If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

In the evil mountain hideout, Frank the spider said, “The hypnotic slime projector is now finished but the slime itself needs another day to cool in the vat. Then it will be ready.”

“What will we test it on?” Roger was another evil spider and an expert on reconnaissance, which means he could search out an area looking for the enemy.

“The nearby town of Hayfield.”

“A human city?” Even Leah was surprised.

“It’s a small town, maybe 100,000 humans total,” replied Frank. We’ll just have enough slime to control all the humans. We fire the slime cannon at dawn.”

At the good spider cave, Lilly said to her friends, “I’ve almost got the force field projector done. It needs a few hours to charge, but fortunately our hideout is wired for power.”

“And for the internet,” said Gloria. Gloria was good at putting lots of wires together for electricity, the internet, and stuff.

“That’s a good thing,” added Sam. I searched the local webs and including Frank’s there are five of them that were abandoned earlier today. I’ve made a list of who lived there.”

“The problem is that they can do the same with us, and find out who we are,” said Lilly.

In the evil lair, Leah said, “I’ve made a list of empty webs in the neighborhood that were abandoned today. Lilly’s was one of them and so was Sam’s. Also, Gloria’s and three others. We know who they are.”

“But not where to find them,” said Tanya. Tanya was a spider good at martial arts. She could fight any spider alive along with flies, ants, and even wasps, and always win. Humans were too big, which is why they really needed the slime.

“They don’t know where to find us either,” said Leah. All we have to do is strike first.

At dawn the next morning, Frank and his gang loaded the first batch of slime into the big slime gun. While Frank was putting more raw ingredients into the mixing vat, Leah, Roger, and the rest were opening the hidden door at the top of the mountain. Frank returned and used his instruments to aim the gun at the center of Hayfield. The monitor focused in and they saw all the humans getting ready for work.

“Get ready,” said Frank. “Aiming…and FIRE!”

The slime gun chugged out a big glob of slime high into the air. It climbed as high as the clouds and then started spreading out, looking like a big pink cloud itself.

The people in Hayfield who were out that morning thought it looked pretty. Then it started to rain, but it wasn’t really rain.

As Frank and his gang watched through the weapon’s monitor screen, a rainstorm of pink slime drops fell on the entire city of Hayfield. It went through umbrellas, rooftops, and everything else, falling not only on the people outside, but everyone inside, even in houses and offices, even in basements and cellars.

“Now for the real test.” Frank used the voice amplifier on the gun still aimed at the town. “Humans of Hayfield. This is Frank, your new leader. You will stand still and wait until we arrive. Then you will do anything we tell you. We are the gang of evil spiders and we are your bosses.”

The long-range microphone on the gun picked up the voices of the people of Hayfield. As one person, they said, “You are the gang of evil spiders and you are our bosses. We will wait until you arrive and then do anything you tell us to.”

In their hideout under a tree not far from the mountain, Lilly and the good spiders could hear the amplified voices of Frank and the people of Hayfield.

“Oh no,” cried Lilly. “It’s too late. The evil spiders have control of Hayfield. If only I knew that’s what they were planning. I could have protected the town with my force field.”

“It’s not too late,” Sam said. We can use your force field projector to pull the slime off the people, can’t we?”

Gloria looked at the projector, which was about as big as a Christmas light on a human’s Christmas tree. “I think I can rewire it, but we need to hurry.”

“That’s right,” Lilly added. “Frank and his evil team are already on their way to the town.

In Hayfield, Frank and the rest found a radio station near the center of the city. They climbed up to the top floor, three stories above the ground, and used the equipment to talk to the people.

“We are here in your town, humans. I am Frank. My evil spiders are in control. You will do what we want you to do.”

“What do we want them to do,” Kayden whispered to Frank.

“Uh…I haven’t gotten that far in my planning. We want money, power, and for the humans to stop swatting spiders. We want all the food we can eat and for people to stop making war and crime and stuff.”

“We’ll have to take over the whole world for that,” Kayden said.”

“That was the plan from the beginning,” said Leah. She scowled at Frank thinking he was too shortsighted and weak to lead a world takeover.

Lilly and the good spiders entered town to find all of the humans turned toward the radio station awaiting further orders.

“That’s where they must be,” said Sam.

“I’ve rewired the projector. Just point it at a human and turn it on. The field should attract all of the slime off of that human,” Gloria said.

“One human at a time,” asked Lilly? “Won’t that take a long time?”

“It’s the best I could do on short notice. Otherwise we’d have to completely redesign the projector and that would take weeks.”

“Just do it,” said Sam.

The other four spiders stood around Lilly as she picked out a target. It was a human woman who was probably on her way to work before the slime attack. She aimed the projector at the center of her body and pushed the “On” button.

The woman screamed really loud as not only the slime was pulled away, but part of her jacket and her jeans below the knees.

“Oops. What…?”

“Oh, uh…sorry, Lilly,” said Gloria. I need to do some fine tuning.” Gloria got out a spider-sized screwdriver and twisted a knob for a few seconds. “Okay, try it again.”

The woman Lilly had “force fielded” looked confused but no longer controlled. She was trying to talk to some of the other people who were still slimed, but they ignored her.

“How about this guy?” Lilly aimed the projector at a man who could have been the woman’s older brother or Dad. Then she fired. The slime on his body suddenly puffed up and then was pulled away, landing in a puddle on the sidewalk with a plop.

“It works!” Lilly jumped up and down with joy.

Sam said, “Yeah, two down, 99,998 more to go.” He didn’t sound happy.

The freed man and woman looked down and seemed to see the five little spiders. “What’s that thing with the spiders,” the woman asked?

“I don’t know, but I think it’s what stopped us from being hypnotized. But what about everyone else.”

So far, none of the slimed people were doing anything, because Frank hadn’t made up his mind what he wanted them to do.

On the ground, Gloria said, “I’ve got this.” She made more adjustments on the projector and then added a small microphone. “Talk to them, Lilly. They’ll be able to hear you and we’ll be able to hear them.”

“Uh…” Lilly started. “Human man and woman. My name is Lilly. My friends and I are good spiders and we’re trying to help. In that building over there, are a group of evil spiders lead by Frank. They used hypnotizing slime to take control of you. You have to hurry before they order everyone else to do evil things.

“Yeah, right.” The man seemed a little puzzled, but there was no denying that a bunch of little spiders had de-slimed them and were using a machine to talk to them.

“Five evil spiders,” said the woman. “We can get little spiders, can’t we?”

“Come on, let’s find out.” The two humans ran in the direction of the radio station.

Standing at a window, Leah said, “Frank. You’ve got to see this. Two humans are running over here and we didn’t tell them, to.”

Kayden joined her. “She’s right and I don’t see any slime on them. Lilly must have taken it off with her force field somehow.”

“But only two.” Frank moved to a microphone and spoke. “People of Hayfield. There are two humans coming to the radio station. Stop them. Everyone else, there are five spiders on the ground in the square near the fountain. Find them and catch them.”

Leah grabbed the mike from Frank and yelled into it. “Find them and squish them.”

“NO!” Frank screamed at her. “No squishing.”

“Squish them and we won’t have any more problems.”

Thinking fast, Frank said, “Squish them and we won’t have their force field projector. We can add it to our weapons.”

“Fine.” Leah said into the mike, “Don’t squish them yet. Catch them. We can squish them later.”

On the ground, the man and woman, we don’t know their names yet, were able to dodge the other people.

Slimed people move too slow, like zombies, but it was only a matter of time.

They were at the door to the building. A slimed person who had been a radio DJ tried to stop them, but the woman tripped him and he fell.

The man said, “We’ve got to find a way to turn off their power.”

The woman found a maintenance closet and the door was half open. Inside she saw… “Look, the circuit breaker.” Both humans dashed inside knowing what to do.

Frank picked up the microphone. “That’s it. Keep chasing the humans. Stop them before they can climb the stairs. Also capture the five spiders. Hurry, they…”

Then the lights went out and the amplified echo from the speakers died.

“What happened?”

On the ground, Lilly led the way into a crack in the stone fountain. The humans couldn’t reach them, but they couldn’t get away either.

“What now, boss?” Sam was sounding sarcastic.

“We could try to dig.

“We could if we were ants or trapdoor spiders, Lilly, but we’re not.”

“The humans can’t reach us here.”

“But we can’t get out,” Gloria said.

In the control room, “Wait. We need another slime attack. I can activate the cannon with my remote control,” Leah said.

“That’s no good,” Frank wailed. “There’s no one at the hideout to load the cannon and even if there were, the next batch of slime won’t be ready until tomorrow morning.”

Then they heard running footsteps coming up the stairs.

“The two freed humans are after us,” Leah said.

“We’ve got to escape,” Kayden said. “But how?”

In the fountain crack, Sam looked out and saw the slimed humans were starting to mill about aimlessly. “Frank stopped giving orders and the humans don’t know what to do. I think we’re safe.”

“If we go out there, we might still get stepped on. That’s a lot of human beings with big feet.”

“Let me have the projector again.”

“What are you going to do, Gloria? It will take forever to unslime the rest of the people.”

“We won’t need to.” Then Gloria got to work on the projector again. “I think it still has maybe five minutes of power left.

At the top floor of the radio station, the man and woman burst into the room. Then they remembered they were looking for five tiny spiders and started a slow search.

“That won’t do them any good.” Leah was chuckling. “Good thinking having us get into the walls and climb down. By the time they figure out what we did, we’ll be in the woods halfway back to the lair.”

“Thanks, Leah.” His idea really was a good one and he hoped it would ensure the loyalty of the rest of the gang, including Leah’s. He just hoped that Lilly had found some way to survive.

On the street, a group of five tiny good spiders scurried away from the center of town, a bubble of force protecting them.

“Only one minute of power left, Lilly. We’ll never make it.”

“It’s okay, Gloria. We’ll make it to that manhole cover.”

“The sewer? Yuk,” complained Sam.

“You’ve got a better idea? The projector’s battery runs out in thirty seconds.”

“Good thing we’re the kind of spiders who can hold our breath for hours, Lilly,” said Sam.

Then they reached the manhole and crawled down through one of the holes.

And the baby chick wins.

Wait! What?

Next Monday, Chapter 3. Stay Tuned, same spider time, same spider channel.

Last week, I posted chapter 1 of Frank and the Plot of the Hypnotizing Slime. It’s a story that my seven-year-old granddaughter and I wrote together starting last Halloween. I said I’d post a new chapter of the story each Monday and well, it’s Monday. Here’s chapter 2. There are 8 chapters total. I hope you enjoy it and read it to your children and grandchildren. It’s everything that good stories should be. It’s fun.

Addendum: 2-20-2023: I’ve received a request to post these stories on Friday rather than Monday. The rationale is that people will have more time to read them on the weekend. Since there’s nothing particularly important about Monday vs. Friday, Chapter 3 will be posted this coming Friday.