Wizardness

“UGH” She huffed. “Alec, turn down Sleepy Head” She called to the other room. Every night he played Sleepy Head, like it was some funny joke. She could hear that bassline and that tinny noise and immediately recognize the song. Stupid stupid song.
The song suddenly cut off. Meghan sighed at the sudden silenced. She smiled to herself. She nestled up into her pillow, smelling her own shampoo. So relaxing.
Meghan was dozing when she heard Alec scream. She sat bolt up, her heart hammered in her chest. She rolled out of bed towards the window. It was where she hid the bat. She grabbed that and the knife next to it.
She heard a crash of the window, she glanced out hers and saw Alec hurtling towards the ground. He wasn’t screaming.
He wasn’t screaming.
Oh god. He wasn’t screaming.
A long thin thing gracefully appeared out of Alec’s window. It touched on the yellow siding of the house. A second and third followed the first. Eventually eight limbs surrounded Alec’s window and a bloated pustule ridden multi-eyed head pulled itself out.
“Fuck you Shelob. You’ll not get me.” Meghan whispered to herself.
The legs gently prodded for safe purchase on the next step. The yellow paint stained and peeled in the spider’s wake. Meghan started, she began to move slowly. Any time a leg moved, she moved. She hoped the spider’s own movements would distract it from her.
She made her way across her bed, slowly. Once she was, generally, out of the immediate view of the spider, she moved a bit more quickly. She opened the door. Something held it shut. Meghan was able to pull it open about a foot, but then a resistance would build and the door would spring back closed. She pulled the door open a sliver and peeked out. There was massive spider silk spread across the hallway. As if the hideous thing had made a web.
Her throat caught, “Alec. That fucking song.” She stifled a sob.
She swung open her butterfly knife and pulled open the door. She cut strands of web, just until the door opened farther. She didn’t want the spider to have an easy time getting out. Meghan, though, took after her favorite artist, Meghan Thee Stallion, so she really had to squeeze to make it through the door.
Once she managed to squeeze through, the door sprang back into her face. It hit her nose hard enough to make her need to sneeze. “FUCK” Meghan gasped and let out her breath. She gently closed the door, while scrunching her nose, trying desperately to avoid a sneeze. She heard glass crack on the other side of the door. The window would give out soon.
With that she turned towards the hallway. Her room was farthest from the stairs, the bathroom she’d shared with Alec was ground zero for web strands. It looked webs had shot out of it all at once. The door was shattered, the top corner was rocking, bouncing, hinges half torn off, against a strand caught on the ceiling.
The web hadn’t been too sticky against her knife, so she gently pushed against the strand from the bathroom. Her hand immediately fastened to the webbing.
She sneezed.
She heard a thunder of legs. Things fell from the wall. Glass shattered. A mass slammed against the wall.
Meghan quickly cut the strand holding her hand. She elected against cutting the strand entirely, just a piece of it. Enough to get her hand free. She looked at the mess in front of her. There was no way she could get through there. It looked like that time Alec had hit a Silly String can with a sledge hammer to see what would happen.
She glanced behind her. The end of the hall window. It was surrounded by Christmas lights. She ran to the window and quickly pulled it up. She popped the screen out and pulled it into the house. She tried to be as quiet as possible. She moved back towards her room, sneezed again. It was a terrible fake sneeze, but it triggered more bashing in her bedroom.
She shuffled back to the window. She stuffed her bat into the back of her shirt and her knife in her pjays, praying it would stay in place. She stuck her head out the window and grabbed the lights and jumped out.
She hung in the air for a moment. Then the staples began to pop from the window frame. Each pop dropped Meghan lower. She couldn’t help but yelp. As the staples gave out she accelerated towards the ground. She spun out of control. She swung this way and that. Through the chaos of her descent, she saw a leg daintily reach around the corner.
Then a second one. She heard a crashed from her bedroom as the massive spider lurched out her window.
She felt herself swing towards the legs. She glanced up at the roof. The staples were pulling towards the front of the house. Toward her bedroom. Toward the monster.
Meghan’s hands slipped on the lights. The jerk of the dropping and her weight conspired against her. The lights cut into her hand, tearing her skin raw. Meghan realized she wasn’t too far above the bushes, she picked a bush as a target and let go.
Her momentum carried her into the wrong bush. It was all she could do to get her arms up to protect her eyes as she flew into a trestle of rose bushes. Her arms were gashed as she slammed into the calla lily next to the roses. She’d missed the big soft looking bush.
Meghan staggered out of the landscaped shrubbery and onto the lawn proper. She looked about wildly. Trying to find the spider. Meghan stepped back and staggered on something. As she whirled, she pulled out her bat. It was Alec.
He groaned.
She knelt down, sobbing, “You’re alive?”
He moaned. His moan turned into a shriek.
Meghan turned and saw the massive spider. She was able to make out the head in more detail. It was her mom’s.
“Oh god, Alec, what did you do? What happened.” Meghan whispered.
His only response was a weak grunt.
“Mom, I know we need to work through some stuff, but this is ridiculous!” Meghan called. Her heart thumped and her breath was fast. She swallowed.
In response, her mother, Darcy, face split. Darcy spat black bile towards Meghan and Alec. It missed wide to the right, hitting the walk up to their house behind Meghan.
“Now Darcy, knock that off.” Meghan forced her words out.
The spider charged forward. Meghan readied her bat. She swung hard.
The impact was hand numbing. Her bloody fingers dropped the bat. Darcy kicked her. Meghan was thrown backwards. She landed hard, her knife flew from her pocket. It slid next to Alec.
Meghan rolled and pushed herself up, she scanned for her bat. Right behind Darcy.
“Are you dancing to that stupid song, again?” Darcy screeched.
“What song is that? WAP?” Meghan cried, laughing. “Get a Bucket and a mop.”
Darcy charged again. Meghan lunged under Darcy, avoiding the spider’s legs. She slid toward the bat.
Darcy slid to a stop, rotated, and charged. She was fast, but Meghan was faster. She got to her bat and held it between her legs. In an attempt to crush Meghan, Darcy dropped. Instead she impaled herself on Meghan’s bat. The bat tore between two carapace sections. Releasing spider bile and blood.
The liquid immediately began to eat away at Meghan. Darcy screeched and slouched away from, pulling the bat from Meghan’s slick hands. Meghan got to her feet and staggedred towards the hose. She turned it on full blast, hoping to get the retched liquid off of her.
Meghan was lost in her pain. Unable to think or see straight. She’d managed to clean herself off, when she was suddenly flying through the air. She slammed into the garage door.
Darcy staggered. The bat still lodged into her. There were guts pouring out of the wound. One of hind legs and another of her mid legs vainly attempted to grab the bat and remove it. Every time they got a hold of it, they’d hit something as they pulled it out.
Meghan stood, dazed. She saw a flash in the air. Something hit the driveway and slid to her. Her knife bounced off her foot. She looked for Alec, he was hiding somewhere.
Darcy moved closer, angled to keep her wounded stomach away from her daughter. She pulled part of herself up onto the house.
Meghan knelt, getting the knife ready for her strike.
Darcy suddenly lurched up at Meghan. The bat slid out from Darcy’s gut, clattering to the ground. The spider staggered at the sudden release.
WAP started playing behind Darcy on a set of tinny phone speakers. Meghan struck. She jumped onto the garage door and used an indentation to launch herself up into Darcy. Meghan stabbed into the center of Darcy’s forehead.
Darcy reared back, pulling away from Meghan. She staggered toward the source of the song. She screeched fell backwards into the house. Ichor poured from the rupture in her stomach. She screamed one last time, before she stilled.
Alec limped over to Meghan. They helped each other walk away from the garage door. Alec glanced at Meghan, “Did you really use an indentation from your butt to stab mom in the face?”
Meghan laughed. Then began to wheeze.
Emergency response vehicles pulled up to the house.