by Todd Miller
Chapter 3
We stumbled through the dark woods to our doom. Curtis and I had flashlights, Eddie and Kristin held hands. Under her arm, the Ouija board. I hadn’t figured on them making up so fast, and I stared at their fingers knotted together, gnawing on that image in my mind.
It was close to midnight. We broke off the running trail and entered the woods, keeping our flashlights pointed down. The ground was damp and muddy, alive with insects and moss and moisture. We made a lot of noise on our walk to the tower, stepping on twigs, Eddie and Curtis cracking jokes and snickering. My head was pounding, my feet begged to turn around, but I kept walking.
That small part of my brain was squirming even more.
Tell them to stop, it said.
Tell them to go home.
But I didn’t say a word. To be honest, it kind of hurt to talk. And the rest of my head was a red, fuzzy mess. I had to bring my friends to the tower.
I had to bring them further into my web.
I mean, her web.
Eddie took us to the hole in the fence. It was a metal chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. Someone had clipped a bunch of the links and then peeled the fence back, like peeling a banana. It was a small hole, and I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get through. It felt like I was being swallowed by a pair of metal lips.
On the other side was the stone tower. It looked exactly like I remembered, the same way it always looked in my dreams. It was a creepy place, looming over us like a stone giant, all covered with moss and slime. There was an energy here, I could sense it, some kind of sonic vibration so low it could only be heard by dogs and lunatics. The air was heavy with its power.
Eddie and Curtis stopped laughing, and stared at the tower. Kristin stood at its base, looking small and defeated, like a bug with its wings torn off.
I tried not to look at it, not directly at it anyway, but it was hopeless. The window that Jason had climbed through had been boarded up, but that didn’t prevent the shivers from going up and down my spine.
Did I bring him here, too? I couldn’t remember. Maybe I did.
Maybe she told me to.
Why was she always picking on me? What made me so special?
There were a couple of broken beer bottles laying around, a few stubbed -out cigarette butts. Somebody had scribbled SATAN RULES on a piece of plywood covering one of the windows. Curtis found an old Judas Priest cassette tape, its guts spilling out like so much black spaghetti.
Eddie took his dad’s bolt cutters and went to work on the big, rusted padlock on the front door. Kristin stood beside him, looking up at the tower, fingers tapping the Ouija board.
“Charlie,” said Curtis. “Check this out, man.”
Curtis lifted his shirt and I saw the handgun tucked into his waistband.
“That Spider Lady messes with me, and I’ll blast her ass,” he said.
He put the shirt back down quickly and I stared at him, not knowing what to say.
“Cool,” I finally said. But inside, my brain screamed.
“You okay, man?” asked Curtis.
I shook my head, no.
“Curtis, I…this is a…this is…dangerous…”
I clenched my teeth.
Curtis took a step away from me.
There was a snapping sound, and then I heard the heavy lock land on the ground with a thud.
“We’re in,” said Eddie.
He pulled on the door, once, twice, and then it gave, hinges creaking and protesting. Inside the tower was darkness. Eddie and Curtis peered into the pitch-black depths of the tower, and they hesitated.
“When this is done, we’re still getting eggrolls, right?” asked Curtis.
Eddie smirked but said nothing as he went inside. Curtis followed him, and seemed to disappear, leaving just me and Kristin outside.
I touched her elbow, trying to lead her inside. But we just stood there.
“I dream about this place,” she said.
“Maybe…maybe…we should leave,” I said, hot burning red filling my eyes.
“Are you kidding?” She turned to look at me, but I could barely make out her face through the dark and the red and the pain.
Then she sprung through the door and was gone.
Yes.
Now bring them to her.
I followed Kristin inside the tower.
Curtis’s flashlight was on the ground, its beam illuminating only a small part of the darkness. I could see the floor and the walls were made of stones, blackened, dirty and covered with spindly old webs. There were a few pieces of broken furniture on the ground, and a single, dusty old chair left standing, alone, like a sentry.
I heard Eddie light his Zippo and turned to see him and Curtis sparking up a joint. Eddie inhaled deeply then passed it over to Curtis, who did the same.
“You want some of this?” Curtis asked.
“No, man,” I said.
“Kristin?” Curtis asked. “Yo, Kristin?”
There was no answer.
She came skulking into the flashlight beam wearing a strange mask.
“Look what I found, my pretties!” she said.
It was a child’s plastic Halloween mask; a witch with a long, cruel nose, a frowning mouth, and an ugly black wart on her chin. The mask was too small for Kristin’s face.
“Where’s your hat?” asked Eddie.
Kristin took a long drag on the joint.
“Back at Hogwarts,” she said, and then exhaled.
I wanted to tell her to take it off, but I didn’t. The smoke was aggravating my headache and I backed away from the three of them, trying not to breathe it in. The last thing I wanted was to be stoned in this place.
“Gather ’round, boys and ghouls,” said Kristin in a high-pitched, screechy witch voice.
She sat on the ground with Eddie opposite her. They put the Ouija board on their laps like before, back in the cemetery.
“Who’s ready for a little ghost gab?” she asked in that same weird voice.
“Could you stop that?” I said.
“Gitchy-gitchy grumpy witchy,” she replied.
She put her fingers on the planchette and Eddie did the same. Curtis put out the joint with his fingers and tucked it back into his pocket.
“Hear us, o spirits!” she screeched. “Who among the dead would wish to speak with us?”
Nothing happened.
“Take that stupid mask off,” I said, trying not to sound afraid.
“Spirits of the night, speak to us!,” said Kristin. “We command you!”
Suddenly the planchette was zipping around the board. It went around and around in angry circles, waiting for our questions.
“What is your name?” asked Kristin.
The planchette moved over to D...then A...V...I...D....
“David Lopez?” I asked.
The planchette moved over to YES. Then it was on the move again, first to R...then U, and finally N...
“Run?” said Eddie.
The planchette flew away from Kristin and Eddie’s fingers and skittered across the floor.
“Quit messing with us, you guys,” said Curtis.
“We’re not messing, dude,” said Eddie.
We all looked at the planchette laying on the floor. Nobody moved to get it.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” said Curtis.
Then Kristin grabbed the planchette and put it back on the Ouija board.
“Put your fingers on it, Eddie,” she said.
Eddie hesitated for a moment, then gingerly placed his fingers on the planchette.
“David Lopez,” said Kristin, dropping the witch voice. “Are you still there?”
The planchette did a slow, lazy circle across the board, then landed on NO.
“Who are you?” asked Kristin.
The planchette moved over to R...then O...back around to O a second time, then stopped on the letter F.
“Roof?” asked Kristin.
The planchette didn’t move. We watched it in silence, waiting for it to begin its crazy crawl again.
“Nothing’s happening,” said Eddie.
Kristin wiggled the planchette, but it wouldn’t come back to life.
“Guys, there’s a staircase over here,” said Curtis. “Check it out.”
He was shining his flashlight on a stone staircase that hugged the wall and wrapped its way upward to who knows where. Kristin tossed off the mask.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Eddie, Curtis and I looked at her for a moment. My heart started racing.
“Come on,” said Eddie and the two of them began climbing the stairs.
Curtis turned to me with a worried look on his face.
“What do you think, man,” he asked.
“I…think we should go,” I said.
Curtis was sweating, his eyes glassy.
“None of this is real, right?”
“It is. It is real,” I said, grabbing his arm.
“Not funny,” he said, yanking himself away.
Curtis stood for a moment, then turned and went up the stairs, taking the only other flashlight with him. The room grew darker and darker as he ascended the stairs, not looking back.
In the shadows, the planchette on the Ouija board seemed to move on its own. I could hear its little plastic feet scratching across the board. Then I bolted up the stairs.
At the top there was an open doorway, and beyond, the night sky. I could see the stars and a fat, droopy three-quarter moon. The beams of my friend’s flashlights were bobbing up and down, searching. As I passed through the door my shoulder brushed across a natty tangle of dusty old spider webs, sticking to my shirt.
Eddie, Kristin and Curtis were gathered together in a half-circle, pointing their flashlights at something on the floor. At first I couldn’t tell what it was, but then I got closer and I knew— it was the Spider Lady. She was flat on her back, her arms and legs sticking straight up in the air.
“She’s dead,” said Kristin.
The Spider Lady’s eyes were missing, leaving only black, empty sockets. Her face was grey, haggard and stretched, like old paper-mâché. Her clawed hands and feet were bent at funny angles, back down toward her body. Her lips were slightly parted, revealing dirty, pointed teeth.
Underneath her tattered cloak, you could sense that her body was wrong. There were lumps that were most likely extra limbs, at least two or three. I remembered the hairy, black legs I saw that night in the cemetery and shuddered.
She really was dead.
“That’s messed up,” said Eddie.
We stared at her body in silence.
“Now what?” asked Curtis, to no one in particular.
Kristin bent down over the Spider Lady and moved as if to touch her.
“Don’t do that,” said Eddie.
Kristin slowly reached her hand out, curious fingers coming closer.
“Yo, Kristin!” said Curtis.
And then she touched the Spider Lady, on her breast-bone, and the old creature’s body suddenly exploded, sending papery tatters and dust everywhere. We shouted, Kristin screamed, and from out of the body’s empty husk came hundreds of tiny spiders, scurrying everywhere, and crawling all over our bodies.
Everyone panicked, trying to brush the spiders off as quickly as possible. I noticed that Kristin was covered with the grayish-white remains of the Spider Lady; the dust was on her clothes, her face and hair. She was still screaming.
Eddie and Curtis were cursing, jumping up and down, stepping on spiders everywhere. I was on the floor, curled into a ball, my head—my head suddenly feeling a lot better. I opened my eyes and the red haze was gone. I was okay now. Everything was going to be okay.
Then Curtis shouted in pain and collapsed, grabbing his ankle.
“They bit me!” he said. “One of them bit me!”
The spiders were gone, over the edge of the roof and down the stairwell, vanishing almost as fast as they had appeared. Eddie was running his hands through his hair, brushing his arms, stomping up and down. Curtis was holding his ankle and wincing, small tears squeezed from his eyes.
“Oh, man” he said. “It really hurts!”
I took a look at the spider bite. It was right above his ankle, already a golf-ball-sized lump with two angry red dots in the center. The bite marks looked inflamed, white and red, with small drops of blood oozing out of them. And it was still swelling up.
“Oh my God,” said Kristin. “This…this stuff is in my mouth!”
I heard her gag and turned to see her throw up. She doubled over and sobbed, retching and wailing.
“Eddie!” I said. “You all right?”
He nodded.
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
He nodded again and went to help Kristin. I got Curtis to stand, but already I could tell something was wrong with him. His body jerked and his eyes were rolling back into his head.
“Curtis!” I said. “Hang on!”
Eddie and I dragged our friends down the stairs as fast as we could. I kept a lookout for more spiders, but they seemed to be gone. The flashlight in my hand bobbed up and down as we struggled down into the tower and out the door.
Curtis made weird choking sounds. His head suddenly dropped and lolled to the side.
“Curtis!” I said.
He moaned.
We ran through the woods, and I could feel the stone tower trying to pull us back, suck us up into its terrible darkness like a black hole, and then we were back to the running trail and back to Eddie’s car, parked just outside the school grounds. We quickly got inside and slammed the doors.
Curtis wouldn’t stop shaking. The bite mark on his leg had swelled up to the size of a tennis ball, and there was blood running from the puncture wounds in little rivers down his ankle.
“Ch-Charlie,” said Curtis. “Help me!”
“Do something!” said Kristin.
I put my fingers on the swollen lump and squeezed, hoping maybe some of the spider venom would come out. Curtis’s eyes went wide and he howled. Blood and foam came shooting out of his mouth, his arms went rigid, and he slumped over, his head hitting the back of Kristin’s seat.
“Oh my God!” said Kristin.
“Is he dead?” asked Eddie.
Suddenly the skin on Curtis’s head and face began to bubble. Huge, pulsating bubbles that stretched and distorted his features horribly. Curtis began to wail.
“Wha—what’s happening to me?” said Curtis.
“Dude, get him out of my car!” said Eddie.
He was already out and opening the passenger door.
The hideous bubbles on Curtis’s face were starting to split with a sickening, popping sound. And emerging from each bubble was a shiny, pulsating eyeball.
He was covered with them.
“Aaaaaahhhggggod it burnssss, Charlie! It burns!” screamed Curtis.
The eyeballs wiggled hideously in every direction.
Eddie yanked Curtis out of the car by his shirt collar and Curtis went tumbling onto the pavement.
“Hhaa–haaaa–help! Hhhelp me, Ch-Charlie!!!” he said
Kristin was screaming.
I looked at Curtis, shaking uncontrollably, his teeth turning into fangs, his bones snapping and breaking, limbs growing in unnatural directions—his whole body mutating right before my eyes, and felt a wave of horror wash over me.
“Charlie, look out!” said Eddie.
Curtis shambled toward me, wailing and grasping, all those eyes jiggling and oozing.
Then I saw the gun, sticking up out of his waistband.
I grabbed it and pointed the gun at Curtis’s head.
“Get away from me, Curtis!” I said.
“Ch-Charrrrleeee…” he gurgled.
Foam dribbled from his mouth as he reached out to touch me with long, sharp fingers.
So I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.
There was an explosion in my ears. Kristin screamed again.
When I opened my eyes, Curtis was on the ground, arms and legs splayed at funny angles, the back of his head completely blown off. A large pool of blood was forming around his body.
“Oh my God!” said Kristin.
“Curtis?” said Eddie. He touched the body with the toe of his sneaker.
“Oh, God…”
Curtis didn’t move.
“I think he’s dead,” said Eddie.
Kristin broke out in sobs. Eddie and I stood in silence for a moment, looking down.
“I...I don’t think that was an ordinary spider that bit him,” I said.
“No duh,” said Eddie.
“How could you?” said Kristin.
“What? I—I thought—did you see what he was turning into? With the eyes and the teeth?”
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” said Kristin.
“You bet your ass we had to shoot him,” said Eddie. “He was going to turn into a monster and eat us!”
“Well, he doesn’t look like a monster now!” she said.
Kristin was right. Somehow, while we were arguing, Curtis had transformed back into his regular self. His regular dead self.
“Oh, man…all those freaky spider eyes are gone,” said Eddie.
And they were, leaving behind only a few dark, red sores that bubbled and oozed.
“He was our friend,” said Kristin.
“Yeah, but…that wasn’t Curtis,” said Eddie. “Not at the end.”
I stood there listening to them argue and I felt sick to my stomach.
Oh, man.
“He was asking for help, Charlie,” said Kristin.
“Could you just shut up for a second?” I said. “I’m thinking.”
Kristin gave me a hurt look and then she turned away.
There was no way we could have helped him. I grabbed onto that thought and wouldn’t let go. He was turning into a monster. Beyond hope. I had to shoot him. It was…it was like a mercy killing.
Almost.
Right?
Eddie suddenly threw up.
“I’m okay,” he said, wiping his mouth. “It’s cool.”
“Now what?” asked Kristin.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I think we need to call the police,” said Kristin.
I flinched.
“No,” said Eddie. “No way. We can’t do that. First of all, the cops will figure out pretty fast that we’ve been smoking dope, and after that they won’t believe a word we tell them no matter what. Even if it is the truth. We’ll all get busted and sent upstate to Hillbrook.”
“I’m not high,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “But everybody thinks you’re crazy.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
In fact, at the moment I felt pretty bughouse crazy, all right.
This was all my fault.
No, wait…it was hers.
She made me do it. I couldn’t help myself.
Right?
“So what are we supposed to do?” asked Kristin.
I shrugged. There was blood spattered on my arms and my shirt and my jeans. My right hand felt numb, but there were tingling pains in my arm.
“Eddie?” she said.
“Gimme a second!”
Kristin tried to wipe her tears off on the sleeve of her shirt, but they mixed with the grey-white ashes of the Spider Lady and smeared all over her face. It made her look even stranger and more grotesque, like some kind of vampire.
Curtis’s eyes were still open, and I figured I should close them but I didn’t. I didn’t want to touch him again.
“Let’s bury the body,” said Eddie.
“Do you have a shovel?” I asked.
“No,” said Eddie. “We could cover him up with rocks and sticks and leaves.”
“What about his grandmother?” asked Kristin.
“Somebody will find the body,” I said, ignoring her question. “A jogger with a dog, or some kid from our school. Then we’re dead meat.”
“We can’t just make him disappear,” said Kristin.
Then I got a wonderful, terrible idea. Or so I thought at the time.
“We make it look like he killed himself.” I said. “With this.”
I held out the gun.
“Are you freaking insane?!” asked Kristin. “You can’t do that!”
“No, no, he’s right,” said Eddie. “It’s a good idea.”
“It’s sick!” said Kristin.
“We’ll carry him out into the woods, someplace far away, and set the stage,” I said.
“No way,” said Kristin. “How could you do this to Curtis? He was our friend!”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Eddie looked away.
“Let’s just do this,” I finally said.
“Not me,” said Kristin.
“Fine,” I said. “Come on, Eddie.”
Kristin shot Eddie a look, but he just shrugged.
“This is for the best,” I told her.
She looked at me then looked away, pulling a crumpled tissue from her pocket and wiping the ash from her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just—I can’t——I can’t do this. I can’t be a part of this.”
She put the tissue in the pocket of her sweatshirt and began to walk away.
‘Whoa, whoa,” said Eddie. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home, Eddie.”
“Wait a second, wait up.”
Kristin kept walking, faster now, and Eddie ran to catch up to her. He took her by the wrist and she pulled her hand away. Then Eddie moved very close to her and spoke in a low voice he thought couldn’t hear.
“You want to go to jail? Huh? You want Charlie to go back to the nuthouse?”
“Maybe he should go back,” she said.
“Look, you don’t want me to go to jail, do you? You don’t want to ruin my life, right? I know you don’t. Right, baby?”
I watched as he gently lifted his hand and touched her face. She didn’t pull back this time, so I turned away, and tried not to look at Curtis sprawled out dead on the ground.
Was he really asking for help?
No, don’t go there. Not now.
Eddie came back after a few moments.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I turned and saw Kristin sitting on the ground, staring into the woods and ignoring us.
We struggled to lift Curtis’s body. It was heavy, and we lost our grip and dropped him to the pavement. Eddie cursed.
“This is going to suck,” he said.
“Wait a sec,” I told him.
I pulled Curtis’s knapsack out of the car and rifled through it. I found an Algebra test graded a D, then I found a Bic pen and scribbled a drawing of a spider on the back of it. I folded the paper up and stuck it in Curtis’s pocket.
“What’s that?” asked Eddie.
“Suicide note,” I said.
“No, I mean the spider,” said Eddie.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just a doodle.”
Eddie looked at me funny, then grabbed Curtis under the arms, and I grabbed him by the ankles. It was a long walk back down the running trail, then off into the woods, twigs breaking under every step.
We walked in silence for awhile, my brain refusing to process everything that happened, just focusing on putting one step in front of the other and not dropping the body.
“You know,” said Eddie. “I used to think you were a real spaz, but you’re all right.”
I nodded and grunted.
“Do you...do you think all that stuff at the tower was magic?” he asked. “Real magic?”
“Of course it was real,” I said.
We walked in silence again for a little while longer.
“It’s black magic,” he finally said. He sounded like a little kid.
“I saw a real witch once,” he
continued. “Her name was Mama Juju and she had this little store down the block from my dad’s music shop. She would tell fortunes and sell voodoo stuff. There was something really creepy about her, you know? Like she could see into your brain, see what you were thinking. And she smelled. I didn’t like her. Anyway, one night my cousin and I snuck out and threw a bunch of rocks at her store and broke all the windows. Smashed them up really good. Here’s the weird part, right? The next day, I’m working in my dad’s store, moving some equipment around, when I grab this microphone and get electrocuted. And I can’t let go. My hand is frozen. I can feel my body trembling and everything burns, like my skin is burning and my bones are burning, my tongue, everything is on fire. I thought I was going to die, man. But my dad found me just in time. I had to go to the Emergency Room. There were third-degree burns all over my hands and fingers. My fingers were black. And you know what? Later my dad told me that microphone wasn’t even plugged in.”
“That’s freaky,” I said. “What happened to your cousin?”
“He went out riding his bike the next day and got hit by a truck.”
We walked again in silence for a few minutes.
“Right here is good,” I told him.
We put Curtis on the ground.
I stared at him, dead on the ground, and could feel myself about to cry. But I held it in. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Eddie.
I bent down to put the gun in Curtis’s hand.
“Fingerprints,” said Eddie.
“Thanks,” I said, and did my best to wipe off the gun. I ripped off a piece of my T-shirt and used it to put Curtis’s fingers around the grip, his pointer finger on the trigger.
“I’m really sorry, Curtis,” I said.
He stared up at me with dead eyes.
My best friend.
I guess.
Some friend I turned out to be.
“Shouldn’t we say something?” asked Eddie.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Funeral stuff.”
“Okay, I guess.”
Eddie bowed his head.
“Lord…uh…here’s Curtis. He was a good guy.”
“A good guy,” I said.
“Please, uh…forgive him his sins, and let him go to Heaven.”
Eddie paused after that, unsure of what to say next.
“Amen,” I said.
We walked back to the car quickly.
“This is some bad stuff, man,” said Eddie as we hurried through the woods.
When we got back, Kristin was freaking out inside the car. Eddie tried the passenger door but it was locked. All the car doors were locked.
“Open up!” he said.
“Spiders!” said Kristin.
Her eyes were wide, her body shaking.
“Where?” said Eddie, looking around.
I looked, too, but I didn’t see any spiders.
“Kristin, there’s no spiders, baby. Unlock the door. Okay? Unlock the car door.”
Then Eddie was inside the car, comforting her. I climbed into the backseat.
“It’s okay,” Eddie said to her. “There’s no spiders.”
She cried a bit, and put her head on his chest. At that moment, part of me wished that I had shot Eddie out there in the woods, too. It felt like a dirty thought and I pushed it out of my mind.
“What’s our story?” I asked.
Eddie and Kristin looked at me.
“Our alibi,” I said.
“We hung out,” said Eddie. “Then we dropped Curtis off at home. Say at one o’clock. And that’s the last we ever saw of him. You got that?”
“I got it,” I said.
“You got that, Kristin?” he said.
“I just want to go home,” she said.
“I asked you if you got that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Eddie.
He turned on his car and the radio blasted. It was that old Pearl Jam song, the one where the guy screams he’s still alive, still alive, alive.
“Turn that off,” I said.
Eddie turned off the radio.
We pulled out and drove away.
“Hey, Kristin,” said Eddie. “We left your Ouija board back there.”
“Forget it,” she said.