Night Patrol Extraction

Nightfall settled over Milwaukee, and I slipped past the back patio door to secure the perimeter. A sharp, erratic fluttering caught my ear near the base of an iron lawn chair. A daddy longlegs was trapped, its spindly legs snared in the sticky threads of an old spider web beneath the seat brace. Abandoning a life in distress isn't in my protocol. I braced my boots against the cold flagstone, seized a fallen birch twig, and methodically snapped the taut silk anchors. With one firm push, the spider cleared the mesh and retreated safely into the shadows.