"Who is the Deadly Spider?"

I never wanted to be a hitman. Never wanted to hit, never wanted to be a man, but hey, that's what happened. The hitting part, not so much the man part.

It started when I was fifteen. And no, I didn't just wake up and decide to be a vigilante murderer, these things take time. But, in all honesty, I had always been a weird kid, weird in the "collects spiders instead of Barbies" kind of way. I didn't have many friends, not because the other kids didn't like me, but because I always had to bring the creepy-crawlies along. Apparently girls don't like them - actually, not many guys do either. Spider did - I mean me, Spider, not the spiders themselves, though I'm sure they like themselves, unless they're spiders with self-esteem issues in which case there might not be as much liking going around.

At six I had a pet tarantula named Greg. My mom had been opposed to the idea of a pet spider, but my dad, thankfully, was on my side. I think in part only to watch my mom squirm every time I took Greg out for a "walk." As I grew, so did my collection. I became an arachnologist, collecting spiders – small spiders, big spiders, hairy spiders, ugly spiders, creepy spiders, spiders missing a leg - any spiders. I kept them in empty jam jars. My mom hated it. Let me emphasize hated -my mom HATED it, bold font, italicize, 12 point font.

At 18 I had a pretty extensive collection of creepy crawlies. About 185 to be exact, each one with a name (they were all named Fred. Made things easy). At 19 my father left and mom, well, mom had decided that it was in my (pronounced: Her) best interest if me and all my 233 spiders left as well. So I left by way of being dragged out by two policemen accompanied by a restraining order. (Ok I MAY have left some critical parts of my childhood out that led up to this point).

I crashed on my friend's couch for another couple of months. His name was Jim (remember him? The guy who called me on the phone), who despite growing up in a predominantly Portuguese family only knew how to say one thing, "você brincar comigo." He wasn't exactly right either, not directionally, mentally. He collected rocks shaped like dicks and set them up around the place. But he didn't mind the spiders, and I didn't mind the cock-rocks.

Four months rolled by and with little more to my name then a museum of spiders and a piss poor job behind the local CVS's cash register, I went and found myself a job. A real [illegal] job. Some rich bastard put the green light on this bad-toupee in a cheap suit. This guy wanted him dead - and bad - we're talking a couple hundred Gs bad. Now if you ask me, $9.45 an hour wasn't exactly a fair comparison to that kind of money. So I took the job. Jim was hurting for cash and decided he'd accompany me, which I didn't mind. If you're jumping into the deep end you might as well have a friend with you - if you start to drown, pray-to-fucking-god they can swim. So I bought my first gun, a real P.O.S that the dealer ASSURED me was top of the line. It might as well have had a little flag with the word "Bang!" on it that popped out when fired, because the thing jammed before I even got a shot off.

Bad-Toupee, that mother fucker, laughed at us, so I threw the 13 gauge P.O.S at him. I missed, he laughed harder. Jim was too busy being shit-scared. Thankfully for us the guy felt sorry for us, called us a few names and told us to get out of his sight before he called his goons in to take us out - with REAL guns that REALLY worked. Well fuck him, right? No way was I letting my first job label me the laughing stock of hitmen. So I jumped him.

Now Greg and I had had a good run, but it was time to part ways. While Bad-Toupee was unconcious, bleeding, duct taped to his Ikea swivel chair that was probably missing half the pieces - Greg and I said our goodbyes. I introduced him to his new home, Bad-Toupee's mouth and sealed the door with a strip of duct-tape. That poor guy regained consciousness just as Greg was making his way down his throat.

The cops had a hard time figuring out what happened to the guy. At first they thought blunt-force trauma because of, yanno, the whole beating his ass deal. But when they got him into the Medical Examiner's office - boy were they surprised! What I would have given to see their faces when they found my sweet little Chinese Bird Spider nestled in the throat of their Vic.

And I know what you're thinking. "Ewwww, LD that's gross," you may have squealed like a little girl too. But you know what's gross? Eyebrow threading. Alright? THAT'S gross

Anyway, I've wasted enough time here, let's get back to Vegas.

Vegas, I found, is a lot like Disney World, except the people are a lot less happy and a lot more drunk. Unless you're there with a screaming three year old (Disney, not Vegas), in which case I'd say the experience is about the same. It's a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of bright lights and a ton of buildings, each stocked with about five hundred thousand slot machines that really aren't so different at all save for the face plate. Jim's suggestion had been to blow my "hard earned" cash in the city of don't-ask-don't-tell-seriously-if-you-tell-I'll-find-you-and-cut-you. I'm not one for gambling, but given the situation I was in it would be stupid not to. Come on, who goes to Vegas to do anything else? You're not having a good time until you lost the deed to your home!

Vegas is an ass-backwards kind of place. The casinos are all themed, running down the strip from far-out to down-right boring. But here's the kicker, those extravagant hotels are the cheap ones. If you want to spend a fortune in Vegas (that's not on the slots or tables) you want to go stay in one of those hoity-toity joints like Caesar's Palace. All of the expense and none of the fun. But I guess that's what old-farts like – to be old farts, with no sense of fun. I, on the other hand, LOVE fun. I thrive on it. Fun is fun. If I'm staying in Vegas, I'm having fun dammit.

I made my way into the Excalibur hotel, a building sculpted to the visage of a medieval castle and painted by a visually impaired squirrel. A pair of knights guarded the doors, offering a lazed greeting to the tourists (I, of course, being one of those tourists).

"Welcome to the Excalibur, enjoy your Knight."

As soon as I stepped over that threshold, I was bombarded with lights and sounds: the ringing of machines, the cheers of winners who were soon to be losers, couples arguing over what shows they wanted or didn't want to see and of course the heavy metal anthem of Trivium.

That's right – it followed me here,
All.
The goddamned.
Way.

I must have some seriously bad luck for something like that to happen. Honestly, what are the chances of that? Trivium isn't exactly the music of the Medieval times, bagpipes and harps, fancy shit like that maybe, but definitely not melt-your-face-off-Trivium. Fuck.

And then I realized it. The big IT. I-T, just like that, except maybe italicized - IT.

You know when you got to that point in life when things have just gotten so incredibly bad and you realize just how bad they are and they just CAN'T possibly get any worse unless, of course, you were on fire? I had made it there. I was right then, in that moment.

That IT, the Big It - was the sudden realization that Trivium's lyrical prowess did not, in fact, grace the sound speakers of the hotel, but were in fact coming from outside. Just outside those double doors, beyond the Knights and their horrible puns, parked up on the sidewalk, with a confused valet trying desperately to turn the volume down, finding the volume knob had become stuck, forever, at the loudest possible setting – that 1966 Pontiac Bonneville – that was where it was coming from. The big SHIT.

A/N: We'll be getting back to the Tremors in just a moment. Sorry for the delay on this guys, thanks though to all that stuck through! I'll do my best to keep on this!