A yellow green candle flame

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It just so happened to be the night three friends were hiking by while on a camping trip to the island.

"So, this island is so remote, no one out here for years, yet someone took time to light a candle before they left?" Rob asked his two friends.

"What candle?" Bill asked, looking back at Rob, thinking he was making things up.

"Right, there in the cabin." Rob said pointing to the worn wooden structure just off the path they were hiking.

"I don't ever remember seeing that there before," David said as he headed towards the cabin through the weeds.

Rob couldn't take his eyes off the candle in the window of the newly discovered old cabin. The flame of the candle didn't seem to flicker or dance in the breeze as a normal flame would. Instead, it stood straight up, unmoving as if it were one of the plastic Christmas candles people put in the window. The glow was off, it wasn’t as bright as a normal flame would be, just more of a bright yellow green glow. Rob went to say something but noticed that Bill was already at the warped wooden door knocking.

“Anyone home,” bang, bang, he slapped the door with his fist. “Mind if we come in?”

“I don’t think anyone is at home at the moment” David said. “Let’s just head back to camp and have a few drinks by the fire.”

“Hey, it’s not locked” Bill said as he thumbed the handle, then pushed the door open.

As the old wooden door moved inward the hinges screamed out, like a parent yelling for their child to stop running towards the road as the six-ton logging truck barreled down the same road.

“That doesn’t sound scary at all.” Rob said as he mounted the steps, wanting to see inside as much as he didn’t want to be left alone outside.

The three stood at the entrance looking at the interior of the cabin. The wide planked wooden floor lay under a coating of dust, broken bottles, and a scattering of torn clothing.

Rob looked at the strange candle in the window, he watched as the flame began to … began to go out? But not go out as a normal candle would. The flame seemed to drip down the side of the candle as if it were wax.

“Guys something’s not right here.” Rob said. Then the hairs on his arms and neck stood on end as he suddenly realized the flame was not dripping down the side of the candle but crawling down the side of the candle then went out, like a firefly on a warm summer evening. But these were not fireflies but spiders with bioluminescent abdominis. Rob took a step back towards the front door.

“I’m with Rob.” David chimed in. “It looks like blood on the bits of clothes on the floor here.”

The air in the cabin seemed to change, its earthy musky, along with an added almost fishy smell, a heavy scent that each of the friends could feel.

“Bill, we need to leave.” David said, he himself backed towards the front door. “Bill, Bill.”

Bill was frozen in place as he stared at the back wall of the cabin. “Is that wall melting?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper. But in the dark musky cabin his voice rang clear. Rob and David looked at the back wall. The wall appeared to shimmer like the head rising off the black top on a hot August day. They watched as what they thought was paint sliding down the wall and formed up in mass on the floor. The pool of paint ungulated, rising and falling in on itself on the floor as it. A small black spider leaped from the pool and landed in front of them. The spider did not crawl forward, just stood there, more spiders leaped forward of the rest of the pool onto the dust covered wooded floor, until the rest of the mass caught up. The process was repeated, one spider, the same scout spider, but it was impossible to tell, moved forward.

It was at this point the trio came to the realization that this was not liquid paint pooling on the floor but a cluster on top of cluster of spiders, an incalculable number of spiders.

At this sight Rob turned and ran out the door, followed closely by the other two. Bill twisted his ankle as he jumped off the porch but continued to run.

The trio did not stop running until they reached their campsite about a mile away from the wicked old cabin.

Later that night in front of the campfire they spoke of what they had seen and what it meant. Rabies was the first thought, but could spiders get rabies? Bill had his leg up on a cooler with a bag of ice on his twisted ankle. His ankle didn’t feel like it was twisted, it just hurt and was beginning to swell. A couple of aspirins and a few beers seemed to make it feel better.

“How’s the ankle feeling Bill?” David asked.

“Not to bad” he said as he lifted the ice off to look at his ankle. The swelling seemed to have increased as well as the skin darkening. “This liquid relaxer is helping.” He said with a forced smile then chugged his beer.

“Need another one?” Rob asked, standing up from the cooler.

“Na, I’m good. I’m going to head in for the night.” Bill replied then stood up and limped on his good ankle to his small one-man tent.

“Did you see his ankle; it is really swollen and discolored.” Rob asked David he opened another beer.

“It does but it just happened. I bet it will be better tomorrow, swelling will be down, but I bet the bruise will be darker.”

“So, what do you think of all those spiders in the cabin.”

“If I had to guess, and I am guessing. They are just local to the island here and they have no natural predators to control the amount there are.”

“But what do they eat?” Rob questioned.

“Who knows,” Dave replied as he finished his beer. “Maybe whoever was wearing those torn up cloths we say in the cabin.”

“Great, thanks for the nightmares” Rob laughed.

The two friends knocked down the fire and retired to their own tents.

In his tent Rob crawled into his sleeping bag and fell asleep quickly. As he predicted earlier dark dreams came to him.

Rob was lying in his bed at home, he noticed his wife was not in bed, in fact her side of the bed was undisturbed, that was odd he thought. Rob rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep, but then heard his daughter calling, crying for him.

“Daddy…Daddy…it hurts daddy.” Rob jumped from his bed and raced out of his bedroom and turned toward his six-year-old daughter, Lily’s room.

“Daddy please hurry it really hurts.” Rob could hear the fear and pain in her cries. Lily’s cries for help tore at his heart. Rob’s steps were slow and sluggish, as he ran down the long hallway. Rob began to realize that his hallway was not that long, it was barely ten feet long. But it has now grown to double its normal length. The wooden floor was spongy, it was like trying run on a soft mattress, which seemed to get softer with each step.

“Oh Daddy, their biting me it hurts so bad. Where are you daddy?” Lily cried.

He could hear the tears in her cries. His own eyes had tears rolling dripping out. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He was pumping his legs as fast as he could. But was not gaining any ground.

“Daddy please hurry it really hurts, there is blood on my arms and…and spiders, so many spiders.”

Rob tried to yell he was coming, but no words came out, only a cough. Then he gagged. When he opened his mouth again a clutter a small black spider fell out.

Rob sat up, nearly ripping his sleeping bag. He was gasping for breath and sweating. He had never had a nightmare so vivid in his life as the one he had just escaped. He thought about trying to go back to sleep, but the morning sun was creeping through the trees.

Exiting his tent, he saw that David was also up, working on getting the fire going again.

“Morning David.” Rob said standing up and stretching his back out. “Up a little early today.”

“Yea,” David paused and put more sticks on the growing fire. “Bad dream”

“You too?” Rob asked glad David brough it up so he could talk about his, which he did.

“Damn and I thought mine was bad.” David said, then added. “I was on the top of some mountain somewhere. I was standing on a boulder with a shier drop on every side.” he said shaking his head. “The wind was blowing and there was just nowhere to go. My toes are still sore from clinching them so tight during the dream.”

“What’s up with your arm?” Rob asked. You’ve been rubbing it the whole time you were talking.”

“I think it’s just a mosquito bite. It started itching last night.” He then turned and yelled at Bill to get up as if to change the subject.

“I figured he’d be up by now.” I said as I began to walk over towards his tent. Just as he was about to smack the tent to rouse Bill, he noticed a stain on the front side of the tent.

“BILL,” he yelled loudly. “BILLY.” Rob then turned back towards David. “David, do you have a flashlight?”

“What you got there?” David asked as he pulled a flashlight off the picnic table and tossed it to Rob.

Rob shined the light on front of the tent and could plainly make out several spattering of a dark stain.

“David, look at this.”

David walked over and felt the same sense of dread as he agreed with Rob that it looked like blood on the inside of Bill’s tent.

“We need to look inside.” Rob offered.

“We do, but I don’t want to.”

Rob shined the flashlight over the tent and noticed the screened vents on the back side of the tent.

“Here, we can look through here.” Rob said keeping the light on the vents.

Together they walked to the back of the tent. When they looked through the vents, they saw that something was covering most of the vent opening. Rob tapped the vent with the end of flashlight. Chunks of whatever had been blocking the vent and exposed a horror neither of them could have ever imagined.

Bill was lying on his back, what was left of his head and face looking back at them, with only the only eye left. Blood soaked his hair and sleeping bag. As Rob shined the flashlight down Bill’s body they could see spiders, thousands of spiders.

“Did they eat him…” David said then passed out. Rob moved the flashlight down Bill’s body. Blood and spiders covered his depleted body. When he shined the light down his leg, he saw Bill’s injured ankle looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Rob moved the light again and noticed that many spiders had climbed back up and begun to cover up the vent. Rob leaned closer and could see and hear the small spiders were biting, gnawing at the screened vent.

He turned and shook David awake and told him they needed to burn the tent and Bill to get rid of the spiders. He had to show David where the spiders were attempting to eat through the vents in Bill tent.

David agreed as he continued to rub his arm, he would jerk when his and rubbed over the part where the mosquito bit him. Together they each grabbed a burning piece of wood from the fire, they then lit the tent on fire and stood back as it burned quickly, then the sleeping bag, cloths and Bill began to burn. Rob threw a couple more logs on the new fire just to keep it going to get rid of the spiders.

Rob turned around and saw David sitting on the bench part of the picnic table drinking a beer.

“We need to go and tell the police as soon as we get back so they will know what happened.”

David had tears in his eyes as he shook his head in agreement. Then asked, “Do you think we got all of them?”

“I hope we did. We’ll let the authorities handle what to do with the cabin.” Rob said then added. “Hell, the whole island.” Rob then went and began tearing down his tent and backing his backpack. When he looked back David was still sitting in the same spot but had added two more empty beer bottles to the table.

“Hey. We got to go now.” Rob yelled at him.

“I can’t go.” David said plainly.

“What?” Rob asked walking over to him. “Why not, we can’t stay here, it’s dangerous.”

David lifted his arm and put it on the table. The spot he had been rubbing was the size of a baseball. “I can feel them squirming around in there.”

“Dear God,” Rob said as he put his pack on the ground. “We should be able to get to the mainland and too a doctor that can help you.”

“And what if we don’t make it. What if this thing bursts open in the boat or on the mainland?” David asked with tears in his eyes.

“We can wrap your arm up to be safe. I can’t leave you here.” Rob argued.

“NO.” David screamed. “I don’t think this is going to last much longer before the burst out.” David screamed.

Rob looked at the large wound on David’s arm. Now he could see something moving under the skin, just like in the movies. Rob picked up his backpack and said goodbye to David and walked to the pier.

He had untied the boat and had started the motor when he heard David scream. Rob pushed the throttle forward and sped away from the small island and his best friends. A few moments later he went to sit down in the driver's seat of the boat but stopped short when he bumped the back of his thigh against the seat. Rob reached around and felt a lump on the back of his leg.

“Oh crap” he said allowed. Now he had to decide if he had time to get to the mainland and into a hospital before the spiders came. He was sure he could, almost sure. But what would happen if he didn’t make it like David said?

“No, I can make it” he said aloud to himself. “Can’t I?” Sweat began to form on his forehead. When he was the mainland came into view, he felt a mixture of relief and fear. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

Then a line from his dream popped into his head “Daddy their biting me, it hurts so bad. A tear fell down his cheek.