"Y-you go first."

"No way! You first!"

"Nu-uh! You!"

"You!"

The two boys continued the argument for a few minutes before coming to a conclusion to go in at the same time. They looked up to the abandoned house and gulped. One of them chuckled nervously, "C-come on. It can't be that bad. I mean, it's abandoned! Nothing's in there."

The other looked worried, "I-I don't know. They say no one ever comes out of that house once they go in. And it's rare for someone to make it out alive."

"Ya see, it's not guaranteed we won't survive."

"Maybe, but there's still a good chance we won't."

The taller boy rolled his eyes at his friend, "Look, the dare was to go in and stay there for ten minutes. Tell me Joel, what could possibly happen in ten minutes?"

"We get killed by whatever's in there, or trapped, or lost, or-"

"None of that is gonna happen. So long as we stay in one place."

Joel whimpered, "Maybe we should just go. B-better safe than sorry. We could just tell everyone in class that we went in, th-that sounds good. We could always photoshop us into the picture, y-you're good at the kinda stuff, ain't ya Peter?"

Peter looked at him with a deadpan expression. Joel slunk down, knowing Peter was never one to back down from a dare, no matter how dangerous. A thrill seeker was what he was, and the Dare Master at their school. He'd do anything to prove that he was indeed willing to do anything, always asking for a real challenge. That challenge came that day. Go into the abandoned house on Cherry Ave. and stay in there for ten minutes, taking a picture as proof. Peter may have been up for anything, but even he looked a little scared when it came up.

"Let's go and get this over with," Peter said pulling Joel with him. Both climbed over the fence cutting off the way to the house and walked to the door. They cringed as the door made a loud creaking noise upon being opened, grating against their ears.

Looking inside, neither could see much in the dark, so Joel took out his flashlight and flipped it on. The inside looked rotten and smelled of decay. The two boys cautiously stepped in, wincing as the floorboards creaked. Peter turned in his flashlight, allowing them both to see their surroundings better.

The walls looked like rotten bananas, an icky brown underneath the peeling paint. The air was musty, dust swirling through the air with a mix of rot. Old furniture, festered through the years, sat dusty and untouched. Joel waved his hand in front of his face, "Ah jeez, the smell alone could kill someone. I could see it now, death through suffocation."

Peter rolled his eyes and looked around, "This must be the living room. Come on, we'll just sit on the couch and wait for the time to pass. You remember your watch?"

"Course I remembered my watch, how could I forget it on a moment like this?" He look at his watch and set the time, "Okay, it's 10:43 right now, so at 10:53, we'll leave."

Joel looked up and saw that Peter was no where in sight, "... Peter that's not funny. Where are you?"

No reply.

He gulped, "P-Peter?"

Frozen where he was, Joel began to shake a little. What if whatever's in the house already got Peter. Did it really happen that fast? How long before he was also taken? Maybe if he was really quick, he'd make it out in time. But what about Peter? He couldn't leave him behind, unless he was already gone.

"BOO!"

"AAAAHHH!" Joel dropped the flashlight and turned around to the familiar sound of Peter having a laughing fit, "Not funny! You could've given me a heart attack!"

"Sorry I... I couldn't help it!" Peter replied through his laughing. Joel shook his head, annoyed, and picked up his flashlight. The moment his hand grasped it, he yelped, "There was something on it! Something's on my flashlight!"

Peter shone his light in the fallen flashlight and shuddered, "Dude, that was a spider."

The small boy whimpered, "Don't tell me that. I hate spiders."

"Who doesn't?" He watched as the spider crawled off the flashlight before introducing it to his foot. Joel carefully picked up his flashlight and hoped there weren't anymore spiders around. Unlikely, since the house was old and empty there was a chance they'd see more crawling around. He shuddered, "Let's just... Sit and wait like you said."

Peter nodded and headed for the couch with Joel following him. While both waited for the time to pass, they played a game of I Spy. There wasn't much in the room so the game didn't last very long. They talked for a bit, but neither had much to discuss. After a while they had both gone off into their own worlds, letting their minds run off into oblivion. Joel looked around from where he sat, bored out of his mind. The light passed over a doorway before his heart stopped. Something had moved.

Joel said nothing for a moment before nudging Peter. "What?" He asked.

Turning to him, he tried to say something, but nothing came out. Peter looked at him with confusion, "What?"

Barely a whisper, Joel repeated, "I saw something... Something is in this house."

Both looked over at the doorway, but nothing was there as far as they could see. Peter asked if he was sure he saw something with Joel nodding vigorously, "Can we please leave? I don't wanna die."

"Hey, what'd I say? We're not gonna die, nothing is in this house. Someone's probably messing with us," he looked back at the doorway, "And I'm gonna find out who."

Joel's eyes nearly popped out of his skull as Peter got up, "Are you crazy!? You'll get killed!"

Peter rolled his eyes, "I'm not gonna die okay, nothing is gonna happen. Now are you coming with me or not?"

The scared boy said nothing as he thought over his choices. He could stay where he was and be a sitting duck for whatever was in the house, or go with Peter and risk getting killed. Either way, it seemed, to him, that death was inevitable. He looked back at Peter and squeaked when he saw he was already gone.

Peter was going up a staircase just passed the doorway. With his flashlight pointed up, he wondered if the dare was worth it. The whole town had heard of the legend of the abandoned house.

Once there lived a nice family, well known throughout the town, but one day, they suddenly disappeared. Friends had come to see if something was wrong, and found that the house had been left empty. The family had vanished without a trace. Search parties were organized, but the family was never found. The house laid empty for a while, until a couple out of town moved in. Everything was fine at first, but then they suddenly disappeared. Along with the next owners, and the owners after them, and the owners after them, and so on. Eventually, the house was shut for good. That didn't keep out trespassers, however, as some claimed seeing curious and mischievous teenagers sneak in and never coming back out. The number of disappearances frightened the town, so the then mayor made a plan to have it destroyed. It never happened. Instead he had a fence installed around the perimeter. No one knows why it wasn't bulldozed, though many suspect the mayor knowing what exactly was going on and passed down to future elected mayors. Whenever the subject was brought up on Election Day, the current one would look frightened and try to avoid the subject.

Well, whatever was going on in the house, Peter was going to find out even if it killed him, which was probably going to happen if he's not careful. Reaching the top of the stairs, he looked around and saw a hallway aligned with doors. Along with giant spider webs. He shivered, wondering if searching was worth it if spiders were involved.

Then something came into mind, what time was it? How much time was left? As much as he wanted to find out what was going on with the house, he also wanted to get out as soon as possible. Quickly stepping down the stairs, Peter entered the living room. Joel wasn't in sight. Peter groaned. Either he was getting back at him for earlier, or he already left. "Haha very funny Joel. Ya know, a scare won't really work if the person you're trying to scare knows what you're doing."

No reply.

"He's probably outside," Peter headed for a window, but jumped back as something crunched underneath his foot. He aimed his flashlight at whatever it was and felt his heart plummet. Joel's watch sat on the floor, cracked and broken. He heard something shuffle behind him and quickly turned around. There stood Joel, pale and sickly, staring at him with glossy eyes.

Peter didn't know why, but he scolded him to quit joking around. The next thing he saw so terrifying, he let out a shriek loud enough to awaken the next town over. Joel regurgitated with millions little spiders pouring out along with his bloodied vomit. The mouth didn't seem to be big enough as more came out his nose.

Stepping back, Peter bumped into something and felt two hands grip the side of his head, having no choice but to finish watching the gory scene. He felt sick to his stomach as his friend's body fell to the floor still bleeding and vomiting. At this point, he figured it couldn't get any worse. Until he saw Joel left his head to look at him and cry in a pain filled and unfamiliar voice, "You said nothing would happen!"

Peter felt like he would throw up any second as Joel's body started twitching. His eyeballs popped out of the sockets and landed with a splat on the floor. More spiders, mixed with blood, poured out and dripped down his face. That did it. He lurched over and violently vomited. By the time he was done, his throat was in fire and Joel had passed with spiders still crawling out of his corpse.

Standing up, Peter completely forgot about the person behind him. He jumped as two hands held firmly onto his shoulders, a voice whispering into his ear, "This is why there's a fence around this house. It's a warning to stay out, or this will happen."

The voice sent shivers down his spine. He breathed shakily, "Who are you?"

The hands removed themselves so he could turn to see. What he saw before him was a creature he'd never think to exist. The upper torso of a slender human girl with the bottom of a black spider. Her shiny black eyes bore into his, "I like having my privacy. And prefer to be left alone. The very reason I threatened that mayor of yours to put that fence up or else!"

Nothing came out of Peter's mouth as he stared up at her in fear. What would she do to him? The creature smirked darkly at him, "Now what to do with you? Oh I know, the usual death sentence. How do you feel about being wrapped alive?"

In one swift movement, the creature picked him up and threw him over her shoulder. Dropping the flashlight, Peter struggled to get out of her grasp as she walked further into the dark house. He cried out in protest and begged her to let him go. Nothing deterred her as she continued on, crawling into a large hole leading below the house. A path lead from the hole into a dark lair lit with candles. The eerie sight made Peter lose hope. A large web crawling with spiders of all kinds was littered with human sized web cocoons.

"Fools they all were, thinking they could actually enter my domain and get away with it."

The creature dropped Peter onto a thick, empty web area and crawled over him, ready to wrap him like a trapped bug. Peter, knowing what was going to happen to him, tried to escape, but was held back and was threatened to hold still. In a few minutes, he was completely wrapped in a sticky web wrapping. He tried to rip through, thinking he could easily get out, but with little success. He could hear the creature laughing to herself and yelled, "You think this is funny, don't you?"

"Oh I so find it funny. Be glad I didn't give you the same fate as your friend, or give you to a friend of mine. She's been looking for a new toy lately, her old one is beginning to lose it's spark. Compared to those options, you got the easier way out. Have fun slowly dying!" She let out another laugh.

It was then that it fully hit him head on. He was going to die. This was his coffin, his containment. He couldn't break out or call for help. And Joel was really dead. He realized now how anyone who entered the house disappeared and why the mayor had only a fence put up around the house. It was all because of her. She was the cause of everything.

Well, he told himself, I said I'd find out even if it killed me. Not worth it in the slightest bit.