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I spent most of my time in the winter cuddled up on my couch with a nice warm cup of hot chocolate. I was never one for creepy movies or scary halloween traditions, but I could enjoy movies like nightmare before christmas or halloween town so that’s what I usually watched before I went to bed. This morning I had managed to get a few of my cozier blankets down from the attack without freaking out at the handful of spiders I ran into and managed to kill with some of the spray I always kept up there.
Now here I sat cuddled up with my warm cup of coco and marshmallows watching room on the broom cause it was one of my favorites around this time of year. I yawed when it was almost over and looked at the time on my phone. It read 22:13. I figured it was late enough that I should go to bed after the movie was over, also considering how tired I was.
After the credits rolled I picked up my blanket and headed off towards my room. The hallway was quite cold so I shivered as I went down it. I thought about how I really needed to get an apartment with a better heater or at least good insulation.
Once I got to my bed I tucked the blanket under my comforter and got underneath my covers. I was just starting to drift off to sleep when I felt something crawling up my leg. I moved the covers and saw another spider. I jumped up from my bad scared and let out a shriek.
I ran out of my room and down the hall towards the living room in hopes of finding my fly swatter. I knew that any old shoe or book would work but I always preferred my fly swatter since it was easier to use. I opened a few of my drawers to no avail.
“Come on where is it?” I said looking through a few cabinets. Then as I opened the last one there it sat on the shelf. I grabbed it and ran off towards my bedroom.
‘Dang it, it’s probably gone now cause I took too long.’ I thought as I walked around my room cautiously. I pulled the blankets off my bed one by one only to find the spider had run off. I sighed thinking I’d now have to deal with the dread of a spider now just crawling around my room.
I turned to my bookshelf and nearly jumped back at the sight of not one spider, but five. I swatted the fly swatter and managed to kill one of them but the others skidded away. I tried to chase one of them but it managed to crawl behind the bookshelf before I could get it. I let out a loud sound of annoyance before seeing an even worse problem. In the small amount of area behind my bookshelf the spider had crawled behind, I could see a small clump of whitish grey little ballshaped things in a cluster.
“Oh no.” I said to myself realizing what they were for too late. I had seen one the other day and just wacked it with my duster knowing I’d get it next time I vacuumed. At this moment though I remembered something some of the other tenants of the building had told me to look out for.
Spider eggs.
I ran out of the room pulling my phone out of my pocket. I tried frantically googling exterminators near me but very quickly realized it was ten o’clock at night. Nothing like that was going to be open this late. So I sighed and looked up at my ceiling questioning what to do.
Note to self looking up at the ceiling when you have a spider problem is not a good idea. I saw a whole multitude of spiders in the corners that I really had been meaning to dust. There were whole web ecosystems of them. I shrieked and pulled up my contacts list, only one person would be willing to help me with a problem like this, well two technically but Tango’s plan would just be burn the whole building down.
It was a few rings before he picked up. “Hello?” Scott said on the other side of the line.
“Scott, can you come help me with something? There’s a problem at my apartment.” I could hear my voice shake.
Scott sounded like he had dropped whatever he was doing and was grabbing something else. “Jimmy what’s wrong?!” He sounded more worried then I wanted to make him with what was probably such a small issue that could be dealt with in the morning.
“My apartment is infested with spiders. Like hundreds of them, and there's no one I can call till morning that can deal with them.” I said, trying to calm my voice.
“Are they venomous?” He asked. It sounded like he was grabbing his car keys.
“No, none of them look venomous.”
Scott let out a small sigh that I didn’t think he wanted me to hear. It was probably at the revelation that I wasn’t in an active emergency situation. “I’ll be over in a few minutes, just try to get to a place in the house they aren’t till I get there.”
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Once Scott arrived I went out to the porch to meet him.
“Hey.” I said opening the door.
“Hey.” he said walking into the apartment.
After we walked into the living room he looked up at the ceiling with a shocked expression. “Damn you really weren't kidding about the infestation.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Can I just stay at your place till I can call someone in the morning?”
“Yeah sure just make sure when you grab your stuff make sure there's no spiders on it.” He laughed.
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When we got back to Scott’s apartment I set down my stuff on the counter and finally felt some peace. I looked back at my bag expecting fate to have thrown me one last spider…but it didn’t.
Me and Scott spent the rest of the night watching Coraline and cuddling on the couch.
I almost didn’t notice the bug that was crawling on Scott’s wall.
WAIT BUG?!