Chapter Two - Bed Bugs

Kat settled back into bed making sure to close her door against attack. She pulled the comforter tight to her chin, protecting her neck from kitten claws and vampire fangs.

She laughed at her silly imagination. But things had been different since Kat and her dad moved from their Kentucky home to Uncle Chad’s Virginia apartment. Lots of things had been different. Especially since Mom had died.

Kat’s eyes were heavy as the nightmare came. It was always the same.



The wind outside of Kat’s Kentucky home was blowing at a dangerous speed. The rain hadn’t started yet, but the weather man said to get ready for a drencher.

Kat watched the weather from the windows in her parents’ room, but her mind was focused on her paper airplanes. She folded them quickly, wondering how far they’d get when she threw them out into the storm. She had learned the game from her mother. Every storm they played, racing their planes against the pouring rain.

Kat folded more and more planes. She looked to her parents’ bed where her mother was sound asleep. Why wouldn’t she to fly planes with Kat?

The dream shifted quickly and Kt had the window thrown open. The rain had begun and was tearing at the leaves already. Kat wondered what chance her paper planes would have against the storm. She grabbed a plane and shot it out into the storm. It looped and dove, eventually ended up in the flower beds below.

Kat smiled. Another.

Soon the sky outside Kat’s window was full of airplanes that flipped and dipped, spun and hung in the air.

It was always here that the dream soured into nightmare.

Suddenly the air inside the house began to whip around wildly. Kat’s hair caught her in the face and forced itself into her eyes. She screamed, but her hair whipped into her mouth as well, leaving her sputtering.

Kat pulled all of her hair back and stared out the window. Her planes were dancing around strangely as if the air was charged with electricity.

Zap!

The bolt hit a tree across the street. Before it could register in Kat’s mind, the loudest crack of lightning shook the house. She wasn’t sure if it was an earthquake or it someone had just burst her eardrums.

All of her paper airplanes dropped out of the sky as Kat screamed. She dived onto her parents’ bed, calling for her mother.

“Mama, mama, the storm. Did you see the lightning?”

The comforter shifted and Kat could begin to see it wasn’t her mother in the bed anymore. Like Little Red Riding Hood, there was a monster in her house.

“Oh Kat honey,” her mother’s voice cooed. “Come here. I’ll hold you.”

The blanket began to skitter. Something big was coming for Kat. It wasn’t until Kat saw the legs that she knew what was in her parents’ bed.

“Spider,” she screamed. The sound of thunder was drowned out by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

The room seemed to be completely filled by the spider. Every corner of the room was filled with legs or eyes. Its hair body brushed against Kat’s arm as she ran for the door. A long spiny leg slammed the door before Kat could escape. Three pairs of eyes lined up right across the face of the monstrous spider. They were the size of basketballs and showed Kat’s terrified reflection.
Kat shook as she watched the spider’s fang twitch back and forth. It was hungry and dinner was right here.

Kat tried to scream again, but it caught in her throat. There was only one escape: the window.

Kat scooted along the wall. The spider contracted its legs back to its body. Kat could see every joint in the spider’s legs, but kept moving. Another step, another flinch. Step, flinch. Step, flinch.

Kat had her hand on the window frame, her knuckles white. She would have to fly like one of her paper airplanes to escape.

Kat counted her heartbeats. On three she’d jump.

One.

Two.

Three.

Kat grabbed the window and turned her back to the spider. She threw a leg out of the window and jumped. She waited for the crunch of broken bones, but never made it farther than the window.

In mid-leap, the spider lunged. Its hairy legs latched onto Kat and pulled it closer to its fangs, its eyes, its head with a violin shaped mark.

A brown recluse. The same kind of spider that killed her mother. Kat knew it.

The spider stared at her and pulled her into foaming fangs. Kat screamed.