 I had not worked since my encounter with a super-sized bug in its offspring, but now a new job had come in and it was time for me to leap into action after I finished the pizza. Breakfast polished off and already thinking about what toppings I would choose for my next order, I climbed into my business boiler suit. The waste had a lot of given it, thankfully, and my initials were emblazoned across the back. I'd had them redone in gold lettering. I was a success in my chosen profession and proud of it. Some people say that cockroaches and lawyers will be all that's left at the end of the world. I can't do anything about lawyers, but them cockroaches better watch their nuclear bomb-proof butts if the world does end. Because I assure you, there will still be exterminators working when the doomsday clock reaches one minute past midnight. Hell yeah. I loaded up my backpack with equipment and powered up my van and set off. As I drove, I had my phone read out the results of the search for my latest client. He was, like me, a self-made man. Though I was still a long way off my first million, he'd smashed that target by the time he was 25, thanks to an app he developed that burnt brightly just long enough for him to sell it to one of the major corporate players. That app has long since disappeared into the virtual warehouse of obsolete tech. My client had gone on to duck and dive his way into the multi-millionaires club and now lived in a gated community with his beautiful wife. I told my phone to hop over to her search result and found that she was into philanthropy, glancing at the first of many pages of images, hair products, and standing next to movie stars. By the time I pulled up at the guard station by the entrance to the estate, I was wondering why they'd hired an independent contractor like me and not one of the big organizations. As the guard played the big man by inspecting my van, even though he knew full well I was cleared for access, one answer presented itself to me. My client had a problem he did not want anyone else to find out about and figured he could buy my confidentiality. At the very least, I was happy to promise no names, for the right fee. I was happily thinking about dollars when, at last, the guard waved me through. On either side of me, immaculately tended lawns swept up to mansions that glinted in the afternoon sun in a way that made me wonder if their façades had actually been polished. I put my sunglasses on to prevent myself from being blinded by the affluence and was watched by a peacock standing on the sidewalk I pulled up outside my client's abode. I don't know if the peacock had wandered out of someone's garden or was one of the extras that came with living in this community. A complimentary peacock would be the least I expected for paying the service charges to live here, I thought, then headed to the buzzer. A woman's voice answered, the line was clear enough for me to tell that she was drunk, which was fine by me. It's a free country, and if she wanted to be loaded at 10 o'clock in the morning, then good luck to her. She slurred something that sounded like, knock yourself dead. And the door opened. The first thing I noticed was the designer suitcases lined up in the hall. The second, a man I recognized from my recent time on the internet. My client was in his 40s and wore a white shirt and slacks that probably cost more than my van. He was also wearing sunglasses. The lighting in the vestibule was subdued in a classy way. I did not know if sunglasses were a house rule, but personally, I was struggling to make out details. Now I was inside, so I slipped my shades back in my top pocket. My client had already turned away and was heading through a door that led into a sprawling lounge. As I followed him, I saw his wife. She was perched on the edge of a vast white leather sofa and was wearing sunglasses as well. I could smell the booze off her from 12 feet away. The tension she was radiating was just as clear. Are you going anywhere nice? I asked, glancing back in the direction of the suitcases. Away from this living hell. The woman replied. My client sighed, you will have to excuse my wife. He said, we are in a very stressful situation, one I hope you can help us with. I gave him two thumbs. Absolutely. I told him, your bugs plus my attitude equals obliteration for anything not walking on two legs with an impeccable credit rating. Another of them returned the smile I was wearing, so I cut to the chase and asked, can you tell me what type of infestation is troubling you? Yes. My client answered in a quiet voice. We spent this morning with an expert healthcare team, specialist I'd flown in from across the country. They assured me treatment will be successful for both of us. I was puzzled. Treatment for what? I asked. My client walked up to me and took his sunglasses off, still confused. I looked at him and saw a tiny dark speck scurry across his eye. I looked closer, saw a second speck and that it was actually inside his eye underneath his cornea and it was crawling. I swore under my breath. He had a spider in his eye. It was so small and yet it was perfectly formed. And now that I'd seen one clearly, I could see more. A dozen or so of them were running around inside his eyes. I gave him my professional opinion. Geez, that's weird. He put his sunglasses back on. It is a nightmare. Like I say, the doctors can remove them, but they will keep coming back until we find the source and it is destroyed. Wheels turned in my head, clicked into place. You want me to find where the spiders are nesting and zap them? I told him. He nodded, Yes, and if you can't, then we can never return here. At this, his wife gave a bitter laugh. Her sunglasses had remained fixed to her face and I assumed she had the same problem as her husband. Return here, your precious house, we should burn it down. She said, then vomited. I stared horrified and fascinated, not at the sight of a lady hurling, but at the dozens and dozens of tiny spiders wriggling around in the vomit. They must have been in her stomach as well as her eyes and elsewhere. I wanted to ask, but she ran for the door. My client followed. I was left alone in the house. But not alone, somewhere in this house, miniscule spiders were hatching. Come in to get you, ready or not, I yelled, then set off to track them down. The house was mind-blowingly fancy, with each room appearing more opulent than the last. None struck me as the habitat I was looking for. For a long, I found stairs which led down to a basement, hot and hotter, I said with a grin. The basement was revealed to be a work in progress. A swimming pool was being constructed and pipe work being laid. A damp, musty smell rose to meet me. And there it was, a web crammed with small white eggs and another. My God, they were everywhere. It was a regular production line for spiderlings. I could not see any eggs hatching as I moved closer. It would be simple to destroy the eggs and clear the webs. I would just need to make sure I didn't miss any. I was close enough to one of the webs for my breath to touch it. That was all it took. They emerged from cracks too fine for the human eye to discern. They appeared from the ground, all around my feet. They descended on new spun threads, thousands of the spiders, the same small creatures which had made themselves at home inside my client and his wife and now were on me in my hair making the skin around my collar tickle. They were on my hands covering my boots and beginning to race up my legs. They were in my ears and nostrils and at the corners of my mouth. I clamped my lips shut and I ran for it. As I pounded back up the stairs, I felt sharp pains at the corners of my eyes. Damn it. They were invading me. I reached the top of the stairs, stumbled out into the hallway and thought for a moment that it would be okay. And then I saw that the floor was moving, panic hit me. This was not an infestation numbering in the thousands. There were millions of spiders in this house and they were all homing in on me. The walls danced with them. They fell from the ceiling like rain. I kept moving, but so slowly terror was stripping the strength from my limbs. Fear was robbing me of self-control. And with each passing second, more and more of the spiders were covering me. They were like a second skin. I couldn't breathe. I tried to swallow, desperately tried to clear my throat, but it was clogged with spiders and still they came. I fell to my hands and knees, began to crawl. I was blinded by them and could only pray I was heading in the right direction. I was dizzy. I knew I was on the verge of passing out. And then I would drown when my lungs filled with spiders. I would die. Somehow though, I dragged myself on. I found a last vestige of light and threw myself forward. Then I just lay there. I could hear the sound of someone crying. The last thing I would ever hear I thought, and that was it. Until I opened my eyes and blinding pain told me I was still alive. The days that followed were a blur and I slipped in and out of consciousness. It was a while before I was well enough to understand what had happened. The security guard had been alerted by the sound of what he described as screaming coming from the direction of one of the houses. He raced over to find the noise was being made by a peacock that was running down the street, away from a body covered in spiders lying in an open doorway. The first responders saved my life and then the doctors fixed me as best they could. I discharged myself and I'm back home now. I had a lot of messages waiting for me all from the management company that ran the gated community. Apparently more of the residents had moved out. I knew they would not be the last. There were millions of spiders when I was there. There will be tens of millions by now. And soon hundreds of millions. And what happens then? The estate was designed to keep undesirables out not to keep a tidal wave of arachnids in. I deleted the messages in order to pizza extra large with a long list of sides. The spider apocalypse would just have to wait.