My newest short story, “Red Silk,” is now available in this week’s edition of The Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear series! I’m so grateful to Stuart Conover, Lauren McMenemy & the entire Horror Tree team for selecting my piece. I’m also privileged to share the space with three incredibly gifted authors and their “quick bites,” micro-fiction of exactly 100 words. Don’t forget to check those out while you’re there.
After reading weeks of Trembling With Fear entries, I had a spontaneous burst of inspiration and wrote “Red Silk” in one sitting. (More importantly edited it in like, eight, though.)
Spiders have long terrified me. Even looking at a picture of one can send me into state of panic, and I often see them in my nightmares, too. The internet says dreaming about spiders portends good fortune, but unless you call it lucky to hyperventilate in your sleep like a cracked out sloth, that’s probably bullshit.
But I recently saw a pair of Chilean fire tarantulas in real life. I found myself hypnotized. The legs. The segmented torso. The urticating bristles. It was all so mechanical, but somehow natural, an astonishing result of the universe’s infinite math.
Although the spiders in “Red Silk” aren’t tarantulas, the experience the main character feels is the same.
I’m surprised it took this long to write about them.
Jake Jerome 