“Pocket Fulla Spiders”

The door flung open until it bounced off the wall as Khluen rushed in with Thawee’s arm around his collar.

“Guys! We finally got one” Khluen shouted to the two other club members who were sitting calmly at their desks.

“No way! But what happened to Thawee?” Thien asked, worried at the sight of her half-conscious friend.

“I’m fine guys, don’t worry. The spider got in a bite right before Khluen could put it in the box.” Thawee replied.

“I’ll grab my journal, this could all be informative data,” said the final member So as he reached into his leathery black backpack to grab out one of the many notebooks that filled his backpack.

This was looking to be the most eventful evening yet for the Paranormal Studies club of Mountainside University. Normally, school clubs should be focused on harmless hobbies and interests that build community and lifelong friendships, not unimaginable horrors that teeter on the boundaries of reality and madness. This is the life that the members of the Paranormal Studies club chose from the start. For them, the unknown and unreasonable was as exciting, if not more, than what others were doing with their university life.

A normal student might be exploring their potential career prospects during their time on campus, but these students were probably discussing whether ape-homids most likely inhabited temperate or boreal forests. When love was in the air and other students were having awkward first dates or pregnancy scares, the paranormal studies club pondered about a mysterious ball of hair they found in the park, now laid under a microscope. Could it potentially be the follicles of a nearly endangered and never before seen dogman? Or  is it more likely a discarded beard, hastily shaved off by a student experimenting with a cleaner look?

Nonetheless, they always persisted, no matter how on the fringe of the school social hierarchy they appeared to be. Of the four members, nobody was an outright outcast that was putting time into studying the strange and mysterious as their way of coping with not fitting into society’s social norms. They were mostly not too weird for the world and more importantly, they were not so stupid as to waste their time.

So is a studious and star athlete for the basketball and football teams at the university, currently seeking a journalism degree. He stands taller than the other members with a very muscular build and keeps his hair shaved down about as far as you can go. His glasses always sit low on his nose, ready to be pushed up whenever he begins reading. He is always writing down his thoughts and observations in his diverse assortment of journals, collecting any potential evidence of the paranormal in his life or anyone else’s.

Thien is a medical student who puts great focus into her work, often overwhelmed with stress as evidenced by her blonde hair that’s typically hastily shoved in a bun and leaking out over her forehead and around her neck. She is an empathetic and caring member of the club that wears a worried expression, her eyes always wide and scanning.

Thawee is the most gifted student all around, with high grades across the board and an especially powerful connection to the paranormal, with many stories she has been trying to explain since she was a small child. Now an engineering student, she fills her schedule with school, martial arts and assisting the club during her free time. It is the place she feels she truly belongs.

Khluen was the de-facto president of the club as the founding member who dedicated the most time and resources to the club itself. He was studying physics at the university but often feels his time and energy is best spent doing dedicated research into paranormal events he reads or hears about. His club members often sit in admiration at the sheer amount of planning and time that he dedicates to the club.

Many prospective members had come and gone, some more unserious than others, but he was quite satisfied with the current group as they treated the club with real care and interest. Khluen wasn’t looking for gullible believers of ghosts, aliens or demons, but for hardworking students who at least had an open mind to understanding the potentially unexplainable. There was no room for obsessive conspiracy theorists or folks that would so easily join a cult if it was edgy enough for them.

These four were right for the job that was ahead of them as they themselves were unexplainable, for each one had developed extrasensory perception over the years, making the Paranormal Studies club an organization of budding psychics.

So, with his foresight that allowed him to see nearly ten seconds into the future.

Thien, with her ability to sense, transfer and store spiritual energy signals from any living creature.

Thawee, capable of creating a three-dimensional astral projection of herself that interacts with the physical world.

Khluen, a well studied spiritual analyst with vast knowledge of reality altering enchantments.

        These four had developed their psychic abilities by taking different paths but once they joined the club and shared what they were capable of, they began to try and explore how far they could push themselves. It was apparent as Khluen and Thawee entered the room that they had used their abilities to further investigate a case that the club had been discussing for quite some time over the past year.

        “So where’s the box?” So asked Khluen.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it right here.” Khluen had walked Thawee over to a chair so she could now rest and he pulled out a slightly crumpled cardboard box from his pocket that was covered in strange symbols drawn in marker. A piece of paper closed off the bottom without any evidence of tape or glue. Khluen was often able to make due with what he had around him to make interesting enchantments on any object. “I can feel it still moving inside,” he told the group.

“Hold on, let me try to get a good reading on it. How did you guys pull this off anyways?” Thien asked as she hovered over the box and began to focus her mind on the inhabitant inside.

“Thawee and I were walking together after class and saw Arath walking in a bit of a rush. As we turned to go up the stairs, one of his spiders fell out from his pocket and bounced down to the floor without him noticing.” Khluen began to talk more excitedly, gesturing largely with his hands and imitating all those in his story. His long, shoulder-length hair is constantly brushing directly in his face. “The spider didn’t seem in a hurry to get back to him so I quickly grabbed a chicken nugget box that I had in my backpack from lunch and wrote a lock-enchantment on the sides of it and on a piece of paper. Thawee then ducked under the staircase and created her projection and used it to scoop up the spider before anyone could see. I ran over to her so she could put it in the box but the spider bit her. Her projection immediately dissipated. Luckily I was close enough to clap the box around the spider, trapping it inside and activating my enchantment. It bounced around quite a bit but hasn’t gotten out yet.”

        “Do you think Arath knows that it’s gone?” So asked of the group.

        “I don’t think so. He didn’t notice when it dropped and he didn’t follow us here yet.” Khluen replied.

        “We still have to confirm whether these are really paranormal and that he’s not just a weird guy with spiders in his pockets. I’ve seen weirder people before.” Thawee said.

        “It’s certainly a possibility that this could just be nothing but we cannot forget what made us suspicious from the start.”

        At the beginning of the semester, So was delivering pizzas for his part time job. Despite being on the university sports teams, he was not a scholarship athlete and had to work evenings to pay his tuition and bills. It didn’t hold him back as he could record university lectures he attended during the day and then replay them while driving his routes to study. Arath was a frequent customer and ordered more pizzas than one person could possibly eat but he did live with at least another person that So had heard Arath call out to while he waited at the door.

        So would stand there with anywhere from ten to fifteen pizzas and Arath would answer the door, wearing the same baggy purple hoodie that he wore every day that So had ever seen him. His jeans were emblazoned with painted flames and his left hand was inside the pocket, never to be removed. Regardless of what he was doing, Arath’s hand was always in the left pocket for reasons no one knew. So would hand over the steaming tower of pizzas, placing them on the ground next to the door while he fished out the bills to pay for the order. Arath was a quiet and polite customer, saying “Yo” and “Thanks”, then waiting until So started to drive off before bringing the pizzas inside.

        So thought it was quite peculiar that Arath wouldn’t immediately grab the pizzas and bring them indoors, so he waited to see what would happen if he spent a few extra seconds in the car before driving off. Arath still waited, not moving an inch until So’s car began to pull away. Maybe it was So’s curious nature, a trait that all the club members had, but he had to know why Arath wouldn’t just grab the pizzas and bring them in. Would he finally bring his hand out of his pocket? So used his foresight ability just as he was about to drive off and his vision was just long enough to see a flurry of spiders erupt out of Arath’s pocket that ensnared the pizzas and then carried them inside.

        So’s ability had its limits, with reality distorting the longer that he tried to see into the future but if he had timed it correctly, this should be an accurate account of what happens each time he drives off. After telling the group of what he saw, theories began to pour in from the rest of the group.

        Was he some sort of gifted spider whisperer that had made so many eight legged friends? Could Arath himself be a spider trapped inside a human body? Or could there be something more sinister going on that would soon become a threat to not just the university, but the whole city? The Paranormal Studies club has kept their eye on him all these time, waiting for the moment that a new detail would reveal itself.

        Arath didn’t appear to be a hyper intelligent and sneaky person that concealed their every movement in a devious way, he seemed like a normal student that kept to himself without doing so deliberately. He could be seen out in the open, eating his lunch in the cafeteria or sometimes putting coins into the games at the arcade. This could be a sign that he didn’t have anything to hide at all but it wasn’t worth ignoring for the group so when this particular opportunity arose, they had to jump.

        “What’s the diagnosis, Thien?” Khluen asked his classmate.

        “It’s hard to say but there’s definitely something unnatural about this spider. It’s radiating a small level of spiritual energy that's trying to peak out of the box.” Thien replied.

        “The moment that we let it go, it’ll surely try to escape. We won’t be observing it for long.” So thought out loud with the group.

        “I agree,” Khluen said, “But we have to learn something from this situation. Thien, can you copy enough of its spiritual essence?”

        “I think so. Are we going to use your notebook?” She replied.

        Khluen kept with him a special notebook, with each page containing a special kind of enchantment that was able to store the spiritual essence that it came into contact with. Thein was able to let other energies flow into her own spiritual field and then briefly could radiate imitation wavelengths. This allowed her to transfer spiritual essences that were different from her own so that the group could keep them for future reference when identifying other entities.

        Khluen pulled the notebook from his bag and thumbed through to find an empty page. It didn’t take long as there were only around ten entries so far from mostly dead end investigations. Thien let the tiny amount of energy that was coming from the spider enter her spiritual field as tiny beads of sweat began to trickle down from her forehead, down to her neck. It didn’t take that much energy out of her but the amount of focus she had to put in as a still novice psychic made her tense. The spider’s energy began to freely flow and created new wavelengths in her spiritual field that she could now transfer a close enough copy of into the notebook pages. She placed her hand onto the notebook and the enchantment that was drawn on the page, unreadable to all in the room except Khluen, began to shine with a holographic glow for a moment, then faded away.

        Khluen took the notebook back and wrote down some identifying text and put the notebook away for the time being. “Now, we’re going to let it go.”

The group all protested immediately, “Are you joking?!” Thien shouted, breaking out of her typically composed state, standing out of her seat and slamming both hands palm down onto the table.

“Absolutely. Think about it. What more can we do at this exact moment? Any suggestions?” Khluen said to the group, giving a moment for a response as they all looked down to the floor in thought except for Thawee, who was looking curiously at the president. “Exactly. We now have the spiritual signature of the spider so we can do research of our own by comparing the sample with other entities we may find but there is something even more important. Remember our fruitless search for an exorcist?” The group’s heads all turned up as their faces turned more serious. “We’ve had no luck. Just folks that sprinkle holy water from questionable places or have a palm reading deal to sell. I think we try our new maneuver on Arath himself.”

“That’s too much. We can’t just presume there’s an evil spirit inside of him because it’s spiders of all things leaking out.” So protested.

“And what happens if it fails? Nothing right?” Khluen said to the group. “Thawee’s astral projection is going to act as a magnet using Thien’s collected spiritual energy from the spider. As she moves through his body, she will either pull out whatever the source of those spiders is or she will simply pass through and run back to us.”

“What happens if she does pull a spirit out though?” Thien said, her expression growing even more serious. “No matter how confident we are of our abilities, we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves.”

“I can take ‘em.” Thawee said confidently, flexing her muscles in a smug but joking manner.

“You can barely walk, Thawee. How are you going to fist fight a monster you’ve never seen before?” Thien interjected.

Thawee stood up on both feet, then crouched down with a look of focus as she lowered into a squatting position and brought her arms to her side. She began to flex her arms with her muscles expanding slightly and beginning to slightly vibrate. From her skin, a gray fog began to seep out as if it were sweat that was instantly evaporating. A fine film formed around her skin from head to toe before it started to move forward, connected together in one piece that matched each detail of her body. This was her astral projection, a true copy of her body but in a spiritual form that was capable of interacting with the visible world.

“See, I'm already ready to go again.” Thawee said, crossing her arms and smirking, the astral projection doing exactly the same.

“Ha, show off.” So said with a laugh.

The shape of the astral projection matched her body with great detail but there were some slight differences. For example, the skin was a dark grey, much different than her caramel-brown skin. The eyes were as black as they could be with a small ring of white where her pupils typically were. Her long wavy hair was now curling up to form small spikes in several places as if it were beginning to float.  

“Are you really sure that you’ve got enough juice in that thing?” Khluen asked Thawee.

The astral projection faded away back into Thawee’s body. “There’s no better time. Who knows what will happen when the spider returns to him. His guard might be up the next time we see him.”

“Then let’s recap one last time, I know we’ve gone over this plan before but just to be sure.” Khluen had gone full president at this moment. “Thawee leads the chase on foot, getting as close as she can until we see Arath. Thien will carry my notebook and quickly channel the spider essence into Thawee as she creates an astral projection. So will begin to monitor the situation and warn of any potential surprises that may arise. I will wait to see the result. If a spirit is pulled out of Arath’s body, then I take care of it.”

“We - will take care of it.” Thawee interrupted.

“You will be there ready to go but we have to try my binding enchantment first.”

Khluen had been perfecting a new technique over the last two years, using a special string made from the hair of a yak, he strings together an enchantment with his hands. Then he projects his spiritual essence through the string figure and a net is cast, wrapping around whatever energy it next touches. So far, he’d only practiced against Thawee’s astral projection with mixed success but the potential was clearly there.

“Fine, but make sure I’m clearly past him. I don’t want to get tied up with some weird monster.” Thawee said.

The group all stood up, taking a look at each other’s faces to gauge how confident and locked in every was in this moment. Despite the club being several years old, with each member being a part for at least a little while, there were not too many successful investigations. At most, they had debunked just about every haunted location and cursed objects by simply being present and nothing happening. Arath seemed a sure thing at this point with So’s vision lining up with the oddity of seeing streams of spiders crawling out of a teenager’s denim jeans.

They surrounded the desk that Khluen had placed the spider on top of and glued their feet to the floor in anticipation for what could possibly unfold. “So, can you start monitoring?” Khluen asked. So nodded his head and stared deeply at the box, attaining his visions of what was likely to unfold. Khluen then placed his hand onto the cardboard chicken nugget box as the spider ricocheted and bounced around the insides. And finally, he lifted it up.

“Gym!” So shouted.

Immediately upon release, the spider sat just for a moment on the desk to size up the four onlookers before rocketing off into space from the open door. The spider was dark black, from the tip of its head down to its spinner, moving too fast to see any further details. Thawee was already out the door before the others could even begin to move their feet. She was in a full sprint with her eyes locked on the spider, far ahead of the group as they began to follow. So made up the most ground being the athlete that he was but Thawee was weaving around the traffic of students almost too fast for his eyes to keep track of.

The spider was small and fast enough so that the students that were walking the hallways during the pursuit had no idea it was even there. From their perspective, they only saw a determined Thawee recklessly dashing through the hallway.

“Hey! Slow down!” An economics professor shouted out at her in vain.

“Oh brother, the weirdos in that club again.” Said Geoffrey, president of the Conspiracy Theories club.

“Ah damnit, my dissertation!” A student yelled as his papers flew out of his hands from the wind behind Thawee’s running.

She kept pace all the way until she came to the west wing of the school, her feet stomping on the hard tan tiles, now in a part of the school where there were no students at the moment. The spider landed on one of the two doors to the gymnasium and then dropped down to the bottom and stuffed its way through the small opening and out of sight. “Damn!!” Thawee said, right there at the doors a step behind her target. She grabbed the handles on both of the locked doors and began to shake them with all her might, doing nothing but causing noises.

“Hey! They’re not going to budge.” So said, now with Thawee and catching his breath. “They’re locked with a chain on the other side.”

“It’s going to get away! Where’s Thien?” Thawee pleaded.

Khluen turned the corner, now joining the two arrivals, “she’s right here,” he shouted.

Thien had a larger build than the others but had willed herself to move fast enough to not stay too far behind. “Just…a moment!” She said as she pulled out the notebook and quickly thumbed through to the page she was searching for. “But, how are you going to get through?” She asked.

“Don’t worry about that, just feed me the spider juice!” Thawee quickly told her.

Thien placed her hand above the page and used her ability to copy the essence of the saved spider energy. She then placed her hand on a very sweaty Thawee who was already preparing her astral projection but this time appearing to use much more of her strength.

“Wait, that’s too risky, Thawee! It already made you struggle to walk last time. What’s going to happen if you put all of your energy into it?” Thien asked with a weight of worry on her mind.

“If I put enough energy, then I'll be able to separate from my body completely for just a little bit. I can go under the door just like the spider and catch it.” Thawee said to the group.

“But what if he’s not in there? What if it’s just cutting through the room to go somewhere else?” Khluen asked.

“It’s in there,” said So, using his foresight, “It’s completely dark in there for some reason but I can see someone in there, standing on the basketball court. Surely that’s Arath reconnecting with the spider, right?”

“Good enough for me.” Thawee said, ejecting from her body into her astral projection. Her physical body fell forward as all of her consciousness and energy had moved into her second form, Thien catching the body in her arms. Thawee quickly slipped under the door and continued her pursuit before quickly coming to a halt. She was separated from the group and was unsure if the silhouette she could see through the darkness was really Arath. It was upright and motionless. Why would he just be standing there doing nothing at all? She thought.

Thawee remembered what Khluen had said and that there really was no harm in using their strategy on even the most innocent of bystanders. At most, if they were spiritually aware, they would see her or feel her as she moved through their body like a cold wind swiping against your bare neck. The spider was out of sight so this was their only lead and it might not come again easily. So whether this was really Arath or not, she lunged forward and followed the plan properly, jumping into the body of the person standing there on the blackened basketball court, phasing through their body as if she was walking through a fog.

Her heart creaked and crawled to a brief stop before firing off into a frantic thumping. She felt an overwhelming uneasiness surrounding her body like she had been caught on a hook like a fish. Her head began to turn to see what it was that she pulled out behind her but she felt nothing but dread before anything was even in sight. Whoever she had passed through, Arath or not, was now an opened box that contained a primal and sinister force. The room was a bed and Thawee felt like she was under it, shout to stare down the boogeyman face to face.

“Wait, that’s not Arath!” So shouted, banging on the doors in a mad panic. “Thawee get out of there!”

“Who is it then?! Khluen's eyes widened with shock at hearing this from the normally calm So. Thien pushed Thawee’s physical body to Khluen and then placed her body against the door and tried to get a feel of the energy of whatever it was inside there with Thawee. Beads of sweat became bullets. She fell to the floor, her pupils becoming tiny dots and her limbs shaking with a mind of their own. “What…could that thing be?” She said, staring down at the floor.

“Guys, I don’t think she’s making it out of this.” So said somberly.

“Bullshit, you only see ten seconds ahead,“ Khluen said, not to insult So but in retaliation against the fear building inside that he had devised a plan that put his friend in great danger. “Step back.”

Inside the room, Thawee’s astral eyes began to focus as she adjusted to both the darkness and the body she was in. The silhouette of the person she saw standing in the room was now laying on the floor, face down. A new figure standing above him.

It rattled and shook as it stood above the still body on the floor, making noises like the clanking of bamboo bark. The outline of the body was abnormal, with no resemblance to anything Thawee had seen before, not human nor animal, nor reflective of any work of fiction she was familiar with. The plan appeared to have succeeded but with the wrong vessel, no purple hoodie or painted denim jeans to be seen. Arath’s spider was long gone by this point. It was a newly opened case.

Her eyes slowly picked up more features with her spiritual form able to perceive other spiritual beings. Its head was egg shaped with a dull point near the tip of its crown and a large bushy beard at the base. Its eye sockets were empty of any eyes at all, with the bones around it making a large round ridge. Its wide smile showed with only three visible teeth poking out of the large and swollen gums in its mouth.

He had a human-like chest with two breasts and evidence of muscle and bones, protruding from underneath the skin as its emaciated body continued to shamble about in place. Near the shoulders were tatters of skin around bones that extended from where the arms should have been if it were a sensible creature. The bones were loosely lined with ripped tendons and pieces of meat but did not end with a hand, claw or hoof.

Finally, near its waist began a thick, rough hide that contrasted the loose, torn skin around its torso and up. Its legs were like those of a farm animal with double-jointed knees that allowed its legs to bend unnaturally backwards. Several parts of its thighs had loose slips of hide hanging off like feathers. Its feet scaly and large with pointed claws at each tip, three in the front one larger claw in the back.

The chimeric build of the creature defied science, logic and even the mythological. No creature from their studies resembled this unholy emaciated, egg-headed, cow-chicken beast. Thawee had caught something and she only wished she could mercifully throw it back but it was her who might be begging for mercy soon enough. She would rather die.

“Ahhhhh pelemukrorokan-kakelaro kuok kuok kuok” it spoke to her in a bizarre and incomprehensible language, appearing to laugh at the end of each statement. “malengtcherokezzorom kuok kuok kuok,” it continued, Thawee stepping back, showing reluctance to fight for the first time in her life and assessing an escape strategy.

The chains that secured the gym doors dropped to the floor, clanky with a loud thud. Both sides of the entrance were flung open and the remaining members of the club had finally rejoined their desperate friend. Khluen was standing in the middle of the now opened doors with his hands down by his side, blood dripping down to the tips of his fingertips, smudging the ink that had been drawn on his hands.

“Are you okay, Khluen? That looked painful.” Thien asked.

“I’m fine. The enchantment damages the body the more difficult the lock is to pick. Since I couldn’t even see it, it’s a pretty stiff price to pay.” Khluen replied.

The three stared at the beast who had not moved its head in their direction despite all the commotion of their entrance.

“This energy is so rabid. It feels like we're being hunted for fun.” Thien was getting a feel for its energy, becoming more accurate the closer she got to it, something she would much rather not be doing.

“You two stay back. So, keep an eye and look for an opening.” Khluen asked.

“I’ve been trying, and I hope I’m wrong but in about twenty seconds, I don’t see a way out.” So replied.

“Twenty seconds is past your limit, hardly accurate, So. Stick to about five seconds and just shout out an opening. We’re sticking to the plan - THAWEE, COME HERE BUT GET READY TO DODGE, IT’S ONLY LOOKING AT YOU.”

Thawee looked at the group and back to the beast to confirm if Khluen was right. It didn’t have eyes but its face never turned from facing her. Despite the lack of hands and the wasted appearance, the creature’s presence held great weight over Thawee. If she did not lift up her fear and make a run for the exit, she was at its mercy, whatever its intentions might be.

She crouched down and watched its expression remain unchanged, so she made her move, jumping into the air in a mad leap directly towards Khluen and the group but she gained no ground. Her movement was stalled the moment she left the ground, momentarily frozen in the air. She felt a stabbing pain in the back of her ankle that quickly climbed up to the level of a searing throb. Thawee turned to see that the creature had already made it all the way to her position and had sunk its repulsive teeth directly into the leg of her astral projection her astral projection.

“How in the hell…” Khluen said, his arms falling to his side in disbelief.

“It’s…so fast…” Thien said defeatedly.

“It was inescapable…every scenario…” So, unfortunately confirming his visions to the others.

Thawee’s astral projection disintegrated away in the mouth of the creature, turning to nothing but dust that was then sucked into six holes on the top of its head. Each hole acting as a vacuum for spiritual energy. It leaned back grotesquely as if to show how full it was after the meal, making the same disgusting laughing sound as before. “Ahhhhh kuok kuok kuok.”

The lights to the gymnasium suddenly flipped on, momentarily stunning the three club members as if they’d seen a flashbang as their eyes were finally adjusted to the darkness.

“Hey…who the hell?” Khluen shouted while covering his eyes with his forearms.

“Coach Kevin said I could shoot hoops in here, are y’all trying to play?” Arath said, his hand on the light switch on the second floor of the gymnasium. “Woah, what the hell is that?”

“That’s Coach THOMPSON, don’t call me by my first name,” Coach Thompson yelled to Arath, putting his keys back into his pocket before looking at the scene that had unfolded in his gym. ”Don’t forget to clean up what the…are those cosplayers again? Y’all need to quit wearing that shit in my gym! All the damn boots and high heels are scuffing up my floor! Arath, go tell ‘em off. They weird me out.” Coach Thompson turned around and slammed the door shut as he exited, not realizing that this was no costumed geek.

The group could now see the body of the student that was holding the creature inside previously. It was Druvy Darwinson, the famously incompetent third-year student who was still working on his first-year classes. He came from a very wealthy family who continued to make donations to the university in hopes of them not booting their son out despite his record-breakingly low scores. He and his friends eat together in the cafeteria, speaking in a completely incomprehensible language that was filled with internet catch phrases, new slang and general words that were evidence of brain rot. Why of all students was he the vessel for something so dangerous and terrifying?

“Druvy? The king of remedial classes? Well, maybe this explains it all.” Said Khluen, now with a working theory of the situation in his head.

The creature looked up, finally scanning the other people in the room. Its eyes squinted as if the light was actually interfering with his eye holes. It started to shake more violently while standing there on the gym floor while more strands of meat poured out from the gaping cavity where the arm bone came out from. Most people would just call this a shoulder but there was more mangled meat than actual structure. The new pieces of muscle wormed around the bone and quickly began to grow gross patches of new skin on top. Now freshly nourished from sucking up Thawee’s projection, it appeared to be growing into a more complete creature.

“Kuok kuok kuok…fin…ally…sub…stance…” The creature now understandable to the group. All of them looked upon, growing more fearful to their own astonishment. “That…boy...small br…ain…nothing…to eat.”

All of Druvy’s brainless activities had been starving the supernatural beast to a point that it nearly shrank to nothing, keeping it from fully crossing over from wherever it belonged. Now with a full meal of Thawee’s spirit energy, it was able to regain enough of its strength to start assimilating in their world.

Thien had rushed over to Thawee’s physical body and felt that her heartbeat was normal but she was not waking up nor did she have a spiritual essence to detect.

“Hey you guys should probably get away from that thing.” Arath said to the group starting to walk down the bleachers.

“Arath! Don’t come closer, it’s already taken out one of us!” Khluen said in warning.

“Oh dang, really? That’s not good.” Arath said, still making his way even closer.

“Kuok kuok, who...is next?” The creature said, the holes on its head pulsating.

“Hm, can you guys close your eyes?” Arath said to the club members. “Hey, boney-ass zombie thing, you can try me next.”

“Arath! No!” Khluen shouted, but he was too late as the creature turned its head to Arath to size up his target.

“Dude, I said close your eyes.” Arath said one last time, the club members all looked at each other momentarily and nodded in agreement, closing their eyes.

A loud whooshing sound could be heard by everyone in the room as the monster had taken flight just like it had to catch up to Thawee. Arath pulled his hand out of his left pocket, a place where it rested day and night as far as everyone else knew. The creature had just met him and was about to see the secret that the paranormal club had been dreaming of since they first saw those strange arachnids crawling out.

Khluen and the others heard a loud thud, like a sack of potatoes falling off a shelf onto the ground. Unable to keep his eyes shut, he took a peek at what he had just heard, unsure why it wasn’t the screams of Arath getting bitten by the sinister spectre. Arath was standing there, unshaken and unharmed, in front of a giant mound of meshed spider webs that encased a thrashing monster inside its threads. A flood of spiders were returning to his pocket as they left the floor.

The club members all could not control their jaws as they fell open wide and low. They turned to each other and back to Arath to check to see if they were being fooled. How could he have disposed of the threat so succinctly after walking in totally unprepared and unaware of what was waiting for him inside. This was not his fight and yet he had finished it to the point of tying a silky bow on top. It was obvious now that the spiders were an extension of Arath himself, so in tune with his mind that they fired out to cast a web in an instant.

“You kept your eyes shut the whole time right?” Arath asked them.

“Yes…but…how…why?” Khluen said while too stunned to ask a complete question.

“Listen, this type of stuff is really annoying to me. Can we just forget about it? I still have time to shoot some hoops before Coach Kevin comes back.”

“Ignore it? How could we possibly ignore the fact that you just disposed of a monster using those…pocket spiders?”

Arath looked down at Khluen, “Those are just my pets. Nothing else. I train them like people train dogs. You know, shake, sit, that stuff.”

“You think we’re that stupid? Something else is going on and we’re going to find out.” Khluen said, hardly showing thanks to the boy that saved his club’s spiritual and maybe physical lives..

“Khluen, what about Thawee?” Thien asked, kneeling by the fallen comrade’s side.

“Yeah, we need to tend to her first. Arath, let’s just pretend nothing happened this evening. Sound good?” Khluen asked him.

“Dude, I already said that.” Arath agreed.

“Wait! Can you help our friend? You were able to stop that monster, surely you know more than us about what’s going on.” Thien pleaded to Arath.

Arath may have been their main source of suspicion moments ago but now that he had taken down the most, and only, true paranormal threat that they had come into contact with, he appeared to at least be more friend than foe.

“I didn’t really ask for any of this responsibility. I’m actually kinda the irresponsible type. Maybe you can go to a doctor or something first? Arath replied.

“How do we explain that some egg-headed demon ate Thawee’s shadow and now she won’t wake up? Do you know anyone that could maybe help us?” Thien tried to get anything out of Arath that she could.

“Well first off, that’s not a demon. I’m no expert but that’s what we call a psychic vampire and by ‘we’ I mean the internet. Classic case of spirit sucker. I don’t know what you mean about her shadow but is she some type of psychic?” Arath rambled.

“Yeah, something like that…” Khluen confirmed.

“Okay so what you’re going to do is close your eyes again, I’m going to…do something similar to what I did with this guy but because she’s a human, it’ll help her. I think.” Arath half-assedly concluded.

“How do we know we can trust those spiders?” So said with a serious expression.

“Woah, pizza guy…” Arath interjected.

“Yes, they’re full of spiritual energy. They don’t feel exactly friendly…” Thien added on.

“How do you know that?” Arath asked.

“We’re the Paranormal Studies club. It’s our job to know these things.” Khluen said proudly.

“Your job? How much does it pay? You’re kind of bad at it so far.” Arath said to the club.

“It doesn’t pay a salary.” Khluen said, with pride on his breath. “We provide a valuable service to all of humanity by studying the unexplainable and mysterious subjects that most people are too afraid to even begin to explore. We search for the truth that will set us a species free. That is what it pays. Honor. Knowledge. Evolution…and…”

“Ah, nevermind. I was looking for at least enough to buy some new games.” Arath interrupted.

“What? Are you joking?” Khluen began to say.

“Wait! I’ve got some money in savings. What about…two hundred dollars?” Thien added.

“Deal!” Arath quickly said, pulling his hand out of his left pocket once again. A swarm of spiders flooded out of his pocket and alongside his leg and abdomen. He pointed at Thawee’s body and hundreds of them darted off and surrounded her body, emptying loads of webs all around her before spinning her like wrapping a rotisserie chicken.

“That’ll be two-hundred dollars!” Arath said to Thien.

“But how is this going to help her?! You just did it to the bad guy!” Thien shouted.

“Yeah, but that guy isn’t from this world. I’ve done this several times before although he is definitely much more scary than the others. Usually I just catch them by accident, or at least the spiders do by leaving their webs everywhere at home. These ghosts or whatever lose all their energy to the web eventually and then poof. I think they go to the next life or something like that. Now your friend…is she single by the way? Okay, nevermind. She’s a human being. She’s supposed to regain energy in a pretty normal way. I think if she’s in the web cocoon, then she will absorb the energy, not lose it.”

“So you’re saying the webs act as a transistor of spiritual energy and that spiritual energy follows the same laws that heat and energy follow in thermodynamics? So the energy out will balance with the ghosts losing energy to their surroundings and by humans gaining energy from the system?” Khluen said matter-of-factly, raising his fingers to his chin

“...when the hell did I say any of that?” Arath said, stunned at the barrage of advanced physics.

“Nevermind…Thien, can you monitor her energy that way? Didn’t you say she was empty?” Khluen asked.

“Pretty much but…I think I’m starting to get something. It’s small but I can feel it.” Thien replied.

“So like I said…that two-hundred dollars…?” Arath made sure they wouldn’t forget.

“Of course, but can it be like tomorrow because of, you know, all of this,” Thien said to him, gesturing to Thawee’s newly cocooned state.

“That’s cool I guess. Can y’all leave the other web lump to me though? Coach would kill me if he saw that left in here. My uncles swinging by to pick me up in a bit so we’ll take care of it.” Arath replied.

“Wait a minute. The world needs to see this. This is the shock the world needs to wake up and see that the supernatural is here!” Khluen proclaimed.

“What good comes from knowing that there are more monsters than just humans out there?” Arath argued.

“People deserve to know how their world works. The good and the bad.” Khluen said.

“That sounds nice but you know the truth. So do I. We also have had the technology to document it all for years and years. So why is everything related to the paranormal so half-assed, misinformed or debunked?”  Arath debated.

“People are just one video upload away from believing. They can’t unsee the truth, no matter who tries to silence us after we show them.” Khluen said, raising his voice.

“Fine, go do it. I hope your club has an army as well.”

Khluen was beginning to understand where Arath was coming from, giving up on taking any physical evidence or documentation from the scene. He could always change his mind and take pictures later. Arath was the most experienced of them all, even though he was more casual and laid back about it all. There might be something more that he knows and it was better to stay on the same side.

The club finally parted ways, now acquainted with Arath and destined for more meetings in the near future. The group was surprised at his calmness, stepping foot into a room with a figure of hell itself and dealing with it in only a matter of seconds before returning to shooting a ball through a hoop, alone in the gym. Arath was shorter than all of the paranormal studies club members and was missing nearly every shot they saw him take as they dragged Thawee out. There was so much more to learn but taking care of their bound and unconscious friend came first. .

“Where should we take her? People are going to ask questions. She’s covered in webs…” Thien asked Khluen.

“We can take her to my house. I don’t have any neighbors close by so no one will ask questions.” Khluen replied. “She lives alone in her apartment so let’s just keep her phone out in case someone tries to come looking for her. Hopefully she’s not out too long.”

“Emergency meeting at your place then, huh?” So said, throwing Thawee’s cocoon over his shoulder.

“I’ll order some food.” The president said to his deputies.

Outside the gym, a horn blasted a few times loud enough for Arath to hear it in the gymnasium. “Hey fool! Let’s get out of here.” A voice called out from an old black funeral hearse, its paint lightly faded just about everywhere, engine puffing and growling as it sat lowly on top of the asphalt. Its tires flashed with their chrome texture, extending out with long wiry spokes from its rims. Arath’s uncle was a time capsule of just a few decades earlier, driving a twenty year old hearse that was customized to his lowrider tastes, still the same all these years later.

His uncle was from his mom’s side, so much different of a person than what he had heard about his mom. Arath wished he could compare them side by side. Uncle was what Arath called him but his real name was Emilio. None of his friends or family called him that either though. He had more nicknames that most people have letters in their names, mostly due to all the different lives he seemed to live concurrently. He held a steady job as a musician at a night club, playing mostly covers and slipping in his mostly panned solo material that was a little too experimental for the crowd he played for. Often he picked up side jobs as a one-man funeral show. Everything from escorting the casket to its destined hole in the ground to a back-up pallbearer to the musician that played church hymns or songs listed in someone’s final will and testament.

A few times a month, he still helped out his old wrestling buddies by getting his ass kicked in the ring to boost their careers as the once legendary Águilas Gamberras, the dirtbag eagle of the night, soaring his way into a vicious pile driver from the top rope, right in front of your wife and family. If he didn’t have to pay the bills that he had each month, he’d do it full time once again. Even at thirty-three, he still had aspirations, not of fame but of championship belts and world tours. But he was still as happy as he could be as a fly on the wall of the coolest places he knew and as especially as Arath’s uncle.

“Oh come on Arath. What the hell is that?” Uncle asked regarding the lump of web that Arath was pulling, a trailer of spiders below doing most of the work.

“Man, you know, annoying stuff as usual.” Arath replied.

“Well, tell me about the ride back. I guess we’ll throw it down in the basement along with the others.”

“A couple of them have already moved on. This one might take awhile though.”

“That big huh?”

“Yeah, nothing like the small fries that keep getting caught around the house.”

“Bigger than that egg-headed punk we ran into after the night market last month? That ugly son of a gun was tall. I can’t believe no one could see him but us.”

“You know, this one had an egg shaped head too. No eyes as well…”

“Ay, that’s not good nephew. Bad vibes.”

Uncle easily picked up the lump of ghost-flesh that was wrapped up like a cased sausage and chunked it into the back of his hearse. He turned the radio back on and old thrash metal played them off as they left the scene to go home and toss their new roommate into the basement. At least until he went back to the hell that he belonged to.