'Nids

by Ray Garton

  The spider climbed the wall with no effort and left the park.

  Thirty-Three

  When Harker arrived at the McCormacks’ trailer, the ambulance was there, and a deputy had already gone inside. He got out of his cruiser, shotgun in hand, and approached the two EMTs who stood talking at the rear of the ambulance.

  “They don’t need us,” one said. “They need the coroner.” Harker knew his name was Steve, but he didn’t know his last name. Harker didn’t know the other guy.

  He saw a body lying on a concrete patio in the trailer’s back yard. The man’s clothes were torn up ... and so was the man.

  “What’s up?” Harker said.

  “You need to see this,” Steve said. “He was dead before we got here. We knew better than to touch a thing.”

  “I appreciate that, guys,” Harker said. “You see or hear anything?”

  They shook their heads and the one Harker didn’t know said, “Just the old lady talking about a giant spider.” He chuckled nervously.

  “Is that right?” Harker said, giving away nothing with his poker face.

  The guy nodded and said, “Yeah. A giant spider. You believe that?”

  “Well, you guys can go, I guess,” Harker said. “We’ll get the coroner down here.”

  “Okay, Sheriff,” Steve said as he headed for the driver’s door.

  Harker turned and started toward the body when the guy he didn’t know spoke.

  “Wait, Sheriff,” he said. “What is it? What did that?” He was trying to smile, but his fear showed in it, and for a moment, he looked as if he were pulling back the corners of his mouth in a grimace.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Harker said. “But stay inside unless absolutely necessary.” Then he went over to the body.

  The guy got in the ambulance, and Steve drove away.

  Harker looked down at the body, but only for a moment. He walked around to the front of the trailer. The door was open and he heard sobbing. He went up the front steps and stood in the doorway. Deputy Cheryl Hainey sat beside an old woman on the couch. The old woman sobbed into the palm of her hand.

  “Have you called anyone?” Hainey said. “A relative, maybe? Someone who can come over and be with you?”

  The old woman shook her head.

  “Would you like me to call someone? Do you have any children in the area?”

  She nodded. “Cuh-could you ... call my son?” she said.

  “Sure, sure,” Hainey said.

  “Ma’am, I’m Sheriff Harker. Would you mind if I come in and ask you a few questions?”

  She nodded and tried to collect herself. As Harker came inside, she said, “It was a spider, Sheriff. I know how it sounds, I know it sounds crazy, but it was a giant spider, it was – “

  ”Calm down, Ma’am. I believe you. Did you get a good look at it?”

  She nodded again.

  “Did you happen to notice if it was missing a fang?”

  “I-I saw fangs, but ... “ She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice how many it had.”

  “Did you see which way it went?”

  “It went that way,” she said pointing to her left. She took a tissue from a box in her lap, dabbed her eyes and cheeks with it.

  “What’s in that direction in the park?” Harker said.

  “Well, you go far enough and you hit the wall.”

  “The wall,” Harker said, mostly to himself. Providing it had kept going in that direction, it might have gone over the wall and left the park already. He hadn’t seen it on the way in, or he would’ve stopped. He needed deputies to check out the park. There was a chance it could still be somewhere within its walls. He took the microphone clipped to the shoulder of his shirt and pressed down the button with his thumb. “Two-oh-six, I need back-up at Pineway Mobile Home Estates, space two-twelve, that’s space two-twelve at Pineway Mobile Home Estates. And send the coroner over here, too.”

  Deputy Hainey said, “I didn’t see it, Sheriff. I’ve been watching for it, like you said, but I didn’t see it. She did, though,” she said, nodding at the old woman.

  “Take her statement after you’ve called her son,” Harker said. He turned to the old woman. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.” He turned and left the trailer.

  Back-up arrived – three units. Harker sent them through the park and told them to have their shotguns ready.

  The coroner arrived a few minutes later.

  “Tony, this looks very familiar,” Blevins said as he approached Harker. “This is what happened to the people from last night. Exactly, in fact.” He stood over the body and nodded as he looked down at it. “Exactly.”

  Harker told him there was another spider running loose.

  Blevin’s bushy white eyebrows went up and he said, “You shitting me?”

  “I shit you not. The remaining spider has only three fangs. It lost one when it bit a seventy-two Mustang in the trunk.”

  Blevins went to the back of the hearse, where his young male assistant had pulled out the unpadded metal gurney. He returned with a body bag and opened it beside the body on the ground. He rolled the body into the bag, drew it together, and zipped it up.

  They put the old man on the gurney and the assistant wheeled the bagged corpse back to the hearse and shoved it inside.

  “To be honest, Tony,” Blevins said, “I’m having a little trouble getting my mind around this, you know what I’m saying? I mean ... a giant spider.”

  “I know exactly what you’re saying. We’re all having that problem. Wait till you see it. Your mind has to get around it pretty damned quick when you see it.”

  Blevins laughed a low, humorless chuckle. “You sure there’s only one more?”

  Harker sighed as a sickening feeling moved through his stomach. “I hope there’s only one more.” He patted the coroner on the shoulder. “Stay inside, Andy. And keep all of this to yourself for now. I don’t want it to get out any sooner than necessary, because as soon as it does, this all turns into a circus.”

  “I understand.”

  The deputies returned from their patrol of the park. None of them had seen the spider.

  “It moves very fast,” Harker said, frustration in his voice. “It could cover a whole lot of ground in no time. We can’t even guess where it is.” He got in his car and got on the radio. “All units, cover the town. It’s the only thing we can do right now.”

  Dispatch said, “I got the press here asking about giant spiders, and I’m getting lots of sightings.”

  “Where’s the last one?” Harker said.

  “39 West Pearl Street. The call just came in. A Mr. Mike O’Ryan.”

  Harker looked up at the deputies gathered at his open door. “Let’s hit it, that’s just up the road.”

  They got in their cars and left the park, going over the twenty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit.

  Thirty-Four

  Sandy Chatsworth was home from work with a bad cold. She worked at the Wells Fargo Bank on Center Street in Hope Valley. Her son Zack was outside playing in the front yard, her husband Leo down at the office selling insurance. Sandy lay on the couch with a blanket over her and her favorite pillow under her head, watching a cooking show.

  The front door opened and Zack came inside. He was seven years old and beautiful, with his father’s blond hair and strong features. It never ceased to amaze Sandy that she felt an almost crippling surge of love every time she looked at him.

  “Mom, can I go ‘cross the street to the park and play on the swings?” he said, standing before the couch, between Sandy and the television.

  Her sinuses were congested, and when she spoke, her voice was scratchy. “No, honey, you know you can’t go over there unless Daddy or I go with you, and I’m just too sick to go today. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “S’okay,” he said. He joined his hands in front of him and said, “Can I get you something?”

  There was that surge of love again. It filled Sandy’s chest to bursting – the
re was actually a moment when she felt as if the T-shirt she wore were too tight. She held out her arms and said, “C’mere.” She held him to her and squeezed. “I hope you don’t get my cold.”

  “If I got your cold,” Zack said, “could I stay home when school starts again next week?”

  “If you get my cold, you’ll have to, silly.”

  He stepped back, threw up his arms, and jumped as he said, “Yipee! No school! I hope I get your cold.”

  Zack turned and ran back to the front door, pulled it closed as he went outside.

  Sandy sat up on the couch and looked out the plate-glass window behind it to the front yard. Zack wheeled his pedal-car around on the front lawn, and a huge golden spider appeared and pounced on the boy.

  “Zack!” Sandy screamed.

  She shot from the sofa, ran to the front door and opened it. She kicked the screen door open and threw herself outside.

  The spider’s back was to Sandy as it went to work on Zack. She ran screaming toward the spider and, just as it started to turn around, jumped on its back. She pounded it with her fists, clawed at it with her fingernails.

  The spider backed up, turned left, then right, trying to dislodge her, but she held tightly onto the thick hairs that grew on its back. She gouged its closest eye with all four fingers, and her hand punched through the bubble-like surface and sank into white mush. It reared up and Sandy tried to hold on, but her grip slipped away and she slid off the spider’s back.

  She hit the ground with a grunt, opened her eyes, and saw that she lay just a few feet from Zack. She crawled on hands and knees to his side. He did not move, just stared up at the sky with foggy eyes. His clothes were torn. Blood was smeared all over him and she realized his right arm lay next to him, unattached, severed at the elbow.

  “My baby!” she cried. “My baby! My baby!”

  The spider’s front legs pressed in on her from both sides. The sharp hooks in the legs dug into the flesh of her upper arms. She felt its fangs sink into her back. Sandy was spared excruciating pain by a quick death.

  Thirty-Five

  Blind in one eye, the spider zigged and zagged out of the Chatworths’ front lawn and crossed the street.

  A man stepped out on his front porch with a rifle. He fired at the spider and hit a leg on its blind side. The spider became a blur as it left the neighborhood, following West Pearl Street. It swerved onto the shoulder and sped along the ditch to avoid oncoming cars.

  Other drivers knew something had passed them, but it was moving so fast, they couldn’t tell what it was.

  The spider veered further away from the road and disappeared into the woods.

  Thirty-Six

  When Harker got out of his car, Mike O’Ryan of 39 West Pearl Street was standing on his front porch, rifle in hand.

  “I took a shot at it,” O’Ryan said as Harker approached. “I think I hit it, too. It ran off.”

  “Which way did it go?” Harker said.

  “West on Pearl,” O’Ryan said, pointing. “It got the lady across the street,” he said, pointing again, “and her little boy.”

  Harker followed O’Ryan’s pointing finger with his eyes and saw the bodies lying on the front lawn across the street. He saw a lot of blood and didn’t want to go over there.

  Harker turned to the approaching deputies and said, “Deputy Whitman, take Mr. O’Ryan’s statement and call the coroner for the people across the street. The rest of you, we’re going after it. West on Pearl. Keep those shotguns ready.”

  He got back into his car and headed south. He flipped on his siren and lights and sped down the road, eyes moving back and forth, looking for some sign of the spider, or better, the spider itself.

  He led the other deputies past a large stretch of woods on the right, then on into town.

  Harker saw nothing.

  Once in town, he turned onto Center Street, then got on the radio. “Looks like we lost it. Just keep covering town, if we have to drive around all day and night. It was heading this way. Any recent sightings?”

  “Pearl Street was the last one,” Dispatch said.

  “Okay. We just keep looking.”

  They watchfully drove the streets of downtown Hope Valley. There were no more calls about the spider.

  The afternoon’s shadows grew long, but the spider did not show itself.

  PART THREE

  Creature Feature

  Thirty-Seven

  After dressing for his date with Heidi, Rodney left his room to find Mom setting the table for dinner in the dining room.

  “You don’t mind if I take the Toyota, Mom?” he said.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “It’s still too cold at night for you to be driving around with a big hole in your roof. Let me get the key for you.” She went to her purse, which was always on the small table beside the front door, took out her keys, slid the key off the ring, gave it to him, and kissed his cheek. “Have fun, and be careful.”

  He went out to the garage. He’d moved the Mustang to the curb so he could get out, then got into Mom’s Camry and backed out of the garage.

  Harry had been upset with Rodney for giving the sheriff the sun spider’s fang. He wanted to keep it. Rodney had promised him he would go to the sheriff’s office tomorrow and ask for the fang back. Harry was a pessimist and doubted he would never see it again.

  “What would the sheriff want with a spider fang?” Rodney had said to Harry that afternoon.

  “He probably wants it as a souvenir, like me.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t tell him I was giving it to him.”

  “That probably doesn’t matter. He probably thinks you gave it to him.”

  Rodney shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Why do you always see the dark side of everything?”

  “Because that’s usually the side that wins,” Harry said. “I’m a realist.”

  “You’re eleven years old, you shouldn’t even know the word ‘realist.’”

  He’d finally gotten Harry to agree that he would not give up hope until tomorrow, after Rodney’d had a chance to ask for the fang back.

  Rodney drove across town to Cutter Way, and on to Wooded Acres.

  Heidi’s house reminded Rodney of a ski lodge – it even had an A-frame roof. He rang the bell and she opened the door a few seconds later. She put her purse strap up over her shoulder, then leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss. Then she stepped out of the doorway and pulled the door closed.

  In the car, he said, “You didn’t want me to meet your parents?”

  She laughed. “Nah, I figured you could do without the stress. You can meet them later, preferably when we’re not on a date. That just adds tension to the date, don’t you think?”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then ... you’re very smart ... and very funny ... and very well-dressed.”

  They laughed as he pulled her close and kissed her. The kiss became intense and their embrace tightened. Finally, Heidi laughed and pulled away gently.

  “It’s not good to make out on an empty stomach,” she said. “C’mon, let’s get some pizza.”

  “But if we eat, then we’ll have to wait an hour before we can start making out again.”

  “That’s swimming.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Dube’s Deli had the best pizza in Hope Valley. It was a take-and-bake, but they also offered the option of having it cooked there. They went into the deli and discussed toppings.

  “I love everything but bell peppers,” Heidi said.

  “Me, too,” Rodney said. “I like ... “ He stopped, sighed, then rolled his eyes and steeled himself to the inevitable response. “I like anchovies.”

  “Me, too!” she said, eyes widening.

  “No shit?”

  “No shit!”

  “A woman who likes anchovies?” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  She laughed and slipped her arm around his
waist, her fingers into his back pocket.

  They ordered a combination pizza with anchovies, then took it with them to the NightLight Drive-in Theater. Rodney paid admission at the gate, then drove onto the hilly lot. They went up and down the broad humps for a while until he picked a spot and parked.

  The sky was a bleeding wound along the tops of the mountains in the west. Shadows had lengthened, bled together into one and now blanketed everything.

  “I can’t believe I agreed to come see a scary movie,” Heidi said.

  “You don’t like them?”

  “I hate them. They give me nightmares. Bad ones. I’m serious.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Don’t they bother you?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, they scare me sometimes. But that’s why I like them. I can get scared and not be in any danger. I’m lazy, I guess.”

  She laughed.

  Rodney turned on the radio and tuned to 1140 AM. An old Buddy Holly song was playing. It was broadcast from the movie theater, and all they ever played before the movie started were oldies from the 1950s.

  Heidi held the pizza and a stack of napkins on her lap. She removed the napkins from the top of the box and opened it. Dube’s provided paper plates if you asked, and she’d gotten two. They were on the seat between her and Rodney.

  “Okay, hand me your plate,” she said. She put two slices of pizza on his plate and handed it back with a clump of napkins.

  “Smell them anchovies,” Rodney said before biting into a piece.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anchovies,” Heidi said.

  “Me, too! Nobody else ever wants them, so I never get them. I mean, I never just buy a pizza for myself.”

  “Maybe you should,” she said. “Every once in a while, I get one of those little personal pizzas from Round Table, up the street from my house. Just to be able to have anchovies.”

  “We’re a sad and put-upon minority, we anchovie lovers,” Rodney said. He chewed for a while, then said, “This is delicious.”