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38 Something had been tickling her chest and when she had rolled over, thinking in some faraway place that she was dreaming, a quick, sharp pain struck her skin, radiating outwards. Her eyes snapped open. The bedside light had been left on and so when she turned back over she saw the small, inflamed gorge of flesh directly below her neck. She leaped off the bed and tugged her shirt over her head, the spider hurtling. She stared at it, black with fine scattered white dots covering its abdomen and for legs instead of eight. It was no bigger than her fingernail. The bite site now began to itch and burn. Still half-dazed, her husband a phantom in the back of her waking mind, she hurried out of the room and into the kitchen. She rummaged through the pantry until she found a Chinese container.
- Writer
