“I’m looking for a guy who is hiding out here,” I said, “there’s a bounty on him. Big enough to split, if you could point me in the right direction.”

“You never could use your little trick around too much juice,” she said with a mocking smile.

For all of Spidertown’s grime and ruin, the place had plenty of electricity. A farm of diesel generators made up the town center with hundreds of thick black cables stretching out across the shacks in every direction. Lights hung on intervals from the cables, flickering in the wind.

In the shadows, crept the scum. They were predators who crawled beneath the webs to feed upon anyone stupid enough to wander inside and get trapped. If they couldn’t find a meal, they would turn on each other. Some would turn on their kind for a price.

“A smart spider will stretch its web in front of the lights,” a voice rasped from the crowd of drunks, “and let the moths fly to him.”

I reached for my shotgun as I heard feet shuffling in the dark. I wasn’t about to be anyone’s snack.