He couldn’t stop—he knew that—and couldn’t think too much about what he was doing, so he started forward, flailing the makeshift whip in front of him, the silk sticking to it, spiders flying through the air, maybe landing on him. He walked faster, too fast at one point, into a veil of web that stuck to his face and his hair and he felt something crawl rapidly across his forehead, over his ear, down his neck, but Tom was too fired-up, too adrenaline-fueled, to do anything but push on through the endless webs, swinging the cut creeper in front of him.

He was aware of so much agitated movement around him, of the web coating his skin and clothes, sticking so much that it felt like he was being trapped, slowly consumed. The spiders, in their own panicked attempts to escape the onslaught, seemed to jump and spring randomly, hitting him, landing on him, clinging, but still he pushed on, slashing a path with the cut creeper.

The first ending was false, a short gap of a few yards before the start of another colony. His heart was racing so hard now he wouldn’t have been able to stop if he’d wanted to. He whipped an opening into the second colony and pressed right on into it, walking faster, whipping faster, completely covered now by the sticky spider silk and by the spiders themselves, scuttling across his arms, his face, his hair.

And then he crashed through the far side and ran another couple of steps and tossed the creeper aside and pulled his backpack free, dropping it to the floor. He didn’t look down but slapped blindly across his arms and legs, his face and hair, and kept doing it like he was performing some crazy trance-like dance.

Finally, he looked down, searching for any remaining spiders. He thought he felt something on his back and yanked his T-shirt off and shook it and whipped himself with it, just to be sure. And only when he was convinced he’d got them all did he turn to his backpack and brush away the few spiders that still clung to it.

Tom stood then, catching his breath, looking back at the destruction he’d brought about. Despite the swath he’d cut through the colonies, the mist of web still hung draped between the trees and even overhead, so he was sure it wouldn’t be long before the webs were rebuilt and there’d be no sign of him ever having been there.

He felt something move in his hair and quickly raised his hand, making contact, the spider falling onto his bare shoulder and then to the ground, and he jumped unnecessarily and brushed frantically at his hair again. And it was only then that he thought to check his hands and arms, making sure he hadn’t been bitten, though there were no signs to suggest he had.