I hate being late, like seriously I hate it but I can’t help it. I get so caught up sometime just binge watching YouTube videos, it’s the closest thing to therapy I’ve got. Ok let me start with my name before I get into too much detail. My name is Jason Stanfield and I work for the interspecies exploration association better know as IEA. They are a privately owned company. You might have heard of them. The company was made to “advance the betterment of mankind” well that’s what my boss Mr. Shaw, a fiery haired ginger says. I recently started working there and let me tell you that place is weird like super weird, they should call it the interspecies experimentation association.
Like the other day I’m pretty sure I saw a four-foot frog sitting down in a chair with its legs crossed getting interviewed by one of the head scientists. Like I said, weird. Anyway I just started working there and I’m basically just a glorified intern. I mean I am an intern but when I signed up I though that it would be really cool to work for the secretive science place but it’s just been a lot of work. I thought that I would just be getting coffee for people but they got me feeding some of the “specimens” writing up bios for them keeping track of their habits. I mean, I am getting paid pretty good so it’s not all bad but it’s just really tiring either that or I’m just lazy, probably both.
After I started working there, it’s gotten pretty hard to sleep. So lately I find myself just watching vids on YouTube until I fall asleep. So here we are. I’m going to be late for the third time in a row and I’m about to get an earful from Mr. Shaw then I’m going to lose my internship. I realize all of this after I hit the snooze button on my alarm for the fourth time in a row. So I jump out of bed with a new-found energy that I never knew that I had and slip into my cloths like I’m Mr. Fantastic. There was not nearly enough time for me to make a sandwich for breakfast so I just grab to apples and I’m out the door forgetting to lock it. I live pretty close to the IEA facility which makes it so much worse that I’m late but, on the bright side if I were to run I could get there in five minutes.
You ever heard someone say you can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time? Well what they should have said is you can’t run at full speed and eat an apple at the same time because that is really tough. But somehow I made it through one apple without choking to death on the run to work. So I’m running and I turn the corner and I see the building. Now I know that I’m screwed but maybe if I’m not exactly thirty minutes late, I can somehow save my job. So I put a little extra speed into my run. Even though it feels as if my lungs are going to implode and my heart is about to explode and my legs feel as if they are on fire.
I make it to the door with two minutes to spare and I clock in. In victory I take a bite out of my second apple feeling the satisfying crunch then taking another bite. But as soon as I did, I felt my teeth glide straight through the apple like a hot knife through butter and the off taste of a bad apple. I spat it out into the nearest trash can then I looking down. I saw that the apple was in fact bad with the flesh being brown and soft but something caught my eye. Because of how soft the apple was when I took the bite, it tore out the layer that separates the part that you eat from the seeds, but instead of the telltale black apple seeds there was something like a thick white cloth type substance. It looked like it lined the inside where the seeds were.
Being the curious person I was I poked it. It was soft and stretchy and as I pulled my finger back it stuck to it, then all of a sudden the stem of the apple was gone. It had retracted into the apple. I gave a short yelp then dropped the apple. It rolled for a bit then stopped. Cautiously I approached it then pushed it with my foot so that the part that I bit was visible. When I looked the cloth looking thing was writhing and wiggling like something was under it. Then it tore and as I stood there staring at my apple eyes wide, as eight beedie eyes stared back at me.
I recoiled back stumbling as an ivory-white spider untangled itself and came sprawling out of the apple. The entire thing was white except the eyes which where a pitch black like I have never seen and one of its legs which was shorter than the others and half an inch of it was brown then it transitioned upward into the ivory-white. Stunned, I just sat there staring at this thing that was inches away from my mouth recently. Then it moved. It a started crawling towards me. I just sat there like a deer in headlights horrified. This thing was massive. It was about the size of a kitten. I was trying to figure out how the hell it fit in the apple. Then I realized I should be asking why the hell it was crawling towards me and picking up the pace.
Before I could even move to back up, it was already crawling up my leg. Needless to say I screamed like teenage girl in a trashy slasher flick and ran around like an idiot slamming myself on the floors and walls to try and crush this demon spawn that was crawling all over my body. With little success I might add. Then I heard someone shout, “ASP-55 stop that this instant.” And as fast as this albino hellspawn was on me, it was off crawling towards the voice. I looked up and it was Mr. Shaw. He stood there stone faced staring at that thing what’s name was apparently ASP-55. I don’t know if I had hit my head one to many times or not but the spawn of satan himself actually looked sad at the fact that Mr. Shaw was angry at it.
“Oh how could I be mad at you, I though I had lost you forever,” Mr. Shaw said, “Come here.” Then the thing crawling up his leg then onto his shoulder, “Now as for you,” he said, “this is your third day in a row of being late. Normally we don’t accept that type of behavior but you did get back my beautiful baby so you have one more chance and seeing that she didn’t bite you, she must see something special in your future. What do you think of working here full-time and as a bonus you will be able to live in the facility. So no rent, no extra bills and you’re a lot less likely to be late if you live here,”
“Ummmm sure. But just keep ‘her’ away from me please. What would have happened if she had bitten me?”
“Oh you don’t need to worry about her. This strain of spider is very docile and friendly, they have great instincts to, but if she had any reason to bite you, um let me explain what would happen. Her diet consists of apple seeds and seeing that apple seeds have trace amounts of cyanide usually it’s not enough to kill you but enzymes in her body heighten the toxicity. So if she was to bite you would feel like you are instantly being suffocated then you would die slowly. Eyes bulging, throat tight like a vice is wrapped around it you know the usual. It is a horrible way to go, but like I said this strain is very docile so you have nothing to worry about.”
“So why did she attack me?” I asked.
“How would you feel if something bit a chunk out of your bedroom and started poking around? I don’t know but I wouldn’t start crawling all over them. Well she did so I guess she has more guts than you.”
So that’s how it went I don’t know why the hell I said yes to a full-time job offer but I did they also made me sign this contract it was super long so I didn’t read it. So that’s about it I will keep you posted. Oh yeah and what I learned from this whole thing is that I’m pretty sure my boss doesn’t have a soul. Not only is the guy a ginger but I saw him kiss ASP-55 on what ever is the spider equivalent of a forehead and if there are two sets of people on this planet who don’t have souls its gingers and people who have spiders as pets.
***
Carter: Briggs why the hell are we staking out a IEA facility?
Briggs: Because the place is fishy.
Carter: Listen man, I could be doing something a whole lot better with my time but instead I’m in this hot piece of trash you call a car.
Briggs: Hey watch it man, this car is a beauty and we are going to leave soon just a few more minutes.
Carter: We have been here all ni-
Briggs: Hold on what with that guy, he’s running like a bat out of hell.
Carter: He must be late.
Briggs: There’s got to be something.
Briggs: What the hell? Why is he slamming himself against the wall like that? And who’s the ginger, the guy looks heated.
Carter: I will admit, that was pretty weird but not weird enough for us to do anything with.
Briggs: Wait what the hell is that thing on his shoulder?
Carter: Whose shoulder?
Briggs: The ginger. Here, use the binoculars.
Carter: I don’t see anything.
Briggs: The other shoulder.
Carter: I still don’t see any- holy gigantic albino spider batman!
Briggs: Ok we’re going to just walk past how cringey that was and focused on the giant spider on the guys shoulder. That ain’t normal, I knew that there was something wrong with this place.
Carter: So what are we going to do?
Briggs: We need more proof, then we can get a full investigation on this place and find out what’s really going on behind those walls.