Chapter 4: Gifts of Flesh and Silk

Alex hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.

The kitchen chair he'd dragged into his bedroom sat wedged against the door, its back braced under the handle in a pathetic attempt at security. His baseball bat—a relic from high school that had lived forgotten in the closet—lay across his lap like a talisman against the impossible. Every few minutes, his eyes darted to the air vent above his bed, searching for signs of movement in the darkness beyond the metal grille.

The house breathed around him with sounds he'd never noticed before. Settling wood became footsteps. The furnace cycling on became the whisper of something massive moving through the ductwork. Every creak and sigh of the old structure's bones sent jolts of adrenaline through his exhausted system.

But it was the silence that was worse.

During those long stretches when the house fell completely quiet, Alex's imagination filled the void with horrors. He pictured Silas pressed against the inside of his bedroom wall, listening to his heartbeat through the drywall. Watching him through cracks in the baseboard. Waiting with inhuman patience for the perfect moment to emerge.

The pale December dawn filtering through his bedroom window brought no relief. If anything, the gray light made the shadows seem deeper, more threatening. Alex's reflection in the dresser mirror showed a hollow-eyed stranger, unshaven and trembling, clutching a baseball bat like a lifeline.

He needed coffee. Food. Basic human necessities that required leaving the relative safety of his barricaded bedroom. But the thought of walking through his house—of passing under those air vents, of turning his back to dark corners—made his stomach clench with terror.

"Get it together," he whispered to himself, the sound of his voice startling in the oppressive quiet. "It's just... it's just a big spider. It can't open doors. It can't..."

But even as he tried to rationalize, his mind filled in the blanks with images of Silas's impossible anatomy. Those legs, each over a foot long, designed for climbing and gripping. That bulbous body that had compressed and flowed through the air vent like liquid nightmare. The intelligence in those multiple eyes that suggested capabilities far beyond any normal arachnid.

Finally, hunger and the desperate need for caffeine overcame his paralysis. Alex stood on unsteady legs, the baseball bat gripped in both hands, and approached his bedroom door. The chair scraped against the hardwood as he moved it aside, the sound unnaturally loud in the morning stillness.

The hallway stretched before him like a gauntlet. Three air vents punctuated the ceiling at regular intervals, their metal grilles intact but somehow sinister. Alex pressed his back against the wall and moved sideways, keeping his eyes fixed on those dark openings, the bat raised and ready.

Nothing moved. Nothing emerged. By the time he reached the kitchen, sweat was beading on his forehead despite the December chill.

The coffee maker gurgled to life with blessed normalcy. Alex positioned himself where he could see all the room's entrances—the hallway, the back door, the pantry. His eyes kept drifting to the violated air vent above the stove, its grille hanging open like a mouth caught mid-scream.

That's when he saw it.

At first, his exhausted brain couldn't process what lay at the foot of his bed when he eventually returned with his coffee. A small, dark shape that hadn't been there before, positioned precisely in the center of the narrow space between his bed and the dresser.

Alex approached with the caution of a bomb disposal expert, the baseball bat extended before him like a probe. The object resolved into clarity as he drew closer, and his coffee mug slipped from nerveless fingers to shatter against the floor.

A mouse. Dead, but perfectly preserved, wrapped in what looked like the finest silk thread. The wrapping was meticulous, artistic even—covering the tiny corpse from nose to tail in a spiral pattern that left only the mouse's glassy black eyes visible. The silk caught the morning light with an opalescent sheen that was almost beautiful.

Almost.

"Oh, Jesus," Alex breathed, stumbling backward until his legs hit the edge of the bed. "Oh, Jesus Christ."

The implications crashed over him like a physical blow. Silas had been here. While Alex sat in his kitchen drinking coffee and trying to convince himself he was safe, the creature had emerged from whatever hidden spaces it inhabited and entered his bedroom. Had crept past his pathetic barricade of chair and determination to leave this... offering.

But why? What did it mean?

Alex's rational mind, already stretched to the breaking point, scrambled for explanations. Maybe it was territorial marking. Maybe it was a threat. Maybe it was simply the coincidental death of a mouse that had wandered into the wrong web at the wrong time.

But deep in his gut, in the primitive part of his brain that had kept his ancestors alive on primordial savannas, Alex knew the truth. This wasn't random. This wasn't coincidence.

This was a gift.

The thought made him physically ill. He lurched toward the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before his empty stomach tried to turn itself inside out. Between waves of dry heaves, his mind replayed every nature documentary he'd ever seen, every Animal Planet special about predator behavior.

Cats brought dead birds to their owners. Dogs retrieved sticks. Pack animals shared kills with their family groups.

But this wasn't a house cat or a golden retriever. This was something that had grown beyond the boundaries of natural law, something that had learned to associate Alex with food and shelter and... companionship.

The silk-wrapped mouse wasn't a threat. It was an offering of gratitude. A token of affection from something that understood relationships only through the lens of predation.

Alex spent the day in a fugue state, unable to remove the corpse, unable to look away from it. The perfectly preserved mouse seemed to watch him with its glassy eyes, a monument to the twisted bond he'd created through weeks of misguided nurturing. Every hour that passed, he expected Silas to emerge from some hidden space, to claim credit for the gift or to demand acknowledgment.

But the creature remained hidden, present only in the occasional scratch from within the walls, the subtle vibration of something moving through spaces where nothing should be able to move.

Night fell with winter's harsh finality, plunging the house into darkness that seemed absolute despite Alex's every light blazing. He'd given up any pretense of normal routine, positioning himself in the living room where he could see the most entrances, the baseball bat across his knees like a security blanket.

The mouse still lay in his bedroom, silk-wrapped and patient. Alex had tried to approach it several times throughout the day, but some combination of revulsion and terror had driven him back each time. It would have to wait until morning. Until he could summon the courage to deal with... whatever it represented.

Sleep was impossible. Alex dozed fitfully in his chair, jerking awake at every sound, real or imagined. Around 2 AM, he woke to absolute silence and the unshakeable conviction that something had changed.

The kitchen. He could see it from his position in the living room, could see the rectangle of pale moonlight that marked the window above the sink. But there was something wrong with the shadows, something that didn't match his memory of the room's geometry.

Alex gripped the baseball bat and forced himself to stand. His joints protested after hours in the uncomfortable chair, but adrenaline smoothed away the stiffness. Step by careful step, he approached the kitchen doorway.

The new gift sat on the counter beside the sink, positioned where Alex would be sure to see it when he made his morning coffee. Larger than the mouse, wrapped in the same meticulous silk spiral, but unmistakably different in shape and size.

A squirrel. Gray fur visible through gaps in the silk shroud, bushy tail compressed against its body by the binding threads. Fresh enough that it couldn't have been dead for more than a few hours.

Alex's legs gave out. He slumped against the kitchen doorway, the baseball bat clattering to the floor as his hands went numb. The implications were staggering, terrifying, impossible to deny.

Silas wasn't just hiding in his house. The creature was hunting. Actively leaving the building, stalking prey in the neighborhood, and returning with trophies. The gifts weren't random carrion—they were fresh kills, carefully selected and presented.

And they were escalating.

First a mouse, small and easily caught. Now a squirrel, larger prey that required more skill, more planning. What would come next? A cat? A small dog? The neighbor's child?

The thought sent ice through Alex's veins. He lived on a quiet suburban street filled with families, with pets, with small creatures that would be helpless against something like Silas. The spider wasn't just his problem anymore—it was becoming a threat to everything around him.

But even as terror overwhelmed him, another emotion crept in. Something darker and more disturbing than fear.

Pride.

Silas had chosen him. Out of all the houses in the neighborhood, all the potential hosts and companions, the creature had selected Alex as worthy of its offerings. These weren't random killings—they were gifts from something that saw him as family, as pack, as the most important thing in its alien existence.

The thought made him hate himself, but he couldn't deny its seductive pull. After months of isolation, of feeling invisible and forgotten, something had chosen him. Something powerful and magnificent and utterly unique had decided he was worth caring for.

Even if its version of care was wrapped in silk and reeked of death.

Alex retrieved the baseball bat with trembling hands and returned to his chair in the living room. The squirrel would wait until morning, just like the mouse. He couldn't deal with either of them now, couldn't face the physical reality of Silas's affection.

But as he settled back into his vigil, Alex found himself listening not for threats, but for signs of his monstrous companion. Somewhere in the walls, in the spaces between spaces, Silas was moving. Planning the next hunt, selecting the next gift, demonstrating the depth of a bond that Alex had never asked for but could no longer deny.

He was no longer alone in his house.

He was no longer alone in the world.

And God help him, part of him was grateful for the company, no matter how twisted the form it took.