(I SWEAR TO CHRIST, THIS IS A TRUE STORY!! I WOULD DIE IN MY SLEEP TONIGHT IF I LIE TO YOU)
I don’t know what this may fall under but I definitely know it was one of the weirdest things that I ever experienced as a child. For context, I was roughly around 7 or 8 years old. Me, my mom, both of my aunts, my uncle as well as my grandparents lived in a three-story house in a nice middle class community in Riverdale Illinois. The community was named the Pacesetter. It was starting to become a diverse community but some of the resides wasn’t to fond of change, so they started placing posters on stop signs and on there homes saying, “we’re not leaving!” But that’s for another story.
Anyways, we had a small front yard with a big Evergreen pine tree that was at least 8 ft from the front door. Now there was a little walkway that led to the right side of the house with at least 15 paces to the side door and another 15, lead to the back yard. We had double sliding patio doors, so from the doors to the wooden gate, North and south, was approximately 20 feet. From west to east, it was a good 25 feet from the small metal fence to the wooden fence. There was also a small 8x6 wooden storage shed on the metal fence. There was a 5 foot gape between the shed and the 10 foot wooden fence. This is all important for the story, so please bare with me.
Now to the strangeness of the story. I remember that there were these crab like spiders with the leg span of 3 feet and body mass the size of a soccer ball. I remember this because one day, me and my friends was playing hide and go seek. I happened to run in my back yard and I almost run into it. My face almost touch the thing. I knew I at least breathed on the damn thing and it didn’t even so much budge. The spider was on it’s web taking up most of the gap between the shed and fence. These things were huge and everyone in the neighborhood feared them, at least all of us kids did. It had the exoskeleton similar to that of a king crab. These things even had the speed of a brown recluse spider. They’re movements were rather weird and off. They even created webs like an actual spider but was way too large in stature to be considered as such. Even the webbing was like that of fishing wire but it was still breakable. It’s almost like they didn’t look natural nor Normal. But we all went on with our business as usual.
One day during the summer of 88 or 89, I was leaving that morning from home. My friend came to my house so we could leave to meet up with friends in the park for some baseball. We noticed there was guys in white suits, almost like hazmat suits, trying to collect the crab spiders out of the tree. There was at least 4 guys in the front yard and 6 guys in the back yard. There was also a guy, that I think was in charge, with a regular windbreaker with a white dress shirt and a red tie, black slacks and shoes. He had to be in his early 30s from what I remembered. I said hi and I remember he was asking me questions. I didn’t have time to answer because my grandmother pulled me in and told my friend to go home. It all happened so fast that I was confused about my whereabouts.
I tried to ask her what was wrong and she said be quiet! Stay inside and don’t talk to no one! I tried again but I was silenced, so I just left it alone and did what I was told to save myself the trouble. What I did notice, before I went to my room, my aunts and uncle was looking outside the patio door secretively, almost like they weren’t trying to be seen being nosey teenagers. I came down about 3 hours later and it was like it never happened. I tried to ask my grandmother what happened but I was shunned out of a reply. I ever later that day asked my friend and he was cold about the matter as well, which was all very strange to me. I still till this day question whether this was real or just a dream but I assure you all that this was Very real! Me looking back at it all was the moment that scared me to death. One of questions that I remember the man asking me, “ Did the specimen ever…bite you?”