The word DANGER, flashing red, punched through his mind, then disappeared into the infinite abyss where thoughts die. Because Richard, fresh out of bed, had already decided on a tired conclusion: If it was anything, it was most likely harmless.
Besides a slight itch now pulsating near the bottom of his ankle, the horror of the situation went unnoticed.
Outside, the wind howled, ripping apart an eternal river of vanilla-white clouds. Richard turned his head toward the sound. He was looking out the bathroom window, the red light of dawn like blood on his face, when it happened again.
Something brushed against his foot. He looked down and there, on the floor, something dark and fast retreated behind the toilet, behind him.
Adrenaline, hot and electric, sparked between his teeth. He was breathing fast, drinking the air.
“Hey!” he said, “Hey, you! What are—"
Then: Panic.
One second his foot was bare, the next it was covered in something dark and hairy. The thing behind the toilet had leaped onto his foot. Whatever this was, it was big.
He stood and stumbled around the bathroom like a drunken shaman dancing away ghosts and spirits, filling the air with high-pitched screams until his vocal cords grew sour with pain. He cried “What!” and “No!” moving his feet with such haste he seemed to set the air on fire. It grew thick and warm and licked at his flesh.
The dark intruder had wrapped itself tightly around his foot. It held on.
Something told him to look down, to get a good look at whatever was holding onto him. Look down!—the thought was loud like a bass chord. For God’s sake, look down, look down!
He didn’t. He didn’t dare to.
What if it was a rat? A toilet-elf? God forbid, what if some kind of sewer monster had wrapped its dark, claw-like hand around his foot and was pulling down on it like a child gesturing for a passing truck to blast its horn?
He was pondering this and more when the thing let go and landed on the floor. It was big, bloated, and full of hair. Against the white tiles, it was dark as though it wore the blackest point of space. Richard stared at it, sweat trickling down his face, eyes blazing. He didn’t immediately recognize what it was. He only saw its ink-black body and the shadow beyond it, stretched and pulled to impossible lengths against the golden patch of sunlight beaming in from the window. He counted its legs. There were eight.
Spider.
He hated spiders. They disturbed him in some deeper sense beyond his ability to understand. And here was one now, in his home, as black as night. A weak sound escaped from the corners of his lips. He closed his eyes for a second to summon some strength. Opening them, he saw the spider was closer. Or was that just his imagination?
“Stay back!” he screamed. He was pointing a trembling finger at it. “Y-you stay back! Nasty son of a bitch!”
It was true, wasn’t it? Never had such a creature rebelled against the beauty of Earth. Spiders were the shadows that choked color, the night that swallowed the day, and the moon that existed to spite the sun.
To make matters worse—they apparently liked feet.
Silence filled the room. He looked at the spider. Was it looking at him?
“Shoo,” Richard said, his face twisting with the wrinkles of a dozen expressions, all of them fearful. His voice was the desperate whimper of a child who felt the courage spill out of him when faced with the monster lurking in the dark closet.
“Shoo! Hideous thing!”
Maybe it was a simple instinct, or maybe the spider heard him. Whatever the reason, the spider charged at him, fast. Eight black legs twitched and fell against the floor with the sound of sharp rain.
As Richard watched the spider approach in a horrible, uncanny rhythm, he felt a strange weight accumulate behind his forehead. It pulled down on whatever jelly-like floor that existed in his mind like an iron pellet encased in bubblegum until something snapped. Where there once were thoughts was now infinite space vibrating to the defying echo of a heart about to rupture and burst. Richard stood paralyzed, listening to his pulse, as an imaginary wind blew away the dust of dead thoughts.
Then he heard a voice.
He couldn’t tell whether this voice was real or imaginary, whether it was sane or insane. It sounded familiar yet unfamiliar. It told him what to do.
Jump over it.
Yes, not hard at all. He could jump over the damn thing. If he moved fast enough, he could run out and close the door behind him, locking the spider inside.
Then you can grab something to smash it with, The Voice said, A rolled-up magazine, or maybe a sledgehammer.
He had to do it right. He counted four feet between himself and the door. If he jumped early, he risked landing too close to the spider. The spider was fast, without enough space between them, it could follow him into the hallway.
The spider raced past the sink. It was close enough for Richard to see something horrible: A translucent fluid, thick like glue, dripping from the spider’s two black fangs.
He wanted to jump and scream and run for his life.
It was The Voice that told him to stay.
Wait just a little longer, it has to be closer.
The spider, twitching like a pulsating shadow, sped past the laundry basket, less than a foot away.
Just a little bit more.
Richard’s breath grew slow and thin. He had to pucker his lips and force the air through clenched teeth. So many legs. God, why did it have so many legs?
The spider’s wet fangs glistened. They were at least an inch long, if not more. It rubbed them together as if sharpening them. It moved to strike.
Now! Jump! Jump!
Richard pushed off the ground. I did it! he thought as the cool air swept through his hair and licked at the anxious flames in his cheeks. What sweet relief! I did it! I—
He lost his balance and began clawing at the air. The joy he felt a second ago was replaced by a painful realization. He’d forgotten to pull up his pants. He had jumped with his jeans and underwear still wrapped around his ankles. Cursing himself, Richard fell toward the floor, toward the spider.
There was a loud crash. He howled in pain and surprise as a high-pitched whine exploded in his ears. Warm blood gushed down his nose and into his mouth. He swallowed some of it, the rest trickled down his chin, then splashed onto the floor. It made a soft sound, like distant rain.
He smelled it before he saw it, a dank, earthy smell, like wet soil.
The spider was in front of him.
Eight tiny eyes, round like peas, stared at him. Except for a reflecting needle-sized prick of white sunlight, their gaze was dead, as empty and dark as ancient ruins buried beneath a sea of sand.
Move, The Voice said.
Richard moved an inch then stopped. He moved another inch then stopped again. It was the fangs. Those awful, glistening fangs. They reacted to the slightest movement with a spasm that reminded him of the unpredictable, twitching gaze of a housefly.
You have to move, The Voice said when Richard remained still. You’re within striking range, you have to move.
The spider reared its glistening black body up into the air. Its size was apparent now. This was the biggest spider Richard had ever seen. He was in the process of convincing himself that it couldn’t get any worse when the spider hissed.
A deep, ripping sound, like someone scratching the bark on a tree with long, unkempt nails. It sent a cold shiver down Richard’s spine.
It was now or never.
Still keeping his eyes on the spider, Richard, using his forearms, slowly pushed himself backward.
The spider lunged.
Richard turned his head and felt the sting of cold air whip across his left cheek—the spider’s fangs must’ve missed him by an inch. The spider went for his hands, still on the floor.
Richard screamed.
He was in awe at the spider’s speed. There was less than a second to spare as he withdrew his left hand, then his right.
“Jesus! Away, goddamn you! Away! Please!” Richard cried. The words came out warm.
Adrenaline, hot and punch-drunk, beat fire into his lungs.
Richard slid himself backward. The room’s air was in his mouth and tasted of dust. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them and blurring his vision. He couldn’t see. He shuffled and thrashed, expecting—at any moment—to feel the spider’s hot fangs dig into his face, arms, or hands.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked.
The spider had given up the chase. It stood still, halfway across the floor, facing him. This was more frightening, as if—it was silly but felt true—it was thinking, planning its next attack.
Richard wasn’t thinking, The Voice did it for him: Now’s your chance, stand up! Hurry!
Richard backed himself into the far wall. He wheezed in and like the wind currents through the thin space between narrow trees.
“Stay there,” he told the spider, right hand planted against his chest, gathering his breath. “Don’t you move, don’t you even think about moving.”
The spider charged.
“Bastard!”
Using the wall behind him, Richard pushed himself off the floor. The spider was so close that, as Richard stood, his bare foot brushed against its balloon-shaped abdomen. It was so soft it almost felt wet. Most terrible of all was that it felt warm.
Standing on wobbly legs that felt like they would buckle at any second, and his jeans still wrapped around his ankles, Richard dove for the open door and crashed down onto the hallway floor. He was filled with dread. He felt the spider had followed him, that he would turn around and it would be right there, inches away, fangs thirsty for blood, for him.
It was still in the bathroom, its long legs pumping and twitching.
It was watching him. He was sure of it.
Richard got up and started toward the doorway. His eyes were pinned to the spider as he slowly began closing the door. As it was about to shut, when there was nothing but a narrow slit of white between them, he saw the black spider and its long shadow scatter and retreat behind the toilet.
~~~
Richard usually hiked on the weekends. Nothing pleased him more than the smell of sun-torched rocks high in the mountains. With the wind whispering around his feet, he would stand staring across an endless vista of rivers and tall pines, nostrils flaring, the yellow summer air sweet on his tongue and warming his lungs around his heart.
There would be no hiking today. No mountains. An intruder had invaded his home, and he intended to catch it and kill it.
He had to.
The voice had told him to do so.
He spent the rest of that morning searching the bathroom, obsessing over every inch, every millimeter. He found nothing. No spider. He spent the afternoon searching the apartment. He had to be fast because the spider was fast. It was so fast, it could seemingly be at two places at once. It could be under the bed and on the wall, or it was on the wall a second ago, and now it was under the bed.
Richard searched, sprinting back and forth, his warm breath whistling between his teeth. He searched behind porcelain figurines. He searched past curtains, along window ledges. He searched the end table and around a crooked stack of magazines. Feet slapping against the floor, he ran in and out of rooms, his heart throbbing in his wrists, the image of the spider burning in his mind. In the background like a constant wind from the infinite lungs of the sky, The Voice urged him to find the spider because it was watching—watching and planning.
By the time twilight came, Richard had only found one nasty creature: himself. Every mirror declared him pale and older. He looked like he had aged ten years. His wrinkles were deep like scars and wet with sweat. There were purple bags beneath his wide unblinking eyes.
He would not quit, could not quit. He had to find it. Nothing else would still the mad beating of his heart or remove the invisible bowling ball of panic pinned to his chest, restricting his air. Worst of all, he began to itch. He was itching all over. It startled him because with every itch he became more and more certain that the spider was upon him, fangs wet and dripping, hissing. That spider. That goddamn spider. Why had it come to his home, his bathroom?
The voice: That doesn’t matter now. We just have to find it.
Yes, but where was it? It could be anywhere. How many times had he walked past it? Had he walked past it at all? Had it been watching him? Was it watching him now?
It’s always watching. Do you feel it?
“Yes,” Richard said. He was starting to itch again.
It’s hiding, here, somewhere, and it means to hurt you.
“God, where is it? What do I do?”
We must kill it. It’s the only way to be sure that it leaves us alone.
“Yes, the only way, but where is it?”
He listened for The Voice to reply, but no reply came. Standing in the center of the living room, eyes bouncing around, he heard the hot rush of blood between his temples and the howl of the wind cutting into the night.
“Where,” he shouted, running into the kitchen, then the bathroom, and back to the living room. He ran in and out of shadows, shivering as their cold teeth nibbled his flesh.
“I know you’re here, I can feel you watching,” he told the walls, the table, the windows. He went over the same areas again and again, body itching, eyes bloodshot and gleaming with sweat. He checked under the bed, under the couch, and under a dozen carpets. He checked every wall, every bookcase, and in every cabinet.
Nothing.
Using a broom, he swept everything he had found into a pile in the middle of the living room floor. Then he stood in the moonlight, wearing its silver armor for ghosts, and considered his findings. Four dollars and fifty-six cents in change, a chewed-down pencil, a small handful of nail clippings, three dust-coated white socks, and a gold earring.
He stood itching, staring at the pile with an anger that turned the calmest men to arms. The sort of anger that seized the best part of their hearts, the part that loved, and then squeezed.
Fury, so red it could rival a summer field of tightly packed roses, burned in his stomach. He ripped away pillows from the couch, hurling them over his shoulder. Two. Four. Six. They crashed into the wall behind him.
“Where are you? Come out, I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he laughed because that wasn’t true. “Where the hell are you?”
He kicked at carpets and dragged furniture all over his living room. “Where? Where? Where?”
He grabbed his flashlight and wielded the piercing beam like a knight wielding a bright sword, slicing away at shadows and dark corners. “Come out! Stop watching me! I can feel your eyes, your presence!” He aimed at the walls, behind the desk, along the bookcase—
Then: A revelation.
Richard aimed the flashlight at one of the pillows he’d hurled. It lay on the floor beside his bookcase.
“Oh my God,” he said, his blood cold, his flesh on fire.
The pillow was covered in webbing. Dozens of pale strings, thick like fleshy tendrils, burned white in the flashlight’s blazing beam.
Although he couldn’t see The Voice, somehow Richard knew, somewhere far away, it was now wringing its hands together, excited.
“Here? Above me?” Richard asked The Voice.
Yes, there’s a web on top of the bookcase. The pillow must’ve landed in it before falling onto the floor.
Richard swallowed. He had only one more question. As he said it, he shivered and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Spider?”
The voice only had one answer, Go look.
Thinking of the eight eyes and the reek of wet soil from glistening, midnight skin almost made him stop and reconsider. Once again, he thought of how the stupid thing invaded his home. It made him angry all over again.
He grabbed a chair from the kitchen, pushed it against the tall bookcase, and climbed on top of it. Standing on his toes, he looked, as The Voice had told him to.
Despite the chair, the bookcase towered over him. He couldn’t see the top of it.
Your hand, reach up with your hand. Drag it across the surface and see if any web clings to it.
“What?”
Your hand, you have to reach up with your hand.
“No.”
Had there been a mirror in front of him, he would have seen a rushing darkness wash and dull the white of his eyes.
“No, no, I can’t.”
He trembled, hands to his face. His lips were dry and, without being aware of it, he ran his tongue over them once, twice, a dozen times.
“What if the spider’s up there? What if it’s waiting for me?”
Then grab it and squeeze.
Richar pictured the panic-stricken spider in his grip, thrashing and struggling, its sharp hairs like spikes against his palm. He saw himself squeeze. He imagined the wet pop like a ruptured balloon filled with warm soup as thick goo ran down his arm. Then he’d pull the spider into the light, and look into its dead eyes, and grin at it. Yes, he’d grin until his cheeks cramped. Then he’d discard the spider. Flush it down the toilet and return it to whatever hell it came from. Finally, he would sleep and sleep well.
Richard stared up at the bookcase.
Leaning forward, he extended his hand into the air. He allowed it to hover in front of the bookcase for a moment. The air was cooler up here and it grew cooler still as he moved his hand closer.
“Reach up here?”
Just a finger, no different than tracing for dust.
Richard reached up with a hand. He dragged his finger across the surface.
“I don’t feel anything.”
Farther, reach farther.
Richard reached farther.
It’s okay, he told himself. Nothing will happen. Nothing will happen because there’s nothing there. I’m doing this for peace of mind, that’s all—so I can put all of this behind me and no longer feel scared in my own home.
“I still don’t feel—" but he did. Part of him had known it was already there, waiting, so he wasn’t surprised when he felt a soft sticky web. Nor was he surprised when something heavy and hairy emerged from the shadows and dropped onto his hand.
The spider was here. All along, it was here.
Richard screamed. For a second he didn’t seem to have a hand at all—the large spider covered every part of it in hairy darkness, making it appear as if his hand was severed at the wrist. He started shaking it as if he had caught fire and a small part of that hairy darkness became wet and started dripping.
The fangs.
Richard balled his hand into a fist and, using all his strength, he thrust it through the air. Immediate relief. He aimed the flashlight at the now free hand, turning it over in the pale beam. He wondered if he had imagined the whole thing when, somewhere behind him in the dark, he heard the hollow click of eight legs racing across the wooden floor.
Time slowed. The air in the room grew thin and narrow as if the world, after millions of years, had decided to inhale. To Richard, it felt like an invisible force was stretching and pulling the seconds as if they were raw dough. He could see every particle of dust, thousands of them, glued to the air like eternal, dead rain. He could hear his heartbeat in the walls. A million thoughts screamed at the same time, filling his head with the intangible buzz of too many conversations spoken in a room too small to bear them. While all of this was happening, there was the spider, sprinting toward him in the dark.
Richard froze. The fumes radiating off his body were warm in his mouth and nose.
The broom, hit it with the broom!
The broom—of course! He had used it to search under the bed and under the cabinet. It leaned against the wall beside him.
Jumping from the chair, he snatched the broom from the wall. The wood felt good in his hands. He gave it a firm squeeze, flexing it in his grip. It emitted a satisfying whine.
Aim for the eyes.
Click-click-click, like the empty heartbeat of something once dead but now alive, the spider’s legs pumped and twitched across the floor. He could see it now, less than two feet away.
As the spider presented its glistening fangs, Richard raised the broom into the air.
“Come on then, coward!”
Hit it! Hit it! Hit it now!
Richard swung and missed. He swung again, with more power. The broom whistled through the air and struck the floor, producing a recoiling echo that exploded into the wood and into his hands.
The spider was at his feet. It raised its front legs and reached for his left foot. The spider twitched with excitement, its fangs ripping and tearing through the fabric of his sock. He had to think of something fast, or he would soon feel the spider’s hot fangs sink into his skin.
The voice was quiet, it didn’t need to say anything, Richard already knew.
His hands were warm with sweat, betraying his grip. Richard brought his right hand down against his jeans and rubbed it dry. Then he swung one last time.
WHACK!
“YES!”
YES!
It was a clean hit. There was just enough time for him to see the spider get launched into the air and disappear into the dark.
“Where is it?” Richard wiped sour sweat from his eyes and scanned the room. He expected the spider to jump at him from the shadows or drop down on him from the ceiling.
“Is it dead?”
Dead or dying, you hit it pretty good.
“Yeah, pretty good.”
Rest, we must rest now.
“But what if it’s still alive? It couldn’t have just disappeared.”
Disappear is what spiders do. It’s gone.
Richard lowered the broom and looked at his bed. He looked at it like a newlywed husband looks at his wife when she sits by the window and the last daylight pours from her eyes like syrup. He couldn’t resist, he was exhausted.
“I hit it pretty good, huh?”
Yes, The Voice said as Richard lay in his bed. You hit it pretty good.
He slept.
~~~
The dreams went like this:
It tickles.
(Can’t breathe).
Something in my throat, can’t breathe something big, NO AIR.
(Can’t breathe, can’t breathe).
Hurts, hurts, HURTS.
Sharp so sharp. Hurts.
Can’t breathe, WHY CAN’T I BREATHE, my throat inside, oh God, I think something is inside me, I feel something going down my throat.
A flash of white.
He awoke—
—screaming and began scratching all over his body, leaving red marks on his arms, legs, and torso. There were tears in his eyes. Where is it? Oh God, where is it?
God didn’t reply, but The Voice did.
Never mind that now, douse those scratches with cold water. They sting.
Once the adrenaline wore off, they did more than sting, they outright hurt.
Before he entered the bathroom, Richard waited in the doorway, eyes jumping back and forth from one corner to the next, searching. What was that poking out behind the toilet? Was that hair or dust? Or was it the spider?
Whatever it was, it was enough for him to clutch and grab at his chest with an open palm, desperate to slow his accelerating pulse.
Just dust, remember how big the spider was?
“I don’t want to,” Richard said.
He entered the bathroom like a boy who has finally summoned enough courage to explore a dark and chilly basement on the tips of his toes.
His pale reflection in the dirty mirror above the sink looked back at him. For a moment he thought about the dream. He stopped. There was no point in trying to understand it. Still, it bothered him. Had he possessed a magical flame, he would light it on fire and watch the slow descent of its ashes fall on a furnacing wind.
Richard turned on the faucet. Still standing on his toes, he splashed cold water on his wounds. He grabbed a fresh towel from the nearby rack to pat them down. They were cold and hot at the same time, the two elements combating each other like weather gone insane, blasting both summer and winter through the skins of the world.
After patting the wounds dry, he closed his eyes and listened to the wet rhythm of his bodily functions, the slow song of the wind outside.
Was the spider gone?
The faucet was still on. Leaning down, he let the water quell the fire started in his cheeks. The water was cold but not cold enough to slow his heart. He wished it was.
He was looking at his dripping reflection when he became aware of a strange taste in his mouth, like soil.
He rinsed with water, spat, then looked into the sink.
The water was dark with hairs.
Richard looked at his mirror. He opened his mouth.
“God, no.”
There were tiny, dark hairs all over his teeth. He plucked one from the upper row and rolled it between two fingers. It was coarse and thick and hard and—
Not human.
“But how? How is that even possible?”
Saying it out loud made it more real. His stomach tightened as his mouth overflowed with saliva.
“Christ, oh Christ, not now—”
Something hot and bitter rushed up his throat. Richard gripped the sides of the sink and tried to swallow but it would not go down. Using his tongue, he sucked moisture from the insides of his cheeks. With a large enough ball of saliva, he swallowed as hard as he could. That’s when whatever was stuck in his throat began moving.
Leaning over the sink, he coughed and clawed at his throat. Skin ripped. Blood poured. Can’t breathe, he thought. He had to think it because he couldn’t say it. There was no air.
Can’t breathe.
(can’t breathe can’t breathe)
He drove his fist into the mirror. Shards of glass, like crystal rain, fell into the sink. The voice said something as he grabbed one of them. Tears ran down his face. He attempted a small prayer in his head, but everything was spinning. The words were lost. He then tried to picture his mother’s face, her graying hair, and the spray of golden freckles on her forehead and nose. Then he saw no more because a million thoughts had surfaced and he could no longer concentrate on one.
He did hear The Voice. The voice was always clear. It was singing.
The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout—
Richard placed the cold glass shard against his neck.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out—
He pushed it in, dragging it around the upper curve of his Adam’s apple.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain—
Warm blood spilled down his chest.
And the itsy bitsy spider—
A black leg fell out from the bleeding wound, into the sink.
Went up—
He tossed the glass shard aside. He tilted his head backward and using the angle of the mirror, he hooked his fingers into the wound, then pulled it open.
The spout—
Another leg fell out. It slowly rolled down his neck before getting caught in a small pool of sweat just above his chest, where it remained. Richard looked inside his throat.
Again—
Eight black eyes looked out at him. The spider crawled forward, its front legs twitching for purchase as they leaned out and over the bleeding wound.
It was coming out. My God, it was coming out and it was—
It was missing two legs.
He had cut it. He had hurt it.
The spider hissed.
A distant sound, not clear. What was clear, however, was The Voice. The voice was always clear.
SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER—
Silence. The voice was gone. There were no more thoughts. There was only an image: The six-legged spider crawling crooked across the bathroom tiles. Its balloon-shaped abdomen jiggling. Its horrible shadow, also crooked, was tattooed on the walls.
Then Richard was gone, too.