A New Kind of Science / Holtzbert

Thank You

"You, uh...you gonna eat your sandwich?" Abby finally broke the silence.

"Yeah, um..." Erin thought for a moment while she stared down at the food in her hand and she quickly put it back in the bag before standing up from the bed. "I think I'm gonna...I'm gonna come into work with you."

"Really?" Abigail looked up at her friend with a smile.

"Yeah, I just...I just need to figure some stuff out and maybe I just need to get back into the swing of things as if nothing has changed." She looked over Abby's head at the bathroom door. "I guess...Maybe." She looked back down at Yates. "I don't know. But, I'm gonna go change."

Abby finally stood from the bed as well. "Alright, well. I'll be out in the living room."

"Okay." Suddenly, Gilbert remembered. "Oh, wait. Uh, while you're out there...Don't look up."

"What?" Abigail swore she never understood her friend.

"Just...don't look up. Trust me." Erin made her way to her closet and she opened the door while looking at Abby over her shoulder.

"Uh, okay?" The shorter of the two awkwardly turned and went out into the family room to wait for Erin to change. It was actually harder than she thought it would be to NOT look up after being told not to. If Erin hadn't have said anything, she's sure she wouldn't have looked up anyways. But now she spent her next few minutes forcing herself to keep her eyes down. At one point, she took her glasses off to clean them, attempting to keep herself occupied and her mind flashed to the first day they met Kevin. Yes, cleaning your lenses was a bit inconvenient and a somewhat of a pain at times, but she couldn't imagine being so unaware as to take her prescription lenses out. Chuckling at the strange man, she internally shook her head at him before putting her glasses back on.

And she did it. She totally forgot what Erin had said and her eyes looked up at the plain white ceiling. There it was...the eight legged creature crawling its way toward the wall to climb down. The sound that came out of the arachnophobic's mouth was that of a cat about to fight. It was not a scream, nor was it even a shout, just a strange sounding 'Uhhhhhh' and once the spider reached the end of ceiling, it began to crawl down the wall. As terrible fear struck the paranormal researcher, she couldn't help but swear it was headed straight for her to attack, even though the tiny thing probably had no knowledge of the human even being present.

"Erin!" She was finally able to speak real words. "Erin, get out here!"

In her bathroom, as she just finished brushing her teeth, Erin put her tooth brush away after her last spit and sighed. "You looked up, didn't you?"

"Uh...yeah." Yates stood completely still as she pictured a swarm of the spider's family members crawling out of every space in the room and crawling up her legs and all over her body. "Hurry!"

"Just a minute!" Luckily, Gilbert had changed pretty quickly after Abby had left her bedroom and she was technically finished getting ready, she just had to put on some shoes and grab her Dunkin Donuts bag. As soon as she exited the room, she was not shocked to see Abigail frozen solid, staring over at the wall the spider had begun to climb down. "Let's go." Gilbert cautiously approached Yates, slowly reaching up to put a hand on her arm. She was relieved when the woman didn't slap or punch her like the day at summer camp when something similar had happened in their tent. Erin had a bruise for over a week and she'd learned to be very careful around Abby when a spider is near.

"Kill it." Yates whispered with a shaken voice.

"We're just gonna go. Everything will be fine. He doesn't even know we're here." Erin did not like the little pests herself so she wasn't planning on getting close to it either. But she was glad she wasn't as terrified as Abigail. "Come on." She gently squeezed Abby's forearm and began to pull her toward the door.