as blood trickled onto the floor and bubbled as it mixed with the acidic liquid from the spider’s fangs.

  Caroline was flipping through her spell book, looking for anything to help.

  “A fireball would be great, but we’ll take anything!” Laura yelled at her.

  “Oh for crying out loud,” Agnes said, looking up from where she was force feeding Oliver some refresher soda. She threw a knife at the mob on top of Nate. The knife buried deep into one of the spider’s eyes. It slumped over. Nate jumped to his feet, breathing hard. His neck was still bleeding but he’d gotten away with relatively shallow injuries. Oliver was starting to sit up now and was able to take the bottle of soda off of Agnes while she killed a few more medium size spiders that were starting to threaten them again.

  Laura felt something brush her shoulders. She jumped and fired off the blow torch to ignite whatever it was that was touching her. Whisps of fire trailed into the air, consuming loops of white strands that were now hanging down in the air, including the few that had been just long enough to touch her shoulder. The massive boss spider still calmly hung from the ceiling, contemplating them with its multiple eyes. It hadn’t moved an inch from its position, but while they’d been fighting, it had been busy producing yard after yard of silk that now dangled from its abdomen. Two of its legs now released their grip on the ceiling and started to descend towards Oliver.

  At that point it was clear they’d be lucky to leave alive themselves, let alone help anyone else.

  “Agnes!” Laura pointed up at where the massive legs were descending. Some of the mobs were already falling back, clearing the way for the boss to begin spinning Oliver into the silk webs.

  Which left an opportunity. Nate sprinted forward to grab Oliver’s hand and haul him to his feet. With Nate supporting a fair portion of his weight, Oliver was able to stumble towards the door with Agnes following. Brett ran out the moment he saw people heading for the exit. Caroline looked around at Laura and Graham, making sure they had a clear path out before she too ran for the door.

  The boss made its horrible sound again as they ran out of the dining room, and the remaining mass of mobs swarmed forward after them. Laura ran so hard she thought she was going to throw up, sprinting the last few feet towards the door to the outside.

  Nate and Oliver were the last out onto the street and the door slammed shut behind them. A few small thuds rattled the door, showing just how close behind them some of the mobs had been.

  The night air was now frigid and it cut into Laura’s lungs as she took deep, gasping breaths. Nate dropped Oliver onto a bench alongside the road before he sat down heavily next to him. “Holy hell that was close,” Nate said.

  Oliver had regained enough mobility to sit up straight and finished drinking down the soda in his hand. Nate got up once it looked like Oliver was steady sitting up on his own.

  “For the record,” Oliver said once he’d drained the bottle. “I don’t recommend that experience to anyone. Felt like my insides were being eaten by acid.” The color was coming back to his cheeks and he was breathing more easily.

  “So what do we do now?” Nate asked.

  Caroline pointed at the floating clock. “It’s reset.”

  This door will open in 23 hours and 39 minutes.

  “So we have another shot tomorrow night,” Graham said.

  Oliver looked unconvinced.

  “At least this time we know what to expect,” Agnes said.

  “We don’t have what we need,” Oliver said. “The only weapons we have that can cut right now are your knives, and they were barely sharp enough to cut through that webbing, let alone kill that boss.”

  Laura had gotten a congratulations notification when she’d lit the spider mobs on fire. She now noticed another, smaller note that said, Mother’s Intuition currently activated.

  She looked around at their immediate surroundings but didn’t notice anything new. She pulled up her map from the corner of her vision. It showed one new marker added. She expanded her view to examine it. It was outlined in purple, which was new. Out in the middle of the pumpkin patch, was a dot labeled Storage Shed.