Webs

I had been a park ranger for about three years when it happened. I had always loved the woods and had actually been to a few National Parks myself, which was what motivated me to take the job of a park ranger. I was assigned to a national park known as Darkwoods National Park, a place that already had a strange and ominous name. My partner, Ranger Dunley, had warned me from the beginning that this place would test my sanity. That any admiration and love for the outdoors that I had before would vanish. I just needed to give it time. I waved it off at first, thinking that he was just trying to scare me, and that this was going to be a walk in the park, no pun intended. Dunley also was kind of a gloomy guy, in his mid to late forties, with heavy eyes that just screamed weariness and burnout. So I didn’t think too much of it at first.
But over the course of the two years that I’d been working at Darkwoods we’ve had several strange encounters, and multiple missing persons, none of which had ever been found. Every single time, my colleagues treated it as if it was business as usual, initiating a search unless there was something unusual with the disappearance or if they were gone for too long, then we would call it off.
During my fourth month, I had a weird incident while at the station at night. I was half asleep at my desk, radio close by and music playing in my headphones, when around 12AM I heard a howl that pierced the night and was so loud that it went right through my headphones and sounded as if it was in the room with me. I nearly fell out of my seat and reported it over the radio. Dunley calmly called it in, and about a couple hours later, a small convoy of SUVs showed up, with what I thought was law enforcement that showed up in response. “FBI?” I asked. Dunley shook his head. “Just wait here.” He didn’t read me in on the situation that night as Dunley briefed the men on what happened and they got back in their vehicles and drove deeper into the woods. They didn’t come back until the next morning, and only said a couple things to us before driving off.
That happened a couple more times in my time there, but the latest incident that happened, led me to request a transfer, and ultimately made me quit my job as a park ranger and switch to another career in total.
It started with one of our usual missing persons cases. It had been reported that a group of campers had gone missing the day before, and it was called in by both the families and the local PD. We organized a search party and began a long trek through the forest, following the paths that they would normally take. A couple days later, we finally found what was left of them, off the trail where they shouldn’t have been anyways. The area looked like one giant spider web, with large, thick cobwebs coating the trees, the tents, the ground, weaving together almost immaculately. In the center were the victims, the five college students who had been reported missing. It was three men, and two women, all of them looked to have stripped of their clothing, their faces twisted into horrified screams and faces of terror and pain. “Jesus,” I breathed, getting closer to inspect one of the bodies. “Don’t touch them!” cried Dunley. I jumped back, turning to ask Dunley why and seeing that he was as white as a ghost. “Why not? We gotta check,” I protested. “No, they’re dead, man,” said Ranger Costner, who had already taken a couple steps back, his eyes scanning the trees.
I’d never seen any of them this scared before, even when we heard the strange howling, or the weird footprints in the ground. I had never seen them this concerned in the two years that I had been working there. “I gotta call this in,” muttered Dunley brushing past us, pulling out his phone. “This is Dunley… yes we’ve located them… Negative, we got a Code Charlotte… yes you heard me right, a code Charlotte, send in the teams… Roger that. Out.” Dunley hung up the phone, and turned back to us.
“All right we’re getting the fuck out of here. Let’s get pictures of the scene, and then get back to the station. We need to fill them in.” “Who are they?” I asked. “I’ll fill you in too.” When we finally got back to the station, a convoy of SUVs and cars pulled up, with over a dozen armed men in tactical gear, camouflage, and full kit. The man up front shook hands with Dunley. “So, a Code Charlotte, huh?” he asked. Dunley nodded. “Unfortunately. And here I was hoping we would never get another one.” Dunley turned to me. “Kid this is Agent Chung, team leader with the Department of Interior’s Special Intervention Task Force. We’ll be going in with them.” I frowned, unaware that the DOI had any kind of armed force. But judging by the fact that Dunley kept this quiet for so long, I wasn’t supposed to. “Hey, kid,” Chung said, greeting me in a deadpan, uneager voice, “You afraid of spiders?” I shook my head. “No sir.” Chung laughed dryly. “Oh you will be after this. Ok, fill me in.”
I went inside with Chung and a couple other agents, and Dunley filled us all in. A Code Charlotte referred to a containment breach involving a species of creatures that resembled and behaved like spiders. The last time they had a breach was over fifteen years ago, and they had to burn down a good chunk of the forest under the guise of it being a forest fire.
The Widows, as the rangers had come to call them, had been contained into a cordoned off area deep in the forests, where most people can’t even find, but now they had breached their containment zone and were spreading back into the rest of the forest. The SITF carried assault rifles and even a couple of heavy weapons, as well as a variety of incendiary weapons and what looked like a couple of chemical weapons.
Dunley showed them where exactly they were found, which Chung remarked was just outside the containment zone. “How far did it stretch past the campsite?” “I don’t know, we didn’t do a complete search, I wanted to get our guys out of there in case the Widows were around.” “Okay well I say we split into two teams, rangers and Task Force.” Dunley nodded. “I’ll take the kid, and we’ll ride with you. Costner and Broward can go with Team Two.”
Chung nodded and turned to his team. “Hey, Lindsay, you’re good with leading Team Two?” Agent Lindsay nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I can take Team Two and flank from the right.” Chung nodded. “And we’ll flank left. We good to go?” All of us nodded in agreement. Chung hit the table with his palm and said, “Then let’s kick some ass.”
I had never fired a weapon before, at least not in any serious situation. My dad taught me how to shoot when I was a kid, but outside some hunting I never actually had to fire my weapon in self defense or at anything that was trying to kill me. These thoughts rushed through my head as I threw on my chest rig and checked my AR-15 and 9mm sidearm. I prayed for the first time in a long time as I slung the rifle over my shoulder and followed the other rangers outside with the Task Force. Despite the situation, the men were talking and joking around with each other, casually leaning against the vehicles, hands on their chest rigs or in their pockets. “Cocky bastards,” muttered Dunley, “Try spending a whole week here and it’ll knock the smile right out of you.” We passed a couple of Task Force agents who were making some rather distasteful jokes about one or both of their wives as they climbed inside the vehicle we were in. The agents introduced themselves as Willink and Mandetti, radioed that they were good to go, and a few minutes later, the vehicles were on the move.
The sun was still up, giving us a slightly comforting light as we drove down the rough path, running over rocks and a couple of logs. “So what’s the deal with the Widows?” I asked after what must’ve been an hour of driving. The agents up front were talking to Chung and the others, but Dunley heard me, and he tensed up and looked out the window. Since he didn’t say anything, I continued on. “You know, because out of all the things that we’ve seen, I’ve never seen you this scared-” “I’m not scared.” “Fine. I’ve never seen you this rattled before.” Dunley sighed.
“When you look those things in the eyes, you’ll understand.”
“That’s what you keep telling me.”
“Because it’s fucking true.”
We rode in silence for a little bit longer, and I could hear the comms chatter through their headsets. Finally, Dunley sighed. “I was just like you kid. Naive, still believing in the beauty of nature. That was until fifteen years ago, when the Widows first appeared. It took us too long to react at that time. It started with missing hikers and campers, and then it escalated to dead animals and then a couple of our rangers went missing. Fucking bosses were treating it like business as usual, no matter how much we insisted that we had a serious problem. Finally, we mounted a raid with the US Army, and we burned through acres of webs, finding countless bodies, seeing what they had done to them.”
Dunley swallowed, as the memories came back to him. OVer two dozen men died that day, all covered up by the military and government, under the guise of a massive forest fire killing them mid-rescue.” Dunley cleared his throat and sat up straight. “Just keep your weapon ready, and shoot on sight. Do not hesitate. It’ll get you, well, not even killed. Not at first, at least.”
That was the last conversation that we had as we continued driving through the brush that grew thicker and thicker. I was starting to see webs lining the trees the further down we got, and I could hear Willink reporting it to Chung. Finally, after what felt like hours, we came to a stop, and we exited the vehicles. Though the sun was setting, there was still enough light that we didn’t switch to night vision and white light, as they called it. “This is Team One,” Chung reported, “We’re moving in.” The entire area was covered in thick cobwebs, turning the lush green forest into a sea of dirty white.
There was a strange, sour smell that permeated the forest, one that made my eyes water. “All right, masks on,” said Chung. I followed as everyone pulled their gas masks off their kits and put them on. I felt my vision narrow slightly as the eyeholes of the mask limited my peripheral vision. I gripped the weapon tighter as we began quietly and carefully pressing forward. “Mallard, Oshe, start the burn.”
“Roger that.” I watched as the two Task Force agents tossed incendiary devices and ignited the webs. It was a controlled burn, enough to burn it all to the ground, but not enough to start a major fire. The smoke began to cloud my vision through the mask as I nearly tripped over the log. “Watch your step,” warned Dunley, “You do not want to get tripped up out here.” “Thanks,” I muttered as I kept my eyes peeled.
Despite all the webs, there was no sign of any of these Widows. It was dead quiet besides the crackling of brush burning and chatter from the Task Force.
Almost as if reading my mind, Dunley said, “They’re here. They’re watching us. It’s all about timing with them. When they decide the time is right, they’ll strike.”
I had to say, he was not making me feel any better as I pushed some webs out of my way, shaking the sticky webs off of my hands. “Hey careful,” said one of the agents, “Don’t get too much of that shit on you. It’s like superglue.” I shake the last of it off of my hand, a tingling sensation tickling my hand before it faded away. “Thanks.” We continued to burn the webs and push brush away, keeping in contact with Team Two, when shots rang out. We froze and readied our weapons. “Team Two, do you copy?” called Chung over his radio. The gunfire continued as Chung listened in. “Copy that. Keep moving.” “They’ve made contact with the Widows. We gotta keep pressing forward and clear out as much of this shit as we can. Maybe we can force them into hiding and push them back into the containment zone before the sun goes down.”
The gunfire continued as we soon came into an incredibly thick network of webs, practically blocking our vision. As I stepped over a chunk of burning webs, I spotted what I thought was a log or a pile of rocks up ahead. Raising my weapon, I creeped forward in small, cautious steps, where I realized that it was a pile of bodies. They were a mix of male and female, some young, some older. Just like the others, their clothes had been dissolved off their bodies and the webs looked to be eating through their skin as well, making them almost one with the webs. I pointed my weapon at them, and prodded the bodies with the muzzle of my rifle. Suddenly, one of the bodies, a woman gasped and her eyes shot open, wide with agony and fear. “Holy shit!” I cried out, staggering back. The woman’s mouth was open in a soundless scream, unable to make any sound higher than a whispering whimper. She tried to form words, but couldn’t. “Hey, we need a medic, we got a live one!” I cried. The team turned to look at me, and Chung nodded to one of the men.
He jogged over, pushing through a couple of webs. “She’s still alive, but the webs are practically stuck in her, and I-” But the agent wasn’t there to help. Instead, he pulled out his sidearm and put three rounds into her head. “What the hell are you doing?!” I screamed. The agent turned his pistol on the others and put a round in each of the other victims’ heads. I stared in horror as the agent holstered his sidearm and walked back into formation with his team.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I demanded, practically shaking. “Nothing we can do for them. All we can do is put them out of their misery.” Nothing more was said about them as we continued, burning the webs to the ground just like the others. I turned to Dunley, but he said nothing as well, just remaining impassive at the site. “It’s what needs to be done,” he said. “He just executed civilians!” “It was mercy, trust me. The Widows had kept her alive for a reason. Thankfully none of us had to figure out for what.”
Finally, we came to a large clearing. I didn’t recognize this place on the map, and I didn’t remember ever going this far in the National Park before. Once again, there were countless webs lining the trees, with the bodies of men, women, children, and animals hanging from them. “Holy shit,” one of the agents breathed. “Team Two,” Chung began, “Be advised we got a feeding ground here.” As he finished his sentence, we heard a series of chittering and clicking noises that caused us to stop in our tracks. They were loud, sounding like they were coming from something big. The noises sounded both insect-like, and like a human was trying to mimic them, both masculine and feminine. “Son of a bitch,” I heard Dunley whisper.
We scanned the webs and treeline, looking for any sign of the Widows, but only hearing the sounds that they made and the shaking of the webs as they crawled on it.
“Start burning them!” shouted Chung, “Now, let’s go!” Agents Mallard and Oshe once again activated their flamethrowers and other agents tossed incendiaries, igniting the webs, but just as they started doing that, smaller, stringier webs shot down from above, latching onto a handful of agents including me. In an instant, I was pulled up into the air, hard enough that the jolt caused me to drop my weapon. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” I cried, struggling against the surprisingly strong webbing. “Hang on kid!” shouted Dunley, gunfire whizzing past my head. I tugged on the webs, trying to separate it from my clothing, but it was too strong. As I looked up, I got a good look at the creature that wanted to feed on me.
It looked like a young woman, with multiple insect-like eyes that were about the size of a human’s. Its feminine body sprouted eight long, bony limbs out of its back and sides. They looked like those of a spider, but they weren’t exactly spider legs, rather they were elongated bony human arms and feet that were marred into something resembling a spider’s legs. Her mouth was large sharp mandibles and gnashing teeth that grew into a much larger maw whenever she screeched. Her hair also moved differently, not flowing down like regular hair, but moving like it had a mind of its own.
It clung to the webs, giving her stability as she crawled along the massive webs. The little webbing that pulled me up shot from the creature’s bottom where the genitals should’ve been. “What the fuck,” I groaned, desperately trying to pull at my bindings. The sticky substance caused my hands to begin to adhere to it, so I desperately pulled them away, peeling some skin away and causing my hands to burn a little.
I heard screaming to my left, and I turned to see one of the agents being lifted into the air with me. This Widow, also a woman but looking pregnant, reeled the agent in with her webs, her swollen belly bulging until it burst open, and hundreds of tiny spider-like creatures came crawling out and covering him. The agent screamed and blindly fired his weapon in one last desperate attempt to survive. A futile attempt that was silenced quickly by the spider babies engulfing him and webbing him high up in a tree.
Smoke began to rise the closer I got to the creature’s maw, and I squeezed my eyes, bracing for a painful, torturous death. But just as I got close enough that I could feel its hot breath, the Widow released me and screeched in pain as it caught on fire. I watched the fire trickle down my bindings, eventually releasing me and sending me crashing to the ground and landing hard on my back.
I gasped for air as the wind was knocked out of me, and I felt someone grab my collar and drag me away. “Hang on, kid!” shouted Chung as a handful of agents covered me, firing their assault rifles. I coughed. “I’m good, I’m good. Let me go!” Chung released me, and I climbed to my feet, pulling out my sidearm.
There were screams and screeching all around me as agents and Widows clashed. The Widows scaled down their now burning domain, enraged and out for blood. I fired at a Widow that crawled down in front of me, screeching at me and spitting a strange substance out of its mouth. I ducked out of the way, watching the glob of saliva stick to a nearby tree, the bark melting off instantly. I fire my pistol at the creature, hitting it twice in the face and sending it back dead.
Yellow and black blood oozed from its wounds, but I had no time to investigate it as I turned to another one that was jumping down from the trees. I emptied the rest of the mag into its body, but it didn’t go down. I reloaded the pistol, but my trembling hands made it difficult to get the mag in.
“Kid, lookout!” shouted Dunley. Dunley opened fire with his AR-15, before switching to his pistol and emptying the mag into a pair of Widows. One fell, but the other scrambled back up into the trees. Blood dripped down from the bark into the dirt. There were screams as agents were overrun by the Widows. These creatures were relentless and merciless, tackling agents to the ground with their bodies or reeling them with webs, like fishermen bringing in their catch. Some were able to escape, but others weren’t so lucky.
The Widows would ravage them, defecating and vomiting strange substances or like the pregnant Widow, release hordes of mini spider-like creatures that ripped into their uniforms and flesh, and burrowed into their bodies while they were still alive. Chung and the handful of survivors had gathered close by to us, tossing the last of their incendiaries into the webs and burning the rest of the brush, hoping to force the Widows away from them. Chung had a couple of his men toss what looked like chemical explosives into the trees, which released a gas that had the Widows shaking, vomiting, and shriveling.
“Keep shooting!” Dunley shouted to me. I snapped out of it, finally reloading my pistol and raising it at a Widow that was scrambling through the trees, ejaculating thick webs, replacing the ones we had burned. “Son of a bitch!” growled Dunley firing into the trees, hitting it a couple of times before it swung down and landed in front of us. This one was huge, masculine in appearance with long, muscular legs, and what looked like extra limbs by its rear. This one had what looked like a beard, but I quickly realized that the beard was not made up of facial hair but rather maybe over a hundred smaller spider legs that moved in unison, creating the sound of thousands of insects chirping. Between its legs was a huge, ugly genitalia that looked to have life of its own, ejaculating the webs and smaller spider creatures that scurried towards us. “Oh shit shit shit!” cried Dunley.
I felt like I was going to be sick as I engaged and shot at the little creatures and narrowly avoided the webs. I ran out of ammo again, and urgently tried to eject the mag and find a new one. But I was out. I let out a soft gasp as I let the pistol fall, exposed with no weapons to protect myself. I swear I saw a thin smile creep on that thing’s face, and it made my stomach drop and chills run down my spine. The Widow singled me out, narrowing its large eyes at me, the smile twisting into a scowl. It launched forward on its back legs, letting out a high pitched shriek. It was so strong and so loud that I cringed and covered my ears, completely forgetting to move or protect myself. Dunley did that for me. He knocked me out of the way, firing his rifle all the way to the bitter end as it overwhelmed him and began to rip him apart. My partner’s screams still haunt me to this day as I ran towards Chung’s group, his screams fading away and being replaced by the grunting and chittering of the Widow.
Chung and the rest of his men were not faring well either. They had been dug in behind trees as the Widows were slowly overrunning us. Flames engulfed the surrounding area after a Widow had attacked Agent Oshe, resulting in the tank exploding. We had run out of incendiaries and chemical weapons, leading to everyone else firing what little bullets we have left. Chung ducked behind a tree, switching to his pistol as he had run out of ammo for his M4A1. He sighed, a look of fear on his face. He looked at me, then looked at the Widows and the remaining element of his men.
“Listen to me,” he said, “I want you to get the hell out of here. We’ll cover your escape.” I shook my head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We’re not making it out of here. But somebody needs to call it in to the higher ups, let them know that containment has failed.” He pulled out his phone and handed it to me. “Get back to the vehicles, and return to base to get a clear signal. Once you do that, call it in. Call in a Code Charlotte, and believe me they’ll send in the fucking cavalry.” I took the phone and looked at him hesitantly. “Go! Get the hell out of here!” he barked, tossing me his keys. I nodded to him, making a break for it as I heard Chung tell his men to draw fire.
I ran as hard as I could, tripping over logs, running into trees and branches, cutting up my arms and face. I finally made it back to the vehicles, pulling open the lead vehicle, shutting the door, and pulling out of there, not stopping once to look back. The Widows never followed me out of there. When I got back, I placed the call immediately. Without hesitation, they acknowledged and hung up, and I was forced to wait there for two more days. Every day I waited, I expected the Widows to reach the station, overrunning it and killing me the way they killed everyone else. But they never got there.
Team Two never came back either. The entire group had been wiped out. More rangers arrived, already briefed on the situation, bringing more federal agents as well as the Army. They shut the park down permanently, coming up with some bullshit excuse about funding or some shit, I can’t remember what it was exactly. I don’t know what happened after that. I transferred to another national park on the other side of the country, but I eventually quit my job entirely, unable to work in the woods anymore. The National Park sort of faded from the public image. Everyone soon forgot that this place existed, and four years now it is only being talked about on conspiracy shows and youtube channels occasionally. I never went back, and I never tried to inquire as to what happened, whether the Widows were eliminated or broke containment. But, not long before writing this, I began hearing about strange disappearances around that area, and the appearances of large spider webs beginning to spread in neighborhoods, a phenomenon that the news is only lightly talking about. They don’t know what it is, but I do. It would seem that containment is indeed a failure.