Burrow

A short horror story about looking for the wrong things in the right places. Content warnings include spiders, insects, blood, loss of control, and death.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

It was a Tuesday, just the same as the Monday and Sunday that came before it. The October air hung in the sky, crisping the leaves on the trees, turning them into a picture of heatless flame. The dormant trees made the little suburb of Spinfield real picturesque, with piles of reds and golds in front of little cottage-type homes. The homes in Spinfield were homes that kept their shutters open, showing off their happy little families like prized pigs. Homes in Spinfield were more like trophy cases, each showing off the winners of a silent competition. Nat Chambers didn’t quite know what the competition was, but he was sure he was losing.

Nat was the only exterminator Spinfield had. Unlike the majority of its residents, he hadn’t grown up in the little town and decided to spend the rest of his life in its cozy homeish bliss, no. He came from away, from another town, one much bigger and much louder with much less honeygolden trees that decorated the streets in autumnal glory. Nat didn’t dislike the town, it just made him laugh. He’d been in half of its perfect little homes and stuck glue traps in them, sucked the six or eight-legged pests into vacuums from their corners, and sprayed them inside and out with insecticide. Nat liked his job. He liked to scour the empty houses to see what was hidden and what had been stashed away. Lift one rug and you’ll find a houseless colony of ants, hungry, swarming in search of their next meal. Lift another and you’ll find exactly what the homeowner hopes to keep away from the public eye.

Nat Chambers was a snoop to the highest degree. A window watcher. An investigator of his own accord. Spinfield needed someone like him, he thought. A rogue set of eyes. He had no intention to tell anyone about his findings, but it made him feel better to be the only witness to Spinfield’s perversions. He loved seeing the town plainly; knowing its flaws, its affairs, its insecurities, every little lie it had ever told because if they all wanted to pretend they were a perfect collection of smiling faces so badly, someone deserved to know the truth, goddammit. He was the only one to know that the town of turned up noses and happy families was as flawed as he was.

That Tuesday morning, Nat woke up, turning in a cocoon of unwashed sheets to the same alarm that woke him every day; a beep, beep, beep-ing that elicited a defeated groan from his dry, cracked lips. He hit snooze one more time, then a second, then sat up in bed. As he moved, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen and screamed a guttural, primal scream that surely would have woken up his family, if he had one. The sharpness ripped through his gut. He looked down at his naked body and saw a vivid red bloom near his belly button. In its center were two small puncture wounds that tore deep into him. A bite. A warm trickle of blood.

Nat jumped out of bed and took on the role of maddened scavenger. He threw his sheets onto the floor and scoured the fabric. Nothing. He lifted his mattress. Nothing. He pushed it aside. He shook out the dirty clothes strewn across the floor, checked his corners, looked between the cracks in his heating unit. Nothing. A string of well-spun curses fell from his lips and he gave up and walked into his shower. Nothing.

Around noon, Nat’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but it had a Spinfield area code. Someone close. He picked it up. His voice was gravelly, like heavy boots dragging down a worn-out sidewalk.

The caller had a light, feminine voice that had been hollowed by old age. She introduced herself as Miss Wolfe and said that she was new to town, having just moved into a house at 88 Burrow Street. She’d bought the house for her daughter, but apparently there had been a change in plans and Miss Wolfe had moved in at the last minute. She said that there was an infestation. Spiders this time. She asked for Nat to come as soon as possible. Nat was free now, so he lugged his gear into his truck, typed the address into his screechy-voiced GPS and turned down the road.

Business had been slow for Nat. Sure, he’d upped his prices since moving to Spinfield, but he was the only exterminator within a few miles and he’d still gotten calls as soon as he opened. His work wasn’t nice, but it was work that had to be done, and Nat thought it was fair to charge a pretty penny for an ugly job. Sure enough, as the bugs went, the cash came, and Nat started to find his joy in people-watching. He deconstructed them in his head, pulling their hidden lives from their pleasant bodies. Nearly every happy, smiling wife, had a secret lover a few doors down. Every hardworking American man had some sort of vice, a drink, a temper, a game. Even the children learned to cheat and steal early. Everyone left some sort of track; phones left on counters, receipts, photographs, bruises, stashes, hidden report cards, little tells, little holes in the structural integrity of relationships where the problems festered and flourished. Nat didn’t think he was above them, no, but there was a backwards sense of recognition in his mind—a sense of belonging in a place where he’d never felt more alone. Maybe someday he’d have a broken little lie of his own, something beautiful to cherish and love and destroy when it looked away. Or, maybe the satisfaction he felt from catching little secrets would someday be enough to satiate his own longings. Only time would tell.

One day, the bugs stopped coming. It was October. The temperature had dropped and the bugs should have all fled inside happy homes to warm themselves, to avoid freezing to death. The families in those homes should have shrieked and called Spinfield’s only exterminator, but they didn’t. The bugs stopped coming. The calls stopped coming. The money stopped coming, and Nat was in no position to turn down a job, not even with the bite on his abdomen and the pain turning last night’s dinner in his stomach. He arrived at the afflicted household, 88 Burrow Street, with his t-shirt catching drops of blood under his jacket.

All of the houses lining the street were nice, but this one was a sight to behold. From the outside, the property was pristine, leaves raked into a pile, a polished mailbox, fresh auburn paint. A black roof that glistened in the light of day. It must have had at least three stories. A little well rested in the center of the lawn with no wear from the weather or mold, like it had been installed just this morning. 88 was the star of the street, no doubt in Nat’s mind.

A new one, Nat thought. A newcomer to the little town. One phrase echoed over and over in his mind, and he chuckled as he grabbed his gear: fresh blood.

Fresh blood. Fresh blood. Nat’s heavy boots rose and fell over the mowed lawn decorated with little leaf piles. They crunched beneath his feet. Fresh blood. He stepped up to the door. Fresh blood. He raised his hand to knock and before his knuckles could make contact, the door swung open with a loud squeak, like a dying mouse. Fresh blood.

On the other side was Miss Wolfe. She was an old woman. Her eyes and face were wrinkled by years far behind her. Her hair was long and gray and it hung loose down her back in spindly wires. She wore a black nightgown that cascaded onto the floor, and a thin knit white sweater that stretched itself across her small shoulders. She was no more than five feet tall, and she had dark eyes that must have seen everything. They were damn near black and had no depth to them, but could easily pierce through anything she looked at with a quick glance. Nat felt the old woman’s eyes rip into him with ease and he looked away, unable to withstand the piercing gaze examining every piece of him. She saw him and he felt the weight of recognition hang in his wounded belly—she too, did not belong here.

“You are the exterminator, yes?” Her voice was soft and smooth and she talked slowly, emphasizing every syllable with masterful deliberation.

He was. Miss Wolfe smiled, upturning the wrinkles on her cheeks into softer arrows. She invited him in and the hesitance in his gut was quickly devoured by something, a feeling he could not place. He walked in the house.

88 Burrow Street was as impeccable on the inside as it was on the outside. There was not a single speck of dust or a crooked frame and the whole house smelled like freshly cleaned sheets. It was quaint, yet elegant, with tabletops dressed in white lace and a clean and unlit fireplace in the living room. There was a tall pitcher of ice water on the coffee table with a glass next to it, empty. Nat turned to face her, to ask where the spiders were.

“I’m afraid I’ve found much more than spiders, Mister Chambers,” she said, accentuating his name. Mister Chambers. When she said it like that, she may as well have sung opera to him. Her voice sounded both familiar and foreign, and indecipherably sweet.

She excused herself from the room, saying she’d be back in just a moment. It was then when something caught his eye. A small unmarked envelope lured him into the dining room as it laid flat on the table. With practiced silent footsteps, Nat left the living room, unseen by his host.

The envelope was brown, surprising heavy, and sealed. It would be risky trying to open it, but something in the man’s gut turned with curiosity. It was that familiar itch, that need to know more. The exterminator slid his finger under the corner of the envelope’s flap and he pushed it across, slowly, attempting to be quiet in his attempt. The glue was thick, and he saw a tiny winged creature was trapped within it, dead in what must have been an impenetrable consistence to the thing. This bug, this little snoop, had been caught, the brainless fool. As Nat tried to open the envelope further, it tore, the sound piercing through the silent room.

“Exterminator?”

The old woman stood just inches behind him. He hadn’t heard her walk in. He must have been too excited, too distracted. He started to make an excuse, but she quickly interrupted his stuttering fib.

“Please, follow me.”

Nat’s face was hot with embarrassment. He put the envelope down, and as he rested it on the table, he could have swore he felt it twitch in his hand.

Miss Wolfe led him to an oaken door, which was stained a rich wine red. She draped her long fingers across a silvered door knob and pressed down ever so lightly before quickly snapping open the door, ripping a creak from the hinges, another dying mouse.

There, in a dim room, crawling in the sharp blades of light emitted by an string of rainbow Christmas lights, were the bugs of Spinfield. Ants by the hundreds, no, thousands, shining with vivid reds and blues and yellows and greens, cockroaches with light glazing their shells, house crickets leaping in and out of sight, brown house moths and carpet moths flitting about, stopping to gnaw at whatever they wanted, and termites, so many termites, wrecking the wooden floors.

Nat shook his head back and forth, as if denying the presence of the infestation would convince it to vanish. He didn’t understand, no, he couldn’t understand. They were all here, covering the walls and stairs behind the door that led down, too far down, into a large basement. He wasn’t afraid, he decided. He’d handled shit like this for years and, god, he wasn’t scared, he wasn’t scared.

The thought pulsed in his head again. Fresh blood.

A jolly little laugh rang out behind him, like the ring of a bell.

“Don’t you worry about that Mister Chambers, it’s alright. You are an exterminator after all.”

Nat tried to turn around to look at her. He heard her laugh harder. He couldn’t move. His heavy boots were stuck to the ground. As he tried to lift them to turn, he felt his feet stick to the floor beneath him. He leaned down, pulling up at the top of his boots.

“I’ve heard plenty about your services in Spinfield, Mister Chambers. You’re quite an inspiration to me. I believe this is your work, the glue trap, yes?”

Nat felt panic form a cage around his throat as he thrashed, trying to free himself from the trap that he was so familiar with laying out. In an act of terror, white hot and vile, he tried to rip his laces from his shoes so he could try to run away. As he struggled, he stumbled and fell, catching the top of his hair on the corner of the trap. The glue held his head hostage, upside down.

The buzzing from the basement grew louder and closer. They were coming. Nat began to plead with the old woman, anything to spare him from the vengeance of the colony. Fresh blood. He felt hot tears stream from his eyes and leak onto his forehead as he began to rip the forsaken hair from his head.

“Now, now, no need to fret,” she laughed, taunting him. He watched, his eyes now ground level, as she lifted the hem of her dress to reveal eight long, spindly gray legs, pointed and footless. Her laugh grew thick and coarse. One of her legs reached toward him, unmistakably arachnid in its build. She put the foot on his head and pressed down, gluing his face to the floor.

“Quiet now,” she sang out. “Don’t you worry about them.”

Nat felt the many legs of a centipede run up his neck and slip into the collar of his shirt.

“They are just the appetizer, the beginning of what’s yet to come.”

Nat screamed out, feeling the weight of what he had always known to be weightless cover him in legs and eyes and thoraxes and wings. Down his shirt, in his boots, nibbling on his dry, cracked lips. His breath shortened, half from fear and half from a feeble attempt not to inhale the tiny creatures quickly covering his face. He pressed he palms down, off of the trap, crunch-ing what was beneath them and tried to push himself up, anything to lift his face from the floor. A searing red pain overtook him as he pushed with all of his long-atrophied strength. A hot stream of blood flowed from the side of his face. He looked down to see thousands of the tiny beasts glued to the trap below, their kin tramping their struggling bodies. He looked at the bloody scraps of skin on the floor as insects began to feast on the flesh. He grabbed the top of the door frame above him, a large brown moth beneath his grip, and pulled himself up, out of his boots, which were stilled glued beneath him. A trickle of blood streamed through his lips. Fresh.

Out of the trap, he felt the primal urge to run, to flee, a feeling he’d never had before. With his gear on the floor behind him, he ran to the door in his socks, stepping on anything crawling beneath him. He made it to the living room, adrenaline throwing him about the house like a wild beast. He looked at the back side of the front door, the door he didn’t get the chance to knock on when he arrived. The side he hadn’t seen. The side covered in a thick white web with a monstrous egg sac pulsing slowly, rhythmically. It had to be damn near his height. He stopped in his tracks and felt a chill grip his spine. He wanted to run, the most basic animal instinct, but his muscles tensed as he shuddered. He felt his legs jerk and shift. They began walking without his control, pulling him forward, towards the door, towards the sac. He looked down and saw white strings of web wrap around his legs and pull, yanking him across the floor. He tried to resist, to run the other way, but his legs pushed him onwards. Fresh blood. Fresh blood. He was inches from the sac. He placed his hand on it, gentle now, gentle. He felt the pulse deep beneath the webbing. For a moment, any trace of Nat’s own will fled from his body as he pressed himself up against the sac. He slowed his breath in time with the pulse. Quiet now. Mustn’t wake them. His forehead, slick with sweat, laid upon the beating thing as a wave of serenity flooded his nerves.

“Back now!” Miss Wolfe cried out at him. “Back! You do not know what you do! Stupid creature.” Her voice was sharpened by her anger.

Nat was shocked back into himself, staggered, confused, and afraid. The infestation would be here soon, in their moving colonies, little towns. Swarms. His stomach growled, a snarling hungry thing. He should have wanted to know where he was, who Miss Wolfe was, and what she wanted with him. Any other day he would, but now he couldn’t host any thoughts beyond a corruptive surge of fear and the mantra that had been instilled into him from the moment he had arrived. Fresh blood. Fresh blood. He dropped to his knees and held his bloody face in his hands, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, please, please, please.” He couldn’t say anything else, just a vague request for mercy. He lifted his sorry head up, looking around the room. No sign of Miss Wolfe.

“Please what, Mister Chambers?” The old woman called from above. Her jolly bell laugh rang.

Nat looked up from where he knelt. Miss Wolfe was strewn across the ceiling. Eight long, gray legs, splayed from a smooth thorax, held her up. She was arachnid in the fullness of her being, with the exception of her face. Her face was that of the same old woman, but with far more wrinkles around far more eyes. Her nightgown was woven into the web-covered ceiling, knitted up with her white lace sweater. Slowly, she began to walk down the wall, one twitching limb at a time. As she drew closer, Nat saw her fangs. Fresh blood. He wanted to run. Fresh blood. He couldn’t.

“Good boy,” the bell rang out. “Very good!”

Nat felt the insects from the basement crawl up his legs as he knelt, almost in prayer, almost praying to a god that he didn’t believe in. They bit and stung as Miss Wolfe walked in front of him, inexterminable. She froze, watching him, seizing his fear in her eyes. Nat wanted to cry, to run, to stir, to do anything in a protest, but once again, his muscles seized. The web gripped his body and his mind.

He felt his stomach churn again.

“Fresh blood,” he spoke through wet lips.

Miss Wolfe stared down at him.

“Fresh blood.”

She smiled.

“Fresh blood.”

His stomach churned, tossing, and he screamed as he felt the familiar pierce of a spider bite in his abdomen. He stared Miss Wolfe in her many eyes. She had not moved. He felt the insects creep to his hips. He fought the aching hold on his muscles just enough to look down. He felt the familiar pain pulse through him once more.

“Fresh blood,” he coughed. As he weakened, the web let up, and Nat dropped to his hands and knees and then onto his side, a searing sharpness ripping him apart. He watched, unblinking, as two fangs pierced his belly from the inside out, right where he had suffered the initial bite this morning.

“Fresh blood,” he wept. An empty hymn to an uncaring torturess. “Fresh blood.”

The bell rang. The bell rang and rang as the insects covered Nat’s bloody body, torn as the spider emerged from his gut, two legs sticking out, then four legs, six legs, eight, covered in a thick red, dripping, dripping, hot blood coating eight feet wandering out of the body, stretching towards the sac moving towards the sac, home home so close to home, finally home.

Miss Wolfe looked down, watching the scene she had so expertly woven.

“My daughter,” she paused, her fanged teeth protruding through smiling lips. “My daughter is home.” The bell rang. Miss Wolfe watched.

The daughter ran to the egg sac, its pulse rapid and red. She crawled up the door and tore into her work with her teeth.

Hundreds. Hundreds of tiny spiders. Hundreds of tiny spiders flooded out of the sac, running up the walls, the ceiling, and onto the floor.

Nat’s eyes scoured the room as his twitching, bleeding body laid still. The pain was inescapable. A centipede obstructed his view as it hurried across his face, running from the onslaught of spiders. The many legs rapidly shifted, showing just enough for the exterminator to watch on in utter terror, as innumerable spiders ran towards him. His body was dressed for a feast.

The bell rang.

Fresh blood.