Page 6 of Spinning Out of Control

Teracht actually blushed, his cheeks coloring a slightly purple color under his dark skin. “I suppose I am.”

“I…” I had to lick my lips that suddenly felt really dry. “How exactly do you catch prey?”

“Well, I don’t do it here,” Teracht said, sounding a little defensive, and I realized how I must sound.

“No, no!” I shook my head quickly. “Sorry, that came out weird. I was just curious.” Teracht hesitated. I could see something in his dark eyes, but I wasn’t really sure how to read it. “I’m not going to judge you,” I said, hoping that was what was bothering him. “And you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I was just wondering, is all, since you moved so quick.”

Teracht’s lips curved into a cautious smile. “Would you like to see?”

“Sure!” The word came out of me before I even thought about it. “That is, if you want to show me.”

“Wait here a minute.” Teracht turned and scurried away on his eight legs across the hardwood floor. I watched him move in fascination. He was surprisingly fast on his feet, though not as much as I would think to be able to catch me from falling. He moved over to the open concept kitchen, opening the fridge before he returned a moment later, holding a full gallon plastic container of orange juice. At least, I thought that was what it was.

“Hold this,” he instructed. I took the container, seeing from the label that I had guessed the contents correctly, which somehow felt reassuring. Teracht suddenly climbed up one of the pieces of webbing anchored to one of the walls, the whole structure vibrating just a little from his weight. He crawled up until he was in the corner of the living room, facing me as he settled into the spot. If we had been in the house of a giant, he would not have looked out of place as a little spider hanging out in the corner of the ceiling. “Toss that at my web.”

I glanced down at the container in confusion. “You mean… the whole jug?”

Teracht nodded. “Mm-hmm. Anywhere you like.” And then all eight of his dark eyes closed.

I hesitated, feeling extremely weird, but I lifted the jug, glancing around for what seemed to be an area with the least amount of breakable stuff behind it, and underhand tossed the jug into the mess of webbing.

I half expected it to bounce back at me, or even rip through the gossamer strings, but to my surprise, it stuck on the strands that caught it, as easily as if I had tossed it into a net. The next moment, before my eyes could even process what I was seeing, Teracht had shot from the corner, grasping the captured container between his spidery feet, and was winding a silvery-white web around it, turning the container so fast I could barely see it, hearing the juice slosh around inside. Within moments, the entire jug was completely covered in white spider silk, like a cocoon around an orange juice butterfly. Teracht let it go, and it stayed right where he left it, wrapped in the strands, stuck on the webbing that his strange spider legs and body clung to as easily as I stood on the ground. All of this happened in a matter of seconds, and I hadn’t even fully realized it was done until Teracht turned to me, a tiny, hopeful smile quirking his lips.

“Wow.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say for a long moment, just staring at the encapsulated container, imagining if that had been a live creature of some kind. “That was weird. And really cool. And yes, holy damn, you are fucking fast!”

Teracht beamed at that and pointed one spider leg back toward the corner he had started from. “I can cut my web to launch myself at prey. Or, to catch people falling in my doorway,” he added, his smile turning a bit more shy. “Not that I’ve had any need to hunt prey here in your world.”

“Yeah, I suppose plastic jugs don’t put up much of a fight,” I said, and Teracht nodded in amusement. “How big of prey would you catch?”

Teracht blinked, then hummed thoughtfully. “Usually, things smaller than myself, though multiple atauri sometimes work together if it is something larger.”

“Are at- uh, those, your species name?” I asked.

“Atauri,” Teracht said again. “Yes, that’s… well, that’s what I’m calling us in your world, since our language doesn’t really have the equivalent of human speech.”

“What happens after you catch them and wrap them up?” I asked, indicating the small cocoon of orange juice still just hanging out on the webbing.

Teracht’s smile faded just a bit. “Well… we can only eat things that are liquid. So we… regurgitate a powerful acid onto the prey to… melt… it?” He sounded uncertain about the exact process, but that was more than enough information for me.

“Got it,” I said, sure I was unable to keep my nose from wrinkling.

Teracht looked like I had kicked him. “Does that bother you, Caleb?”

“What? No,” I said quickly. “No, it’s just… You do what you gotta do to eat, I suppose.”

Teracht nodded. “Yes. But I like your human world. I do not have to hunt for prey. I can have whatever I want delivered.”

“Do you regurgitate acid onto your food here?” I asked, not sure if that was a rude question or not.

Teracht actually laughed, the sound surprisingly bright. “No. I only get things that are already liquid. I haven’t had to liquefy my own food since arriving here. It has been quite pleasant, actually, and it allows me to conserve energy better.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. Throwing up stomach acid to dissolve my dinner in order to eat it did not sound pleasant at all. I realized as I stood there that my earlier awkwardness and Teracht’s discomfort with me seemed to have faded away, and I didn’t feel like fleeing out the door like I had only a few minutes ago. Teracht seemed much more at ease with me, and I with him. I hesitated before glancing over at the couch. “Hey, um, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It wasn’t right, to put you in that position or to assume stuff about you.”

Teracht blinked all eight of his eyes together, which for some reason made me smile. “I forgive you,” he said slowly. “We monsters often have assumptions made about us.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m starting to know what that feels like.”

Teracht cocked his head to the side, which I was noticing he did when he did not understand something. “What do you mean?”

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