Arania Webb stood alone before the padlocked gates of Bristol Zoo, her slender figure silhouetted against the wrought iron entrance of the Victorian ruin.
Early morning mist wrapped the derelict structure in gossamer, like an ethereal cocoon. The gates, carved with intricate vines and creatures of a forgotten era, creaked as a gentle breeze whispered secrets through the rusted bars.
Above her, the sky was a tapestry of grey, the early morning light catching the bare silver branches of the remaining trees that loomed over the zoo. Arania’s gaze drifted upwards, following the twisted branches that stretched out like skeletal fingers, clawing at the heavens as if to escape their inevitable end.
She inhaled deeply, the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves mingling with a faint, almost forgotten musk of wild animals — or perhaps that was just the last vestiges of her memory. After all, this place was steeped in family history and a shadowed past that she only remembered in snatches.
Back when she was a child, Bristol Zoo had thrummed with life, the air filled with the calls of exotic animals, the delighted laughter of visitors, and the smell of spun sugar and cinnamon spice. Arania had walked these now-abandoned paths day after day with her father, the zoo’s tracks like the strands of a DNA helix twisting and turning in patterns that bound them ever closer.
Dr Grafton Webb had worked as a conservation geneticist, responsible for the zoo’s breeding program. When he wasn’t traveling for research and speaking at conferences, he wove stories of distant lands and mysterious creatures into the specifics of scientific knowledge that he taught Arania as they walked the grounds.
“The zoo is not just a collection of individual enclosures and separate creatures. It is a living, breathing entity,” her father would say. “Like a spider’s web, it’s intricate, strong, and resilient, but only if it is interconnected.”
Even years later, Arania still pictured the zoo as a giant web, each path and enclosure a thread in a larger design. An ecosystem where every element, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, played a vital role. The loss of one thread could unsettle the balance, yet the overall structure remained solid, adaptable in the face of challenge.
Those times together were more than just walks; they were precious lessons. Arania could see that now, although some would say Grafton’s teaching bordered on obsession, even indoctrination. He constantly tested and extended her knowledge and innate spatial awareness, encouraging her to design and construct, to create structural order from chaos.
Perhaps he had been too harsh, and at times pushed her too hard, but that discipline had only benefitted Arania’s career. Now she was the lead partner in a prestigious architectural firm, and the principal architect for the new build at the zoo site, one hundred homes in a residential quarter nestled in this historic area of Bristol. Once the old structures had been demolished, she would construct something truly beautiful here, a tribute to the old and a fresh start for a new generation.
Her architectural plans for the site blended organic, fluid curves with the geometric precision of spider webs, inspired by her frequent visits to the Insect House, where she would sit for hours watching orb weavers spin their intricate webs. Her father had carried a picture of her in his wallet, his little girl, cross-legged in front of the terrarium, the light from inside catching her unusual golden-ringed irises and her serious expression as she gazed intently at the creatures.
But it was not just the construction of their webs that held her attention; it was their predatory aspect that truly fascinated her. She observed how they would patiently wait, almost meditatively, for their prey to become ensnared in their silken traps. Once a victim was caught, the orb weaver’s true nature would emerge.
Little Arania watched, unflinching, as they methodically encased their victims in silk, rendering them helpless. Beauty and horror intertwined, where one creature could live because another died. No moral judgment, just a natural cycle.
Her father’s picture of her, gazing intently at the spiders, showed the inception of an architect who would build not just with physical materials, but with dark inspiration drawn from the natural world.
In the zoo construction, Arania would spin those ideas into reality, and her creative ambition would finally manifest in stone and glass. Her plans had already caught the attention of an esteemed architectural prize panel, and her career would accelerate once she shepherded the project into reality.
If only her father could see how far she’d come.
The sound of footsteps crunching on gravel came from the mist ahead and Ethan Vale walked out of the gloom, his lean, muscular frame clad in a bright yellow high visibility jacket, hard hat, and steel toe boots. He held a detonator in his hand, its red display clear in the morning’s grey haze as it counted down to the final explosion that would level the site.
Ethan was the epitome of practicality and pragmatism, a seasoned site manager whose hands bore the callouses of hard labour, of his part in transforming abstract ideas into tangible reality.
Arania fleetingly thought of the nights they had spent together, when those same calloused hands traced the contours of her body with surprising gentleness. Their relationship was a tangle of mutual attraction and unspoken boundaries, where social class and Arania’s unyielding ambition formed an invisible barrier. Their connection was strictly physical, devoid of deeper entanglements, which suited her, at least.
She smiled in welcome. “Morning. Is everything ready?”
Ethan’s rugged features softened at the sight of her as he walked closer to the gate. “What are you doing here? The charges are set. The site’s clear. We’re on the final countdown to demolition.”
He reached for her hand through the bars. “Are you sure you want to watch? I know how much this place means to you.”
Arania took a deep breath, recalling the last day she had seen her father walking out of these very gates more than a decade ago. He had travelled to a remote region of the Congo Basin seeking some incredibly rare arachnid for his collection and never returned. Her mother had left while she was still a baby, but at least being without a family made it easier to concentrate on her career. Perhaps the destruction of the zoo would even close the chapter on her father’s mysterious death.
She nodded. “I’m ready. I want to see the end of it all.”
Ethan hesitated and then pulled out his phone. “Since you’re here, there is one thing. I hesitate to bring it up, but we found something that wasn’t on the plans — something underneath the Insect House.”
He tapped through to a series of photos of a room Arania recognized right away — her father’s lab.
His office had been in the Insect House, and he’d built a meticulously maintained lab on the basement level. Now, a wide crack zig-zagged down one wall. There should be nothing behind that wall but earth, but the photo clearly showed an open space beyond the crack. Within it, the light from the camera flash glinted on what looked like the bars of a cage.
Arania took his phone and zoomed into the picture. “What the hell?” It wasn’t clear enough to see.
She frowned and bit her lip. They couldn’t afford another day’s delay, not after all the problems with environmental protestors at the site. They needed to detonate the main buildings today and begin clearing the blast site after it settled. She could not let this project get behind schedule.
But something about the hidden room gave her pause. She knew the building well, and this secret space was definitely not on the plans.
“We need to see what it is.”
Ethan checked his watch and nodded. “We’ve got enough time. I can stop the detonation countdown if we need to. It won’t take long and everyone else is off site, anyway.”
He unlocked the padlock and pushed the gate open with a creak so Arania could slip inside.
They walked together through the shrouded ruins of the zoo, the absence of life a stark reminder of what had once been. The paths were overgrown, the enclosures empty. There was a haunting stillness, as if everything that had ever lived here was dead and gone. It was reminiscent of an apocalyptic landscape, a place where the chaos of nature had retaken what humans had broken and remade in their own image.
They reached the Insect House, its once vibrant exterior now a faded echo of its former glory.
Ornate glass panels that had showcased a myriad of crawling and flying creatures were now cracked and covered with mould and moss, and inside, the once-vibrant terrariums lay barren. Gone were the tarantulas lurking in shadowed corners, and the iridescent beetles scuttling about with their glossy carapaces catching the light. There were no children with faces pressed against the glass, eyes wide with a blend of fear and fascination. Some of them no doubt grew into scientists, inspired by early curiosity about nature, while others shrunk back in terror, with decades of crawling nightmares ahead.
Ethan guided the way to the basement, his torchlight slicing through the oppressive darkness, illuminating the damp, mould-covered walls of what used to be her father’s pristine lab. The musty scent of decay hung heavily in the air, so different from the sterile, orderly environment that Arania remembered.
This place, now shadowed and forgotten, had once been a sanctuary of wonder during her childhood. She had roamed its corridors with innocent delight, her father’s hand in hers, his voice a comforting guide through the marvels of nature. Each day was a new adventure, each discovery a new treasure.
They reached the crack and Ethan pried away some of the loose bricks, widening it enough for Arania to clamber through. He removed his hard hat and left it outside the wall in order to squeeze after her, and soon they were standing together in the hidden room. She had grown up here, yet she had never known of this place. What other secrets had her father kept?
The air was stale and smelled as if something had died here a long time ago. As the light from their torches flickered around the room, Arania took in the clutter of dusty equipment and scattered papers.
One wall of shelving was lined with jars filled with unidentifiable specimens floating in preserving fluid and covered with the grime of years. This place echoed the methodical layout of her father’s official lab, but these jars gave her a dark sense of foreboding.
Arania reached up to one and wiped the dusty surface clear.
She jerked back in surprise and then leaned forward, tilting her head to one side as she examined the specimen more closely. A creature both beautiful and horrifying floated inside, a spider hybrid with what looked like human fingers in the place of its legs.
Each jar contained a different, twisted form. Some were small and malformed, their limbs at odd angles; others were larger, with almost human-like features distorted by arachnid traits. All were clearly failed experiments, aborted before they even drew breath.
There was a desk in one corner, next to a metal filing cabinet. An old backpack rested on the floor nearby, and above the desk was a pin-board covered with notes and charts, yellowed with age.
A photo pinned in one corner caught Arania’s attention.
Her heart beat faster as she approached, recognising the child with the golden-ringed irises sitting cross-legged in front of a terrarium. This room was clearly her father’s, but separate to his official lab, a place where he blurred the ethical lines of his official role.
Arania yanked open the desk drawer, sending up a cloud of dust as she rifled through the papers within. She pulled out a journal, opened it — and recognised her father’s handwriting.
The notes were dated from years ago, just before the time of his last expedition. They detailed his research, not only into the conservation genetics he was known for, but into something far more unnatural.
There were more journals in the drawer, each marked with a year. She picked up another and rifled through.
Her father had chronicled his attempts to fuse arachnid with human DNA, creating chimeras that defied the laws of nature. There were diagrams of advanced genetic splicing, sketches of hybrid creatures, and notes scribbled in a frenzied hand. There was an edge of madness in her father’s work, a glint of the passion that drove him to the chaotic edge of the Congo Basin, in search of a final key to what he sought to create.
But his experiments clearly transcended the boundaries of scientific ethics. As Arania read, she pieced together the narrative, her father’s handwriting a map to the labyrinth of his mind. He had tried so many variations in his quest for perfection and, as she read, a dark suspicion grew in her mind.
Sketches and photographs accompanied the journal entries, visual records of her father’s work. Images of creatures both beautiful and terrible, their forms a testament to her father’s macabre genius. Among them, she found a series of drawings that detailed the conception and development of a unique specimen — a child with golden-ringed irises and the unique architectural abilities of an arachnid.
The sketches chronicled her growth from infancy, each stage of her development meticulously documented. Her father’s notes were a mixture of scientific detachment and paternal affection, his pride in her abilities clear in his words. She was not just his daughter; she was the pinnacle of his dark creation.
Arania closed the journal, her hands shaking.
She could scarcely breathe.
The walls of the lab seemed to close in on her, the shadows lengthening into grasping fingers that clutched at her throat, choking her with the reality of what her father had done. His legacy was not one of scientific triumph but of ethical transgression, a dark web woven from the threads of ambition and hubris.
“Arania, you have to see this.” Ethan’s voice broke through her concentration.
She thrust the journal under some papers and spun around from the desk.
Ethan pointed to the far corner of the room, where a series of cages lay partially hidden under a tarpaulin. Next to the first cage, there was a surgical trolley laden with medical equipment — a bone saw, and scalpels of various sizes lying on a metal tray covered with dust. Standing next to it, a heavy cylinder of oxygen.
Arania walked over, her footsteps heavy across the dusty floor — and reached out with one shaking hand.
She pulled back the tarpaulin, stifling a gasp at what lay beneath.
Inside the cages were larger arachnid-humanoid hybrids, grotesque and yet somehow beautiful in their aberration. They were all long dead, husks of bone and fragments of chitin and dried flesh, yet Arania was seized by a sense of pity for the cursed creatures who had never had a chance at a real life.
In one cage, a skeletal figure sprawled awkwardly, its human-like skull attached to a spine that elongated into an arachnid exoskeletal thorax, the delicate structure of eight spindly legs radiating outward.
Another enclosure held a more distinctly human-shaped skeleton, with an abnormal number of jointed limbs, thin and fragile, scattered around the remains like brittle twigs.
In the final cage a small skeleton lay curled up, its form a blend of juvenile human and spider characteristics. The skull was mostly human, but with extra eye sockets, and the spine extended into a chitinous abdomen. The fingers of its skeletal hands were elongated, and the structure of the jawbone hinted at the adaptation of mandibles, a grotesque mimicry of a spider’s mouthparts.
“What are these things?” Ethan’s voice was a horrified whisper.
Arania crouched down and reached out to touch the bony fingers of the tiny skeleton. “An attempt to create life, to blur the line between species and take the best from both. They’re my siblings in a way, born of the same ambition, the same twisted science.”
Ethan stepped sharply away from her. “What do you mean?”
Arania looked up at him. “This was my father’s lab. I think I was the only experiment that worked — and yet, he kept me a secret.”
Ethan’s expression changed to revulsion as he took another step back.
“It’s okay, I’m still the same person.” She reached out for Ethan’s arm.
He flinched away, and she saw her future in his abhorrence.
If the truth were known, she would be considered an abomination, a creature less than human to be tested and experimented on. She would go from ascending the pinnacle of her architectural career to some black site for government experiments. She could see the future spin out into a web of her father’s origin, weaving into the tapestry of fate.
There was only one solution.
“We need to get out of here. Now.” Ethan turned to leave, his movements stiff, his expression a stony mask.
Arania’s heart raced. She couldn’t let him go. The truth could not escape these walls. Her career — her very life — everything she had worked for would crumble if he revealed what he had learned. She couldn’t take the risk.
As Ethan took another stride towards the exit, Arania reached for the heavy cylinder of oxygen next to the surgical trolley.
Driven by instinct, she wrapped her hands around the cold metal.
In one swift, desperate movement, she swung the oxygen tank with all her might.
It connected with the back of Ethan’s head with a sickening thud. His body crumpled to the ground, motionless.
Arania stood frozen, the oxygen tank still in her grip, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
She dropped the tank, the clang of metal against concrete echoing in the room. Her breath hitched, her hands trembled, tears sprang to her eyes. What had she done?
She knelt beside Ethan, her hands hovering over him, afraid to touch his wound, afraid to confirm what she feared. There was blood, a dark pool spreading across the dusty floor — but his chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths.
He was alive. She could still save him.
She could run outside, call for help, stop the demolition… But what then?
She would be an attempted murderer as well as a genetic aberration. Her promising future would be ruined.
Arania played out the alternate scenario.
The detonation countdown would continue. No one even knew she was here. If Ethan was lost in a terrible accident on the site he managed, she would cry in front of the police, mourn his loss, and then — after a suitable period — she could resume the project.
She stood up and looked around the lab, at her father’s sanctuary of dark secrets, at everything he worked so hard for. She was his most successful creation. He could have cemented his own shining future in genetics by revealing her presence, but he had given everything to protect her. She would not wreck it all.
Her hands were steady now. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.
One creature could live because another died. No moral judgment, just a natural cycle. Perhaps that which was arachnid inside her had reared up to defend its territory? Perhaps there might be other gifts she could realise given time — and experimentation.
But for that future to play out, she had to make sure Ethan never returned to the surface.
The detonator lay on the floor where it had fallen from his hand, the red numbers still counting down. There were only ten minutes before the whole place exploded and collapsed around them.
Ethan moaned and stirred a little, reaching out his fingers towards her.
Arania picked up the oxygen cylinder and — without a second’s hesitation this time — slammed it down on his head.
The pool of blood grew.
He stopped moving.
The blunt force trauma reflected exactly what happened here. Ethan had been caught in the explosion and lumps of masonry crushed the life from him. After the demolition, when the site team realised he was missing and came looking for his body, they would find him broken and shattered down here.
There would be nothing to implicate her — as long as she cleared any evidence of her family connection.
Arania grabbed the old backpack and stuffed her father’s journals inside, along with the photo from the pin board.
As she counted down in her mind, she hurried to the crack in the wall through which they had entered and clambered out. Every second was precious.
Her sprint back through the zoo was a blur. The mist seemed to swallow her as she dashed for the last time along the overgrown paths, past the empty enclosures that once teemed with life.
Arania reached the gates and slipped back through to the other side, padlocking the gate once more.
She stood there at the threshold of freedom and captivity, her breath coming in short gasps. For a moment, she wished she could wind the clock back and see Ethan walking out of the mist once more.
But it was too late. There was only one choice now.
Her father’s failed experiments would be destroyed along with the derelict buildings. The corpses of those he created would be buried beneath the zoo, reducing his twisted legacy to dust and memory, and no one would ever know.
Arania hurried to her car and drove away from the zoo, counting down the seconds to detonation in her mind.
The road wound up to a hilltop on the Downs behind the zoo, the opposite direction from the site office and a safe distance away with a clear view of the impending destruction.
The morning air was cool and crisp as Arania stepped out of her car and walked to the edge, looking down at the zoo below, its structures eerily quiet in the moments before their end.
As the final seconds ticked away, a profound silence enveloped the area.
The charges detonated.
The ground trembled. A deep rumble resonated through the air.
A billowing cloud of smoke and dust rose as the old buildings succumbed to the chain reaction of the explosion.
Arania watched, her eyes wide, as the structures collapsed in on themselves, one after the other.
As the last of the structures fell, a massive plume of smoke rose into the air, dark and foreboding, and Arania thought she saw the lines of a web form, before the smoke dissipated in the morning breeze.
Author’s Note
My parents divorced when I was young, and when my dad came to visit me and my little brother in Bristol, England, he would take us to the zoo. It had enough going on to keep two kids occupied as well as treats to bribe us, and botanical gardens to run off the sugar high before he dropped us home.
Because of these memories, Bristol Zoo is a nostalgic place for me. I associate it with a difficult time when I didn’t know how to relate to my dad, but at least we could walk around and look at the animals. Those were precious hours together.
In November 2020, the BBC reported that Bristol Zoo would relocate to a new site, and it closed down in September 2022. In April 2023, the BBC reported that the old zoo would be demolished and 196 new homes built on the site, with the botanical gardens remaining open to the public once completed.
When I heard the news, I couldn’t help wondering what might be discovered underneath the foundations of the old Victorian zoo, and what if the architect in charge of the project had conflicting emotions about the place? Something about her father, perhaps…
During the summer of 2023, I finished a long-term non-fiction project, Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words, and in it, I reflected on the shadow of divorce and family relationships.
I wrote this story to integrate the past and close the emotional loop on Bristol Zoo as it begins its reinvention.
The name Arania is Persian and means ‘spider,’ but it’s also associated with ambition and professional success.
If you enjoyed this short story, you might also like my crime thriller Desecration, as British detective Jamie Brooke investigates a murder that resonates with the dark history of anatomy and the genetic engineering of monsters.
