Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “Ah, that’s right. Thanks for the reminder.” He watched as she fiddled with the computer. “So, um, before he left Antonio said you wanted to talk to me and show me something. Was that it?”

  “No.” She turned back to face him. “I merely thought you might find a view of this morning’s encounter from another angle enlightening. Actually, I came with a different video to show you, and then I’m going to tell you a story. But first, I need you to sit there on the bed and remove your braces and shirt. I want to check on your physical progress, and hopefully rule out any repeat of yesterday’s event.”

  “Right.” He sat down and began to do as instructed.

  So here I sit, undressing in a beautiful woman’s bedroom while she lectures me about giant spiders and mutant rednecks. I should hate my life, but it’s gotten so damn weird I can’t wait to see what happens next.

  “I see you left your cane back in your room.” She walked around and sat in a chair facing him. “Are you still feeling as strong as yesterday?”

  “No. Actually, I feel like I’m recovering from a track meet. I’m just a lot steadier now for some reason. But I would still take the cane with me if I were going to be on uneven ground or out in the open. And I still need the braces, whether I have the cane or not.”

  “Yes,” she muttered as she lifted and examined one of his feet. “Well, neurological improvement aside, you have a lot of muscle atrophy. Even if your nerves were completely healed, you would face a long regime of physical therapy before getting normal use back. Of course, this is all based on the assumption Grandma Lilah was telling the truth and she can make this permanent.”

  “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

  Olivia didn’t speak right away, apparently giving the question deep consideration.

  “Yes,” she finally answered, looking him seriously in the eyes. “Although I would approach any deal involving her with the greatest of caution, I do not think she would outright lie under a truce. Nor do I think she would offer a bargain she could not fulfill. Therefore I have to conclude she is capable of doing what she claimed.”

  “Uh huh,” Adam nodded his head in resignation, “that’s sort of what I was afraid of.”

  “Afraid of?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed and gazed up at the ceiling. “I was almost hoping this was some kind of trick on her part…because I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn her down.”

  “Are you sure?” She gave him that curious look that made his stomach feel funny. “This is your mobility, Adam. You could regain all or most of what you lost. No more canes or braces. You would be free of such things.”

  Adam closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. He had been going over this in his own mind earlier this morning. The thought of being able to run again. To jump. To be able to get off the floor without it taking two or three minutes. Or just to take an unassisted walk down a path with a certain beautiful young woman. Dear God, how he wanted all that back.

  But…

  “I know.” He his spirit ached at the decision. “I know…but the price is too high. I can’t leave Tucker at their mercy.”

  “I see.”

  Olivia regarded him with an indecipherable look for a few seconds before setting his leg down and moving to sit beside him on the bed. She held up his arm and spent a minute examining the gunshot wound without speaking. Then she gently clasped his wrist and took his pulse.

  Adam didn’t interrupt her, merely concentrating on hiding how much he reveled in the feel of her touch. Her proximity utterly dispelled the ache caused by the topic of his legs and his decision regarding them. Whether his feet ever functioned again or not, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever get his heart back after this was over.

  “Whatever she did, seems to have run its course,” Olivia stated. “Not only have you improved neurologically, but your previous injuries have knitted at an accelerated rate as well. As a matter of fact, your buckshot wounds are completely healed and the scars faded. Whatever else she is, Grandma Lilah is a formidable healer.”

  “I guess that’s good to know. Maybe I can work something else out with her.”

  “I doubt it,” the woman replied as she returned to her feet. “I’m afraid she strikes me as the type who offers one time only deals, Adam…which brings me to what I wanted to show you. If you are going to make this choice, I want you to make it fully informed.”

  “What?” Adam watched with a puzzled frown as she walked back over to her laptop. “What do you mean?”

  “Observe.” She nodded at the television and pushed a button on her laptop. The still image of the hallway filled the screen. “This is the hotel hallway on the night you encountered Grandma Lilah. The vantage point is from two doors down where the camera was concealed on the fire extinguisher. This is ten seconds before they enter the hotel while you sleep.”

  Of course! Adam realized as he peered at the screen. She made the reservations and knew where all this would take place. So while Antonio and I were dropping the totem off and getting shot at by the Spider People, she came here and set up her little surveillance grid. Damn, no wonder Antonio brought her along…she’s like a one woman CIA or something.

  Olivia pushed another button and the scene went into motion.

  The door opened and Adam’s jaw almost dropped at what happened next. Tucker entered, leading Grandma Lilah by the hand. They came about ten feet inside, then the old woman disengaged from the boy and walked over to the side of the hallway. She placed her palm on the wall, as if leaning against it for support. But that wasn’t what she was doing.

  Suddenly, spiders seemed to flow out of her sleeve and spread out over the wall from where she leaned. There must have been somewhere between fifty and a hundred of them. They scattered across the walls and ceiling, spreading wider and further apart, before they all stopped at once at whatever position they were at. At the same time, Tucker walked back to the door and held it open.

  And then the monster Adam understood to be Grandma Lilah’s companion came inside.

  It emerged out of the darkness and stopped right beside Tucker’s legs, one foreleg seeming to stroke the boy’s shoe. Next to the child, the creature looked monstrous. Adam held his breath and screamed inside for the boy to get away from the horror. But Tucker didn’t budge. He merely gazed down at the huge arachnid with a look of mild curiosity. A second later, the big spider crawled up into the doorframe and assumed the position Adam had seen two nights ago.

  And then Tucker laid his hand on the monster and stroked its abdomen.

  Adam stared aghast at the scene on the television.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed aloud. “He’s one of them, now.”

  “It’s been the better part of a year,” Olivia answered softly, “a significant portion of a seven-year-old’s life. Children are very adaptable, and since it appears the Spider People took him in, he has adapted to them.”

  Adam didn’t reply. He could only give a long, slow exhale and continued to watch the child stroke the big spider.

  The boy on the screen looked at the old woman in a posture of listening. He nodded and walked over to a door Adam recognized as his own. Then he used the keycard Antonio had left on the totem to open the door and step inside. A couple of minutes later he exited and walked swiftly down the hallway toward the camera and disappeared off screen.

  Shortly afterward, Adam leaned forward as he saw his own image exit the room.

  “Now hold on,” he muttered, “that’s not right.”

  The man on the screen moved slowly out into the hall, hunched in a posture he found almost embarrassing to watch. Adam stared at the screen and tried to make sense of his own behavior. What the hell? What was he doing? He remembered being frightened, but not cringing. So why would he be in a stance like that? Then it hit him…

  “The webs!” Adam exclaimed and looked from the screen over to Olivia. “Where are the webs? The hallway was full of spider webs that night! I’m serious, they
were there. I was almost afraid to move for fear of hitting them. Those spiders on the walls should be on webs, and there should be even more of them. A lot more!”

  “I believe you.”

  “But…” He looked from the woman back over to the screen. “Then…where are they? The hallway didn’t look like that!”

  “I know.”

  Olivia tapped a button on the laptop and the image on the screen froze.

  “Do you remember,” she continued, “when we first met, and Antonio referred to Grandma Lilah as the deadliest woman on the planet? And in the park yesterday, I said she was something of an ‘exception’?”

  Adam nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. You guys were hinting pretty strongly she was something special.”

  “Special indeed.” Olivia closed the laptop, and the TV screen went blank. Then she walked back around to the chair and sat down facing Adam again before continuing. “Grandma Lilah, is a once in a century phenomenon. She is a third generation talent.”

  “Third generation?” Adam muttered. “But didn’t you guys tell me the odds against even second generation talents were high?”

  “As I said, a once in a century phenomenon. And just as a second generation talent has more powerful abilities than a plain talent, her abilities far exceed those of a second generation’s. We don’t even know what all of them are. But the main one of concern is that, unlike any other talent we know of, she can not only read minds…but she can project back into them as well.”

  “Project…back…into them?”

  “Yes. She can not only see what you are thinking, but she can project an image back into your mind, too. I believe you saw the webs because she wanted you to see them. It was probably to make you feel confined and less likely to move. And I’m sure intimidation was a consideration as well.”

  “Well, it worked.” Adam suppressed a shudder. “I was definitely intimidated.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And it all seemed so real.” He frowned as he considered the matter and its implications. “My God…If she can do something like that…”

  “…then you can trust nothing you see or hear in her presence,” Olivia finished.

  Silence fell between them as he pondered that. Adam tried to grasp how such a person could exist, and how they would function. To do what she did must have required enormous telepathic sensitivity. And for that matter, what about control? The old woman was obviously functional, but what about her sanity? What kind of madwoman went through life with her eyes sewn shut?

  “One who sees through everybody else’s eyes…” he muttered in a burst of revelation.

  “Pardon?”

  “Sorry.” He brought himself back into the present. “I was just considering the idea she sews her eyes shut because she’s always seeing through everybody else’s.”

  “And her spiders,” Olivia nodded at him with the barest hint of approval. “We believe she uses all of her spiders as eyes, as well. She is the only one we know of who ever has more than one spider on her person. Grandma Lilah’s mind and world must be a very strange place. Especially considering that she is at least a hundred and fifty years old.”

  “Holy shit! Serious?”

  “Very. We know she was alive and acting as something of a local witch-woman back in 1893. The Spider People were always secretive, of course, but they had more contact with outsiders back then. Probably due to the lack of modern technology like cameras, phones, and other stuff to threaten them with exposure. She was described as a young woman then. Records show she died in 1956, meaning the Spider People faked her death rather than try to figure out how to explain her increasing longevity. I doubt anybody but our two tribes know she still lives.”

  “Damn,” Adam shook his head in amazement. “It’s almost like you guys live in an alternate world or something.”

  “But we don’t. It’s your world too, Adam,” Olivia replied with grave solemnity, “just a hidden aspect of it you’ve only recently become aware of. And this means you are now part of it.”

  He couldn’t deny the grim truth of that.

  “Right, I guess I still have my own adapting to do.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” she agreed, “and I thought it best to take advantage of the downtime we have in Antonio’s absence to start acclimating you to it. The realities of our little corner of the world take some getting used to, and even we don’t know them all.”

  “No?”

  “No. Much of what we know comes down to us in the form of oral histories from our ancestors. But unfortunately, by the time the last remnant of our tribe fled to Mexico our storytellers had been killed and much was lost. What we have left is a mix of legends and tales those refugees heard as children. We lost a great deal…including much of who we were.”

  “But you remembered the spiders, and what their bite could do.”

  “Yes. That is what brought us back from our exile in the middle of the last century. Even the Spider People thought we were dead, so they never saw us coming. And we used the veneno we gathered from our initial successes to set ourselves up well this time. But it still left us with an enemy we no longer understood.”

  “And now you’re trying to understand them.”

  “Some of us are,” she answered quietly. “Adam, some of us have come to believe this war must stop. And since our people are now technically in the role of the aggressors, we thought the Spider People would naturally agree. But when we achieved a position where we had the power to make an overture in their direction, it was always either ignored or met with violence. We had no idea why. But when I saw the picture your brother took, I concluded some of those ‘legends’ may have in fact been actual retellings. And the implications of that changed everything.”

  “Implications?”

  “Yes.” Olivia folded her hands in her lap. “I realized the Spider People were quite possibly being ruled by a thousand-year-old, non-human entity who still saw the world through the filter of the old ways, and the only way our people could hope to approach them would be according to those rules we both shared in the past. Your brother’s picture, coupled with the Spider People’s response to the totem, has now all but confirmed it to be the case.”

  “You’re referring to this ‘Matriarch’ again?”

  “Correct.”

  Adam mulled that one over for a minute.

  “Okay,” He frowned in thought. “So the spider in David’s picture really is their head honcho, and she’s the one who is calling all the shots. How does that work?”

  Olivia gave him the hint of a smile and repositioned herself in the chair.

  “Well, this is where we get to the story. Now I’m going to tell you one of the few legends we have regarding the Matriarch, and let you draw your own conclusions.”

  ###

  “First of all,” Olivia began, “remember this is a translation, both language wise and content wise, of an oral legend handed down through survivors who were not all story tellers. It may be completely accurate, mostly accurate, only partially accurate, or a complete fabrication by one of the survivors. Personally, I am now inclined to lean toward the second or third options.”

  “Understood,” Adam replied. He intended to be the very soul of attention.

  Olivia nodded and continued.

  “A very long time ago—long before your ancestors arrived here—there lived a young brave known in our language as River Coyote. This was so far back that while we considered the Spider People to be enemies, we weren’t truly at war with them yet. Very close to it…but not yet. But even then, we knew of their secret and coveted the veneno for ourselves.

  Needless to say, although we seldom ventured this far north, this meant we were not exactly a welcome sight to a sub-tribe already known for its inhospitality.

  But River Coyote was a hunter of great renown in our tribe, and he ventured far and wide. He often traveled alone because even compared to our other hunters he could cover great distances without
rest and none could keep up with him. His skill in the wild rivaled his ability to travel fast so he managed to survive despite his solitary habits. The fact he always returned with either meat, or items he had traded that meat for, only added to his status.

  So one day, River Coyote hunted along the banks of the Brazos…taking care because the river was swollen due to recent rains. He most likely hoped to catch a deer unawares between him and the risen waters. Instead, he found something that would drastically alter the course of his life.

  Coming around a bend, he saw what appeared to be the body of a woman lying on the edge of the torrent. From her position, it appeared she had managed to pull herself from the waters before passing out or expiring. She sported tattoos common to the Karankawa tribes, although he thought it strange to find her this far north.”

  Adam realized with some alarm as she related this that he had never seen Olivia in anything other than long-sleeved blouses and either long skirts or slacks. Memories of the swirling tribal tattoos covering Antonio’s torso and limbs rose in his mind.

  “But as he approached her,” Olivia continued, “he spied something else. A great spider clutched her shoulder and back.

  River Coyote realized right away she must have been one of the Spider People, for the arachnid had a leg span of a foot-and-a-half. It turned to face him as he drew near and raised its forelegs in warning. Needless to say, he beat a hasty retreat. A spider of that size can pose a serious threat, especially to a man wearing only a loin cloth and armed with nothing but a bow and a knife. He didn’t stop until he had put a hundred feet between him and the pair. Then he climbed a nearby oak to see if the beast remained with the woman.