—this is your trigger warning.

Spider Lung

An upper respiratory infection has a secret life and needs lots and lots of leg room.

by Pixie Bruner

I HATE THE SPIDERS that infiltrated my lungs. Their webbing makes breathing difficult. Several times an hour, I have thick webs dripping down my face. I blow my nose and a handful of clear webbing comes away. Sometimes it drips on my fingers and sticks them together. The spider silk is clear until it reaches a certain density. Then it turns milky-white. It’s incredibly sticky and thick. I don’t understand how the webs capture air. The spider silk that’s coughed up is from their tunnels in my alveoli and bronchial tubes and gets hacked up to my trachea. They tickle my throat, especially if I lie down. I cough up white hunks of webbing a couple times each hour.

I still don’t know how I came down with spiders. Maybe it’s the seasonal infestation as the weather changes. They come in to get warm when austice comes. The perfect ailment for autumn and the spooky season. I’m not contagious, my husband insists I have pneumonia, not an upper respiratory arachnid infestation. Occasionally, there are specks of blood in the webbing, so I know the little bastards are feeding on me.

I clear the webs and blow them out. They immediately weave more trying to suffocate me. They’re obviously an invasive or exotic species as they have hacked my body for an ideal habitat. 101-102.5 degrees is their ideal temperature but it’s definitely no fun for me. I normally run subnormal. I’m unaccustomed and uncomfortable being warm-blooded, especially for other ectotherms.

The first day of infestation was the worst, everything tickled from my face to my lungs as the webs began. They grew quickly. Their molted exuvia took up valuable real estate. They filled the alveoli but I can clear solids with an albuterol inhaler. Two precious puffs, every six hours. I think I’m used to them already. I’m a writer. I’ve books on the brain, and now, I share my body with a species with book lungs. The irony is delicious. If I could find anything delicious. I have lost my appetite but am bloated and feel pregnant. I sort of am pregnant, aren’t I? I have life within me. I am the spider Ritz-Carlton or a spider school bus carrying an entire class on a trip? All the students have eight legs and as a school bus, I’ve only two good tires, and not up to the health and safety code, as I am.

They’ve apparently an immense oxygen requirement for their growth and refuse to let me have enough to breathe deeply often. My doctor started me on antibiotics, but I wish she would have started me directly on pesticides instead.

It's been a solid ten days and I don’t feel like myself anymore. The urticating hairs annoy my throat constantly and I’m losing my voice between blow-outs. I hear them shuffling around, crinkling, cat toy-like inside, especially at night. My main concern is I’m starting to expectorate egg sacs.

About the Story:
An upper respiratory infection is bad. An upper respiratory arachnid infection is even worse. The webbing strangles you and slow suffocation sets in. When your insides are being deliquesced, you do whatever it takes to remain alive and hopeful—so does the infection. You can’t just blow your nose and make it go away.
About the Author:
Pixie Bruner (HWA/SFPA) is a writer, editor, and cancer survivor. She lives in Atlanta with her doppelgänger and their deranged cats. Her dear ones call her Queen Bitch. She dug deep inside her to cough up something to meet Carnage House standards. She’s editor of Memento Mori Ink Magazine’s “Morsus Vitae” Literary Magazine—exclusively for MMI newsletter subscribers. Recent big projects are The Body As Haunted (Authortunities Press) and Nature Triumphs : A Charity Anthology of Dark Speculative Literature. Her words are in/forthcoming from Space & Time Magazine, Hotel Macabre (Crystal Lake Publishing), Star*Line, Weird Fiction Quarterly, Penumbric, Angry Gable Press, and too many more. She wrote for White Wolf Gaming Studio. Werespiders ruining LARPs are all her fault. She is a 2024 SFPA Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2025 Rhysling Award Chair. They have not turned the current on to the Chair…yet.