I've hit a snag or a bump or driven into a gigantic chasm of doom. Either way the result is that I haven't written a word since Friday. It's a combination of things, but a huge part of the problem is that I've sort of written myself into a corner. Sort of. I introduced another character which I'm a little weary of continuing in his present form. I think he's a pedophile and I'm pretty sure that I don't dig that.

I had to have at least someone else in the game to help explain a few things. He actually works perfectly because he goes along way towards explaining some behavior of one of the main characters. The only things is, I don't think I'm capable of writing that. There are tons of dark places I'm willing to go --seriously, I can imagine quite disturbing things if I allow myself. But pedophilia isn't really one of them. And, frankly, I'm not ready to start thinking about it without it probably doing some damage. 

I'll probably make him just a straight up, physical abuser. That's a cop-out, but it's easier to deal with. The end result it pretty much the same. 

Oh, good. This little entry has helped a great deal actually - maybe I can actually get back on track now. I'm only got 10k to make up...

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Working Title: Twilight

Characters: 3 

References to Blood: 15 

They were near the downtown area of the suburb. 

       Four roads intersecting to form a giant square, and lots of intersections sprouted off that. Most of it had been business offices and a couple of strip malls. Street lights that didn't work, some bent over to touch the ground like performers taking a bow.

       Jacob took lead and threaded his way through the streets. He would move from building to building, pausing in some open thresholds to survey the next route. 

       It was a practiced method and the stops were not the same as before, but they were similar. Jacob had told him of some creatures that would watch and wait. They would study you, take their time and then make their move the next time you came through.

       Repetition was death, he had said. Although he was always vague about where he had heard it. But then Jacob was from all over.

       They came to came to a corner that the big bank building opened onto. It was at least eight stories and no glass in the building remained, although the lighted sign that came out over the corner was still readable, if somewhat smashed. 

       Near the top, straddling the bank and the next building, a five story one, was a gigantic spider web. It came down at least three stories and was a crisscrossed layered affair that was full of cocoons, some looked old and were nothing more than dry husks waiting for time and wind to deal with them. 

       Throughout the webs, there were parts of animals, bones mostly that were still caught on strands and threads of web. Some coiled up with other debris making it look like a long forgotten series of streamers from a party.

       As he watched a large bat, the size of a cow, came skittering down the alleyway between the buildings. He could see it and it turned quickly as it saw the web in it's path, but it was too late. The creature twisted downward, folding a wing in as it crashed into the web near the bottom. Fairly close to him and Jacob, considering.

       Jeff looked up at the creatures caught in the intricate layers of the web. There were all kinds of birds, most were twisted nightmares of real birds, although Jeff had never seen a real bird. Like the plant life, most of the animal kingdom hadn't so much as vanished as been transformed.

       Even though to watch them filled him with horror, he knew they were relatively safe from the spiders down here on the ground. They only came down when they weren't catching food and the web was full of it at the moment. 

       And it was spiders he would worry about. They lived in clans, although how many were in a clan he couldn't be sure. He had counted at least eight at once, but he was sure there were more. 

       Jacob had said that the size of the web was probably a good idea of how many there were and that web was huge.

       From one of the windows came a single spider. 

Only it wasn't quite a spider, the way everything wasn't quite what it appeared to be at first. It had at least ten legs, maybe more - they moved too fast to count really - it was segmented like a spider, and a head that was a flat oval and filled with eyes. Hundreds of eyes, if he could have seen it up close, they would have resembled cat eyes, blue with slits that seemed to rotate with the eye itself.

       The front of it's mouth were several pairs of arms that ended with a mass of tiny tentacles, which worked well to bring food to the jaws that were filled with razor teeth.

       As Jeff watched, it shot out of the window at an amazing speed, it leapt and jumped down the web in a series of quick, gymnastic moves that seemed to defy physics, to the newly caught prey. The forearms came around, quivering tentacles that pulled back and then started snapping at the bat, stinging it repeatedly.

       The bat cried a high pitched squeal and jerked and then stopped moving. Then the tentacles encircled it and the bat disappeared from view entirely as it fed.

       Jeff watch as Jonah surveyed the area from the door well. The spider was close, probably only fifty feet away. As it fed, several of the eyes rolled around, independent of each other and they came to focus on Jeff. 

       It was still feeding, but it watch him as it did, and Jeff started to feel like maybe it was thinking the bat wasn't big enough. 

       He reached out and touched Jonah's shoulder. 

       "Can we go now?" He whispered.

       "Yes," Jonah said without looking back. 

       He stood up and bolted out from the door well, across the street and down the side of the brick sidewall of a strip mall.

       Jeff looked back and the spider had turned a bit to the side itself. It was still feeding, but it was definitely watching where they went. 

       The spiders bothered him more than anything else in the area. Well, that wasn't completely true. Betsy probably held that title, he thought. She could come out of nowhere and he was always a little amazed at how Jonah could hear her even if it was only a few seconds prior to her arrival.

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