by Jeff Strand
"I heard something about spiders," said the Grim Reaper.
"Spiders?"
The Grim Reaper nodded.
"They're evacuating the building because of spiders?"
"That's what I heard."
"Seems extreme."
The Grim Reaper shrugged. "Just passing on what I've heard."
"Thanks." Guffaw returned to Wagon and Depravo. "He says it's spiders."
"Spiders?" Wagon asked.
"That's what he said."
"Why would they evacuate the building for spiders?"
"I don't know."
"So, like, some lady got bit by a black widow, you think?" asked Depravo.
"Could be."
"I've literally never heard of a building being evacuated because of spiders. I've heard of condemned buildings where there are spiders all over the place, but I've never heard of actually making people hurry out of a building because of them. Though I guess where there's one black widow there might be two, and you can't have people walking around in the dark if somebody saw a black widow inside. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. It sucks, though, because by the time they get exterminators in there to fumigate the place and kill the spider, we'll have lost a whole night of business."
On the other side of the building, people began to scream.
"You hear that?" Depravo asked.
Guffaw and Wagon nodded.
"Somebody must've seen the black widow."
"I don't think it's just a black widow," said Guffaw. "When people see spiders, it tends to be more of a squeal than a scream. It's a 'Get me away from this spider' reaction but not panic. We're hearing panic."
"You're right," said Depravo. "That's definitely the sound of panic."
"Panic is so depressing," said Wagon.
"Why are people panicking over spiders?" asked Guffaw.
"Maybe it's not spiders," said Depravo.
"The Grim Reaper said it was spiders."
"The Grim Reaper might've heard wrong."
"Maybe it's a bomb," said Guffaw. "A bomb would cause panic. Why are we standing so close to the building?"
"I'm surprised nobody is giving us instructions to move away from the building," said Depravo. "I've only been through a couple of bomb threats, but that's usually how it works. They don't want you to get hit by shrapnel."
They listened to the sounds of panic for a moment.
"That doesn't sound like people reacting to a bomb threat," said Wagon. "It sounds like there's something sad happening to them, right now. Like toxic waste spewing from the side of the building, and they all see the impact it's having on a melting person."
"Or maybe it's several black widows," said Depravo. "If you guys had black widows on you right now I'd probably be screaming and running away."
"But I already said that spider sightings are more of a squeal than a scream," said Guffaw. "I don't care if it's a half-dozen black widows—that's not how people react."
"I guess you're right," Depravo admitted.
"Do they even have spiders in Virginia?" Wagon asked.
"Of course they do," said Depravo. "Why wouldn't they?"
"I don't know. The weather."
"Are you an idiot?"
"No, I'm just not a spider expert. I didn't go to school to study spiders. I went to Clown College. Do you know what subject we don't learn in Clown College? Spider geography. So excuse me for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of spiders."
"I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of yaks, but I know whether or not they live in Virginia. Which they don't. At least not out in the wild."
"I feel like we're getting distracted," said Guffaw. "It sounds like people are getting hurt."
A man stepped around the corner of the building. The clowns were near the back, but the man was easy to see because the crowd quickly moved away from him. He had three spiders crawling on him. The fact that Guffaw could see these spiders from two hundred feet away was alarming. Each of the spiders was about the size of the man's head.
Guffaw wanted to say something casual, like, "Well, I guess we understand the spider issue now," but instead he just gaped.
People fled. More spiders crawled into the open space around the man, moving quickly.
Where were the other clowns? Guffaw didn't see Bluehead and Reginald. Hopefully they evacuated in the front of the building. And hopefully Jaunty was long gone and in no danger.
Another man stumbled into view with a spider on his throat.
Guffaw found himself frozen in shock for approximately three seconds. Then he shook it off. He heard a couple of screams inside the haunted house. "People are still inside," he said. "We have to help them."
"I would've agreed with you before I saw the giant spiders," said Depravo.
"This is our chance to redeem the good name of clowns! We could save people! We could change the narrative and make society think of clowns as heroes instead of nightmares! It's good for clowns and for the people we rescue! Win-win!"
"I don't care about the good name of clowns," said Depravo.
"I know you don't. I was mostly aiming that speech at Wagon."
"We're wasting time," said Wagon, heading back toward the entrance to the haunted house.
"No, wait, I'll go with you," said Depravo. "I'm your supervisor."
Guffaw, Wagon, and Depravo hurried back inside the building. The well-lit hallway contained no giant spiders that they could see, but there was plenty of commotion coming from inside the attraction itself.
"Isn't there a light switch for the inside part?" asked Guffaw.
"It's all the way up front."
"Why wouldn't somebody have turned it on?"
"Maybe they're dead."
That was a reasonable answer. Guffaw tried not to think about it.
He also tried not to think about how many spiders might be inside the haunted house to cause that many people to cry out in pain and terror. Maybe it was only one and the people were being melodramatic.
They went inside the Scary Clown Room, which was one of the few rooms in the haunted house to be brightly and colorfully lit. No spiders that Guffaw could see.
One of the screams in the distance sounded familiar. "Does that sound like Reginald?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Wagon. "I've never heard him scream."
"I don't think he ever has screamed," said Guffaw. "But that sounds like him, right?"
Wagon nodded. "Let's save him."
The next room was much darker. Depravo took out his cell phone, turned on the flashlight, and used it to illuminate their way. Still no spiders.
They kept going. The cemetery had spiders.
Reginald lay on his back on the floor. Bluehead was crouched next to him, trying to calm him down.
"Are you okay?" Guffaw asked.
"No!" Reginald shouted. "I had great big spiders on me!"
"But they're not on you now?"
"No! But they were!"
"They were gigantic spiders," Bluehead explained. "That's why he's so upset."
"We saw them," said Guffaw. "Actually, we see them right now. We should leave." He didn't do a careful count, but even in the poor lighting he could see at least a dozen spiders crawling around the room.
"Oh, yeah, they're all over the place," said Bluehead. Her voice trembled. "There's one there, and one there, and one there, and...all over the place. If Reginald weren't frozen with terror we'd be long gone."
"I apologize," said Reginald.
Guffaw reached down and took one of Reginald's hands. Bluehead held the other. They quickly pulled him to his feet.
"Thank you," said Reginald. "That's all I needed. I can move now."
"Our plan was to walk the length of the haunted house to make sure nobody else needed help," said Guffaw.
"Sounds noble," said Reginald. "Count me in."
"Count me in, too," said Bluehead. "But we should go now because I squished six or seven spiders before you got here and more and more keep coming
and though I may not seem completely traumatized I really am."
"Everybody should grab a tombstone," said Depravo, pulling one out of the phony dirt. "We need something to smash the spiders with."
"The tombstones are Styrofoam," said Guffaw.
"So? They're spiders. You can crush a spider with a Styrofoam tombstone. And it means that if a spider starts crawling on somebody you can hit them with all of your might and not worry about hurting the person."
"That makes sense," Guffaw admitted.
Everybody grabbed a tombstone, not taking the time to choose those with the cleverest epitaphs. Then they proceeded into the next room.
This one was an underwater scene, though with blue paint standing in for water. The fanged mermaids had all evacuated; the animatronic tentacles remained. There were spiders everywhere.
"Holy shit, look at that," said Depravo, shining his phone-light at the ceiling. "They're already making webs all over the place!"
Guffaw was amazed. Unless the spiders had been here for quite a while without anybody noticing, they were spinning webs at an astounding pace. Guffaw had been more concerned about getting bitten than getting cocooned, but now he was worried about both.
A spider dropped onto his head.
Guffaw yelped.
Depravo brought the tombstone down upon Guffaw's skull with both hands. The tombstone broke into three pieces and spider guts splattered everywhere. Two severed legs slid down Guffaw's face.
"Gaahhh," said Guffaw, meaning "Thank you."
Depravo tossed the Styrofoam pieces aside. "We should keep moving."
They waited for a spider-covered animatronic tentacle to move out of the way, then hurried into the next room, which had so many spiders that Guffaw questioned the wisdom of their mission. He wanted to walk the fine line between "heroic" and "heroic sacrifice."
Several spiders were dangling from the ceiling.
The clowns hurried through the room. Depravo brushed against a tentacle and cried out as a spider scurried onto his chest. Guffaw smashed his tombstone against it, cracking the Styrofoam in half, then tossed it away with the still-twitching spider stuck to it.
Instead of bonding over saving each other's lives, Guffaw and Depravo kept moving.
* * *
Jaunty whimpered frequently as he quickly but carefully made his way through the haunted house. He hadn't seen any bloated corpses since the woman earlier, which made him happy. If he could see exactly zero more dead women before he exited the building he'd be extremely pleased.
He reached the mirror maze. There were a lot of spiders crawling on the mirrors, which made it look like even more spiders than there actually were. Maybe this was a good spot to turn back.
No. He'd feel terrible if he discovered that somebody died one room past the mirror maze.
On the other hand, he'd also feel terrible if he died as the result of hundreds of giant spider bites. Perhaps even worse.
There was a wooden chair in the corner, which is where a ghostly bride had been seated, smiling vacantly as she pointed to the entrance of the maze. Jaunty picked up the chair. Mountain of Terror management would be angry with him for smashing up the mirror maze, but he didn't see any other way to get through it without dying a horrible death.
He slammed the chair into the first mirror wall. Broken glass and spiders rained onto the floor. He kept going, swinging the chair back and forth, pretending that he didn't enjoy the destruction.
* * *
"What the hell is that?" asked Depravo at the sound of shattering glass.
Guffaw was pretty sure that it wasn't spiders breaking things. Somebody else was still in the haunted house. Somebody, from the sounds of it, who was in serious danger.
"Let's go," said Guffaw, picking up his pace.
The next room was the Cannibal Redneck Room. Guffaw knew this from memory, not because he actually had a chance to walk into the room. He was about to, when the actor who played Bubba Earl burst through the doorway. Unlike his character, Bubba Earl had a soft voice and a New England accent. Also unlike his character, Bubba Earl was not actually three hundred pounds, but rather "two-ninety after a healthy dump."
Bubba Earl, covered head to toe with spiders, was not watching where he was going.
The collision was not gentle.
Guffaw lost his balance. His clown shoes slipped out from underneath him and he fell to the floor.
Bubba Earl also fell. The only thing to break his fall was Guffaw.
Guffaw bellowed in pain, as two hundred and ninety-ish pounds of spider-covered hillbilly landed on top of him. Bones broke.
A frantic Bubba Earl pushed himself up, which would have been the considerate thing to do under normal circumstances, but in this case meant that several head-sized wolf spiders dropped off his body and onto Guffaw's.
Guffaw was vaguely aware of the other clowns rushing to assist him, but he was more aware of the spiders crawling all over his chest and neck and face. One of them sunk its fangs into his skin, just above his left eye. Another sunk its fangs into his lower lip. It hurt infinitely worse than he would have expected.
Bluehead, Reginald, Wagon, and Depravo desperately began brushing the spiders off of him.
"Get away from me!" Guffaw screamed. "Get away! Stop touching me!"
He wasn't sure why he said this. They were helping him. It was the hysteria speaking. In fact, it was difficult to hear his own words, as if he was listening to himself screaming from the bottom of a swimming pool.
Bubba Earl crawled away from him, then collapsed.
Wagon smacked away the spider that had bitten him near the eye. At least they weren't bashing him with the tombstones. Even Styrofoam would've felt bad on his broken bones. Ha ha ha.
He wasn't sure why he thought "ha ha ha."
Guffaw tried to use his right hand to grab the spider that had bitten his lip, but that arm wouldn't move, so he used his left instead. The spider scurried away before he could grab it. The lower half of his face was going numb.
"Get away! Get away! Get away!" he screamed.
His fellow clowns moved out of the way. Not far—just enough to give him room to breathe, though he was suddenly having difficulty breathing. He sprung to his feet, feeling like several more bones snapped in the process. Where was he going? Why was he doing this? What was his master plan?
A spider bit him on the back of the neck, but it didn't hurt as much as the other bites.
He lurched forward. Maybe he was trying to spare the other clowns the horror of watching him die. Because he was going to die. That was not up for debate. Guffaw the Clown was doomed.
He stumbled into the Cannibal Redneck Room. The smaller actor was draped over the BBQ grill, unmoving, his body barely visible underneath the spiders.
Guffaw fell to his knees. Somebody else burst into the room, holding a chair. Ah, a chair. It would be nice to sit on a chair right about now. Yes.
The person with the chair, who wore smeared makeup but looked vaguely familiar, knelt down next to him. He said Guffaw's name very loudly. Guffaw wondered who it was. He seemed nice.
Guffaw tried to greet him, but blood spewed out of his mouth when he tried to speak. He'd almost forgotten about his internal injuries.
He flopped forward and died in the stranger's arms.
CHAPTER TEN
"No, no, no, no, no!" Jaunty said, as he gently lowered Guffaw to the floor. Guffaw's head lolled backwards, and though Jaunty hadn't checked for a pulse it was obvious that his closest friend, his father figure, was dead.
The other clowns ran into the room.
"He's dead," Jaunty wailed. "Guffaw's dead."
Depravo's demonic face looked distraught even through the makeup. "Did you come through the front entrance?" he asked.
Jaunty nodded.
"And nobody else is in here?"
"Right."
"Then we've covered the whole thing and we need to get the fuck out of here!"
"We can't leave him he
re to be eaten!"
Depravo looked up at the ceiling. Several spiders were descending from their webs. "You take his arms. Reginald, take his legs. Bluehead and I will get the spiders off of him while we walk. Wagon, try to keep the path clear in front of us."
Jaunty picked up his broken friend. He was too upset by Guffaw's death to focus on the spiders that were crawling over the dead clown's body toward Jaunty's hands. Bluehead knocked them off with a tombstone.
The sobbing clowns carried Guffaw through the haunted house. Working as a team, they were able to keep anybody else from getting killed by spiders, though there were at least nine close calls. They made it to the Scary Clown Room, which was already the Scary Clown & Scary Spider Room, and carried him out into the hallway. The hallway also had plentiful spiders now, though not as many as inside the actual haunted house, and they were able to leave the building without any gruesome incidents.
There was still pandemonium in the parking lot, though not as much as before. People seemed to be escaping in their vehicles. Less reassuringly, there were a few bodies on the ground, each of them covered in a blanket of spiders.
"Don't look at the corpses," Depravo suggested. "Just keep moving."
So many spiders. Hundreds of them, if not thousands. Where had this many giant spiders been hiding all this time?
Guffaw's face was badly swollen, though at least his greasepaint made the sight less grotesque than the dead woman Jaunty had found earlier. He still wished they were carrying Guffaw facedown. He also wished he could stop crying, because it was distracting him from staying alert about the spiders. The other clowns were doing a good job of keeping the spiders away, but with this many arachnids around, he needed to be as vigilant as possible.
Jaunty was starting to lose his grip on Guffaw's arms, so he stopped and readjusted his position. His love of slapstick antics did not extend to dropping his friend's dead body.
There were sirens in the distance. The police and the paramedics would make everything okay.
Somebody lay on the ground, weakly flailing around. The idea of leaving an injured person behind sickened Jaunty, but what could he do? Even if the clowns picked the person up and swung them around and around until all of the spiders flew off, they certainly were covered in bites. They couldn't be saved.
