NOTE: Found this document in dad’s computer on Monday, February 13th, 2023.
There are spiders the size of newborn kittens in my basement. Some, I’ve been told, are much bigger. I found the first one last night under the influence, and the son of a bitch wasn’t a friend.
Yes, meet me: David the Arachnophobe, one of those guys your friends like to prank with unrealistic plastic creepy-crawlies on Halloween to get an exaggerated reaction. It’s no secret that I have always disliked these creatures, so finding out what has been living down there this whole time is more than I stomach. I’m a big man -not Dwayne Johnson big- but these circumstances have reduced me. I feel like a child trembling underneath the sheets again.
God help us, okay? I fear for my sanity, my life, but I fear for yours, too. It’s why I’m here…Jesus, I guess that’s why you’re here, too, looking over these pages.
Thankfully, my soon-to-be-ex-wife and son weren’t here during this unpleasant discovery. On Monday, Dee loaded a few hefty suitcases into the back of our Subaru and was getting into the car just as I was arriving home from work. My son was in the front seat, buckled in, and distracted by the addictive void of his phone when I confronted her in the car. The look she gave me, one I had grown to know well over the past eleven years of marriage, was etched so finely in her features that I could only stand back and watch as she backed out of the driveway.
Our marriage is in its darkest days, but I don’t care. I haven’t called her back and I don’t suppose it has even crossed my mind. I have spent hours worrying about the spiders in my basement, hours contemplating my next moves.
After all that has happened today, I’m surprised I’ve managed to find the energy to crack this thing open and start typing. I suppose this will take a while if I’m to tell it right. My thought process is simple: If I continue to sit here against the wall in my living room facing the hallway, I’ll be ready. I can’t say I’ll know what I’ll do, but dammit, I’ll see what’s coming. And if they are concentrated in the area where the exterminator says they are, I’ll have plenty of time to make a move.
And by making a move, I mean getting the fuck out of here.
I’m not a brilliant man, but I know that this vinegar-based repellent stuff won’t repel their wrath. Will I have to use it? Christ, I hope not.
*
As store manager of the local grocery store here in Newtonville, my work days are usually predictable. However, beginning yesterday, things became exceptionally hectic quickly, thanks to a computer glitch in our system. You wouldn’t immediately think about it, but having an efficient computer system makes every aspect of a retail workday move flawlessly toward divinity. Like a swollen throat, when it becomes painful, you can finally grasp the existential beauty of swallowing.
Everything had been fine last month during the annual inspection. Nonetheless, some corroded wiring in the receiving area needed replacement. Our computers went down a few years ago due to a failed system upgrade. It took two weeks for IT to understand the problem and correct it. I lost two workers during that time; I feared losing more because of a negligent third party. I spent the day on the phone with corporate and assisting my demoralized employees.
When I got home that evening, still fuming from the frustrations of work, the house was silent but accommodating. After a few mixed drinks, I began casually entertaining the idea of going downstairs.
I’d been putting off my annual basement cleaning for months by then. I usually get to it during the end of March, but that was around when I began suspecting Dee of promiscuity. And when I got my mind set on something, I often forgot about the world around me. Usually, I became so crazy with certainty I could swear by it. Dee was only a partial piece of my simmering suspicions; That son of a bitch Upton was the border around it, and thinking about pushing him out of that ten-story-
Hell, you know the song. Blah, blah. Who cares, right?
Anyway, I put some heavy metal on the stereo in the living room and felt pretty good about myself. It got Dee, Upton, and work out of my mind, as it usually does.
When I opened the basement door, I sensed the alien air sigh as if I had disturbed some sleeping presence in the darkness. It was outright dank down there, the air alive, yeasty. I’ve always hated North Carolina summer nights, how they drag around their suffocating humidity like a long, black cape.
Typically when I go down there, I clad myself in steel-toed boots and thick jeans. Last night, I made the mistake of going down in nothing but my boxer shorts. Silly David, I know.
Thoughts of scheming black creatures hiding in attic rafters settled on my mind once again, but I couldn’t let these apprehensions interfere with my need to come and go as I pleased.
I flipped the light switch. The bulbs hummed into life as I went down. At the bottom, the concrete floor was cool, brimming with moisture from the earth, and the smell of age and mildew perforated the place. I moved my eyes to the ceiling, trying not to remind myself of that day in my youth.
The utility lights obscured whatever perched above my head, so I gave myself a break and scanned the room.
The curio cabinets, taken from my grandmother’s house after she died, were pressed against the far wall in the back. Stacked cardboard boxes, filled with trinkets and fragile collectibles, besieged the old work desk we had. Some of my wife’s childhood regalia piled high in more boxes, thrown aside for who knew. Other items cast away in the basement included a large plastic toy chest my son had grown out of, a few landscaping tools here and there, and a bunch of colored plastic moving containers filled with God knows what.
The overall goal for the basement was to incorporate a workstation and get one or two of those forty-inch Dewalt rolling cabinets for tools and miscellaneous storage. I realized that a lot would have to be thrown away or reorganized.
I could make out a dense network of fine webs in the tight gap between the far left side wall and one of the curio cabinets.
“Damn,” I muttered.
My son could help me whenever they got back. It would give the boy something to do besides stare into that damn screen all day.
Shadows moved in the corners, probably caused by the A/C blowing in from the top of the stairs, but I was still wary. The place seemed different, its dimensions off. The gin, no doubt, was tampering with my depth perception.
Suddenly, a scuttling noise arose in the rubble next to me.
Mice, I thought, as I stumbled for the broom leaning against the wall by the stairs. I would have to set a few mouse traps and put out some poison, too. By the time I finished my project, I would be a notorious serial killer of rodents.
A few seconds later, a mouse zigzagged the stained floor. Cussing, I jumped to the side, using the broom to divert it away from my bare feet. It scampered towards a heap of boxes and out of sight.
“Asshole,” I told its shadow.
I began knocking mummified insects and webs off the lids of containers and moving them aside using the broom as an aid. Though now considerably impaired by the alcohol I had consumed earlier, I was careful not to step on anything that might make me yelp, such as a roach or another rodent. I worked my way forward, now and then peeking inside boxes when I got curious. I know I looked ridiculous, bent over half-naked, prodding at the mildewed objects, sweat gluing my boxers to the crack of my ass.
I’m not convinced everything would have been fine if I had quit right then, put the broom back in its place, and stumbled back upstairs blissfully unaware of the monsters taking shelter in my home. I know that I shrieked hard enough to strain my throat when I pushed the next red container aside.
Bright red and white spots flared in my vision.
“Oh my God!” I screamed.
A bristly, light brown spider with a leg span larger than my entire outstretched hand sat before me. It reminded me of the pouncing face-hugger in the Alien movies, with its legs spread and flattened to the ground. To my horror, each leg was about the width of a carpenter’s screw. Its body was plump and hairy. When the initial shock dissipated, I believed it was fake, a goddamn Halloween decoration or something.
But then its coarse body swelled as if it had read my mind and yearned to make itself known. A leg curled inward. Another leg tottered just above the floor. Prod me with that thing, and I’ll show you what I can do with my fangs, it seemed to menace.
In my revulsion, I shouted and stepped back, the hair on the nape of my neck rising.
It skittered, tangling itself underneath a nearby object. I fell backward, knocking a bucket of tools to the floor on the way down. Something heavy fell on my lower leg. I kicked at it urgently, caving in a bag of grass fertilizer. Where is it? Where is that bastard spider? I thought, my pulse a sledgehammer in my temple. The floor smelt of corrosion and rust, littered with dry mouse turds and the hardened corpses of small bugs. I leaned on my forearms for leverage, slid back a few feet, and started to hoist myself up. Something large was moving up the mountain of boxes at my feet. It climbed up to the top and disappeared on the other side.
I shouted again, more incredulously than in fear. How did a spider that large find its way into my basement?
Out of nowhere, the spider flew off the storage mountain. I groped blindly for the broom handle on the ground, grabbed it, and held it in a death grip. I was unable to take my eyes off of the spider.
It was a stagnant but swollen mass on the open floor. It sprang forward.
I pushed the broom’s end into the spider’s path, intent on raking it across the floor until it was mush. It clung there despite my violent attempts at crushing it. It leaped for the threatening object with no hesitation, wrestling with the bristles in pursuit of what I can only describe as wholesome vengeance.
“Come on, you son of a bitch!” I shouted, still shaking the broom.
The beast held the broom in a passionate embrace, legs coiled around the bristles. It folded, lurched, and dived. In an instant of wild calculation, I launched the broom like a torpedo into the rubble and made a hopping jolt for the stairs, sure it was already gaining on me and would tackle my ankle.
I slipped, though, and slammed my face into a wooden plank. The unanticipated impact stunned me, but I risked a glance back.
The eight-legged monster was hauling ass in my direction with a speed I could not believe.
Half-crawling, half-sprinting, blood dripping from my nose, I clawed up the rest of the basement stairs, using my legs to slam the door shut hard. I dropped to the floor in the refreshing chill of the hallway, trembling, an aroma radiating off of me as thick as the darkness downstairs. There, I sat as I tried to catch my breath.
The basement door now appeared to be some portal to Hell, and I was frozen, unable to look away from the opening underneath. My body was sore from the escape, and I became aware that I was whimpering. I could fully see the spider in my mind’s eye advancing up the stairs like a green beret stalking a retreating enemy. How its long legs curled over the gnarled wood, its bulging, alien body coming to rest, scouting danger with its complex, body-shrouding nervous system.
Something trailed down my face. On the verge of a manic shout, I patted it quickly and brought back a viscous red liquid on my fingers. I stared at the substance.
“Did I get bit?” I said aloud.
Nervous laughter rose in my throat. I had been so horrified by the spider’s impending assault that I had forgotten about bashing my head on the stairs only moments ago. Sometime later, I managed to walk to the kitchen and locate a roll of duct tape. Going back, I hurriedly sealed the slit underneath the door. Afterward, I went into the living room and fell onto the couch.
The following morning I woke up with crusty, coagulated blood on my face and saw the gash for the first time. It was worse than I thought. I decided to go to the emergency room to straighten it out before deciding what to do next about the spider.
I called the local exterminator a little while later and told him I had a “major spider problem.” He began peppering me with a list of questions. When I told him it was only one spider -that I could see- and that it had attacked me in the basement, there was a pause at the other end. I wasn’t surprised to hear a touch of humor in the man’s voice.
“One spider, eh?”
“It’s a nasty one,” I said. I neglected to tell him how large it was in fear he’d break down and call me a nutcase. Indeed there were no spiders indigenous to Newtonville of that variety in my home. Whoever comes will see for themselves, I thought. After he had taken down all of my contact information, I hung up and continued applying duct tape over the air vents on the first floor.
I was expecting a John Goodman portrayal of the heroic spider executioner like in the movie Arachnophobia -the only film that ever came close to being an actual horror movie, in my opinion. When the man stepped out of the white van with the Bug Gone company logo across the side a few hours later, he was considerably younger than I had imagined. He wore navy blue coveralls and had a five-o-clock shadow. His widow’s peak was already dripping. I met him in the driveway out in the baking July sun.
We made small talk while he rounded up supplies from the van’s interior: a pair of elbow-length gloves, goggles, a respirator, and a red tank with a two-strap harness that he slung over his shoulders like a jet-pack. A hose was attached to the tank and the other end to a long dispenser that he clipped to his belt. I invited him in and watched his face while he observed what I had done to my living room over the past few hours.
“Okay,” he said, bypassing the fifty-inch plasma TV I unscrewed from the wall earlier and had left in the middle of the floor. “Thought you said he was in the basement? Did he get out?”
“The fucker’s still in the basement,” I said.
He nodded as he surveyed the living room, and I think he knew I had taken the fast train to La-La Land then. That’s okay, I thought. You won’t seem so critical of my actions soon.
In addition, I had flipped both couches on their sides and removed all the cushions; I stacked them outside behind the porch to burn for later on. The glass table in the living room wasn’t problematic, but I needed to disassemble it to get at the rug underneath. I had rolled it into a loose roll and struggled with it across the yard. All furniture tucked up against the wall was brought forward and laid on its sides. I emptied all kitchen drawers, the contents from each worth saving I put in garbage bags, tied in triple knots, and set in the garage; the drawers themselves were put in the pile outside with the cushions and would be burned, too. I took down any framed pictures on the walls. And with the air vents sealed, I hardly felt any better.
“Uh-huh. Where’s the basement, man?”
I led him down the hall to a door I had sealed completely with blue tape. He turned to me, smirking. “How am I supposed to get down there?”
I went to grab the box cutter from the kitchen. A sheen of clammy sweat started to ooze from the pores on my forehead.
“Does that stuff do the job?” I said, pointing to his tank of poison, the razor unsteady against the sealed crease in the door. “No games. That stuff will do more than stun it, right? I want it to die…Okay?”
“I got the shit for the circus, man.” He patiently stepped aside and then watched as I cut the seal along the entire perimeter of the door. My heart was drumming.
It’s right there behind the door, waiting to pounce. I know it is. It’s going to be right there, BEHIND THE DOOR! OH, GOD! SOMEHOW IT KNOWS WHAT I’M DOING-
“Hey, man.”
I looked up at the exterminator, light-headed from bending over. He was gripping the doorknob. How long had I been staring at the crack underneath the door?
“Relax. I’ll find him. Your spider might be nasty, but once he gets a strong whiff of this…” He cocked a thumb towards the tank on his back. “…he’ll be in spider heaven in two minutes. And if there’s more, well, they say if you love your job, you won’t have to work a day in your life.”
His southern drawl forced a grin out of me, and in my throbbing panic, I almost thanked him for it. My palms were slimy with thick ooze, and I nodded rather than risk him hearing the terror in my words.
He opened the door, looked back to wink, and slowly began his descent. I expected a sizeable hairy creature to catapult through the air onto his chest at any moment, so I shrank away like a puppy who wants no part in meeting the big family dog. If there were more than one of those things, I didn’t know what I would do.
Just find and kill the fucking thing, I thought. Get it over with. And kill anything else that moves, too. Hell, coat the whole house with poison! I don’t care!
I quickly shut the door. After a few seconds of heavy foot-falls, there came a distressing BANG. It sounded like he had overstepped and crashed to the bottom. Intermittent curses and harsh grunts drifted upwards. I listened at the door, touching the knob, and then expelled the breath I had been holding when his hasty, slightly amused voice resounded from below:
“Alright! Busted my ass, but I’ll survive!”
I thought I heard the echo of a laugh, so I relaxed and went into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. Spider-proofing the first floor of my house had made me ravenous. As I reached for a beer in the refrigerator to wash it down, I heard a bark of surprise from the basement and knocked the beer bottle over onto the floor. It shattered. I rushed down the hallway and pressed an ear against the door.
“Holy shit!” he said. The sandwich suddenly felt like a piece of granite in my stomach. He was moving all over the place, hurriedly knocking boxes and containers away to pursue the spider. Dear, God, I thought. The thing will get away. He’ll lose sight of it. And then-
“Get back here! I ain’t done with you!” Something made of metal crashed to the floor. The exterminator’s voice was full of crazed energy. “Oh, you are an ugly thing! Shit!”
He sounded like a madman angrily trying to locate his chemistry goggles. I heard his next words loud and clear with my ear planted firmly against the door.
“Well, well! Look at your friend! Let’s see how he likes this!”
Yeah! Cut him down, George! Beat Thomas the Big Boy to a pulp! I thought crazily, ungluing my ear from the door.
An enormous wave of fright overcame me, wrapping me in a mysterious cocoon of pure, spontaneous clarity. It was as if I had been hoisted into a pair of roller skates and pushed. I levitated towards the keys on the kitchen counter and flew through the front door. I landed on one knee on the hot concrete sidewalk. The spout of pain could have been as meniscal as a pinprick because I was still sprinting through the fresh-cut grass, both in body and mind. My breathing didn’t matter, just the distance I covered.
The temperature inside the truck was a notch above sweltering, and I became alarmed when I could not get my fingers to stop shaking long enough to turn the ignition over.
“Thomas the Big Boy Spider ‘gone git you!” I shouted, unaware I was giggling like a lunatic.
I counted to five and then inserted the key into the ignition again. The truck rumbled to life. I was dripping with sweat, skull throbbing, by the time the hot air turned cool.
Gonna leave a stranger in your house, David?
“Roger that.”
I drove into town and turned into the McDonald’s. I got a sweet tea and parked, turning up the radio. The station was playing classic Jackson Browne and Neil Diamond. Although I was aware of the music on the stereo, I could hear the regular lub-dub of blood in my temples. As I started to turn the knob to another station, I noticed a discarded straw wrapper in between the cup holder and passenger seat. Right as I began reaching for it, my hand froze on the passenger seat cushion. I was suddenly so sure -positive- that there was a set of eight eyes watching me from the back. The door handle seemed a mile away.
I lifted my gaze to the rear-view mirror, expecting to see eight legs reaching over the seat, but saw nothing. Resurgent terror constricted my windpipe. Instead, I yanked the door open and spewed my lunch onto the steaming pavement.
The exterminator was smoking a cigarette on the steps when I got back twenty minutes later. He watched me pull up the driveway and tipped me a wave. When I got out, I saw that he was heavily perspiring. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his red face. His coveralls were drenched inside and out, the poison tank leaning against one of the porch posts. He exhaled a mouthful of smoke.
“I sprayed the whole exterior of the house while you were away. I figured you wouldn’t mind,” he told me.
“Thank you,” I croaked.
He looked at me steadily.
“You okay, man?”
I had to urinate badly, but the thought of going back into the house made me shiver.
“No, not at fucking all,” I said.
The exterminator grinned, putting the butt out on the step and holding it with his thumb and index fingers.
“If there is a Heaven and a Hell, Satan put those things on this earth for his amusement. The ugly fuckers exist for no other reason than to terrorize us.” He laughed, but it was uneasy. He stood up and went to the front door, beckoning me to follow. “They’re aggressive, man, and don’t like me much.”
It had been a chore entering that house again, but going to relieve myself in the bathroom was utterly unthinkable.
I could tell my tape work on the air vents annoyed the exterminator because he looked at the one in the living room and shook his head.
As if on cue, he said:
“Mind if I get something out of the refrigerator, man? Throat is a little dry.”
It was more than that, though. The man was overheated and probably dizzy as hell. I felt bad. He came back with a beer and popped the cap off easily with his thick palms.
“I originally thought they were huge wolf spiders,” he began, chugging half the bottle. “But their legs are different, hell, their behavior is different. I may just be the local guy somebody calls out to their house for the routine spraying, but I’ve always been the spider guy to my coworkers. I don’t have a degree in the field, but I spend a lot of my free time researching them. I think what you have in the basement are Huntsman spiders. They are scarce around here. Over the past couple of decades, they’ve been slowly introduced into the lower southern parts of the U.S, but I never thought I’d see one this far north. They’re indigenous to Australia, parts of Africa, and Asia. The farthest place north that I’ve ever heard of them being in is the Panhandle. They can be found in parts of Texas, too.” He leaned against the wall nearest the kitchen, a hand gripping his heavy-duty belt, waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, he continued:
“They aren’t that mean unless you come across a babe. The queens -my word, by the way- are always bat-shit and hostile. She’ll stand guard around her spider nest and not eat for weeks sometimes. If you leave them alone, they tend to be fine. All they want to do is eat the bugs down there. They’re nomadic, spending their time hunting and eating.” He took another long swallow. “But I think you’ve got a pretty pissed-off crew down there. They didn’t take too lightly to me storming in and spraying them with my napalm. And-
My heart hammered. Crew. The word turned my blood into sloshing ice shavings.
“And what? How many were down there?”
“I’m intrigued. I thought it was just a straggler at first. I counted maybe five, but there’s probably -most likely- more. You have a nasty infestation, man. The other thing, well, shit. Now I don’t want to tell you, but…Aw, hell, man. There’s one the size of a dinner plate down there.”
He recoiled from whatever he saw on my face.
“Five? A goddamn dinner plate!”
He nodded.
“You see, when I saw that gal, I nearly shit my pants.” He went on without pause, setting the empty beer bottle on the floor. “Also, when you see a bunch of them together like that, it usually means there’s a spider nest somewhere near. A female Huntsman put a nest in your basement, and I’ll bet you a brand new suit that the huge one is our pissy little girl. That’s what I think, and how wicked rude of her! I mean, really,” he said, shaking his head, probably in commiseration.
A fucking dinner plate, I thought despairingly. Happy Thanksgiving!
Words fell out of my mouth like verbal diarrhea.
“Motherfucker!” I shouted. “Are they poisonous? How many did you kill? Did you crush it?” By “it,” I meant one spider in particular, but I didn’t have to elaborate any further.
He grinned, but it was strained.
“Their fangs are large enough to break through the skin, but their venom is not potent enough to cause harm. And, no, man, she got away. Pretty fast…” He turned and seemed to inspect the nearest wall. “Their bodies deflate like punctured tires when they die. Rest assured, a few got their medicine.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. An exotic species of super spider had put a shop in my basement? I pointed crazily at the floor in the general direction of my despair.
“That’s a big problem…” I realized I had forgotten to ask his name earlier. “What’s your name?”
“AJ.”
“AJ, that’s a big fucking problem!”
He was nodding, but I figured he’d heard similar mantras in his loathsome profession over the years.
“I didn’t see any openings or cracks in the foundation when I walked the perimeter. I’m not even positive about how they got in. I sprayed for you nonetheless.”
I wiped the bead of sweat making its way down the ridge of my nose.
“Christ, what a shit show,” I said, more to myself. “I should just burn the whole damn thing down. That’ll be my annual basement cleansing.”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard me.
“You can make a water-vinegar-based repellent if one gets too close for comfort.” His voice wavered as he most likely recalled the gal down there. “Spider infestations are tricky. Other pests tend to be a little easier to kill, but spiders…,” he trailed off. When he finished his thought, I stared at him incredulously and surprised myself with a chuckle. “Spiders are the dicks of the bug kingdom. It isn’t fool-proof, but I’d like to throw a bomb down there.”
“A bomb?” I said.
AJ laughed.
“No, man. A bug bomb. Not a real one.”
AJ called a helper named Rob, who looked younger than AJ when he arrived. Together they went in and set up the bug bomb while I remained outside. When they came back out not too long later, Rob was jittery and wild-eyed. He went directly to the van and got in. Seconds later, he left tire marks on the blacktop as he sped away.
“Thought I was lying. Now he’s gonna quit,” AJ said.
I turned to him. Despite the oppressive afternoon heat, he surveyed the speeding van, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“What? Why?”
“You know kids, man. Said he would judge how big the fuckers were, I guess to prove he had balls. He almost butted heads with it on the rafters. Came within inches of a nasty surprise. He’s shaken up.”
I looked back at the house. Let’s hope it works, I remember thinking. This has got to work. Christ, this has got to work.
Evidently, I had spoken aloud, and now AJ followed my upward gaze.
“I’m optimistic,” he said. We stood in silence for a moment.
“Even if the bomb doesn’t work, man-
“Christ, it better!”
“You can always burn the house down and use the insurance money to move someplace else.”
He winked. I stared at him, then winked back. In a few seconds, we were both laughing. I was not laughing as I watched him back out of the driveway.
*
It’s been four days since the bomb went off in my basement and three days since I overheard what Gray said in the grocery store. I thought I was getting better until then. I really did.
A regular at my store, old man Gray was the good-natured type who always came in with that old-fashioned smile and pockets full of rattling loose change. He always came in alone, a lonely widower, and got out not because he had to but because he wanted to. I know it sounds silly, but there was a vibrant aura about him. The staff adored him, and although he’d somehow always manage to stop me mid-task on the floor, I never thought to utter a sharp or otherwise impatient word with him. This Monday afternoon, I was directing duties to my employees and taking care of some of my own when he came in.
The older man resembled a frightened skeleton; his eyes were more prominent, bulging in their wrinkled sockets. He shuffled up to one of my cashiers and said:
“Young lady, I’d appreciate it if you could make an old man feel better. It’s rotten to come in here and ask, but…” I crept forward, partially hidden in one of the aisles. He was fumbling in his pockets as if trying to find a few extra cents for a candy bar.
“Help me,” he continued, his voice shaking now. “Can you do that, young lady?”
My cashier appeared uncomfortable, but she kept her tone steady and leaned forward.
“What’s wrong, Mr.Gray? How can I help you, sir?”
Old man Gray leaned over the register, and for a second, I thought he was falling asleep right there.
“Oh, dear. I’ve gotten into such a fright. Forgive me, but I’ve never seen one so god awful big. Help me. Please. Help.” I could hear the terror in his raspy voice. It was fine-tuned and unmistakable, and I knew what it was then.
“I left my house for the drug store this morning and came back…Lord, what I saw. I got back in my car and left again and came back later. It hasn’t moved in hours as if it knows…it knows!”
My cashier flicked her eyes in my direction, and I stepped out of the aisle. She was saying:
“I don’t understand-
Old man Gray threw his head to the ceiling and howled.
“All those eyes! Watching me! It’s on my front door, and I can’t get near it! Please, somebody help! Please, please, please!”
That evening, after work, I pulled up into my driveway and sat behind the wheel, staring at the eerie dark of the front porch. I remembered the hair-raising words from Gray: All those eyes! Watching me!
Since bombing my basement, I’ve been researching the Huntsman spider. All of this has done very little to absolve my fears. I learned that they are nocturnal creatures, carrying out meticulous and ruthless attacks on unsuspecting prey at night. Basically, they will eat whatever succumbs to them. Moreover, I learned that they often wander into homes and vehicles in Australia. Motherfucking perfect.
I’ve learned AJ does know what he is talking about.
Still sitting in my truck, staring at my front door, I thought of AJ’s words: Their fangs are large enough to break through the skin, but their venom is not potent enough to cause harm…
Sleeping in the truck isn’t an option; it’s too hot. I’ll have to force myself to sleep in the living room tonight.
*
It’s July 30th, 2022. This morning, Dee came and saw what I had done to the house. I tried explaining to her that we have a spider infestation in the basement. She wouldn’t listen. When she saw that I had placed all of her belongings -including most of her clothes and jewelry- in multiple garbage bags and set them in the garage, she left in a rage of squealing tires. I don’t have time to worry about it, though, because I think the Huntsmen are in the attic now.
And trust me, that is enough worry for me.
*
It’s August 1st, and I’ve started a large bonfire in the backyard. So far, I have burned most of the furniture in the house. The fire at its highest intensity was nearly as high as the first floor. If I’m being honest, this brought me comfort, but now I am exhausted. The neighbors are worried about me. They told me they called the fire department, but they have not shown up yet.
I’m wondering what’s taking them so long.
By nightfall, the fire was more of a small campfire. Dead tired and drenched, I watched the bright red and orange embers in the coals swell in and out like a torched heart. Tomorrow, if the fire department does not dissuade me, I might get back at it.
*
August 6th. I don’t think AJ’s bomb worked. I have not ventured down into the basement; I have only put my ear to the door. My house is empty. The bottom floor looks like a white room with a hardwood floor. The master bedroom upstairs is cleaned out save for the bare mattress plopped on the carpet in the middle of the room. Not that I have slept on it. I am too scared to sleep, and I dream of large webs when I do. I sealed both sinks with whole rolls of duct tape and did the same to the shower and bathtub drains in case something was in the pipes. I haven’t showered. I haven’t brushed my teeth. I think I am losing it, but then and again, I swear I think they are watching me.
According to the local paper, last Sunday, the 2nd of August, a man stumbled into an emergency room holding his hand in a fit of agony. The Newtonville Star described the incident as an “infrequent but scary occurrence.” The victim was interviewed a day later in his hospital bed. Quote: “It was the biggest spider I ever saw. It leaped onto my hand in my attempt to trap it,” he told the reporter. “I guess that’s what I get for trying to dispose of it the humane way (laughter). The terrifying part was how hard it was to get off. It scared my wife and me to death.” He was expected to recover quickly.
Two days later, on the 4th of August, there was a nasty four-car pile-up on Hwy 70 East leaving Newtonville at around two in the afternoon. A child was killed and five people injured when a red minivan suddenly swerved sharply towards the right shoulder and then turned and crisscrossed three lanes of traffic. One bystander described the scene as “almost apocalyptic.” Another bystander provided insight into the terrible accident. The local news station reported on his testimony. Quote: “I was in the middle lane when it happened. The car was on my right side, and when I looked that way, the woman behind the wheel was flailing around like she was locked in there with a wild animal or something.” That woman received a few deep lacerations and a broken arm, they said. Still, she was “hysterical” and “extremely physical” when paramedics tried to get her on the stretcher.
Later that day, a black Chevy Cruz rolled down Main Street in Newtonville with the front door wide open. Nobody was in the car, but a few witnesses on the street sidewalk said they saw a frantic man in a white T-shirt jump out minutes before.
A few days ago, I stopped driving the Chevy, not because there was one of them in it, but because there could have been. And let me tell you, somehow, that’s worse than finding one on the floorboard or looking into the rear-view mirror to see one spread out over the rear glass window. When you fear what lurks in unfathomable places, there is a persistent terror in every particle that grazes your skin, every step you take outside your domain, and every position you try to sleep in. This is what it has become for me.
I power-washed my old Harley thoroughly for over an hour today and did the same thing with the helmet. It’s amazing how many objects we take for granted are safe when there could likely be a creature hidden along its depths or nestled in a gap intent on striking. I know that bike is clean, I’d tell myself. I know there’s nothing in that helmet. But when I blink, is it possible that something changed, something moved in that tiny fraction of a second?
*
It’s August 7th. Last night I decided I couldn’t sleep another night here. I became obsessed with the idea that they were moving inside the walls. With only the week-long clothes on my back, I took the Harley-Davidson northward and stopped in Wilson, a large rural community on the verge of becoming a small city. I booked a few nights at a Super 8 and requested a room on the first floor, just in case I needed to get out of the building in a hurry.
Those bedside lamp-light domes were weak, and I thought I saw a Huntsman perched underneath the air-conditioning unit at the window, shrouded in shadow amid the sickly glow. It was nothing but my ill imagination. Surprise, surprise.
Still…I find myself looking back now and again as I write. Is it my imagination?
After doing a thorough but cautious search of the bathroom, I took a long shower. As I wiped the condensation from the mirror, a haggard man reflected back on me. I almost didn’t recognize his naked eyes.
I stripped the comforter and sheets off the bed and made sure the room was clear of anything that moved in plain sight. In doing this, I realized I had forgotten my Mac back in Newtonville. I begrudgingly retrieved it, reminding myself not to forget anything else.
Before I left again, I began thinking about that big pile of estranged wood that was once my home. The culmination of these thoughts landed me in a fit of rage that I fear I cannot put into words. Maybe it was what I perceived as hundreds of tiny insect-like eyes staring out at me from the tree line, mocking me. Any home that shelters such evil doesn’t deserve to be a home for anything. It drew those Huntsman spiders in, and if I couldn’t live there contently, they couldn’t fucking live there.
I got a call from Dee very early this morning. She had awoken me from a fevered sleep, screaming and sobbing at the same time that our house had gone up in flames.
“There’s nothing left! It’s all gone, David!”
Tell it to Upton, you fucking whore, I thought. It was delightful. It was more than pleasing.
It made me laugh, and I knew she could pick it up the many miles in between us. When she had calmed down after a minute or so, I said:
“At least David doesn’t have a spider problem anymore. I’m sure Upton has a room in that big house of his for all of your precious shit, Denise.” She was saying something else, but I didn’t get a word of it. I ended the call.
I know better than to settle in, despite the room appearing safe. I may be traveling a lot. Who knows how far north these spiders will travel, carried further and further by some dumb insect-like intuition we humans cannot understand? Who’s to say there isn’t one underneath the box spring waiting for me to go to bed? Or one behind that cushioned chair in the corner? And worst of all, who’s to say that there isn’t one currently creeping closer and closer to my feet?
I know one fucking thing, my friends. Fire seems to take some of the edge off, and there are a lot of potential Huntsman infestations in Newtonville and beyond.