The web had been there for three nights.
It stretched between the old cedar and the empty storehouse, thick enough that the morning mist caught in it and hung in gray beads. The villagers who still walked the path after dark had begun to take the longer road. They said the spider that made it was larger than a dog. They said she came when the lights in the storehouse were left burning. They did not say what she did with the ones who stayed.
Kenji had stayed.
He was twenty and he had been sent to close the storehouse because the lanterns had been left on again. The path was short. The web was not. It covered the last ten steps. The strands were white and wet and they moved when he breathed on them. He lifted his hand to push one aside. The strand stuck. It did not pull free. It pulled him. The pull was gentle and steady and it did not stop until his sleeve was against the cedar and the web had closed over his wrist.
The laugh came from above him.
It was a woman’s laugh, soft and close. Kenji looked up. She was sitting in the branches where the web met the trunk. Her face was young. Her hair was long and black and it moved as if something under it was breathing. Her arms were bare. From the waist down she was not a woman. The legs were too many and too long and they were already wrapping the branch she sat on. One of them reached down and touched the web near his wrist. The strand tightened.
“You should not have come alone,” she said. Her voice was warm. Her mouth did not move with the words. “The others knew better.”
Kenji tried to step back. The web did not let him. Another strand had found his ankle. He felt it sink through the cloth of his trousers and into the skin. The pain was small at first. Then the strand pulled and the skin tore. Blood ran down his leg and into the web. The web drank it. The strands that had been white turned red where his blood touched them and stayed red.
The woman dropped from the branch.
She landed in front of him on eight legs. The legs were jointed and black and they ended in points that sank into the dirt. Her upper body stayed a woman’s. The face was still smiling. The smile showed teeth that were too sharp and too many. One hand reached out and touched his cheek. The fingers were cold. The nails were long enough to draw blood when she stroked downward. Kenji felt the line open on his face. He felt the blood follow the nail. She brought the finger to her mouth and tasted it.
“You are still warm,” she said. “That is better.”
The legs moved. Two of them caught his other wrist and pulled it against the cedar. The web closed over it. Two more caught his ankles and pulled them apart until the tendons in his hips screamed. He could not close his legs. He could not free his hands. The woman stepped closer. Her upper body pressed against his chest. The legs behind her kept working, wrapping more strands around his waist and his throat. Each strand bit. Each strand held. The blood from his wrists and his face and his legs ran down the web and pooled at the base of the tree.
She opened his shirt with her nails. The cuts were straight. The skin parted. She leaned in and put her mouth against the first cut. Kenji felt the tongue. It was longer than a tongue should be and it was rough. It moved inside the wound. When she pulled back the blood on her lips was bright. She smiled again. One of the legs rose and the point of it pressed against his stomach just below the ribs. The point went in slowly. He felt it slide between the organs. He felt it stop when it reached something that would not give. The woman watched his face while the leg stayed there.
“The others screamed,” she said. “You are trying not to. That is interesting.”
The leg pulled back. Blood followed it in a thick line. She caught the blood on her fingers and painted it across his mouth. Then she kissed him. The kiss was wet and the tongue went past his teeth and down his throat far enough that he could not breathe around it. When she pulled away he was choking on his own blood. The web around his throat tightened. The strands cut. He felt the skin open under his jaw. He felt the air leave through the new holes. The woman watched that too.
Above them the web kept growing. The strands that had been white were red now from the tree to the storehouse door. Inside the storehouse the lanterns were still burning. Outside the path was empty. The longer road was the only road the villagers used after dark. They had stopped asking where the ones who stayed had gone. They had stopped looking for the bodies. The web took what it was given and the spider who made it did not leave pieces behind.
Kenji’s head dropped forward. The strands around his throat held him up. The woman stepped back on her eight legs and looked at what she had made. The blood on the web was already drying at the edges. In the middle it was still wet. She reached up and touched one of the red strands. It stuck to her finger. She tasted it again and smiled.
“You will stay,” she said. “The others stayed. The web is better when it is fed.”
She climbed. The legs found the higher branches. The upper body vanished into the dark above the web. The lanterns in the storehouse kept burning. The path stayed empty. By morning the web between the cedar and the storehouse was thick enough that the mist could not pass through it. The blood that had been red had turned black. In the center of the web, where the strands crossed, something that had once been a man was still hanging. The face was turned toward the path. The eyes were open. The mouth was open. No sound came out of it.
The villagers who walked the longer road did not look at the storehouse. They did not look at the cedar. They had learned what the web was for. They had learned that the spider who made it did not need the ones who stayed to scream. She only needed them to be warm when she found them. The lanterns would be left burning again. Someone would be sent to close them. The web would be waiting.
