Vargas knew she would not stop crying, so he hit her a few more times and closed the bedroom door, leaving her to her tears.
He went out to get wood for the stove.
The snow howled outside. The stove warmed the cabin to a swelter. Vargas stripped to his undersuit as he drank himself insensible, got so drunk he felt neither the tiny legs of the fiddleback crawling up his leg nor its fangs in his scrotum.
In the morning as the fever took him and his legs turned black he begged her to help him.
She only smiled.
The revenge of mother spider.
The opening lines are brutal in their dispassionate tone
Justice swiftly executed.
Yeah well that’s why I never venture into the wood-shed. I find it hard to feel sorry for him.
Dear Josh,
I smiled, too. ;)
Shalom,
Rochelle
Serves Vargas right. No sympathies here.
Wow. Great descriptions, sparse but vivid – you’ve truly captured a scene, a particular place and relationship in few words. Makes me wonder if the spider is hers … Great story
Thanks! The girl has been powerless for so long that to see this abuser brought low is a sort of triumph. The spider came in on the wood and is as much an agent as anything.
Still, she can stand back and enjoy that accidental revenge …
That’s great. A satisfying smack! I would have expected the Black Widow to do her bidding, but never saw the brown recluse coming. Apparently neither did Vargas–as he deserved.
He had it coming
The scrotum was a particularly nice touch.
Hmmm…. I believe karma has a web.
I don’t know what a fiddleback spider is, but already I’m on its side on this one. Stark story, with good karma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider
Ah, that make sense. People claim to see those around here, but experts keep saying they’re mistaken. However, we do have plenty of black widows. When I lived in my house a few blocks from here, I would regularly find them in the garage, sometimes a dozen or more at a time. You spray them with Raid and they just laugh at you, seriously. The only real option is a hard-soled boot.
I love when The Universe comes in and settles the score. Loved the way you wrote this.
Justice was swift and brutal, but unfortunately, men will never learn!
Wow. I have no words to describe. Superbly written. I could totally imagine this
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Very nice, I got a good sense of justice done here.
He showed emotion only in his own distress. No sympathy from me.
Hmm a brown recluse spider bites rarely kill people but can make them pretty sick. But I don’t think he knows that. The detached tone in the beginning lends to the horror. Nicely done.
The scrotum is probably the one place where the spider could do enough damage to cause the leg-blackening blood poisoning described in the story. I had a friend bitten on the cheek by a recluse. It killed a dime-sized chunk of skin that never grew back. Thanks for reading!
Ouch! I don’t even want to think about that now ;-)
Usually karma bites you in the a**, now it’s elsewhere. Well done.
Vegas got off easy. I think she should have kicked him where it hurts. “Here’s your help.’