Fang And Claw (Nocturne Academy 2)

There was a stand of trees—normal sized ones—straight ahead of it and they seemed to have a kind of glistening net strung between them. A net? No, I realized—it was a web. A web that was almost three feet across and five feet tall.

“Watch out!” I called to the little creature but of course it didn’t understand me. It blundered right into the sticky strands and was immediately caught, its jewel-toned wings entangled in the silvery web.

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “Hang on, little buddy—I’ll get you out.”

I approached the web slowly, trying not to frighten the little flying seahorse any more than it was already frightened. I felt responsible for it getting caught in the first place. After all, if I hadn’t startled it, it wouldn’t have run from me and gotten trapped in the web.

As I got closer, the little seahorse struggled harder and began to make a bell-like chiming sound from its tiny mouth. It shot out tiny tongues of fire as though trying to burn the web, but the sticky strands must have been tougher than they looked, or else maybe they had a natural flame-retardant quality, because they didn’t burn very well at all.

“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure the little creature. “It’s okay—I’ll help you get out of there.”

I was almost to the trees the web was strung between when I noticed that one of their trunks had a big, dark lump on it. It looked like part of the trunk—except their trunks were white, like birch trees. This lump was black. I frowned. Could it be some kind of disease process? Like Dutch Elm Disease or something?

Then the lump moved.

It rose up from the white trunk of the tree and scuttled down onto the web. I felt my gorge rise as I saw exactly what it was…

A spider as big as my head.

70

Kaitlyn

When the spider stepped onto the web, its long, furry legs testing the sticky strands, the little flying seahorse began to struggle more frantically than ever. It made that clear, chiming sound again, like someone ringing a doorbell over and over. I wondered if it was a cry of alarm or a cry for help.

If it was crying for help, there was none to be had. I didn’t see any more of the jewel-toned flying seahorses anywhere. It looked like I was the only one who could help the little guy out of his very sticky situation.

If I could get past the enormous spider, that was.

I’ve never liked bugs in the best of times. We have some pretty big ones in Florida—roaches as big as your thumb called Palmetto bugs are the worst—they can fly right in your face. Ugh! But I had never even imagined a spider the size of this one—its body was at least as big as my head and its legs spread out in a three-foot radius all around it.

It was so absurdly huge it looked like one of those Halloween decorations you buy to scare trick-or-treaters. The kind that pop out on a mechanical arm when some hapless kid just looking for candy steps on the pressure plate hidden under the doormat. Just the idea of getting anywhere near that huge, hairy, scuttling thing made my skin crawl.

But as frightened as I was of the awful giant spider, I was equally determined not to let the little seahorse die. What could I do to save it, though, I wondered as the spider skittered towards it?

The answer came in the form of a stone in the tall grass in front of me. I nearly tripped over it and when I looked down, I saw at once what I had to do.

Grabbing the large, rough rock in one hand, I threw it as hard as I could towards the fat, hairy body of the spider, just as it was extending its long front legs to grab the tangled seahorse.

My Dad used to play ball with me before The Fire—I guess because he didn’t have a son to play catch with. He swore I had a good arm and a “mean fast-ball” as he put it. I hadn’t pitched anything in over two years, but thank goodness the skill hadn’t completely deserted me.

I hit the spider squarely in the center of its furry back and sent it sprawling, back into the undergrowth around the trees. It made a sort of hissing-snarl as it went—the angry cry of a predator that has been cheated of its kill.

Sensing I didn’t have much time, I ran forward and tore at the sticky threads of the web that the flying seahorse was entangled in. It made that chiming alarm call again and I tried to reassure it as I worked.

“It’s okay, little guy, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to get you out of here,” I said, as I worked on the web—which was much tougher than any spider’s web I’d ever seen. It was like trying to break pieces of sticky dental floss, I thought—nearly impossible.