The Terror From Beyond the Void

IT SKITTERED its way across the leaves, and I knelt down to get as close as I could. Eight legs, black body – it was one of the feared ones; a black widow. I knew that before I pulled up Nature’s Identity on my phone. But I needed to log it into the app to make it official. Without that digital tally mark, the proof simply wasn’t there. And I needed proof if I was going to top my wife.

I opened the app and placed my phone’s camera as close as I could to the jittery creature. It stopped on a dead leaf, almost like it was posing for the photo, and I was able to get a crystal clear image of it. Once I pressed the image capture button, my obvious assumption was confirmed:

Black Widow. Latrodectus mactans, to be exact. Venomous, dangerous, and a morbid method of killing and devouring its prey. I had never seen one before in person, so this wasn’t just a great Pennsylvanian camping find, but just a very satisfying find in general. I likened it to finding Mewtwo back in the day in my Pokemon Red game.

The spider remained still; I couldn’t tell if it felt threatened, or if it was trying to threaten me.

Bite me and I’ll squash you without remorse, I playfully thought.

I stood up, stepped away from the dreadful arachnid, and scrolled through the long list of animals, insects and plants I had captured in Nature’s Identity since our family camping trip had begun. I imagined what my wife’s list was looking like; we agreed to not share our final tally’s until the trip home. I was hoping it was a lot shorter than mine, but she and the twins had gone down to the creek, so there was no telling what critters she’d come across there.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, appreciating the wilderness my family and I had come to visit for the week. After a rough couple of years dealing with the likes of a pandemic and being forced to take a different job with a significant cut in pay, this week was exactly what we needed. Plus, within the next month, the twins would be heading across the country to attend California State University. This camping trip into the Pennsylvanian wilderness could end up being our last as a family for quite some time, and I wanted to make sure we enjoyed every second of it.

I hiked back to the cabin. It was an old log structure in a pine-needle-covered clearing with another identical cabin, vacant and waiting for the next family, sitting just behind a cluster of trees. Our camper was parked just outside of our dwelling. The twins decided they would sleep in the camper. They claimed it was so that Macie and I had our privacy, but truthfully I knew it was because that’s where the internet worked the best.

The privacy was nice though.

I took off my boots and placed them on the porch before walking in. The place was nice, as it should have been for a grand a week. It was smack dab in the middle of the five-star rated Timber Acres Camp Resort in the Allegheny Mountains. The cabin’s design was simple, yet elegant in its own way, decorated with the mounted heads of deer and bear, and hued in a cedar and oak color scheme. Burgundy area rugs made each section of the layout pop as if they were separate rooms, when in reality, it was one large space that included everything from a dining area, a kitchen and a living room. The bedrooms and bathroom, however, were separate.

I sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, waiting for Macie, Wes and Kevin to return from the creek. The TV was much nicer than the one we had back home in Ohio, but the reception left a lot to be desired. Channels buzzed occasionally with static and the volume dipped in and out. And the lack of Netflix or Hulu was a little frustrating as well.

Bad reception or not, I must have fallen asleep watching the glitchy images on screen, because I woke up to a loud crash behind me. The TV was off when I opened my eyes, and I turned around on the couch to see Macie on her hands and knees cleaning up a glass cup she had dropped in the kitchen area.

I hopped up quickly to help her.

“How was the creek?” I asked, picking up some of the larger shards of glass.

“It was beautiful,” she said. “The water was so clean you could see the little fish and water bugs so clearly.”

“Did you …log any of them?” I asked, curious and ornery.

Macie smirked. “I logged three new ones. A Fallfish, a Gerridae and, wait for it …”

I waited as Macie built up her own anticipation to tell me. I knew it must have been a good one. Finally, she said:

“A Northern Watersnake.”

My eyes widened. “Wow! Good haul!”

“Thanks!” Macie said, extremely proud of her finds. “What about you?”

“Nothing much, just a little …Black Widow Spider!”

Macie’s eyes widened next, but more out of concern. “Oh my God,” she said. “Those are so dangerous. You didn’t get too close, did you?”

“Of course I did. I needed that award-winning image. It’ll be a story to tell the boys back home,” I said.

Macie laughed. “What boys? If you’re talking about Noah Williams from down the street, he doesn’t count.”

“Oh, he definitely counts,” I said with a put-on defensive tone. “He counts more than Charlotte Moore does.”

“My blogger partner?”

“Yeah. Taking turns writing about gardening tips barely constitutes as friends. Doesn’t she live in Alaska? What are they gardening up there? Snow peas?”

I could tell by the way Macie just stared at me that I wasn’t making a compelling argument. She didn’t really consider Charlotte a friend, and I knew that. She was just another woman Macie had met online who shared gardening interests and they decided to create a blog together.

“At least we toss ideas back and forth with each other,” Macie said. “On the phone, text, email …how do you and Noah communicate? Aside from a wave or a head nod as you drive by each other?”

I had nothing.

Macie laughed. “Exactly,” she said.

After a quick knock, the front door opened and Wes and Kevin walked in.

“Neighbors have arrived!” Wes said, pushing his fists into the air like he had won the lottery.

“Quiet time is over,” Kevin said, seemingly disappointed by the new arrivals.

Sure, they were twins, but their personalities were vastly different. Wes was more of an outgoing personality, usually dressed in brighter clothing and impulsive. Kevin, on the other hand, cherished his alone time. He was a gamer who had acquired quite the following on his Youtube channel, K’s Kraze. So the personality that lacked in-person came out more online. Something about the person to person experience usually discomforted him. But I always believed that as long as I let them thrive with what they’re comfortable with, they’ll be alright out on their own. And that’s all I wanted; I wanted them to be alright.

I followed the twins out to the porch, Macie by my side. We stood there and watched another camper, a little smaller than ours, pull up the dirt trail and park next to the secondary cabin. The trees and shrubbery hindered a lot of what we, as a family, tried to watch, but I was certain that we would meet the other family sooner rather than later. We were already a couple of days into our trip, but we still had four days left. It would just be awkward if we didn’t at least get our introductions out of the way.

“Hopefully there are some girls in that camper,” Wes said, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain coming up with a plan for world domination. I could have sworn I even saw his tongue hanging out like a dog. Teenage hormones, I thought. I’d been there. But that still didn’t mean I was entirely comfortable with my boys experiencing them.

“Well, maybe we can all head over there and introduce ourselves in a bit. Let them get settled in first,” Macie said.

“I have to check Twitch,” Kevin said, hopping off the porch and heading for the camper.

Macie let out a heavy, not-so-subtle, sigh. “Can’t you go one hour without the internet?”

“I have people who depend on me, Mom,” Kevin said, looking back. “Believe it or not, there are people who are interested in what I do.”

His words stung Macie, as always. She and Kevin always butted heads when it came to his gamer persona. I seemed to understand it a bit more, having dabbled in countless games myself, but still tried to support both of them. Macie didn’t realize that there was such a strong career in gaming, especially live streaming gameplay like Kevin did. But Kevin also needed to understand that in the blink of an eye, the following he had built, as well as the advertisers and sponsors who dished out just enough money to make it a profitable venture, could all fall out from under him without a single warning. The next, best, up-and-coming gaming persona was always looming in the shadows of the internet.

I put my hand on Macie’s shoulder, letting her know to just let Kevin do what he needed to do. I could feel the tension in her muscles; she always took everything so hard.

Kevin disappeared into the camper.

“I’m gonna run some reconnaissance on the newbies,” Wes said. “I’ll have a full report in about ten or fifteen minutes.”

Wes jogged off to some of the heavier thicket that separated our cabin from the neighbors.

Macie seemed to relax as the twins left us. “Sometimes I wish those games didn’t exist,” she said.

I squeezed her shoulder. “I know. But he’s so passionate about it. We should try to support him. He’s making pretty good money from it.”

“Money isn’t everything, Ben,” she said. “He needs to be out there, with people. Otherwise, he’ll end up as just a rich recluse that has zero people skills and no personality.”

She turned away from me and walked back into the cabin. I just stood there, listening to the soft sounds of nature. The birds, the bugs, and the camper door from the neighbors slamming shut, followed by a girl screaming.