Sunny September, part ten. Spiders crash the party. Christopher.

  After doing things I probably shouldn’t narrate for a solid two hours we lie together on her bed, her body crossed over mine with her having fallen asleep quickly after we finished for the final time.

  I’m exhausted and I slowly slip from underneath her body to get off the bed to stop myself from falling into an endless sleep.

  I veil her blanket over her naked body.

  As I’m putting my clothes back on I hear the click of the front door opening.

  Before I leave her room I take one last look at Shakira’s curvy silhouette as she sleeps like the police can’t barge in here at any second. Despite being drained, in agony and on the verge of collapse, my soldier still stands at attention ready to dive back into the moist trenches.

  I quickly leave and dart to the bathroom where I flush the used condoms down the toilet and wash my hands.

  “Christopher!” Jackie says, looking me up and down with surprise as she hangs up her coat on the rack beside the front door.

  She wraps me up in a hug that kills me inside before I share a handshake with Tim that makes me feel like Satan’s right hand man. I can only pray that he doesn’t notice the wrinkles on my middle and index fingers.

  “You get more handsome ever time I see you boy.” Jackie says, cupping my face oblivious to the fact that her daughter had been sitting on it.

  “You’re taller than me now.” Tim laughs, his bald head shining like a freshly polished leather shoe.

  “Shakira!” Aunt Jackie calls out.

  “She’s sleeping in her room.” I say, hoping they don’t question why I know that.

  “Oh she’s sleeping now is she.” Jackie giggles before heading to the kitchen with Tim.

  “I see you two already ate the leftovers from yesterday.” Tim comments. “If you’re still hungry we brought some take away.”

  “Nah I’m good,” I yell, “I’m heading back home now so I’ll see you two over the weekend if I’m not busy.”

  Jackie comes back out with a disheartened look. “Don’t leave so soon, it’s been a year since you’ve last visited.”

  “I’d love to catch up but I’ve got high school to worry about now,” I say sinking deeper into despair, “I promise I’ll be over here as soon as I’m through with studying.”

  She gives me another hug. “Take care of yourself okay.”

  “Yeah… you too…”

  Once I’m back out onto the street I feel my phone buzz and answer the call without even bothering to check who it is.

  “Yo.” Okimoto says. “Trevor is here he’s at the party.”

  “Is he now…”

  There is a pause that leaves me wandering whether or not I should hang up the phone.

  Right as my thumb hovers over the red icon Okimoto speaks up again. “You were right… I saw them in his eyes. Trevor’s… been infected with it too.”

  “What?” I ask. “You mean the spider legs right?”

  “You should really come here and check it out. It’s really freaky.”

  “Nah I’m good.” I say, not wanting to deal with another freak like the jock and that one weirdo from the corner store.

  “I have weed on me.”

  “Send the address.” I say before hanging up.

  I unlock my bike from the lamppost as my mind flies into a frenzy.

  Fortunately the address Okimoto sent me was near my house, a little further up hill in Bel Air.

  I arrive before the rather modestly sized mansion. Lights flash inside with the muffled boom of music seeping through the walls.

  The driveway is crowded with cars. Looking to the opposite side of the road, I see Okimoto leaning on his motorcycle in mid conversation with Daqwan and another boy that looks familiar.

  After locking my bike on a nearby street sign, I approach the small group before dapping them all up for the sake of formality. I immediately address the reason I’m here. “The weed I need it to calm myself down.”

  “Relax.” Okimoto says, smiling at me like some sort of clown. Wait… he’s actually dressed up as a damn clown. He has a red wig over his hair and a clown costume on, it fits him perfectly right now.

  I look around at the people that crowd the driveway and it’s only then that I realise it’s a goddamn costume party.

  Okimoto hands me a blunt and lights it for me.

  I take a few puffs before cutting in to their conversation. “The spider legs, you’ve all seen it for yourselves now right?”

  They all nod.

  “Are you still going to ‘do’ the septuplets?”

  They nod idiotically, and It’s now that I realise just how much I needed this blunt.

  “How do we know for sure that it’s caused by sex with the seven sisters?” Daqwan asks.

  “We don’t.” The other boy that I recognise as Germain, some Asian kid from my old middle school answers.

  “Trevor had them too we all saw it,” Okimoto says, “as far as I’m aware he’s never had sex with any of the sisters so it’s likely not caused by them.”

  Daqwan has his face painted green and wears an orange bandanna over his face with eye holes cut out.

  Germain is dressed up in a simple leather jacket, some jeans and a white T shirt. I’m not too sure what he’s going for but don’t care enough to ask.

  “You got anymore weed?” I ask Okimoto.

  “I need to talk to Christopher in private for a moment.” He says to the other two before ushering me down the road.

  “Let’s have some fun tonight, it might be our last.” He says.

  I shrug. “Do whatever you want.”

  He sighs. “Have you ever wanted to try psychedelics? There’s a whole bunch of college freshman inside with LSD.”

  I hate to admit it but I have thought about trying it. I do want to experience what it’s like to be truly high, not just the bit of dizziness weed gives you, but a full on state of altered reality. Just as a one time thing though as I understand the idea that every addict chases their first high well, having had this idea hammered into me by teachers.

  He continues, “you have a gun on you right? If they put up a fuss about sharing with a high schooler just point the thing at them and take enough for the two of us.”

  I laugh. “Okimoto… you’re a bad kid.”

  “And so are you.” He says. “You know how it is with me. You don’t have to pretend like you do with everyone else. You’re tired of it aren’t you?”

  I nod. There really is no pretending with him. I guess that’s probably why he’s my best friend. He an orphan and me whose blood runs black with evil. For years we ran a mock and watched ourselves become the shadows of our piers, our actions conveying perfectly who we were. Yet now I still lie to myself, my mind overrun with thoughts about why doing what I’m about to do is a bad idea. What am I thinking? I ruined Markeiff’s life and ruined Shakira’s. I hurt their families and spoiled the futures they had in store for themselves. I am a monster and refuse to lie to myself any further. If this is my last night as a free man then I’ll spend it being what I truly am. From here on out I’m done lying.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “The LSD, you got it on you?” I Yell demandingly in the ear of some weirdo dressed up as big bird from Sesame Street, My gun propping up his stubbled chin. The smell of alcohol, weed, sweat and sex thickens the air, assaulting my sensitive nose to the point of nausea. Big bird runs the pockets in his suit, his eyes nervously staring down at the bathroom tiles that are stained with fluids of a nature unclear to me but still ominous enough for me to avoid them.

  I stand back to back with Okimoto who points a pink revolver at a college dork dressed up as shaggy with his left hand and a glock at a girl dressed up as Velma with his right.

  Songs from this year and the last rattle the room, filling every inch of my body with a painful thunderous boom.

  “Here this is all I’ve got okay.” The college kid yells, holding out two tiny sugar cubes in the palm of his hand.

  I take them then slowly back out of the bathroom while keeping the gun on them and minding the stains.

  In the corridor Okimoto dances around a couple fucking in the open without a care in the world, the guy winking at me as he presses the moaning girl up against the wall thrusting hard. He laughs, okimoto laughs too along with me, our words inaudible. He stuffs the revolver away and uses the glock to threaten another guy further down for his bottle of whisky.

  He takes the bottle, heave kicks the man into the wall and downs half of it before giving the rest to me.

  We come to the ornate staircase that’s now covered in puke and I watch as Okimoto trips a guy dressed as Homer Simpson who’s about to head down infront of us. He goes tumbling down into the pit of hell that is the living room, girls and boys, dancing, whining and grinding to the sinful beat, everyone sweating. There’s a bootleg pedestal by the stereos and a DJ that orchestrates it all, a godless pastor’s sermon.

  Homer comes to land at the feet of one of the Seven Sisters, A pretty white girl with a half decent body, a faultless duplicate of her six other sisters.

  Okimoto slides down the railing before throwing himself into her startled embrace. She looks at him stunned before the devil overtakes her mind and she tongue fucks his face. They head off towards what I think is the garage and I decide not to follow them.

  I feel someone grab my shoulder and when I look back I see some random girl dressed up as Harley Quin yelling crap at me that I can’t hear.

  I ignore the bitch and make my way down the stairs and past Homer Simpson who seems to be unconscious.

  I shove my way past the crowd before yet another unknown person grabs me again.

  It’s this black girl dressed up as Fiona from Shrek green skin and all. She yells in my ears, “you’re fine as fuck,” before spinning around to grind on me. I control her hips (ten out of ten ass it’s massive) and move mine accordingly. I share the bottle of whiskey with her and we get lost in the passion of youth. A tango of tongues, we end up in the tool shed where my soldier is deployed for his second drill in the wet trenches.

  After finishing some unknown amount of time later, I learn that she’s a junior from Crossgate High. I get her number knowing full well it’s pointless. I leave the tool shed having done the deed for the second time today, my face dotted with red lipstick. Returning to the crowded living room I bump into three of the Seven Sisters who all begin to flirt heavily with me looking like a png that’s been copy and pasted thrice. Their words find no space in my ears, the music already occupying it all.

  My body still sensitive and trembling from my recent drunken escapade, I shrug two away before ushering the one left out to the back where I ask, “where’s Okimoto?”

  “Oh that boy he’s a strange one….” She slowly and deliberately slurs in my ear. “We couldn't corrupt him.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask confused.

  “We couldn’t corrupt him…,” she repeats and then continues, “why is that? Do you know?… he’s your friend isn’t he…”

  She rubs my cheek and her hand feels strange.

  I step back and it sticks to me. “What!”

  “Huh?” She gasps. In one eye a pupil splits into two then four then eight then sixteen.

  I rip her hand away as she contorts and twists into some deformed monstrosity, spider legs sprouting everywhere.

  “You,” she hisses at me, “you can’t be corrupted either!”

  Her bizarre transformation starts to pick up speed as she crawls towards me on all fours, legs bent and spread low and wide like an alligator’s. Her right eye bulges out with thousands of pupils constantly dividing into more, the right side of her lips fusing with her gums and right nostril forming a vile red and fleshy excuse of a pincer.

  I swallow a scream before aiming my gun at her.

  A nearby girl lets out a shriek when she sees what I’m seeing.

  “Shit!”

  “What the fuck is that…”

  Curses are just barely audible over the music, a commotion stirring up in the backyard.

  She lunges at me and right as I’m about to pull the trigger I hear someone yell, “I KNEW IT!”

  She’s tackled by someone in a black hoodie who pins her to the ground before looking right at me.

  “It’s you…” I mutter.

  Fredrick, the jock from before stares me down, his transformation having progressed gruesomely with the right half his face also morphed into a spider’s, his one human eye fixed on me with a look of utter insanity, the hundreds of other eyes darting around aimlessly.

  His gaze breaks from mine before he looks around at the others and yells, “get out of here! They’ve infected me with something awful. It’s slowly turning me into a monster. Leave now before they get the rest of you.”

  “Get off me!” She screams, her face having suddenly returned to normal.

  “Shut the fuck up!” He yells back at her, not noticing Trevor come up behind him with a baseball bat.

  The bat arcs through the air swiftly whacking Fredrick in the back of the head, his face going blank and shifting back to fully human. He goes down out cold then Trevor kneels to help the septuplet to her feet.

  “Thank you for that.” The septuplet yells over the music, acting like she didn’t just transform into a creature and try to kill me.

  “I’m sorry I had to deal with that asshole.” Trevor yells.

  Looking at his eyes I see them, the spider legs.

  “Hey Christopher,” he yells at me with an awkward smile as the spider legs suddenly start to recede back into his flesh.

  I want to say something but I only muster up a flat, “hi” that’s devoured by the music.

  She’s back to normal now but everyone saw it. Why’s she trying to play it off like she’s innocent?

  The girl who shrieked seconds ago examines Fredrick along with a two boys All three of them dressed as Minions.

  “He’s still breathing.” She yells. “Throw him out and call the cops if he comes back.”

  “Jerk.” One of the guys yells inexplicably. “He’s probably a jealous ex or something. He really tried to crash the party and attacked her like a maniac.”

  “It’s jackasses like this that give men a bad name.” The other boy adds helping him pick Fredrick up.

  “Let’s go inside.” Trevor says before diving into her face tongue first.

  What the fuck? They literally saw her try to attack me, am I going crazy?

  Making out, Trevor and the septuplet head inside.

  The Minions carry Fredrick past the empty pool and around the side of the mansion.

  I head inside intent on grabbing Okimoto, Daqwan and any other familiar faces I find before getting out of here. I weave my way through the moral deprivation of the living room and around to the garage.

  I open the door and immediately witness a sight so bedevilling I once more find myself questioning my sanity. This place is an empire of webs, pillars of white silk are rooted from floor to ceiling with boys trapped inside. They slumber as six of the septuplets go through great efforts to pry away the endless webs to free them.

  It takes me a good ten seconds to process it all before I’m suddenly pulled back out through the door by someone.

  Okimoto quickly shuts the door to the garage once I’m back in the corridor before dragging me all the way back out to the driveway passing by the minions who return as we leave. Once we were a decent distance away from the house he finally stops before turning to face me with a look of urgency. “There’s something seriously messed up happening in that house.”

  “Thanks for pointing it out I definitely didn’t notice,” I reply sneering.

  Paying no mind to my sarcasm he goes on to explain, “this isn’t an infection but something much worse. They’re possessed by something beyond human. As soon as I finished with that one sister she transformed into some kind of creature that tried to wrap me up in a cocoon of webs. I fought back and was knocked unconscious. When I woke up the garage had been transformed into what you saw just now. Fortunately they didn’t put me in a cocoon for some reason and I was able to continue observing them while playing dead. They were all cackling to themselves and going on and on about how they were going to infect all of the boys they had captured.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…” I sign not knowing how I’m supposed to react to all of this.

  He continues, “it gets even weirder. They suddenly did a full one eighty and started panicking as if they didn’t know what’s going on. That’s when I took the opportunity to sneak out and hide in the shadow of the staircase. That’s when I saw you storm towards the garage and went to stop you.”

  “Where’s Daqwan?” I ask.

  “They have him captured in there with the other boys, Germain too.”

  After a pause lasting a few seconds we both ask in unison, “so what now?”

  This is followed by another pause.

  Part of me wants to run away but another part of me can’t just sit back and let Daqwan suffer whatever they’re going to do to him. I don’t care as much for Germain since I barely know him but it still feels wrong to abandon him too. I replay the events of the party in my mind wondering what I could possibly do. If I just head in there guns blazing I’ll probably end up suffering the same fate as Fredrick. All my Junior Teakwando and Karate qualifications won’t save me from something that’s beyond human. I think back to what the sister said about me and Okimoto being incorruptible. I’m assuming it means I can’t be infected with whatever’s causing spider legs to sprout on people’s bodies. I doubt it will matter much since just one got the better of Okimoto who’s expecting a black belt soon like me, and I don’t think me jumping in there with him will do much against the seven of them.

  His comment about them suddenly doing a one eighty sounds eerily similar to what I just experienced. It also suggests that they weren’t playing innocent but rather that whatever’s affecting them can mysteriously disappear in certain situations.

  I explain, “I was also attacked by one of the sisters. This was in the backyard where she suddenly transformed after saying they couldn’t ‘corrupt’ the two of us, whatever that means. Fredrick, the jock Dashawn spoke of intervened and for a moment it seemed like he had her. Then everything suddenly changed when Trevor knocked him out with a bat. Everyone who reacted with terror to her transformation suddenly seemed to forget about it and they all treated the situation like she was the victim and Fredrick the attacker. The sister also didn’t resume her attack on me. Instead she went back inside with Trevor. It’s a shot in the dark but I think their ‘problem’ isn’t always active.”

  “I know.” He says, “just now I was wandering if I should head back in there to check if they’re really back to normal.”

  “Let’s give it a shot,” I say, “wells flee as soon as they start showing any abnormal behaviours.”

  “Sure but let’s have a have a spliff first.”