The Last of Her Kind Ch. 01

If nothing else, she was a creature of habit.

She was toward the back of the aisle, shoving a well-loved children's book in its home when she spotted it. It drifted gently in the breeze of the HVAC system, a small cobweb that dangled from above the shelf. It had come loose, displaying its collection of dust to anyone willing to look.

Frowning, Ana used the utility stick on the back of her chair to knock it down. She caught it in one hand, rolling it into a ball and then smelling it. Immediately, her senses came to life, and she tracked down the perpetrator by smell. A Cat-Faced spider had set up its new home behind the reference shelf for geography, its body tucked into a space in the brick and unseen to passersby.

"Hey." Ana held up the broken web. "I know this was you."

The Cat-Faced spider scurried free of the crack, contemplating Ana from the center of its funnel web. It waved its legs in explanation, chittering in a language only she could hear.

"I don't care if Louise was dusting. You could have gone back for it. What were the rules?"

Dramatic wave legging ensued.

"That's right. Leave no traces. Otherwise?"

The Cat-Faced spider chittered a single word.

"That's right. They'll use the spray." Louise hated spiders, and the last time she had the library sprayed for insects, Ana had called in sick for a week. Not only did the stuff smell awful, but it made her sick to her stomach. They were putting some new chemical in the insect sprays that disoriented her. Ana had told Louise that Lemon Pledge would work just fine, but that meant convincing the local wildlife to bugger off.

The Cat-Faced spider waved an apology and scurried into its home.

"Next time I'll eat you instead." She looked over her shoulder to make certain nobody was watching, then stuffed the web in her mouth. Ana chewed on it, her saliva breaking it down into proteins she could use later.

She finished stocking the books and returned to the reference desk. Louise was busy looking through the back of the card catalogue. She had pulled a couple cards, books that were likely long overdue.

"So he seems nice," Louise said, her fingers flitting through the cards.

"I guess." Ana rolled around the desk. "I'm not super comfortable sharing space with a man."

"And while that may be true, I would feel better knowing there's at least a man nearby to help you in case something happens. Particularly a man who looks like he could take care of anything."

"I thought you were a feminist now. Women don't need men and all that."

Louise laughed. "Actually, my concern has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with that chair you're stuck in."

"Jesus, you just came right out and said it, didn't you?"

"I'm getting too old to beat around the bush and I'm not wrong. Isn't that thing overdue for a breakdown?"

"I'm not comfortable talking about my chair."

"Sorry, honey, but you've got a roommate. If he causes problems, I'll happily fire his ass, otherwise, you need to figure out how to deal with it." Louise took the overdue cards and stuck them in her pocket. "I'm going to see if I can track these down. Close up, please."

Ana sighed, watching Louise walk to the back of the library where her office was. The decision now was how to best alter her schedule so that Darren didn't catch on. Her nightly excursions would need to be later, which meant hunting more efficiently.

"Fuck." She whispered it just in case there were children nearby. Up above, the skylights had grown dark with clouds and the distant thunder she had heard on her way over was now overhead. The skies opened up, and what few patrons wandering the library scurried out to get home before it got any worse. Louise, finished with her calls, waved to Ana when she passed the desk.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Louise was holding an umbrella in her left hand, and she pushed her way through the entrance into the hall. Ana could hear her footsteps in the lobby, and then the sensitive hairs on her body felt the slight shift in air when the front door was open. She sighed again, looking around the library to make sure everybody had gone.

The storm didn't let up, and it was still going when the clock in the lobby tolled six. Ana turned off the lights and rolled to the front door. Looking through the glass, she shook her head. She hated getting wet. She was almost at the door when she felt the slight shift in air on the other side, and the door opened.

Standing outside was Darren. His face was impossible to read, but Ana bet this was always the case. His solid jawline was buried beneath several days of stubble and his dark eyes were haunted in the way that only a survivor could understand.

And God knew she was a survivor.

"Did you need something?" she asked.

"Nope." He held out an umbrella. "I saw this in the living room and thought you might need it."

"That's... thank you."

Darren stepped back so she could come through the door, opening the umbrella above her. She went down the ramp, Darren close behind her. While she found his chivalry charming, the odor of the bus clung to him like oil, and she tried hard not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. Anytime she met someone, she could smell where they had been since they last showered. She wasn't sure how many days she smelled on Darren.

They got to the sidewalk and stopped long enough for a white truck that Ana didn't recognize to pass. The man in the passenger seat was holding a map, and the windows had partially fogged over.

"Nice night," Darren said.

"Hardly. Why did you come for me?"

"Honestly? I didn't know if you would be stuck here because of the rain."

"If you're asking if my chair breaks when wet, it doesn't."

"Oh. Well, live and learn." He handed Ana the umbrella when they got to the church. "I have to go back into the basement. I've about got the water heater working properly. There was a ton of sediment inside of it on top of a clog in the gas line, two problems working together. Holler if you need anything."

"Okay, thank you." She watched him disappear around the church. Relieved that he was gone, she entered the living quarters and made a beeline for her bedroom. She shut the door behind her and locked it.

Her withered legs lifted off of the chair, touching the floor beneath them. She kicked off her boots, revealing the shriveled tights she wore over them. Sticking her hands under her skirt, she pulled the tights off, revealing the sleek black armor on her legs. She reached behind her to undo the velcro that held her skirt in place and kept it from sliding forward to reveal the place where her pale skin vanished and her exoskeleton began.

Feeling the vibrations through the floor with her feet, she could tell that Darren was still under the church. Letting out a quiet groan, she pushed her way forward out of the chair.

One by one, her other legs slid free of their confinement. Wiggling forward, her abdomen came free of the chair itself, revealing the large hidden compartment where the electric motor would have been if she hadn't hollowed it out. Her last four legs came out, the legs she used to help spin the chair's wheels.

"Oh, yes!" She stretched all eight of her legs one at a time, the light glistening off of her dark exoskeleton. Ana squatted a few times, loosening up her limbs. She hated being confined to the chair all day, but there really was no other choice. Through her feet, she could feel the vibrations of Darren working beneath her.

It would be a few minutes before he came back up. Stretching her legs, her hands easily reached the loose chunk of plaster in the ceiling. She pushed it up, the hole just big enough for her torso. climbing the wall, she squeezed through until she was up in the belfry of the church. The loose plaster was secured in place by webs of her own creation, and she let it sit back in place, the hole vanishing.

What she had told Darren about termites had been a half-truth. It had taken her time to lure a nest here, and they had chewed away at the floorboards on her command. However, the upper part of the church was perfectly fine, and she climbed into the rafters with ease.

Scattered around the steeple were funnel webs she had left to catch birds and small rodents curious enough to crawl inside. She found a struggling dove in one of the upper traps and a pair of squirrels in another, the webs damaged by their struggles. She sighed, unimpressed by her haul. Using her hands to break their necks, she spun new funnel traps and then climbed even higher with her bounty.

She lightly bit each of the small animals, injecting them with an enzyme to break them down, then wrapped them in cocoons for later. She hung them from the ceiling, meticulously examining her handiwork. Even the slightest hole in her cocoon meant that the meat would go bad. Satisfied that she had done the job well enough, she grabbed a couple of older cocoons and squeezed them. They were soft enough to eat, and she bit into the first one, draining its contents.

Human food could sustain her for a while, but she needed large amounts of raw protein and fluid to not only spin her webs but properly move her legs. She would need to venture out soon to hunt larger game, perhaps a deer. When she finished the first cocoon, she tucked it aside and started drinking from the second. These small snacks would get her by until the next new moon when she could sneak about with little fear of being seen.

Vibrations through the floor told her that Darren had left the basement. Hiding the last cocoon, she nimbly jumped through the rafters until she was back at the loose plaster. Giving a tug on the web lifted it free, and she squirmed through the hole, dropping quietly onto her bedroom floor. She could feel the tremor of his boots on the floor, smell his greasy odor from beneath the door.

"Please don't knock, please don't knock..." she whispered, hoping that her new roommate wouldn't be feeling extra lonely tonight. His boots stopped outside her door and she groaned inwardly.

A piece of paper slid under the door. She waited several seconds and let out a sigh of relief when his footsteps kept going into his own bedroom down the hall. She picked up the note, amazed at how neat his handwriting was.

Should have hot water now. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

"Oh." She read the note again, suddenly relieved at the idea of a hot shower, or even a bath. Truth be told, she enjoyed a nice, hot soak. It helped loosen her up. However, she had had no idea how to fix the water heater, and zero desire to handle an open flame. Fire terrified her, bringing to mind the last day she had spent in her family's nest. She closed her eyes to shut out the memories of her sisters' screams, picturing the old warehouse as it burned to the ground, surrounded by a group of men with swords.

Darren was clunking around his bathroom now, water flowing in the pipes when he turned on his shower. The distant odor of dust and steam tickled the fine hairs in her nose and she tossed the note in her trash bin. It looked like Darren was going to respect her privacy for now. She hoped it continued. Sensing that Darren was properly occupied again, she pulled the plaster loose again and ascended into her sanctuary above the church after turning off her bedroom light.

The steeple of the church used to have the gears of a large clock and bell assembly in it. Shortly after moving in, Ana had removed both, moving them to another part of the building. She preferred the solitude and safety of the steeple. Short of a ladder or scaffold, no human could even get up there, and she had a great view of the town. The wooden beams were thick enough that even a flashlight's beam would struggle to find her web, a cozy little funnel of her own that resembled a large hammock. Crawling into it, she lay on her stomach, her legs dangling over open space.

She yawned, then took off her glasses and set them on the small nightstand she had secured to a nearby beam. She blinked at the sudden shift in her vision, the secondary eyes along her forehead opening up. The glasses had been a gift from her mother, an enchanted item that hid away her extra eyes. The downside, however, was that she couldn't see with them, and her vision was fairly poor with just her human eyes.

She took off her blouse, tossing it up on the rafters. Her pale skin glowed in the light of the rising moon, her dark legs swinging in the slight breeze that blew through the steeple. With her shirt off, her senses came alive. The white canvas of her skin was covered in millions of very fine, sensitive hairs which could detect the wingbeats of a fly in a still room. The dark glossy shell of her spider body started where her thighs and buttocks should have been. Anyone down below her would only see her if she leaned forward too far.

She was comfortable here, but how long would it last? Would Darren be content to go about his day, or would he try to get to know her, or become curious about her lifestyle? She had deliberately chosen to feign her disability because people didn't ask questions about it, but it only took one person who felt entitled to answers to make a good situation sour.

The whole mess was her fault anyway. If Gary hadn't decided to see if he could re-purpose one of the church pews, he never would have stumbled on her checking her traps. He had screamed hard enough that the vessels in his eyes burst, and he had collapsed to the floor in a dead heap. Gary had been terrified of spiders, which was why he rarely went into the church basement, and his fear had actually killed him.

A breeze swung her hammock gently, her shiny legs glinting in the moonlight. She flattened herself against the webbing, her breasts pushing through the gaps. Her pale blue nipples seemed to glow with a light of their own. She pushed her arms through holes in the webbing, her whole body dangling. It was how she had fallen asleep as a child, and it was how she fell asleep tonight.

The moon was high in the sky when she awoke, her whole body tingling. Her legs were curling up tightly on their own, and she felt a sensation in her gut, one that she had been dreading for months now. It had been a while since she had last felt it, but there was no mistaking it this time.

Swaying in the breeze, she had pressed her crotch into the tight strands of the web in her sleep. The thick bands had pressed up into her groin, bypassing the protective shell that she had placed there by sliding in from the side. The shell itself was a piece of casing from the last time she had molted, held in place by one of her stickier webs. It had all but fallen off, and she pulled it free, setting it on a nearby beam.

The webbing was caught between her thick, puffy labia, rubbing hard against the erect nub of her clitoris. Every time she swung, she pressed against it, eliciting an involuntary sigh. She wanted to stop, to crawl somewhere else, but the sensation spread through her whole body with every push. Her nipples were rock hard, standing up defiantly in the moon's light. She tried to adjust the web with her hands, but her fingers rubbed the outside of her labia instead, pressing them together until a thick liquid dripped from her, coating her fingers. Her legs clicked against each other involuntarily, pulling the web like giant guitar strings and making her whole body vibrate.

"Fuck fuck fuck," she muttered, trying hard to fight off the coming flood, but failing. Her whole body shuddered, her web vibrating all around her as the orgasm caught her off guard. Thinking that would be the end of it, she tried to relax, but she found that she craved more. She rubbed against the web absent-mindedly, telling herself it was no big deal, doing her best to fight off the terrifying truth.

It was time for her to find a mate.

I really hope you enjoyed this first chapter and the next six to come. Don't forget to follow my bio to get notifications about when the next chapter will post, and click on those stars to let me know how I'm doing. Until next time, monster fans!