Never Fear

by Heather Graham

  The sparks flew about the room.

  The dressmaker’s dummy burst into flames.

  The flames jumped to one of the cardboard boxes.

  She knew what she had done.

  She wasn’t coordinated, but--other than her obsession!--she wasn’t stupid.

  She grabbed her flame-thrower and ran.

  And while the fire burned around me and my eyes smarted with the smoke, I waited--waited until I knew she had cleared the place.

  I had just one window of opportunity to get out after she had gone--and before Stephen Lee came racing down with a fire extinguisher and the sound of the fire engine sirens could be heard blazing through the night.

  Again, I contemplated the truth.

  Again, I determined that, if I was seen, she would lie. She would lie like crazy. She would somehow make it all my fault.

  Sometimes, the truly crazed are able to do such things, they are such deep believers in the insanity in their own heads.

  Well, it was sad, that’s what it was. No crows or animals died, but it was sad, nonetheless. Poor Stephen lost valuable family antiques.

  Worse, he lost pictures that couldn’t be replaced; little bits of the memories of his life that could never be restored.

  Of course, they never discovered what had caused the flame. Summer’s heat? Some kind of combustion caused by that heat? Even the fire marshal couldn’t say. He was able to determine where the fire started--old papers--but not exactly what caused the fire to start. They were all very lucky that it had been contained to the basement, but then, the basement was dark and dank--it was really the stone foundations for the house.

  Thankfully--oh, truly thankfully!--it had been quickly contained and the house itself hadn’t caught fire. That would have been a disaster.

  Once again, she got away with it.

  And while I pondered so many possibilities, there was nothing I could really do about it.

  She commiserated with Stephen Lee, trying to bake for him, trying to tell him how sorry she was about the loss in the storage area of the basement.

  I wondered then if Stephen had some inkling he was harboring a madwoman. I saw him hesitate--and then I saw him thank her, tell her that he appreciated her thoughtfulness, but he already had plans for the evening.

  I thanked God. Stephen is, like Frank, a good guy.

  Well, of course, she began her quiet period again. Her fear of being caught period, perhaps--or her renewed plotting stage.

  I’d hear her murmuring to herself, but her stage of mental instability had become so serious that I couldn’t understand her half the time when she was speaking.

  But, as time went on, I began to recognize a few words.

  Hire a professional.

  She began to talk to herself. She’d get money from the bank. She’d pretend the killer was a friend; she’d even have him over to dinner.

  (With any luck, she’d feed him bran muffins, and he’d be gone before he could do me in.)

  She wouldn’t tell Stephen Lee what she was doing, because he would be horrified. In fact, he’d ask her to leave or have her arrested!

  She knew that. She knew that she had to be incredibly careful. So careful that she didn’t say a word to Frank.

  In fact, when her nephew was over, she told him that she’d grown to like me! Frank was so pleased. He seemed to think that she had really found knowledge and understanding. When he left, he was cheerful.

  I wanted to go to him when he left; I wanted to find a way to tell him that she was a liar, a paranoid, maniacal liar.

  He was gone before I could reach him.

  I watched, and I waited.

  And then came the day.

  I began to understand her a bit that day, oddly enough. Because, the man she brought in scared me as no one had ever scared me before.

  In fact, I was almost frozen with fear.

  He went to the kitchen. They spoke very matter-of-factly.

  Oh, he was “professional” all right!

  He told her what he could and couldn’t do--he didn’t intend to be caught, no matter what her fear and determination.

  He even suggested that she move!

  But, you see, she was beautiful, and she could be very persuasive. She smiled; her eyes grew huge with tears she didn’t quite shed.

  She begged; she pleaded.

  She cajoled.

  Such a woman could make a man forget about danger.

  And the man--that huge fellow, that hired professional!--fell for her, hook, line, and sinker.

  He was hired; he was going to kill me.

  Well, this time, there was nothing left to do.

  Run?

  Oh, no.

  Now I was so angry that, come hell or high water, I was going to fight back.

  I listened to her talk. I listened to her tell him about me, about my schedule, about where I tended to be when. She told him how I seemed to like the darkness--that was where I skulked, watching her! I didn’t mind being alone in the dark in the least. I seemed to see better there--I seemed to watch her with evil intent from the darkness at all hours.

  He was a little mystified. He asked her if I’d come after her--she said no. He asked her if I kept to my own space--she said yes.

  “Really, I don’t understand,” he told her.

  But she began to cry again. No one understood. She knew--she just knew!--that I was there, pretending innocence, biding my time, waiting…

  And then I would get her.

  Of course, within minutes, his arms were around her shoulders and he was reassuring her, and telling her that yes--he would kill me for her, no matter what the consequences.

  She told him about me and the laundry room.

  He prepared; I watched him gather his weapons.

  But, unknown to either of them, I was the wiser. I wasn’t in the basement waiting to be taken by surprise.

  I was ready to follow.

  He headed down--carefully--lest Stephen or Mr. or Mrs. Sandusky come upon him.

  He entered the laundry room.

  I’d never moved more cautiously, more carefully myself--or with greater anger.

  He came down whistling.

  “Where are you?” he sang softly.

  First, he looked about everywhere. He moved just about everything down there. He swore and swung around--as if he knew then that he had been followed.

  I ducked behind the door.

  He didn’t see me. He began to breathe more slowly, shook his head as if he’d imagined something, and returned to his search.

  Apparently, he thought I might be hiding in a washing machine. How dumb.

  He had no idea that I was behind him!

  He bent low, his head all but completely in a dryer…

  And it was my moment.

  I told you, honestly, I’m not mean. But this man had absolutely terrified me. Left me frozen to such an extent that I almost understood her terror of me.

  And, it truly was life or death.

  In a maddened, insane rush of my own, I jumped, going straight for the back of his neck.

  Well, for a big man who should have been somewhat intelligent and coordinated--being a professional and all--he behaved like an idiot child. He screamed. He tried to slap at me; his arms and hands flailed and the idiot struck his head hard on the rim of the dryer.

  So hard that he fell to floor in a dead thump.

  And…

  Well, as it turned out, it really was a “dead” thump.

  I never even hurt the man--I didn’t get a chance. He did himself in, catching the back of his head in just the right place to do something to his brain.

  It was a while, of course, before I figured it all out. I ran like a chicken myself after he fell--I ran and found a dark corner and waited there, shaking and afraid. I didn’t know at first that the man was dead.

  Sadly, it was nice Mrs. Sandusky who found him.

  She went screaming; Mr. Sandusky came, and then the police and, eventually, ev
eryone figured out that she had hired him, a professional, to kill me.

  She might have been beautiful, but no amount of tears would change things then.

  Stephen Lee grew organic vegetables; he was passionate about ecology. And she’d hired him to come and plant poison everywhere…

  And the man had died! On Stephen Lee’s property!

  She was out, of course. Not only was she out, but, her nephew Frank had to have her put away for a while.

  She had gone completely mad. She turned me into a truly horrible monster in her mind, bigger than a great blue whale, more cunning than a fox, more vicious than a wolverine. She talked so crazy that there was no way out of it--she needed help.

  So, she was gone…

  And I was fine; I was there.

  Silly woman. Such a pity.

  A spider’s lifespan is three years at best.

  I know I’m not going to make that. Tonight, my eggs will hatch. I’m so pleased that I was able to have my offspring here, where I was hatched myself, where--for most of my life!--I protected others from mosquitos and the bugs that would have ripped the beautiful gardens apart.

  It was a good life, except for her.

  And the man. The man who terrified me so much that I was terrified.

  They all say that she suffered severely from arachnophobia.

  I almost felt sorry for her. I felt that same kind of debilitating fear once she’d brought in the exterminator.

  That must be a phobia too?

  I wonder what they call it.

  Exterminator-phobia?

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