Eye of the Spider

We heard the car door open but we couldn't see anything because of the lights.The dark figure moved toward us.

When the figure came into the light, we saw that it was Officer Justin, of the town police. He shined a flashlight at our faces.

"I know you boys," he said. "Eric and Lee, right?"

We nodded. Officer Justin had been to our school for a couple of times to give safety talks.

"What are you doing out here?"

"We're going to visit our teacher, Mr. Carlson," Eric said.

"He lives back here?" Officer Justin asked. "I thought this house was deserted."

"He moved in recently," I said.

"That's okay, then," said Officer Justin. "Somebody saw you and thought you might be lost. So they called me. These woods are pretty thick." He slapped at a mosquito on his neck. "And buggy, too."

"Yeah," Eric said. "Plenty of bugs and spiders."

"You boys be careful," Officer Justin said. "Sure you don't want a ride back to town?"

We said we didn't. He climbed back into his patrol car and turned around. As the red tail lights went off down the road, I was wishing we'd taken the ride after all.

The idea of continuing in the darkness wasn't my choice of something fun to do. But we had to find out about our weird teacher. We pushed on.

The main floor of the house was as dark as it had been the night before. We crawled in beneath the bushes. The cobwebs were even thicker. I could feel them clinging to my face.

We looked into the tiny cellar window. It was a laboratory, all right. Mr. Carlson had a whole table loaded with flasks and test tubes. Glass corkscrews passed from one beaker to the next. The red flashing lights on a couple of electronic gadgets blinked away crazily.

"Do you see him?" Eric whispered.

"No," I said. I moved my head to get a better angle. Mr. Carlson wasn't in sight. I hoped he wasn't waiting for us somewhere in the dark.

"What does it look like to you?" Eric asked.

"He must be doing some kind of experiments," I whispered back.

"Maybe that's the kitchen," he joked. "Maybe he's cooking dinner."

"Wait, there he is!" I said.

We watched Mr. Carlson come in from another room. He checked the settings on some of his instruments. He lifted a flask of orange liquid and carried that back into the other room, where we couldn't see him.

"If we move to the other side of the house we can see more," I said.

"How will we see where we're going?" he asked. It was pitch black.

"I brought my penlight," I said. I showed him the little flashlight. "Let's give it a try."

We lay flat on the dirt and pushed in under the lowest branches.

"Wait, Lee," Eric said. "Hold up."

I slid around and said, "What's the matter?"

"I feel something. Shine the light here."

I pointed the penlight at him. On his arm was a big black spider.

We both froze.

"It is a black widow?" he asked. His voice was trembling.

I said, "I remember reading that the black widow has an hourglass shape on its back."

"Does this one have an hourglass?" he asked.

"I can't tell."

"I don't see one. I'm going to brush it off."

With his other hand, he quickly waved at the spider, barely touching it. It moved up and down for an instant on all its eight legs, then crawled off into the darkness.

"Don't worry, we're there," I said. "I see the light."

We each put an eye up and looked through the window.

"Wow!" Eric said.

"Oh, no!" I said.

"Are they real?" he asked.

"They can't be."

Neither of us could believe what we were looking at. This room was full of cages. Inside the cages were spiders. What's so strange about that? These spiders were as big as dogs! I mean it. Three feet high with these hairy black legs longer than our arms. I thought I'd die at the sight of them.

While we watched in horror, Mr. Carlson came into the room and opened one of the cages. The spider climbed out. Mr. Carlson poured some sick-looking brown mixture into a bowl. The spider licked it up from somewhere beneath those awful-looking fangs.

"I want to see more," Eric said. He pushed closer.

Suddenly, the window gave away and fell in. The glass smashed and tumbled to the floor. I grabbed Eric before he could fall. He was half inside and half out.

Startled by the noise, Mr. Carlson looked up.

I pulled Eric back out as fast as I could, but Mr. Carlson had plenty of time to see his face.

We had to get out of there. Fast!