Red Web

by Ninie Hammon

  Suddenly, she cried out, jerked back and almost toppled the two of them.

  "The railing — there are bugs … things on—"

  "Don't touch it, just hold onto me."

  She grabbed the back of his shirt with her free hand and he took another step up. And another.

  Something else crawled over the hand he was moving along the banister. Bigger.

  "Aggghhh!" He couldn't help cryin' out at the sudden stab of pain in his knuckle, shook his hand furiously, knocked the creature off onto the steps. Felt like the whole top of his hand was on fire.

  "What—?"

  "Danged thing bit me!"

  "What was it?"

  "I don't know, I don't …"

  His hand throbbed in heartbeat bursts of searing pain, but it was a wasp-sting, bee-sting pain. It hurt like the devil, but it wasn't the agony he'd have felt if it'd been a black widow.

  "Musta just been a tarantula."

  Bailey went rigid.

  "A tarantula bit you?"

  She began to shake violently.

  "They're all over. Everywhere. I can't. I have to get out—"

  Letting go of his shirt, she tried to wrench out of his grip on her wrist. He held firm, but had to grab the railing with his other hand to keep from being carried off the staircase with her flailing around.

  "Bailey, stop it!"

  He'd have slapped her to quell her hysteria but he couldn't let go of her or of the staircase railing, and he couldn't have landed a blow on her face anyway 'cause he couldn't see it in the darkness.

  "Be still!" He squeezed her wrist as hard as he could, knew it hurt, meant for it to! "You gonna knock us off these steps …" He paused for a beat, thought. "… into a pile of spiders down there in the dark. That what you want — to fall into a nest of tarantulas?"

  "Noooooo!" Lurching forward at him, she grabbed him in a bear hug, sobbing.

  "Don't let me fall, not … please — tarantulas!"

  "Don't think about 'em. Think 'bout me. Think about holdin' onto me. And look up there."

  Above them, probably fifty feet, was the opening into the theatre box seating area. It was only a dim reddish glow against the blackness, but their eyes had so adjusted to the dark that the light was as clear as a beacon.

  "Just a little farther. Keep on climbin'."

  He put his foot on the next step and the next, slidin' his free hand along the banister, prayin' there wouldn't be another spider on it. The pain on his knuckle had settled into a bearable agony. He felt jittery, too, a wiggly feelin' in his belly he knew was the spider venom, like epinephrine in his bloodstream.

  One more turn and he stepped out onto the landing of the staircase, Bailey holdin' onto him with grim strength, her face buried in his back. Stretched out in front of them were tables and chairs like in a little cafe, with an awning roof. He recalled them awnings had been white, though this one was an ugly splotched red now. They stayed near the back wall deep under the overhang as T.J. searched for a "sniper" in the intertwined rigging of "spiderwebs" in the gloom. Even up here in the theatre box, they was still far below the chandelier, but he could see it better. The crystals was … was what? No longer shiny, that's for sure. They was dark, like years of time and dust had slathered them in … what was on 'em? What had she poured or sprayed or … he didn't know, but she'd done something to dim 'em, darken 'em.

  And the small lightbulbs — hundreds, no, more like thousands of 'em was dark. But there was a few that was still lit — red ones — just enough light to see. Had Melody … unscrewed most of the bulbs? How had she done a thing like that? Wasn't no ladder'd be that tall. It'd take one of them telephone company bucket trucks to lift somebody up that high.

  Course, she was light enough that maybe she coulda hung from the struts of the chandelier. But she'd had to a'been a circus trapeze artist in another life to pull off somethin' like that. That little bitty thing couldn't possibly have dangled there, unscrewin' lightbulbs and painting/slathering/whatever-ing all them shiny crystals. And how'd she hang them kids' … bodies … up there like that?

  The tangled web of ropes moved. Somethin' they couldn't see was climbin' on 'em. T.J. thought he seen a dark shape streakin' across the web, but wasn't nothin', a trick of the light, or the lack of light. Had to have been a shadow. A shadow of what?

  Bailey swayed, sick and drunk and nauseous. Whatever Melody had spiked the sugar cubes with was beginning to wear off just a little, but it was still enough to make the world swim, and the floor lurch under Bailey's feet. She couldn't seem to really look at anything because her eyes refused to focus. Everything was just a panoramic sweep, a wash of things past the window of a car traveling at high speed. Everything was moving and wobbly, a mirage.

  When she did see something, did manage to focus, it was a horror. Standing beside T.J. as he peered fearfully into the rigging dangling from the ceiling, she looked at the railing surrounding the theatre box suspended on the wall of the ballroom. It was moving. No, things on it were moving. It was alive with creatures and as she stared at a spot on it only a few feet away, the smeared images materialized into dozens of small spiders, all about the same size. Maybe they had just … what? Hatched out of eggs? Was that what spiders did? Laid eggs?

  The little spiders were crawling all over something. Then the something moved.

  A tarantula.

  Merely looking at the hairy beast horrified her beyond reason. Knowing it wasn't rational fear but arachnophobia didn't diminish the terror. It was a hairy, black tarantula!

  Not a huge one. She knew they could grow to the size of dinner plates. This one was about the size of a lemon, though it probably would have been ten inches across if you spread its legs out from its body flat, instead of bent at the … knee? … How could she possibly know the names of the parts of a spider? It wiggled and writhed beneath the baby spiders.

  Then she understood. The baby spiders were eating the mother alive.

  She began to shudder, gripped by waves of quaking that made her knees so weak she was afraid she — she couldn't collapse! Right now, the only part of her touching a surface were her feet. To get to her, a creature, a spider, would have to crawl onto her shoes and up her pants leg. But if she fell down … if her whole body made contact with the floor … no!

  T.J. turned his head suddenly, looked like he saw something, whatever was crawling around on the spider's web of rigging — Melody up there somewhere above them.

  "We got to move … but I'd sure like to get a look at what she's packin'."

  T.J. dragged Bailey back toward the wall, as far as it was possible to get under the awning, then he peered around the edge of it.

  "Packing?"

  "Her weapon. A rifle with a laser sight, if I had to guess. But what's the range? Can she pick us off from way up there where we can't see? Or does she got to get closer?"

  The sound came again, the grating sound and the hissing. She looked at T.J. to see if he heard and he did, so the sound wasn't just in her head.

  Then they both heard a different sound, a horror laugh that mocked humanity in its vulgar corruption of a voice. Ragged and ugly, it was all the more hideous because Bailey knew the throat that made the sound was small and fragile; the lips it passed through were on a face as beautiful and delicate as a china doll.

  Suddenly, the world was gone. Bailey was gone. She blinked and her eyes opened on an entirely new reality. Not the horror of the camper, though, with a child trapped inside. This time, it was … there was a ceiling tile above. Not Bailey's BFF, but this was a hospital room.

  Chapter Forty-One

  From the dark place deep inside herself where she hides, Katydid looks at the distant light. It's dark here because she flipped the switches when she was in the stinky place, flipped them the way Daddy did that time in the garage.

  Her eyes are open and light shines in and she could move closer and look out if she wanted to. But she doesn't. She doesn't want to see. She is safer here in the dark where not
hing can get to her. No stink. No wasps.

  Then a face appears in front of hers, a face with an ugly smile. It looks into her eyes and Katydid can see it from the dark place, the safe place.

  Then the man with the ugly face, the mean smile … touches Katydid.

  She doesn't like his touch!

  He touches her in that place you're not supposed to touch. Mommy said. Mommy said if anybody ever touched Katydid in that place she was to tell Mommy and Mommy would make it stop because touching Katydid there was a bad thing.

  But Katydid can't tell Mommy to make the man stop because Mommy isn't here. Katydid was a bad girl so Mommy and Daddy left her in the stinky place.

  Katydid is afraid of the man and the touches. He's hurting her — the her who is out there in the light with her eyes open.

  It hurts and Katydid screams inside her head but she doesn't make any sound because all the switches are flipped. She screamed when the wasps stung her, screamed out loud before she flipped the switches — but Mommy didn't come and make the wasps stop hurting her. It wouldn't do any good to scream out loud now because Mommy won't come and make the man stop hurting Katydid.

  Shannuck stopped the wasps.

  Shannnuck … help!

  Shannuck's eyes open and he sees.

  Shannuck is angry!

  He will make this man-bug stop hurting Katydid.

  The man-bug is fat and ugly, with black hair and a scraggly beard and he is wearing striped pajamas and house shoes. He touches Katydid in that place, the hurting place and he smiles because he likes hurting.

  Shannuck rears up on his back legs to be big and scary, a black, hairy spider. He grabs the man by the neck in a rage that completely takes over, that controls everything. Shannuck's fury is fuel that grants strength and power.

  The ugly, fat man-bug is surprised. The single black eyebrow above his eyes shoots up. He tries to scream but Shannuck squeezes his throat hard. The man-bug tries to get away, struggles, staggers back, but Shannuck won't let go and the man-bug falls backward onto the floor with Shannuck on top of him. His face is red, his eyes are bulging out. Still Shannuck doesn't let go. He squeezes and squeezes and squeezes until the man-bug lies still and his face is swollen and what was his neck is all squishy where Shannuck crushed it.

  Shannuck is angry at the bad things, all rage and killing. Mad at the wasps. And furious at Mommy and Daddy who were supposed to take care of Katydid but they didn't. They went away and left her all alone. Shannuck hates Mommy and Daddy! Shannuck would kill them if he could. Shannuck hates everyone who is not Katydid because they might hurt Katydid. But Shannuck won't let them.

  Now, Shannuck gets back into the bed where Katydid is unharmed far back in the dark. He lies down, pulls the covers back up so she is warm and safe. Shannuck is Katydid's protector here just like he was when she was in the awful stinky place where the wasps came. Shannuck will not let anything hurt Katydid.

  He will never leave her like Mommy and Daddy did! He will stay with her always.

  Katydid looks out from the deep, safe place inside at the light shining in through the eyes that look out on the world. The man is gone. Shannuck took the man and did to him what he did to the wasps that came to sting Katydid. She is safe here in the dark now. Shannuck is with her, watching, always watching. She doesn't ever have to be afraid again. Shannuck will always take care of her.

  Bailey was inside a little girl, looking at the ceiling in a hospital room.

  An eye blink later, she was inside a human spider.

  An eye blink after that she was back in the little girl.

  Another eye blink and she was back here, in the nightmare horror of the grand ballroom of The Cedars.

  The fragile boundary of an eye blink was all that separated those realities.

  "Bailey!"

  It was T.J. She wanted to answer, but … she didn't quite know how. Couldn't seem to translate thought into words.

  And then Bailey was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been of anything in her life. More terrified than she'd been of the tarantulas in the darkness. More afraid than she'd been inside the monster spider-person who killed the pervert. More afraid even than she had been when she was hiding with the rats under a dumpster, praying that the men who had murdered her husband wouldn't lean over and see her there.

  The fear she felt now was worse! That had been fear of danger. This was fear of annihilation. Fear that she would cease to be. Not die — she certainly didn't want to die, but she'd rather die than cease to exist while she was still alive. Losing who you were, losing your sense of self, your soul, was far worse than dying, and she could feel her grip on her own reality as a person, her Bailey-ness, beginning to loosen.

  Felt her sanity … begin to crumble around the edges.

  Every time she was yanked out of the here-and-now and into the mind of the insane child, she came back with some of her own reality missing. She left pieces of herself behind when she escaped back into her own mind. And the terror now in her chest was that she would continue to be yanked out of herself into the crazy child, again and again, leaving some of herself behind with each connection until there would come a time when she would come back, but not be all there. Not be all Bailey, with essential pieces of who she was missing.

  Or she would simply occupy the body of Bailey but be unable to connect with it. Just living there, like the catatonic child down in the darkness, watching the light above, unable to move the body or think with the mind that was her own.

  Or she wouldn't be able to come back at all. There'd come a time when she'd be trapped, a prisoner in the mind, the reality of the insane little girl.

  Or maybe … maybe she'd bring some of the crazy child back with her to become a part of who Bailey was, on a soul level. Then Bailey, too, would be insane.

  She struggled, concentrated, tried to calm the sickening terror, forced her sluggish, drugged mind to think.

  "T.J.!" She blurted out his name. A single word, but a word nonetheless. Good! She clutched at his shirt. "Oh, T.J.!"

  He stopped scanning the overhead webs.

  "You been connectin' again, ain't you?" He let go of her wrist and put his hands on her shoulders. "Whatever she spiked in them sugar cubes is makin' it worse. It's loosened your grip on the real world." He gestured with his chin to their surroundings. "She's likely put her hand on everything in this room. Then you come along, touch what she touched … With you so susceptible to connectin', might not take mor'n hearin' her voice."

  Bailey opened her mouth and the words came.

  "It's not just Caitlyn!"

  With every word she spoke, she became more herself, more in charge of her own mind. With words, she dragged herself back from the brink and grabbed hold of who she was.

  "It's Shannuck. I connected to Shannuck."

  In the dim light shadowed beneath the awning, with her vision blurred, she couldn't see his face well, but she felt T.J.'s fingers tighten on her shoulders.

  "She's totally insane, T.J. In the wrecked camper, Katydid crawled down into herself and flipped the switches, but then in the hospital she was molested."

  "How?"

  "Some pervert, another patient maybe. It hurt. She was scared, cried out inside her head and … Shannuck came."

  "Came?"

  "She split off, splintered. Her personality. She became two different … she became Shannuck."

  Now, words gushed out of Bailey in a torrent as she clung to T.J. in the gloom.

  "Dissociative Identity Disorder. You said, I remember you said that the shrink told you people with DID are who they believe themselves to be."

  "If the childhood trauma was … he claimed a diabetic changed his own body chemistry, so—"

  "Not just body chemistry, T.J. Body structure! Caitlyn didn't just believe she was a spider. She became a spider. Shannuck is real! I was inside Shannuck's head."

  "You sayin'—?"

  "In the park, I touched that rock wall and I connected to Shannuck. W
hen Melody grabbed the little girl, she was Shannuck, the spider. Shannuck is the kidnapper."

  "You was in … you connected to—?"

  "I saw the world through a spider's eyes. Black and white. And I could see in front and to the sides, too."

  She paused to drag in a ragged breath.

  "And I've connected to Shannuck other times, too. This afternoon, I smelled roses. I was here, inside Shannuck. A spider locates its prey with its sense of smell. I barely remember science class, but I remember that much. And they don't have a nose. They smell and hear with hairs on their legs."

  She grabbed the front of T.J.'s shirt, held on with fierce strength, had been so dangerously close to losing her grip, not on T.J. but on sanity.

  "T.J., she can do what a spider can do. Do you realize what that means?"

  He didn't have time to respond because the rope spiderweb wiggled again, vibrated violently. They both looked up at the same time and this time they saw what was on the web.

  Bailey screamed.

  Dobbs sat for a moment after Al Zankoski ended their call, his mind repeating what the private investigator had said about Caitlyn Whitfield a.k.a. Melody McCallum.

  Is it possible there was somebody in her life I didn't find, somebody who … I don't know, kept showing up … to take care of her?

  It was an odd statement, but then there was a whole lot about the man's report that was odd, made no sense. Like the murder victim lying on the floor of a catatonic child's hospital room. Weird, but not totally outside the world of logic and order. Murderers as a group didn't tend to be the most rational people. The fact that this one was never found was strange, but not totally ridiculous.

  Taken that far, with only that bit of information, the murder of the crazy person in Caitlyn's room was not totally outside the pale of reason.

  But the rest of it.

  He sat where he was, opened the document on his computer and read every word of the report, start to finish. When he was done, he was way more confused than he'd been when he started.