Arachnapocalypse - Breakout of the Mutant Arachnids

Chapter 1

ABANDONED FARM IN STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

"Wow... I thought it would look more terrible than this, looks like it might even be hospitable. Let's stay the night here, we could make this our own little adventure." my wife Paige said. "Sure, why not, seeing that my grandfather does not care about this home anymore." I said.

"Let's see what we have here, the house keys and a picture of the house with the twin boys standing in front of it. Do you think this could be my grandfather and his twin brother he never spoke about much?" I asked. "Could be. These boys strongly resemble your grandfather's features." she said. "Look, they're wearing lab jackets too, I'm not surprised, as your grandfather loves bioscience. Ha! notice the spider one of them are holding in their hand, maybe these boys enjoyed playing with spiders." she noticed. "Yes, it's kind of creepy. As a child he never used to let me harm spiders. Okay, lets go check the house out." I said.

I took the keys from my jacket pocket and ran them through my fingers. We walked up to the porch, the steps creaked as we stepped up to the door, the door handle seemingly hanging on by a thread. The murky stained windows and the decomposing wood gave it a rustic look, giving us the excitement and the chills. "Well, one night certainly would be an adventure and that is why we are here.

"Welcome home" I smiled as I opened the door and stepped through into what must have been a spectacular house before it was abandoned... dust and cobwebs filling the ceiling and corners.
My wife and I had just got married and being the adventurous couple that we are we took keys to my grandfather's childhood home which had been abandoned for 70 years. Visiting the house would be a great start to our honeymoon getaway... so we thought.

"Ah, there's spider webs everywhere... I guess we've got some cleaning to do here Steven." "What are you talking about Paige, I think it looks unique, it's a new style that's coming back." "Ha! Yeah right."
We found some old brooms and started cleaning the house. " You know Steven, I wouldn't mind living in this Victorian style farm house, a new life away from the city doesn't sound too bad, what do you think? "Are you sure you want to leave Cape Town, there are some pretty big spiders here... like one over there!" I exclaimed pointing in the direction. "You're trying to scare me right?" "No, seriously, look behind you." She turned around and saw what appeared to be an abnormally large spider we'd never seen in our lives before, and screamed "Where in the world did that come from! I'm afraid of spiders! ... You have to kill it, I'm not staying the night here with that around."
I reached for the broom and smacked the spider, to my surprise it did not flinch and was not harmed, it was as if it was resistant to pain and was abnormally strong that the lashes of the broom did not crush it to death. "This spider is not dying!" I yelled as I backed away trembling, I glanced into the kitchen and saw a knife set. "Why don't we stab it?" I asked Paige. She rushed off to get a knife and handed it to me, the spider moved closer then I stabbed it with all my strength on it's back, it was finally dead.
"Well, that was rather weird and scary, let's hope there aren't more where that came from." she said.

We continued with cleaning while exploring the mansion sized house which was still standing quite strong after 70 years, the house was very well built with minor cracks in the walls, ceiling and windows, some of vintage furniture still remained in their places, the kitchen cupboards and counters were made from the finest gold and brass you could find. The land was very respected in the town as there was no sign of vandalism and burglary into the house.
"My great grandparents were very wealthy, great grandma was a heart surgeon and great grandpa was a multi business owner in Cape Town" I told Paige. "Hmm. No wonder they built such a magnificent house, it was not built cheap." She said
We walked out into the huge backyard which now looked like a forrest with exotic tall trees and colourful wild flowers which gave us an idea that it was once a beautiful garden. We followed the paving which led to something odd on the ground like a cement door that was laid to close that specific ground, the door was completely cracked. "What could have this been?" I asked "Looks like it was sealed for years and then eventually the opening cracked" I said "Did you hear that? Sounded like something moved down there, I'm getting the chills just being out here. Let's go back in." Paige said
Back in the house we went up the stylish staircase while tearing down cobwebs.
"Look, this must be the twin boys bedroom in here." Paige went into the bedroom and found two beds on each side of the spacious room, one side looked innocent with science collectables and the other side looked odd and creepy with unidentifiable skeletal remains on the bed.
"Honey this side of the room looks like something drastic happened here with all the creepy spider books and pictures of faces crossed out ." I know... and I'm guessing that is the other twin's side of the room because this side of the room feels more like my grandfather as I know him." I said. We walked out the room and walked towards beautiful double doors which was the master room, we cleaned, prepared the bed and fell peacefully asleep.

THE NEXT MORNING.

"Good morning darling, we've survived the night. What are we doing today? "Why don't we catch some breakfast at the cafe in town and talk it over there?" I replied. "Good idea, I could do with a Farmhouse breakfast around here" she said.
We got dressed and were ready to head out when we saw another spider, this one being bright yellow with long legs dangling from the ceiling right in front of the door as if it knew we were leaving.
"Is it just me or is this spider trying to stop us from leaving the house?" My wife asked and as I cautiously approached it, I saw something move in my peripheral vision, I dashed to grab a stick. As I looked behind us, an army of spiders crept in from every crook and cranny, covered the floor like a blanket, spiders of all different sizes and colors. Small red spiders crawled up in unison, jumped and latched on the stick, completely covering it that I had to drop it.
"How are they all attacking us at the same time? Spiders aren't supposed to be this smart and coordinated, we have to get out of here, now Steven!" Paige screamed. I grabbed her and made my way to the door and as I swung the door open hitting the yellow spider away which was hanging from the ceiling, it jumped in mid air and landed on Paige's head, she screamed as it sunk it's fangs into her skull and she immediately collapsed to the floor.

"No!... Paige" I screamed while trying to pull her out of the house, but before I could move an inch I mysteriously went flying out the door, I had been hit by an enormous spider that looked like a spider version of a body builder. I heard a loud crack and at the time I couldn't tell if it was the ground I landed on or my back. I raised my head and looked inside the house and saw my wife being raised up in cobwebs in the midst of all the chaos, my heart skipped a beat, I was ready to fight but saw her blue eyes so empty and lifeless. The spider that bit her was still clinging to her head with it's legs gripped to her forehead. I saw something disturbingly strange in the legs and abdomen of the spider, like electrical waves flowing through it to Paige's head. When this happened, her eyes changed and with a creepy smile she looked like a completely different person. It was then that I looked and noticed the legs leading to the most terrifying spider I had ever seen, its eyes which I could not count stared at me and then Paige turned around and walked away into now a dark house.
I trembled so hard I could see my heart beating through my chest, she was still alive but I knew she wasn't herself anymore, somehow I knew that the vicious, supernatural spiders we encountered attacked us intending to take Paige with them. My biggest fear came true, not being able to protect Paige, I dreaded bringing her there.

"What do I do, what do I do!" My head was spinning. "Ouch! My back!" I cried. I limped painfully to the car as fast as I could. I was determined to go find help and bring people to help me save Paige and burn the house down with the dangerous spiders inside and then I remembered something, I remembered Paige and I saw one of the twin boys holding a spider in the picture we took from my grandfather, he and his twin were bioscience geniuses in school, it dawned on me that they could have been the people who created these dangerous modified spiders when they were children in the house. I knew I needed to get back to my grandfather to get answers to what had happened at the house 70 years ago, what these spiders did to my wife and how we can save her.

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Thank you for reading our very first chapter, we are excited for this journey with Steven and Paige and with all of you. Your opinions are important to us so please let us know what you think of the direction we are going with the story, we have so many exciting ideas waiting to bring to life with your imagination.

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