Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on Earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This frost-bitten tale story club members might make you avoid any intergalactic

exploration in the not-so-distant future. It's one I call the ice spiders from planet zero.

The planet was freezing, below freezing. Nothing but a sheet of ice as far as the eye could see.

Why would anyone want to set up a colony here? Harley Marshall wondered.

She was part of the investigation team along with her parents.

Two years ago, a colony of 127 civilians was set up on the planet zero, a tiny ice planet in the distant reaches of the galaxy.

It was an experiment to discover if humans could thrive in the sub-zero world year-round.

They lived in prefab shelters, had their own greenhouse for food, and melted their own fresh water supplies.

It had been a success until a few months ago

when mission controls stopped receiving any transmissions from the colonists.

Harley wanted to be a space pilot like her parents,

and she volunteered to go on the seven-person away team,

heading down on a tiny shuttle to the frost-bitten planet zero.

Their mothership above orbited the icy terrain.

Sensors had indicated life forms even though they couldn't find them. There was a reason to hope.

In their warm suits, Harley and her parents searched the shelters of the colony upon landing. Not a soul was around.

And there was strange webbing everywhere that shimmered like ice crystals on the walls and in the doorways.

And then they finally found one colonist.

He was down in a tunnel that was under the colony.

...