She sighed. “That should have been a decoration we picked up for him.”

“A broom!” I screamed, running out of the room.

“Don’t leave me here all alone!”

I heard her footsteps pounding on the stairs after me. I snatched the broom out of the closet and headed back up the stairs, with her following me once again. But once we were in the room, we had the problem of where the spider had gone.

“I really hope he isn’t on the sheets.”

“We’d have to burn them,” she agreed.

“Do you think Patrick would mind if we just burned down the house? That seems like an easier solution.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s paid off yet.”

Yes, that was a bit of a problem. “Alright, I’ll grab one end of the bed and you grab the other. We’ll tug it out into the center of the room. There’s no way the spider could have moved that far that fast.”

“You hope,” she added ominously.

She was absolutely right, but I couldn’t think about that right now, not when I had a job to do. I would be brave and stronger than this cursed spider. I would not let him win. Hesitantly, I walked over to the other side of the bed, waiting for her to bend at the same time as me.

“One, two…” On three, we both jerked the bed away from the wall, both of us screaming at the top of our lungs in the process. I didn’t waste a second grabbing the broom.

“There it is!” she shouted, pointing at the wall.

Screaming with every breath in my body, I slammed the broom against the wall repeatedly.

“Ah!” Debra joined me, hopping on one foot. “It’s getting away! Get it! Get it!”

I did the best I could, but the little bastard was fast. “It’s coming toward me!” I shouted, terrified for my life. “Oh, God! It’s going to murder me!”

I started slamming the broom into the wall harder and harder, hoping to hit it. I wasn’t even sure what I was swinging at anymore, but I desperately hoped I was hitting something.

“Down!”

I didn’t think twice at the command. I dropped to the floor, covering my head with the broom in some desperate attempt to protect myself from the beast. Heavy breathing filled the air, but no sound of shooting or killing of any kind.

Slowly, I lifted my head, watching as Debra did the same closer to the door. Patrick stood in the doorway, his chest heaving and his crutches tossed aside as he held a gun in his hand. Chase stood beside him, looking around in confusion.

“What…what happened?” he asked.

Slowly, I got to my feet, clutching the broom tightly as my eyes skittered across the wall for the gigantic spider. “There…there was a spider,” I said breathlessly.

His eyes narrowed on me as he lowered his weapon. “A spider? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Language,” Debra chastised as she got to her feet.

“Do you have any idea what we just went through?” he snapped. “There was a fucking killer on the property, and when I heard—Fuck, Piper, what the fuck? You were screaming over a fucking spider?”

“Language!” his mother snapped.

“Jesus Christ, I could have shot someone!”

His mother sighed, rubbing her fingers across her forehead. “Lord, please help him.”

“So, we’re not needed here?” Chase asked.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, springing into action. I thrust the broom at them, determined to kill this fucker before we actually did have to burn down the house. “He’s still over there.”