Isolated in Silk

She then tried a radio. None of the local stations had anything but distortion and the out of state stations were merely staticy with music and no word behind this. Lastly, she went to her computer. Surprisingly, it worked, but pages continued to time out for some reason. 'Heavy volume' was the provider's explanation. That was not encouraging. But since her dial up functioned, maybe then her cell phone would get through. But who would she call?

Her parents? No, they were far up north. They couldn't help and they'd probably think she was on drugs if she described this. The radio implied no one outside the area knew about this yet. Or maybe no one outside Homerville? So who else? Police? Animal control? National guard...?

Reasonably, she started with the first two. The police station line was simply busy on each attempt. Animal control never picked up. Frustrated, she then tried an exterminator. She could only leave a message. What was going on out there?

Lisa paced around, wondering what to do in this situation. Should she merely wait it out or try to clear a path outside? For once, she didn't want to sit still too long so maybe getting access to her car would be good. And so, Lisa returned to her room to get changed.

But the disturbing events were not quite over. What happened next had even less explanation. Opening her drawers, they were empty. All except her underwear and sock drawer. Lisa stared at this and had to double check. "How...? Where is everything?!" Even her pajamas were missing.

She checked her closet. Shoes, coats, even hats, all gone. Her laundry hamper? Gone. All her clothing, utterly gone except for lingerie. Lisa felt a chill in her spine. This was getting beyond creepy. It was all there a day ago! How could everything simply vanish?

Well... this was even more reason to get access to the car. What if this place was secretly haunted? Lisa thought of the yellow eyes staring at her through the wall in her nightmare. And Aunt Margaret was said to be kind of strange from what everyone else said, even though she was always good to Lisa.

With the white webs obscuring everything outside, hopefully her neighbors wouldn't notice an exposed thong clad girl running around her yard. Opening her front door, which initially proved difficult for obvious reasons, she was confronted face to silk with large taut webs monitored by Nephilas. And beyond that one? Another. And another. And so on, with other random spider webs amidst even them. Feeling vulnerable from being dressed even worse than Sheena of the Jungle, Lisa decided not to push them down. This was A LOT of webbing. Uneasily, she thought of the other day... this was so much worse. What if she became... stuck?

Not wanting to risk getting bitten, Lisa closed the door, rubbing her brow. She needed a tool. Something sharp. But bigger than the little kitchen knives. Thinking back, she recalled what might have been a sugar cane knife (machete) in the cellar when she checked the breakers the other year. It was very old, but it could do the job, she imagined.

Taking a deep breath, she approached the cellar door and turned on the lights. Wooden stairs leading down revealed a lot of water damage she wasn't aware of. The seals on the walls must have been buckling and cracking as the floor was covered in three inch layer of ground water. Being near a swamp meant this was a sizable problem. She just didn't know this had since occurred from her last visit.

With every creaking step, she made her way down. The boards didn't sound very good from the moisture, but that too, was a problem for another time. As she stepped down, she winced. The water was very still and unpleasant smelling. Stagnant swamp water, she thought. A dank aroma filled her nose.

The knife should be right around here, she thought. And indeed, on a nearby moldy old workshop table with an attaching tool rack, there was the machete. Didn't look very good, however. The blade was pocked with corrosion stains and the edge was fairly dulled at this point. Still, it was better than a butter knife from the kitchen.

Lisa noted a few unsettlingly large funnel webs against the back wall and in the corners of the ceiling. A brief glimpse of black eyes reflected back in the light. Feeling sheepish, Lisa carefully went back upstairs. Or at least, she tried.

Midway up, two sets of the creaking stairs literally gave way beneath her feet. Lisa yelped and dropped back into the basement underneath the stairs themselves. Rather than cleanly hit the water, she was dropped into a cobweb, which ripped apart under her weight. She made a splash, landing in a crouched position, and nervously stood up when she saw the silk around her. Fortunately, it was not strong nor one of those funnel webs, which looked more than a little intimidating. Wiping the strands and swamp water off her, she looked at the stairs. Utterly rotting away. She could not believe everything that was happening.

It took her some time, but she managed to pile some water soiled old boxes of photo albums together and climbed back upstairs. She then locked the cellar and planned never to go down there again. She decided to rinse and grab something to eat before attempting to reach her car. A lot had happened, but the day had just begun.

About as ready as she was going to be by noon, she glanced once more outside in some vain hope that things would have magically gone back to normal. Nothing changed. She admitted even if a car drove by, that would be something. But nary a bird or cricket making a sound anywhere could be heard. The elderly-across-the-street-neighbor was in the same fix she was (mostly, anyway) and her shades were drawn too. It was as if the world forgot about Lisa.

If she could get to the car, she also knew she wasn't sure where to go. The only thought she had was 'away from here'. With her keys balled up in one hand and the sugar cane knife in the other, she stepped onto her porch, confronting that first spider's web again. And with a swing, she began to knock down a path through the traps.

The knife felt some resistance, but the webs broke with each chop. Angry and threatened spiders were set scurrying away. She began to make progress towards the car, although her progress was slower than hoped. While able to break through, the ground was still littered with the destroyed ones over many more pre-existing strands. As such, the ground itself was gooey and every step took a bit more effort than mere walking. Continually, she had to raise her foot high off the ground to outstretch the sticky fibers. It felt a lot like a softer gauzy version of fly paper. Which, realistically, it more or less was.

After couple of minutes, she cleared a path to her Camry and began preening the webs off with her now sticky knife. Like the old woman's broom from the other day, it was covered in so much gauze now that it looked more like a white club than something cut worthy. As such, it was rapidly losing its effectiveness. Lisa tried to pry off the multiple layers stuck to it, but it proved difficult after all this time and just gummed up her fingers. There didn't seem to be any easy way to remove all of this silk around her, she realized. Fire was definitely not an option now. The webs were so thoroughly placed that a simple match would set the neighborhood on fire, she imagined.

With limited effectiveness, she freed the car door and removed most of the silk on the windshield. Climbing inside in a hurry, she shut the door behind her and put the key in the ignition. Only problem was, instead of turning over, the car made a pitiful whining sound. Again she tried and again, the sound. And she kept trying, but succeeded in doing nothing more than straining the battery to the point the car didn't do anything now. Lisa made a hollering yell and banged her wrists in frustration on the steering wheel.

Getting out with the hood popped, it was much as she suspected. There was cobweb gunk all over the inside machinery, followed with an unpleasant mechanical/electrical burnt odor. She tried pulling out the obvious swaths of web, but found smaller spiders sticking to her arms. Flailing, she swatted them off and threw her arms up in frustration. Giving up on the car, she slammed the hood and leaned against it, collecting her thoughts.

Finally getting a good chance to look around her, she could see all the way down either side of the lane that the spiders had invaded. No one was outside trying to remove their webs. Everyone's shades were drawn and there wasn't a sound anywhere except for the wind rustling through the webs themselves. No pets, no animals, and no people. She felt utterly alone. Maybe she should find her neighbors, she thought. They might understand a little more of what was going on. Granted, Lisa was not exactly looking forward to banging on their doors in just her underwear, but she was becoming increasingly nervous in all this sudden isolation.

But there was always the cell phone and there was probably a phone book in the house somewhere. Lisa never really made much contact with her boony neighbors, so she didn't know most of them personally. She was younger than most of them and suspected they didn't like her for that.

Heading back inside, she decided to try the old woman across the street. However, she was directed to the answering machine. Leaving a quick message, she began to try other neighbors. She either found a machine or no one there. Not even a busy signal to be found. Why was no one answering?

Running out of options, Lisa decided the event was emergency enough to risk the embarrassment of being seen. Throwing a towel around her neck to cover her breasts and another one tied around her hips, she decided to try the old lady. At least she waved at Lisa once or twice in the past.

No point of the short trip was simple. Long webs extending from a nearby street lamp touched well into the street. Spiders crawled amongst them with impunity, sometimes five to a given trap. Small cocoons littered these sticky sheets, primarily of flying insects and the occasional bird. Stepping around them, every sticky step was an effort and then Lisa still had to cut a path through to her neighbor's porch. The knife needed to be wiped off against a railing every couple of minutes. The stuff stuck to everything.

At the front of the elderly woman's house, Lisa knocked loudly on the door and called out "Agatha, are you there? It's Lisa from across the street!"

She repeated this, warily glancing behind her every other second, but the old woman never answered. Nor was there any sound in the house. Unable to see through the windows whatsoever, Lisa tried to force the door and found... it was unlocked.

Stepping inside, Lisa called her neighbor's name out once more. But the house was dark and silent. "Hello? Anyone here?" Did her neighbor simply leave town before this emergency hit?

Moving in, the house was thickly swathed with spider silk. The arachnids climbed the walls like they owned it. The downstairs looked quite impassable with excessively thick walls of cobwebs, so Lisa struggled her way up the stairs, breaking webs with every other step. "This is ridiculous! Agatha, are you here?" Again, more silk running top to bottom in the hallways. Why was it so thick in this house?

Finding a master bedroom, Lisa gazed through the translucent webs and gasped. Bound to the side of a queen size bed, was an unmoving human sized cocoon covered in spiders, clearly feeding on the contents inside. "They... they got her. I can't believe it. I... gotta get out of here." She almost tripped heading down the stairs.

In a panic, she made her way down the lane, slashing at anything white or eight legged in the way and tried two more houses. But there were no answers from either. The doors were all locked and the window shades drawn. It was like the world had ended. Everywhere she could look: spiders.

Her pulse racing, Lisa began to imagine terrible things must be going on in the greater picture. What... what is the world actually was ending? With Agatha having been killed by the little monstrosities, any thoughts to something normal were dashed out. Power wasn't properly working and she couldn't get in contact with anyone helpful. What was the scene like outside this area? For so many things to be coming apart on the societal level, it had to be very bad. Was anyone doing anything about this?

Feeling like she was losing her mind, Lisa crouched in the middle of the web strewn street, alone in her skimpy underwear and a gummed up sugar cane knife. She was feeling cornered and increasingly vulnerable... everything man made around her still stood, but nothing worked. Now she was barely better off than an animal at this rate. How long would it be before she might run into something dangerous? Also, if she hid... how long would she last? The water might be unaffected by all of this, but the refrigerator's power wasn't consistently working. A lot of her perishable food was going to go and she didn't have much left to begin with.

Let it be a lesson to follow through with one's errands, she supposed bleakly.

After a few moments of thought, Lisa decided on at least one thing. To get the hell out of this place. Somewhere, it had to be safer than this. Even if she had to run around exposed as she was, being alive was better than dead modesty.

She ran inside her house one more time. She began to fill an old high school backpack with a few essentials. Water bottle, matches, some cinnamon graham crackers, clean undies, flashlight, etc. Deciding to hit the road, she locked her house and took her keys with her.

Deciding to stay in relatively clear space (the middle of the street) to avoid most of the upright spider webs, Lisa walked on the sticky surface down the road, hoping for some signs of non-spider life. In reality, she was making her way to the supermarket. After all, if she was going to be marooned here or need to move about, she would need a food supply. She had her wallet with her just in case things were more decidedly functioning. To hell with the 'no shoes no shirt no service' rule! This was an emergency.

For two blocks on badly paved roads she traveled in a ghostly wonderland of silk strewn houses. So far, everything was as it had been on her little neck of the woods. Quiet, silky, and abandoned like some Mad Max apocalypse fantasy.

Along the way, she paused to observe a what might have been a wrapped up dog, unmoving, and suspended slightly between a fire hydrant and a stop sign. Not... good. She felt bad for it, but it was surely too late for the critter as a nephila spider or three seemed to be calmly sucking it dry. She squirmed a bit in response, hoping she might not end up like that dog.

Another couple of blocks and weariness began to catch up with Lisa. The problem being there was no surface to walk on around here without it being like flypaper. Her ankles and feet were getting very gummed up now, to the point where she couldn't see her toes underneath an ankle tall shoe of accumulated silk. She stopped every so often to clean them off, but it was becoming quickly redundant given how fast she'd step into more. Worse yet, her legs were getting tired from all the extra effort it took to walk as well as bending down to clean her feet. She needed a place to stop.

Sitting down... didn't seem the best option. She estimated she probably would be able to get up again. More, she was simply afraid that if she relaxed too much, a spider might sneak up from somewhere and nip her on the butt or legs before she could react or get up. Her feelings of being defenseless from attack in her current lack of dress did not escape her for long.

Glancing about, she quickly realized there wasn't much cover she could safely use. Neighbors had pine trees occasionally adorning their lawn, but ducking under a web strewn tree just seemed to be asking for it. Who knows what secrets those branches held? As a result, she decided she might as well try someone else's house... even Agatha's two story house wasn't as bad as the streets and Lisa's own pad was pretty good. Maybe someone else had luck... and would've conveniently left the door unlocked. She sighed. Nothing was ever easy.

Several minutes later, Lisa still was having no luck. Everything was locked. She thought she might try breaking a window in, but what if there were people inside still counting on that as an obstacle? Also, broken glass plus bare skin equaled foolish. Eventually, she was forced to settle upon a crummy corrugated tin outdoor tool shed. It made a loud creak as she grunted to open the rusty thing. By appearance, it had not been used in ages. Maybe an old man's hobby?

The shed was cramped and dirty. There were webs inside, but something much more normal from neglect than whatever this disaster was. Sitting unhappily on a stool in the near darkness, she spied on several tool hanging on the walls. Nothing in great shape, but she traded in her gummy dull machete for a comparatively nicer hand saw. It was debatable how useful it might be, but she thought on the whole, it couldn't hurt. It also helped that it was several pounds lighter.

Lisa's break consisted mainly of sitting, stretching, and repeating in her mind how ludicrous this spider attack was. However, by the time her legs ceased to ache, sun was beginning to fall. She took this with some shock. Had it been THAT long already? It seemed her progress was slow and she had to take into account all the dawdling her earlier investigations had taken. But the real issue was more apparent. Night fall meant much less vision. Harder to avoid webs and lack of shelter. She briefly considered trying to make it back to her house, since it was only a half mile away (or so she assumed), but she'd have to give up all her progress to this point. That aside, there was nothing at her home to benefit her. And was still unsettled by the nightmare with the eyes on the wall.

Getting anxious, she had to come up with something. She might try hiding in the shack all night, but it was disgustingly grimy in here. There was little room and she couldn't even lie down if she wanted to sleep. Not to mention the door didn't exactly close so much as it was 'less open'. But where could she go?

Nearby, there were woods and marshes on either side of a dirt road leading deeper into the commercial part of town. This seemed like a bad idea, but what if the spiders were specifically targeting people? The rurals/suburbs were thick with spiders, but perhaps there was less worthy catch for them there? Or at least, they had stuffed themselves on wild game? Nothing looked good, but she decided to break out of the shed and give it a shot.

It wasn't the worst idea, actually. As it turned out, that road she was to follow between the woods to the stores was the poorest spot yet. It was literally an impenetrable looking barrier of webs going from tree to tree on either side of the road. Many rodents, insects, and birds were trapped within. Some of these webs were so combined by other spiders that they stood as tall as houses! She would have to go through the marshy woods no matter what.

With sunlight fading ever quicker and shadows beginning to streak across the white silk covered environment, she made her way off road and cut a hole through a sticky net to reach the trees. Turns out the saw wasn't too bad, as long as she dragged it in a downward fashion. The steel teeth were still good.

Walking through brush, ferns, and various semi-tropic vine covered trees, she carefully plied her way through the gloomy woods. She quickly debated the wisdom of this path. There were somewhat less webs about, true, but the foliage was well strewn with them, hiding many traps that she could not easily see, particularly in the shadows. As such, despite her saw, she was forced to push through many waist tall spider webs, almost developing a silken apron after half a dozen. It was not easy to walk or easy going at all. But she had to find some cover out here before long.