by S. Gates
You sigh. "Come on, throw me a bone here. I am not gonna be able to make my life work without you in it. Just give me some sort of sign. Tell me what I have to do to make this shit right." But Simon remains unresponsive, not that you expected differently.
Leaning back in the chair and kicking your heels up onto his bed, you let his fingers go. It seems like there's so little point to anything now. Maybe, if you try very hard, you can will the past few weeks into being a fever dream. Perhaps the neurologist was wrong. Perhaps your brain is scarred and this is all just a hallucination. Perhaps none of this is real. It sounds unconvincing, even in your own mind, but entertaining the thought helps just a little.
Your head tips back, and you find yourself staring at the ceiling. It's textured, and the plaster is starting to flake in places. An intrepid spider (most likely slain with a shoe) has left some impressive cobwebs tucked away in the corners and near the far bookshelf. You're surprised that Simon hasn't taken the time to remove them, given his visceral fear of all things both creepy and crawly.
As you watch, the spider in question skitters from behind the bookcase. It's giant from this vantage point: spindly legs, fat abdomen and thorax, covered in gray hairs. You've seen spiders like these, when you and your parents lived in run-down trailers a little further north. They would spin giant webs between the trailer wall and the air conditioning unit and then perch there for days, it seemed.
The arachnid on the wall is not nearly so complacent, however. It dips and swerves along the crown moulding, moving so quickly that you almost have a difficult time tracking it. Finally, the creature ducks into Simon's closet. "Probably for the best," you mutter in the spider's general direction. "Don't get yourself squished, kiddo." Not that he's in a position to do any squishing, but you don't say it aloud.
Your mind wanders and you let your eyes drift shut for a while. It isn't like sleeping because you're still aware of your surroundings and the passage of time, but you aren't quite awake, either. Your head feels somehow gummy while your limbs are like lead. It feels like a heavy weight has settled on your chest, perched just below your sternum in such a way as to make breathing difficult.
When you finally peel your eyes open (and it does feel like peeling, as if they're overripe fruit in your head), you see the spider from behind the bookcase resting casually on your abdomen. Your estimate of its size was off, it seems. The creature is about as large as your fist, and you can see the way its compound eyes glitter blue-black in the light cast by Simon's bedside lamp. The hairs on its pedipalps quiver as though it were breathing heavily, though you're not sure exactly how spiders respire. You try to bring your hand up to shoo the thing away, but your arm barely twitches. The spider doesn't flinch.
The bed creaks. Simon rolls so his back is to you, but the bed creaks again even after he's settled. From behind the headboard, two spindly legs peek out before curling over the edge of it. Another fist-sized spider heaves itself up, causing the bed to groan again. It scrambles down, over Simon's pillow, and comes to rest next to your feet. The drawer of Simon's nightstand scrapes open, and another arachnid hefts itself out. It's joined by several smaller specimens, which clamber onto the larger one's back before it leaps onto the bed with the other.
More spiders crawl out of the nooks and crannies in Simon's room, and for the first time in your life you feel like you have a decent grasp of the term "coming out of the woodwork." That's exactly what these things are doing; large, small, alone, or in groups, there seems to be no piece of furniture in the room that hasn't been harboring the wretched things. They arrange themselves around you, some even going so far as to prod your feet and ankles as they jostle each other. No more of them climb onto you.
The original spider inches forward, crawling up your ribcage as you sit petrified by panic. It's heavy, like a hunk of hyper-dense metal on needle-like appendages. The hairs on its legs catch the fabric of your sweater as they move, snagging the fibers and making a noise not unlike tearing apart sheet of cheap felt, rendered in miniature.
Despite the fact that it's no longer camped on your diaphragm, you still can't catch your breath. Your throat starts to burn with the need to get oxygen in. The spider creeps up your neck, rests its prickly legs on your chin. You don't try to look at it, preferring not to make yourself go cross-eyed.
The pain in your throat is nearly unbearable. You can't breathe, which throws your body into a blind panic. With your limbs frozen, there is little you can actually do, but your autonomic nervous system takes what it can get. It feels like your throat is on fire, like you swallowed crushed glass, like there's something inside you trying to claw its way out and you realize that is exactly what is happening oh god and you heave yourself forward just as you feel something spined and spindly forcing its way up and it's followed by thorax, abdomen, an entire spider just spilling out of your mouth. It falls on your chest with a gooey plop.
The spiders around you scatter as you finally get your limbs to respond. Another arachnid emerges from your throat and falls to the carpet, where you crush it beneath your toes as you bolt for the bathroom. You keep both hands clapped tight over your mouth to keep anything else from dropping out of it until you're hunched over the toilet, but something warm and slick leaks from between your fingers and dribbles down your front all the same.
The freshly cleaned porcelain is such a welcome sight that it almost pains you to ruin it. Another spider falls into the water of the bowl chased by a dark slime that might be a mixture of mucous and blood. You heave, and more of it drops into the water with a sickly plopping sound. Another heave, and it's mostly bile. Then another, and you start to see tiny white grains floating to the surface of the water. It almost looks like you'd eaten Styrofoam pellets for lunch, but the granules all burst as soon as they come into contact with the air. Tiny little spider hatchlings writhe in the toilet bowl, which makes you heave again.
Before they can start to crawl out, you flush the toilet and let out a strangled wail.
* * *
Simon whimpers and your head snaps up as if you had almost dozed off. A quick glance around reveals no arachnids in the immediate vicinity, and no sign of their crushed bodies or the egg-laden ichor you have just been throwing up. Your throat feels raw, but more as if from screaming rather than retching. All signs point to the experience having been just a nightmare.
Desperate for something good, you take it as encouragement. If you can have a nightmare, it means you can maybe, finally, pass out. You glance around the room again, double-checking the corners where you'd dreamed there had been cobwebs. Still nothing.
Perhaps you can sleep, but not here. You shuffle back to your room after pulling Simon's blanket up over his shoulders and fall into your own bed.
The effort is rewarded with dreamlessness.
* * *
The next morning is, again, quiet. Simon seems capable of taking care of basic bodily functions on his own, but you find him standing despondently in front of the fridge when you finally stumble downstairs. The situation would be comical if it weren't for the disconcerting way he reaches out, grabs the handle of the door, opens it, and slams it shut with a muffled gurgle. He does it three times before you make it to his side and place a hand on his arm.
"I get it: you're hungry," you say in tones as soothing as you can muster with your throat so raw. You nudge him aside with your elbow and hip. "Shove over and I'll make you something." He acquiesces, though you aren't sure if he is responding to your words or the fact that you physically prodded him out of the way. Perhaps that's something to experiment with later.
You pull open the refrigerator door and immediately regret it.
The stench is awful. Likely, you'd missed it by standing to the side, out of direct line of sight, but now that you are the agent opening the fridge, it's unavoidable. The light inside flickers vaguely, but it's overgrown somehow with mold. Everything is covered with the stuff: fuzzy, gray-to-green-to-black, and damp. There's no way that anything
in the refrigerator is salvageable. Everything is either rotted or near enough to rotting that you would have no compunction simply throwing the whole appliance out. You let the door swing shut as you try not to gag.
"Ugh. God. Fuck. Okay, new plan. I'll go get something for you," you say. He moves when you jostle him away from the fridge, effectively herding him back toward the living room. Before you manage to get him there, he shuffles to a halt. His shoulders tremble and you spend a few moments trying to urge him forward before he plants his hands firmly on the doorframe. It's clear that he will not budge. "Dude, come on!" you snap, but he remains obstinate.
It takes another moment for the realization to dawn on you why: the last time he'd been there, something obviously traumatic happened that robbed him of his ability to form words, if not more. And you are an absolute heel for trying to take him in there to "settle down." Feeling your face flush with shame, you duck your head and tug on his arm. "Okay, sorry, new plan. Upstairs. I'll set you up to watch something, then I'll go get us some grub."
With you no longer herding him toward the site of whatever, Simon becomes pliant. He allows you to shift his nightstand so you can rest his laptop on it, and he allows you to arrange him in the best approximation of comfort you can manage. When you're certain he's settled, you get him a glass of water that you set on his desk and go get dressed. You'll deal with the mess in the fridge later, when you return.
You feel shitty, so you decide to dress up a bit: binder, your second-favorite pair of jeans, button-down shirt, and a soft plaid sweater. The good jewelry is reserved for special occasions, but you have a set of nice surgical steel studs that you put in your facial piercings and a pair of glittery plugs for your ears. The weather is chilly, but not damp, so you only grab a zip-up hoodie and a pair of sneakers on your way out. There's no need for your boots or a heavy jacket.
Your rental, thankfully, has heated seats (something you will probably have to get in your new car, now that you know how awesome it is), so you are quite comfortable by the time you pull out of the neighborhood. The streets are quiet this time of day; it feels like you are the only soul on the road. You don't even see any token dog-walking stay-at-home parents or dedicated joggers on the sidewalk. The naked trees you pass are all solemn and still and devoid of any winter birds or squirrels or other fauna.
The stillness becomes oppressive. And then you turn on your radio. You're greeted with static, interspersed with a burst of music–just a few bars–here and there. You nearly swerve onto the curb as you try in vain to find a channel that isn't just a garbled mess. As you right the car, the static resolves into the tinny plucking of a music box. The same notes repeat in marching succession before a breathy feminine voice takes over. It cracks with static as she counts slowly from zero to nine and back again three times.
You've been around that conspiracy theory board long enough to recognize that you've somehow picked up a numbers station, despite the car only having an AM/FM radio. It's eerie, but you let your fingers slip from the radio's face-plate and return your hand to the steering wheel.
The music box tones play again, and the artificial woman's voice dives into the numbers, "121, 111, 117, 97, 114, 101, 103, 111, 105, 110, 103, 116, 111, 100, 105, 101." She repeats the sets two more times before the plunking music box plays again. She recites another set, her artificial voice even and modulated, "121, 111, 117, 114, 102, 108, 101, 115, 104, 119, 105, 108, 108, 109, 101, 108, 116." Like the first set, she repeats it two more times before the music box notes signal the end of this particular message.
The voice on the radio starts another message. "119, 101, 119, 105, 108, 108," the voice intones. With each passing digit, it grows somehow impassioned and eager. The hair on the back of your neck pricks up as it continues, "102, 101, 97, 115, 116, 111, 110, 121, 111, 117, 114, 98, 111, 110, 101, 115." Instead of simply repeating the numbers again, the voice cycles through the last eight triplets. It reaches a fevered pitch as the music box begins playing again, fighting for dominance over the no longer artificial-sounding voice. The both grow louder, flooding your ears until it's almost like savage creatures shrieking and you can't stand it, you just want it to stop, you punch at the radio but it won't turn off, there's no way to turn it off, there's no–
Everything feels like it moves in slow motion. You've removed both of your hands from the steering wheel to cover your ears from the shrill sounds of the radio in an almost reflexive reaction. The sounds bore into your skull until your whole focus has narrowed to the mechanical noises crashing through the speakers. Your experience narrows, refocuses, and coalesces in a staticky shrieking before you catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye. It won't stay still long enough for you to gauge its form; all you can make out are luminous saucers that might be eyes and a mass that doesn't belong to any local animal. It hovers near the edge of the road for a split-second and reappears in front of you before your face meets the airbag and everything goes quiet.
When you come to a few seconds later, blood trickles down your face from your right nostril and a shallow split in your forehead. Your glasses are bent, but, after a few seconds struggling, you are able to set them right despite your slick and trembling fingers. At least they are a close enough approximation to properly set that your vision is not skewed when you set them gingerly back on your nose. At least the radio is silent now.
You use the deflated airbag to wipe away the worst of the blood on your face, then throw open the driver's side door and pull yourself out of the car. For a long, terrifying moment, your knees don't look like they'll support your weight, but you clutch at the car door until the shaking subsides enough that you can push yourself away and stagger around to survey the damage.
Calling the hood dented is a gross understatement: it looks like whatever you struck took the few moments of your black-out to cave it in with a sledgehammer. The front bumper is entirely missing, as is one of the front tires, and a cursory glance around does not yield any clues as to where they went. The only thing you can say with certainty is that they are no longer attached to the car. Whatever caused the damage is, likewise, missing. Streaks of black lead into the center of the road, but disappear as well.
The road itself is desolate. The only sounds are of the scraping of bare tree branches against each other. You're still in the heart of suburbia, so there is no shortage of two- and three-level homes in the near vicinity, but all of the windows that you can see are dark, with blinds closed or curtains pulled shut. Some are even shuttered, like the owners were attempting to prepare for some sort of storm.
You pat your thigh experimentally, feeling for the bump of your phone. It's still there, and when you fish it out of your pocket, it's still functional. You wipe your fingers on your pants to rid them of the worst of the wetness before attempting to unlock your phone's touchscreen. It takes more than one try to dial 911, and you're not even sure what you'll say once an operator answers. "My rental was possessed and I may have hit a shadow-monster" is not the most reasonable excuse.
As it turns out, the point is moot. You tap the "call" button and bring your phone up to your ear only to be greeted with low-fi hisses and pops. You hold on the line all the same, even though a slippery and creeping dread starts to curl in your chest. The connection clicks a handful of times, as if the call is about to be completed, but then you're greeted with a few more tinny bars from that awful music box recording.
It takes every ounce of self-control that you have not to throw your phone down and stomp on it. Instead, while your heart races, you thumb the "end call" button on screen and shove it back in your pocket. If you want to call emergency services (or hell, even just a taxi at this point, just to get out of the cold), you have no choice but to try knocking on a door in a nearby neighborhood.
You trudge to the nearest one, a somewhat ostentatious dwelling with a low, stonework wall and an immaculately manicured (albeit brown) lawn. As you walk, the wind picks up, slicing straight through the layers of c
lothing you wear and making the blood that still trickles down your face cold and tacky. The door is solid wood with a heavy brass knocker set below a peephole that is just as dark as the windows. Your hand shakes and your fingers are uncooperative, but you use the knocker to rap on the door.
The feeling of dread in your chest grows heavy and leaden. Though you strain your ears, the only sounds you can hear are the omnipresent scraping of dry branches and the rustling of old, rotted leaves. No living thing stirs aside from you, and the not-quite stillness drives you to knock again. "Hey!" you call, leaning toward the nearest window. "Hey, I'm sorry, there's been a wreck, can I use your phone?"
You catch a glimpse of motion off to your side. It's just a flicker of something dark scampering between two parked cars in the next driveway over, but it's disappeared completely by the time you give it your full attention. Independent of the frigid wind, a shiver crawls down your spine.
It's not too far to get home. You'd only been on the road for a few minutes, and all of that was through residential areas with a posted speed limit of 35 MPH or less. Getting back to the house, by any means necessary, takes on an urgency that drives you to turn on your heel and plod back to the road. No one can help you. The only way you'll make it back is under your own power.
The sidewalk doesn't stretch very far outside of the neighborhood, so you find yourself putting one foot in front of the other in the leaf-choked gutter. Had it been so clogged with detritus earlier? Everything but the evergreens has been bare for a couple of months, and these neighborhoods are upscale enough that surely some lawn care company should have been through and cleared the leaves away.
There again, hovering at the edge of your peripheral vision, you see something. You fight the instinct to focus on it, instead keeping your gaze fixed firmly on the ground in front of you. Without the weight of your stare on it, the shape inches closer. It lumbers between bald trees but fails to make any sound louder than branches scraping each other in the wind. It doesn't seem to have a face, as such, or any sort of definite anatomy in general. Its height does not vary, but it stretches and squashes and collapses in on itself with only two saucer-like things near the top of its form being the only features that are fixed.
