by Michael Bray
Yes indeed.
He supposed that the little voice in his head might be right. He could well have lost the plot, gone mad, bought himself a ticket to the funny farm, lost a few vital sandwiches out of the picnic basket. Because the world ticked on as normal, but for him, it was filled with spiders.
Spiders here, spiders there, spiders everywhere.
He felt a shrill, giddy laugh begin to move up to his throat, and he knew that if he let it out they would hear, and like the words smallest army they would come for him. He knew it as a certainty.
The laugh was close now, and he lifted a clenched fist to his mouth and bit down hard enough to draw a little blood and make his eyes water. The pain didn’t bother him though, in fact, he welcomed it, because the laugh had gone, and the status quo was maintained.
He started to relax, and then drew a sharp breath.
There was one of them perched on his knee.
He looked at it, too afraid to swat it away, and
the spider looked back. He could feel its glassy multi eyed stare boring into him, and could do no more than wait to see what would happen.
It was as if time had stopped, and even though the party and its oblivious guests went on with the business of drinking, pairing off and trying to boost their popularity, his world was no more than the small square of denim on his left knee.
The spider skittered forwards, just a few inches, but it was enough to make Andy try to push himself back into the sofa. He was going to scream. He knew it and knew there was no way that he would be able to stop it this time. When it came, he knew he would be gone — his mind broken as he fell into the black hole of perpetual insanity – but at the last second, the spider changed direction and ran instead off his leg and down out of sight into the dark place between the seat cushions.
He felt sick and saw small white spots dancing in front of his eyes. He was going to faint, and knew he couldn’t allow it to happen, because if he did they would come for him.
He laughed.
A short, shrill, cackle which went unheard amid the thumping bass and the constant stream of party chatter. Yes, he was sure of it. Something in his brain was defective. Something had broken, and now he could see them everywhere. He imagined how his life would be; living in his own personal world filled with spiders.
He heard a groan. Jonny’s date had come up for air, and when she smiled, thousands of tiny newborn spiders streamed out of her mouth and nose, covering her face and neck as they looked for dark places to shelter.
The terror bubbling in Andy’s guts told him that his brain was on the verge of shutting up shop and refusing to play ball, and so he closed his eyes, trying to regain a little composure and maybe bring himself under a modicum of control, but even that was no good.
Because even with his eyes closed he could still see them, cast in stark white negative on the blank canvas of his mind’s eye. He blinked away the image and found that his reality was only marginally better than the squirming, scurrying mass that lived in his brain.
He glanced towards the corner of the room, and when he saw it — saw her, he felt something break, a sharp click as whatever small thread had been connecting him to his sanity snapped.
Jenny was slumped in the corner.
Jenny.
The girl he had known since they were four-year-old neighbors.
Jenny who had always seen him as more of a friend than the more serious thing that he one day hoped they would become.
Jenny who had brought him to the party, even though it was a place where a quiet, reserved kid like him wouldn’t have otherwise been invited.
However, all of that was before the spiders.
Her petite frame was swollen, chin resting on her chest. As he watched and his broken mind processed what was in front of him, he knew without doubt that he was irreversibly damaged.
He could see them moving under her skin, making it ripple and pulse, and bizarrely reminding him of childhood trips to the coast and the way the tides ebbed and flowed as they crept up the beach. They were streaming out of her nose and ears, and as he watched, her mouth slowly opened and a huge, thick-limbed monster of a spider pushed its way out. Andy had seen them on T.V.
Bird eaters.
He was sure that’s what they were called.
The huge spider dragged its immense body out of her gaping mouth, and flopped down on to her chest where it stood in splayed legged triumph. Andy was beyond screaming, beyond anything other than looking on with a sick and twisted fascination.
She’s the queen, and Jenny was her nest.
The thought danced, darted and spun in Andy’s mind, and when he couldn’t make any rational sense out of it, it danced and spun some more. He wanted to ask what it wanted. Why him? What did he ever do to deserve this?
But he couldn’t move, and his mouth remained tightly closed as still more of them came – a never-ending procession from every conceivable place in the room.
His skin itched, and his stomach danced as he tried to put the situation into some kind of order. But his brain wasn’t cut out for dealing with such horror, and so it had decided to leave Andy to his own devices.
He saw Jenny move, and for a moment, there was hope, hope that she was ok, hope that he could get her out of there and maybe then she would look at him in the same way he looked at her.
But it wasn’t Jenny that was moving, not really.
It was the spiders.
The spiders in their Jenny skin that were going about their business and making her loll and dance like a macabre marionette.
Spiders.
Spiders Spiders Spiders
He would do anything. Anything to avoid having to watch the jerky, skittish way that they moved in that horrible, stop start motion. Anything to avoid having to watch the spider filled Jenny puppet that pulsed and rippled along to the bass line of the party.
You know what it’s going to take. You know what you have to do.
The voice in his head whispered, and he did. As terrifying as the thought was, it was the only way. He lurched out of his seat with a defiant roar and did it before he could change his mind.
His scream brought the party to a halt. The music cut out and his fellow classmates, students, friends, and those that he was indifferent to were looking at him. He could feel their judging gaze, and found a bitter irony that for the first time in his life, he wasn’t an anonymous face. He was finally the center of attention.
The silence was broken by a single high-pitched scream. He thought it might have been Andrea Gill — she of the over the shoulder wandering eye on test days, but couldn’t be sure. Whoever it was; they set off a chain reaction, and the silence morphed into chaos.
Andy simply stood where he was and smiled. Because although the sounds of the screams were loud, at least they were natural. They were normal, everyday things that he could rationalise and make sense of.
He thought that the world made more sense when it was rational. And he thought that he would be just fine now that it was done. He began to laugh, a sound rich and hearty and full, because he had won.
The chaos was a thick, heavy thing and seemed to hang in the air like a physical entity. Yet, amid the confusion, he heard several distinct things.
Someone shouting for help.
Someone else repeating ‘oh god, oh god, oh god’ like it was some kind of bizarre mantra.
Someone quite close to him, crying.
He thought it might have been Jenny, and hoped that it was, because that would mean he had saved her. He would have looked for himself, but he had already torn out his own eyes.
He continued to laugh as the sound of police sirens drew close.
THE MAN IN THE ALLEY
Benson lived in the alleyway between Juniper Avenue and Grover Lane. He had always lived there, certainly for as long as I can remember anyway. He wasn’t a bum, if that’s what you're thinking. As far as I know, he never borrowed or asked for anything. I found out later that he actually o
wned a house - a nice one with a tidy garden and a cherry tree out front. But at some point, he'd chosen to live out his life in the alleyway instead. People thought he was eccentric, some whispered that he was mentally ill, or suffering with Alzheimer’s. But that, frankly, is bullshit. I know it’s bullshit because I saw him for what he really was.
That alleyway dosen’t even exist anymore. It’s a multiplex now, complete with a cinema, restaurants and all the other bells and whistles associated with modern living. But if you go and stand outside at just the right time of day, then you can almost still see him - a ghost from the past that reminds me that it was all real and not just a figment of my imagination. The doubt never lasts for long anyway. Especially when the sky becomes the colour of fire, and the shadows become deep and narrow and start reaching out of the dark places.
I was twelve when I first encountered Benson. The world was a different place then of course. Nowadays everyone is so private, so inaccessible and desperate to keep themselves isolated and alone as they try to fumble their way through life. I guess I was just lucky, because when I was growing up, it was in a real community where you actually knew your neighbors and it was safe to go to bed without locking your doors at night. Hell, kids could even play outside without fear of being abducted or murdered.
I first saw Benson when I was out riding my bike with my buddy, Luke. Under normal circumstances, I’m sure that I wouldn’t have noticed him, but it was that special time of day, just before dusk, and something drew my attention to this skinny old man in the alley as he sat there at its mouth on a wooden crate just watching the world go by.
“Afternoon boys.” He said as we passed, grinning toothlessly and shielding his face against the sun, which had become a fiery red-orange as its leading edge began to dip below the horizon.
“Hi,” I mumbled in response.
Benson nodded, then looked past me to Luke.
“Ooh, that’s a good one, ain't it?” He muttered, pointing at the ground.
I looked. Luke looked, but neither of us saw anything.
“What’s your name son?” He asked, watching me through watery, grey eyes.
“Andrew, sir.” I replied.
“You got a last name, or is it just Andrew?” He cackled, his eyes flicking to Luke for a second, then back to me.
“Thompson.”
“Ahh, you must be Annie Thompson’s kid?”
“Yes sir,” I replied.
He paused and sniffed the air, then licked his lips.
“Well, you be sure to tell your mother that old Benson said hi.”
I nodded, and even though I wasn’t scared, not then at least, I was a little uncomfortable, because his attention had moved away from me, and he was staring at Luke with greedy, hungry eyes.
“Say boy.” He said, managing to tear his eyes away from Luke and back to me.
“Yes sir?”
“Would you do an old man a favour, and get me a lemonade from the corner store?” He said as he thrust a handful of change in my direction.
I knew the store, as I went there all the time. It was just a little way down the street and I could see the blue and yellow awning above the door from where I stood, my forearms leaning on the handlebars of my bike.
“I would sir, but I can’t take my bike into the store and my mother doesn’t want me leaving it out on the street.”
“Well, you can just leave it right here with me, I’ll look after it for you.” He said, his eyes flicking back towards Luke and lingering there for a while.
I shuffled and stared at my feet.
“I shouldn’t, I only just got it for my birthday,”
Benson paused, flicking his tongue back and forth inside his mouth, then clapped his hands and grinned.
“Okay boy, how’s about this? Your friend here can stay here with your bike whilst you run and get the lemonade. How does that sound?”
I looked at Luke, who shrugged his indifference. He obviously wasn’t picking up any bad vibes, and that in turn made me feel foolish for being so spooked.
“Okay.” I said, climbing off my bike and leaning it against the alleyway wall. “I’ll be right back.”
He handed me the change and I ran as fast as I could to the store. Hell I think I ran everywhere back then, but I pushed just a little bit harder this time, because I wanted to get back, and not only to my bike. The fact is that I didn’t want to leave Luke alone with Benson any longer than I had to.
All kinds of thoughts raced through my mind about what would happen when I got back, but when I did, Benson and Luke were chatting, and I felt foolish for the second time in quick succession. The old man saw me coming, and grinned. “Ah, here he is.”
I held the bottle of lemonade out to him and he smiled and shook his head.
“You know son, I don’t really much feel like lemonade anymore, but I’ll tell you what. Since you were good enough to go, you and your friend here can share it.”
“That’s okay, you can maybe drink it later.” I said, setting the lemonade down beside him and climbing back on my bike. “We have to go. It’s getting late.”
“Nice to meet you Mister,” Luke said as he turned his bike around.
“Benson, son. You can call me Benson.”
Luke nodded, and I risked looking the old man in the eye. I had expected to see some hint of the darkness that I could sense, but his gaze was friendly, and yet again I wondered if I was making more of the situation than I should be. Luke and I set off, leaving Benson and his alleyway behind. I had intended to ask my mother about him when I got home, but within half an hour I had pushed the thought to the back of my mind. By the time I actually arrived back at the house later that night, I had forgotten it all together.
It wasn’t until a week later that Benson popped into my mind, right after Luke died.
At first, I was convinced that Benson was responsible somehow, and it wasn’t until a few days later when my mother told me that he died in his sleep that I accepted that Luke’s death was just a tragic accident. She said there was some kind of problem with his heart that nobody had known about until it was too late. Just like that, I had lost my best friend. It was my first experience of death, and it hit me hard. For a few weeks I was inconsolable.
I next saw Benson a few months later, talking to a kid I knew from school called Charlie Denner. It was as if time had stood still for Benson, and he had been waiting there at the end of the alleyway since I last saw him. He was dressed the same, looked the same, even the weather was the same. He looked up and saw me walking towards him, and although I expected fury or surprise that I had interrupted him, he simply flashed his gummy grin and waved at me. A quick stab of terror raced through me, but I waved back, and think I even managed a smile. Maybe it was just because of my earlier discomfort around him, but I didn’t like how he looked, bathed in that deep orange glow of pre-dusk. The shadows made his thin face look almost skeletal, and from where I was, they fell across his face and made his eyes looked like empty, gaping sockets. I went straight past the alley without stopping, and although I didn’t look over my shoulder, I knew Benson was watching.
Charlie died a week later.
Just like Luke, they said it was natural causes, but I didn’t believe in coincidence, and somewhere, deep down, I knew that it had something to do with Benson. I asked my mother about him, trying my best to feign disinterest despite my incredible curiosity. I watched for any hint of terror or horror when I mentioned his name, but she only smiled.
“Oh, Benson is a lovely old man. He has lived in that alleyway for years.” She said as she set the dinner table.
“Why doesn’t anyone help him or try to get him a home?”
“Well, that’s the strange thing. He has a home. He’s actually a very wealthy man. I think he had some family issues and decided he preferred to live out on the street.”
“So what happened to his house?” I asked, trying to imagine what kind of man would willingly sleep rough unless they were up to
no good.
“His daughter lives there now, I think. As far as I know he gave her the house and all his money.”
“How long has he lived there in the alleyway?” I asked, still watching carefully to see if she would give anything away.
“Oh, it’s been years. Your father remembers him living there when he first bought this house, so at least ten years.”
I wanted to tell my mother my suspicions about Luke and Charlie, and how I thought Benson was responsible, but I daren’t yet in case I was wrong. After all, she was my mother, and if she said he was harmless, I owed it to her to believe it.
The following week I went out of my way to ride past the alleyway. It was a cold, grey morning, and although I couldn’t decide if I was afraid or excited, I actually ended up being disappointed because when I arrived, Benson wasn’t there. I stopped my bike at the mouth of the alleyway, and stared into it. It was pretty unremarkable. It ended after around twenty five feet with a huge brick wall. There was a large green dumpster about a third of the way down and behind that, the shadow of a recessed doorway.
I inched my bike into the alleyway, wrinkling my nose at the smell. It was ammonia and garbage and something else which I couldn’t place. I wondered as I made my way into the alley how anyone could live in such conditions.
“Mr Benson?” I called out, or maybe I whispered. I couldn’t be sure.
My stomach churned and my heart was beating fast, but I didn’t turn back. I was at the edge of the dumpster, and paused. I think I almost turned and ran then, but I was determined to see it through. I edged forward, and looked into the doorway.
Empty.
Not only empty, but there was no sign that anyone had even set foot in the alleyway for years, let alone lived there. Nothing added up, apart from the fact that I was surer than ever that there was more to Benson than met the eye.
