One look at that angry, muttering mob convinced Gale that the danger threatening Arachne was appallingly real.
“Get inside!” he whispered. “Hurry!” And as she closed the door behind her, he advanced to the steps and stood there, gazing down into a sea of sinister faces.
“What do you want?”
Suddenly the door behind him opened again, and Fada, the crippled girl, was beside him.
“You know what they want,” she laid shrilly. “They’ve come for the Spider Woman, and they can have her! They’re welcome to her!”
With one sweep of his arm, Gale thrust her aside.
“What do you want?” he demanded again.
“We want the Spider Woman!”
“Why? What has she done?”
One of them strode up the steps and looked Gale over. That man never knew how close he came to getting a fist in the mouth as he thrust his head forward and poked a gnarled forefinger into Gale’s stomach.
“Who might you be?” he snarled.
“Never mind who I am. I’m here to protect Miss Reid.”
“You’re here to protect her, are ye? Well, we aim to run her out of Flood River Valley! She’s workin’ with the Devil, she is. With her gone, the spiders’ll leave too, and we’ll be able to live in peace again. Where is she?”
“She’s in the house!” Fada screamed. “Go in and drag her out, Clem!”
The fellow she called Clem put a hand on Andy Gale’s chest.
“One side, you!” he ordered. “We aim to get the Spider Woman!”
He never knew what struck him. Gale’s fist, backed by a seething volcano of rage, exploded in the fellow’s sneering mouth and sent him sprawling. He fell in a gurgling heap at the foot of the steps. The others surged forward, filling the night with the din of their voices.
At that moment, as Gale faced annihilation, two things happened simultaneously. Arachne Reid appeared suddenly at Gale’s side, with the obvious intention of giving herself up to protect him from harm; and, from the rear of the mob, a commanding voice rang out like a tocsin, halting the farmers in their tracks.
Gale stared in amazement as a tall, broad-shouldered man strode forward, opening a lane with his voice. All other voices had died until there was a weird silence. The man climbed to the porch and calmly faced the mob.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.
They told him. He turned to look at Arachne, and there was something in that look, something in the flush of color that climbed suddenly into Arachne’s face, that thrust a knife-point into Andy Gale’s heart. He knew at that moment why Arachne had refused to go away with him.
The broad-shouldered man gazed down at the crowd.
“You’re wrong,” he said sternly. “Miss Reid had nothing to do with the death of that little girl. Go home, all of you!”
To Gale it looked like a daring bluff, because he was close enough to see signs of turmoil in the fellow’s face. Would it work? Would those sullen, superstitious farmers obey the command?
They did. None of them, not even the man Clem, had nerve enough to advance. With a mutter of sound the mob broke up. The handsome young man turned and took both of Arachne’s hands in his, and said fervently: “Thank God!”
Pale and trembling, Arachne beckoned to Gale. “This is John Slayton, Andy. He came here a few days ago to interest the farmers in a cooperative packing plant.”
Gale took the man’s hand.
“You seem to have quite a hold over them, Mr. Slayton,” he said dully.
“No. But I’ve talked with most of them, and they evidently trust me.”
Someone else trusted him, too. Gale could see it in her eyes—in Arachne’s eyes. Mumbling excuses, he turned and walked back into the house, his own eyes glazed with torment, his feet heavy. Five minutes later, Fada found him sitting on an old piano bench in the parlor.
“Your sweetheart and Mr. Slayton, they are still talking together,” the crippled girl murmured cruelly. “You’re no fool. I guess you can see they’re in love.”
Gale raised his head and stared without answering. She moved closer.
“Are you thinking of going away?”
“Yes.”
“You mustn’t. There is something dishonest about John Slayton. Why would any man come to this drought-stricken area to talk to the farmers about a packing plant? The farmers are desperate. They have no crops. The red spiders have ruined everything. If you go away now, like a beaten dog, there’s no telling what may happen. Arachne should be protected.”
The words bored deep into Andy’s brain. He saw the wisdom behind them. Strange, that this deformed creature should one minute wish to turn Arachne over to a mob of mad beasts, and then suddenly, with an amazing change of heart, seek to protect her. But so many things here were strange and bewildering.
“You must not go away,” Fada whispered. “You must stay! There is a vacant bedroom upstairs, next to mine …”
II: NIGHT CALLS
A SPIDER CRAWLED over the patchwork quilt and dropped onto Andy Gale’s twitching face. Without waking, he stirred restlessly and uttered mumbling sounds of torment.
He was dreaming, and there were spiders in the dream—hideous red armies of them, stalking him.
The red spider on his face crept across his mouth and bit him. He waked with a convulsive jerk and sat up in bed. A clock on the antique bureau said 2:00 a.m., and the room was weirdly aglow with moonlight.
The door, which he had carefully closed before retiring, was creaking as someone inched it open. Gale turned to stare at it. The sledging of his own heart startled him. Then he stifled a grunt of amazement as his unexpected visitor came limping into view.
“You are awake—darling?”
The moonlight was kind to Fada as she stood there. It lessened the horror of her shriveled limbs and deformed back, and glorified the amazing beauty of her face. Hers was a frightening sort of beauty, unearthly and savagely sensual. Gale swung his feet clear of the bedclothes and scowled at her.
“What do you want?” His scowl deepened, and he pushed himself erect. There was something unholy about this woman.
“You—you think I should not have come here to talk to you a little while—when I’m lonely?” she asked. Her red lips ceased smiling and writhed back to reveal a curled tongue and white, gleaming teeth. “Am I—so ugly as that?”
“It isn’t that, Fada. It’s just that I—Arachne … I’m sorry.”
“You are sorry?” Her bitter laugh chilled his blood. “Yes, you are sorry for me! All men are. I am hideous. It hurts you to look at me!” Her snarling outburst smothered Gale’s feeble word, of protest. “And I thought you were different!”
A look of helplessness was in Gale’s tired face. “You’d better go now,” he said dully.
“Yes, I’d better go now.” Bitterly she mocked the tone of his voice. “But some day you’ll look at me without that loathing in your eyes, Andrew Gale! Some day you’ll go on your knees to me, and beg me—”
He shuddered. Never before in the eyes of a human being had he seen hate smoldering so fiercely. In a daze he stood by the bed and watched her as she limped to the door. She did not look back. The door creaked shut behind her.
Sleep was impossible then. With an unlit cigarette clamped in his teeth, he paced the floor. The hate from Fada’s warped soul hung like a foul miasma in the room, stifling him. Outside, the moon was high and full, spilling a cold, blue light through the windows.
Suddenly there were voices.
Rigid at an open window, Gale stared down into the yard. The white fence, newly painted, gleamed like a row of giant teeth against the grayness of the road. A man and a woman stood near the gate.
A thick, strangling mass gathered in Gale’s throat as he watched. The words of the crippled girl whispered again in his brain. You’re no fool. I guess you can see they’re in love.
Yes, he could see. How long Arachne and John Slayton had been out there, he had no way of knowing
; but evidently they had been there some time. Slayton’s hands were on Arachne’s shoulders. He was holding her close to him.
Their conversation reached Gale only as a low murmuring in which words were indistinguishable. They separated. Slayton, tall and straight, strode down the road toward the village. Arachne, without even a glance at the windows of Gale’s room, glided swiftly toward the rear door.
With a dull, glazed look in his half-shut eyes, Gale sprawled on the bed …
At breakfast the next morning a red spider, crawling over the table, died under the descending fist of Nicklus Brukner.
“Damned spiders!” Brukner grumbled. “They’ve ruined every farm in the valley!”
His crippled daughter leered at him. “Why should you worry? You hold mortgages on nearly every acre of land within thirty miles. If the farmers can’t pay what they owe you, you can take their land.”
“And what do I want with their land? It’s money I need! Money to buy food!”
Nicklus Brukner looked tired. Shadows of exhaustion darkened the pouches under his eyes. His hands trembled as he poured coffee.
“You worked in the laboratory all night, Nicklus?” Arachne asked him.
“Yes, all night again. There’ll be no rest now. I’ve got to find a poison that will kill those hellish things; if I don’t, they’ll keep right on breeding and there will be millions of them. They’ll drive us out of our homes and take possession of the whole valley!”
“But why do you work alone? Why don’t you get help?”
“Because I daren’t trust anyone—that’s why!”
“Perhaps John Slayton would help,” Arachne suggested softly.
“Slayton? Him I trust least of all! Him and his cooperative packing plant! He’s here for no good reason!”
Andy Gale glanced at Arachne and saw a dull red flush ascending from her throat. Across from her, Fada leaned forward, elbows denting the tablecloth.
“Whatever John Slayton is,” the crippled girl said viciously, “you are, too.” With her knife she pointed at Arachne. “Don’t deny it! You’re in love with him! Last night I saw you in his arms!”
Arachne’s flush faded. Her face went white for an instant, and seemed to be made of wax. She stared straight at Fada, then turned, looked at Gale. Andy Gale thought he saw a mute, frantic appeal in her eyes, as if she were begging him not to believe Fada.
Then, pushing back her chair, she thrust herself up from the table and left the room. There was silence for a moment. Fada shattered it by uttering a harsh, brutal laugh.
“Spider woman!” she snarled. “That’s what she is—a spider woman!”
No longer hungry, Gale excused himself. Nicklus Brukner went right on eating, as if nothing had occurred. Half an hour later, while Gale was reading a newspaper in the parlor, the doorbell rang. Fada limped down the hall to answer it. Gale lowered his paper and listened.
“You’re not goin’ to cause trouble in this house, Clem Degnan!” Fada was saying. “I don’t care how you feel about him hittin’ you.”
The “Clem” part of that name was familiar, and Gale guessed the fellow’s mission. Striding into the hall, he pushed Fada aside and confronted the caller.
“You’re looking for me?”
Clem Degnan glared at him. A large purple bruise disfigured the man’s face. “I come here,” Degnan said, “to settle a score with you. No one ever struck Clem Degnan yet without payin’ for it!”
“And I say,” declared Fada, “that I won’t have any disturbance here!”
Gale’s mouth wore a grim smile. The prospect of a good fight was a relief. It would keep him from thinking of other things which, unfortunately, could not be settled so easily.
“We’ll go outside,” he said to Degnan.
They went outside. It was a good fight. When it was over, Gale wiped a trickle of blood from bruised knuckles and smiled down at his beaten opponent who swayed groggily on hands and knees.
Degnan did not smile back. Staggering erect, he backed away, his battered face livid with rage.
“I’ll get you for this!” he promised. “I’ll get even, Gale! Don’t think you’re done with me!”
Snarling, he went away. And when Gale reentered the house, Fada was waiting in the parlor.
“I’m glad you did it,” she whispered. “I hate that man.”
“Do you? Who is he?”
“Oh—just one of the valley farmers.” Suddenly she saw the blood on his knuckles. “You’re hurt!”
She painted his hand with iodine while he sat on the piano bench. It took her a long time, and her heady perfume crept through him like a drug as she bent over him.
“Are you angry with me for what I did last night?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No, of course not.”
“Then—you don’t hate me? You might even—in time—learn to love me?”
He was slow in answering. His first impulse was to tell her bluntly that he loved someone else; but after all, there was something uniquely attractive about this girl, despite her deformity. She was like a creature of some other world, ugly when judged by the standards of this world, but savagely beautiful in her own right.
Such thoughts frightened him. He shook them loose and pushed himself erect. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I think I’ll take a walk.”
Later he reached a decision. He would face Arachne and demand that she tell him the truth about John Slayton. If she loved Slayton, that would be the end, and he would go back to his job in the city.
Returning to the house, he found Fada asleep in the parlor. Nicklus Brukner was nowhere around. In the kitchen a door was open, and a sound of footsteps in the cellar led Gale down a flight of steep, dark stairs. Someone—Brukner, probably—was in the little laboratory at the end of the cellar.
A sudden desire to see the inside of that laboratory sent Gale forward on the balls of his feet. It was dark here. If he were quiet, he could remain hidden and watch Brukner at work. The laboratory door was open.
Silently approaching the aperture, he reached a vantage point and stood motionless. His eyes widened. His brows drew into a frown.
For it was not Nicklus Brukner who stood there at the wooden work-bench. It was Arachne.
Four earthenware crocks stood on the bench. From one of them, Arachne was ladling a dark, oily liquid into a bottle. Even at a distance, Gale’s nostrils quivered in protest as the strangling odor of the liquid attacked him.
It was a small, dirty room, and the dangling lamp bulb threw a pale glow over the array of paraphernalia that loomed there. Two huge vats of well water stood on the floor. Crude shelves supported bottles of vari-colored liquids. A three-burner gasoline stove occupied half the bench space.
Arachne had finished her task. Replacing the crock, she thrust a stopper into the pint bottle of oily liquid and, with a soiled rag, wiped away the few drops she had spilled on the bench. Gale stepped back as she hurried from the room.
Without seeing him, she ascended the stairs to the kitchen.
Gale followed. Hearing a door click shut, he knew she had gone out into the yard; and from a kitchen window he watched her. With a furtive backward glance at the house, she hurried along a path that skirted the lower section of Brukner’s farm. The nearby woods swallowed her.
Hating himself for his suspicions, Gale went after her.
It was weirdly quiet in the woods, even though at times the girl ahead of him disturbed the silence by walking through brush or stepping on dead limbs. The hush was somehow menacing, like the frightening stillness before a storm. And there were crawling things everywhere.
Spiders! A dozen times he had to leave the path and circle around, because the little red spiders had taken possession. They dropped down on him from low-hanging branches, wriggled over his hands and face and neck. He thought of little Hope Wiggin, and shuddered.
Then, as the winding path led him into a weed-grown clearing, he caught sight of Arachne again.
A house had
stood here once. Its foundation loomed among the weeds, and Arachne was hiding the bottle of oily liquid beneath the rusted hulk of an old wheelbarrow. Rising, she looked around before retracing her steps.
This time, Gale resisted the temptation to follow her. In all probability, he told himself, she would go straight back to Brukner’s house.
He waited half an hour, angrily brushing away the spiders that discovered and attacked him. What, he wondered, would be the fate of Flood River Valley if these nonpoisonous red spiders should suddenly become poisonous, or grow to the size of tarantulas? The fantastic thought chilled him.
Then suddenly he was not alone. From the far side of the clearing emerged the tall, athletic figure of John Slayton.
Gale stiffened, forgot the spiders for a moment and watched Slayton’s movements. The man walked straight to the place where the bottle was hidden. Thrusting the bottle into his coat pocket, he turned and strode back the way he had come.
III: ATTACK IN THE HIDEAWAY
AN HOUR LATER, in his own room at the Brukner farmhouse, Andy Gale finished packing. He had resolved to go away quietly, without saying goodbye. The heaviness in his heart did not alter that resolve as he swung his suitcase off the bed and opened the door.
Fada, limping along the hall, stopped him by whispering his name.
“You are—going?”
“This time, yes.”
“And if I prove to you,” Fada said softly, “that your Arachne is in love with a man who is wicked, and that she is in grave danger—what then?”
Gale lowered his suitcase to the floor and stared at her. The hope that surged through him was like a swift, hot pain. “You have proof that John Slayton is not what she thinks he is?” he demanded.
“Come with me.”
She led him downstairs and out of the house. Without a word of explanation, but with a strange twist to her face, she limped along the hot, dusty road that led to the village.
“Where are you taking me?” he demanded.
“You’ll see.”
The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories Page 27
