Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “Now wait a minute!” He shied and started to turn toward her. “What the hell is that thing for?”

  There was a thump on the carpet at the end of the hallway, and Adam nearly fainted to see the great spider in the doorway had dropped to the floor. Up until this moment it hadn’t moved, and some small part of him that had been able to insist the thing wasn’t real. Now it crouched in front of the door, one foreleg testing the floor in front of it.

  “Wait! You said…”

  “I said stand still!” the old woman barked. “I showed you the needle so you would know what it was and not panic and bolt when I stuck you with it. But if you’re goin’ to be difficult, I can have my assistant over there hold you down and we’ll do this the hard way.”

  The big spider scuttled about five feet closer.

  “Okay,” Adam whispered hoarsely. “Okay. I’m not moving. I thought we were here to talk.”

  “We’re here to negotiate. Now shut up while I’m negotiatin’” came the sharp answer behind him. It was followed by an even sharper stab of pain in his back. Adam gritted his teeth and something warm seemed to flood across his back and down the back of his legs. He wondered if he were bleeding profusely.

  The old woman pressed and prodded some more, and jabbed him two more times. Adam endured it as best he could, while keeping his gaze fixed on the monstrosity in front of him. At the same time, he began to realize he had been drugged. His eyes started to get heavy, and the fear he might pass out and fall to the floor in front of the horrid beast grew within him.

  “Alright,” the woman sighed, “that’s got it. Now turn around and look at me.”

  Now feeling more wobbly than ever, Adam leaned on his cane and moved slowly in order to not lose his balance and stagger into the spiders on either side. Taking a deep breath to try and clear his now swimming head, he brought himself around and faced the old woman again.

  She was no longer alone.

  His blonde would-be assassin towered behind the old woman, glaring at him with a look of pure malice. Adam almost choked in surprise, but then looked past her and saw something even worse. In the exit at the far end of the hall was another great spider, just like the one near him.

  Only this one was bigger.

  Much bigger.

  Where the first one had reached across and hung itself by the sides of the doorframe, this one filled the entire doorway. Assuming the vertical position favored by its species, the titan’s reach spanned from the top corners of the doorway, down to where the door frame met the floor. The creature’s legs and body filled the opening itself, blocking all hope of exit in that direction.

  “Look at me!” the old woman snapped, reaching up and grabbing Adam’s chin to bring his gaze down to her. “What I done won’t hold. It’ll last maybe two weeks. But I can change that. I can make it forever. And I can make it better. Now you think it over for the next few days. You decide what you really want. And we’ll meet again at midnight, Wednesday night in Hallisboro Park.”

  Then she pulled his face down closer to hers, almost causing Adam to unbalance and fall in his woozy state.

  “And you tell this Chief Antonio he can come under the protection of the totem as well and we’ll hear what he has to say. I ain’t making no promises about nuthin’ other than that we’ll listen. We’re at truce till then. And we expect him to honor it, too. Did you get that?”

  “We-Wednesday night,” Adam murmured, and fell to his knees. His consciousness started to run back and forth up a spiral tube that ended at the old woman’s face. “Hallisboro Park. Truce…”

  “No promises,” she snarled. “We’ll just listen.”

  “No pro-pro-prom…” Adam fought but the darkness closed in from all sides.

  CHAPTER TEN

  EXPLANATIONS OVER BREAKFAST

  “Is there any pain here, Mr. Sellars?”

  Olivia gently prodded his back in a systematic pattern, working her way over the area Grandma Lilah had focused on last night. She and Antonio had come immediately after waking Adam up with a telephone call and hearing his garbled response. Now he sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt pulled up, while Olivia examined his back.

  “No. No pain at all. It just feels kind of tight, like the skin is stretched too thin over that part of my back.”

  “There is some mild swelling, but not much,” she reported. “I can see where she injected you. Did she say anything about what she used?”

  “Nothing. And I got the definite feeling the injection was only part of what she was doing.” Adam tried not to glare at Antonio, who leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets while beaming bright enough to light up the whole room. “Of course, I was a little distracted at the time by the GIANT FRIGGEN SPIDERS!”

  “Adam,” Antonio soothed, “calm down, it’s over. And you did great! You may not realize this, but you’ve made history. You have arranged the first meeting between us and the Spider People in centuries.”

  “Oh! Spider People? Is that what you call them? It wouldn’t be because of the GIANT FRIGGEN SPIDERS WOULD IT!? I bet it is! You knew about them, and you sent me right into that horror show unprepared!”

  “Up until a few days ago,” Antonio replied mildly, “we were aware of only Grandma Lilah’s spider. It would have been the one in the exit doorway near you. We were under the impression it was the largest of its kind.”

  “Guess what? It ain’t,” Adam growled, “not even close. It’s got a big sister even more physically impossible than it is. And what do you mean ‘up until a few days ago?’ So you did know about it.”

  “We learned of the larger spider’s existence,” Olivia dabbed some antiseptic on the injection points in his back from last night, “only after it was used in the attempt on your life in the hospital. It was sent through the ceilings to find and kill you while the woman fought her way through the police from another direction. It reached your room, but you had crawled into the linen counter and passed out, meaning neither it nor the woman could use their psi talents to find you. Then the police officer entered your room and it killed him instead. Afterward, the woman arrived and shot the officer in the fang marks to mask his cause of death, and the two fled the building.”

  “What? Are you saying the thing is intelligent?”

  “Possibly,” Olivia answered. “I’m still formulating a theory on that.” She said it with the same bland tone as if stating she was waiting for a few numbers before she could finish balancing a financial statement.

  Adam stared at her for a second, then closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Okay,” he sighed with his head still in his hand. “Fine…‘Spider People’ then. Last night the old woman referred to you guys as the ‘Dog People.’ Does this mean I still have an encounter with a humongous canine in my future?”

  Antonio laughed aloud and shook his head.

  “No, Adam. Nothing quite so spectacular. You’ll be relieved to know the name merely comes from our ancestors’ tendency to own lots of dogs.”

  “Ancestors,” Adam sighed and pulled down his shirt after Olivia indicated she was done with his back. “Yeah, speaking of which…It was pretty obvious to me after the show you put on at the gas station, I had made a mistake in thinking you were Hispanic. This totem thing sorta reinforces that. I guess I owe you an apology, but now I’m more confused than ever.”

  “No apology necessary,” Antonio smiled. “We prefer to pass ourselves off as Hispanic, and as a matter of fact have only returned from Mexico this past generation.”

  “We? Just who is “we” anyway? I’m gathering you’re not really an evil mastermind leading a secret organization bent on world domination.”

  Olivia descended into a coughing fit beside him.

  Antonio studied Adam as if he debated whether to answer or not. After a moment he glanced over at Olivia, who had somewhat recovered and now busied herself packing up the small medical bag she had brought with her.


  “What do you think, Olivia? Has the time come to talk to Adam of many things?”

  “Sir,” she focused on her task as she spoke, “butchering Dickens aside, he already has enough facts to piece things together for the most part…at least over time. I see no further point in keeping him in the dark on matters without a direct bearing on security. At the very least we could explain the things we know would be common knowledge to the Spider People as they would gain nothing by reading those from him, and we could be less guarded in our conversations.”

  “Good point,” Antonio conceded, then turned back to Adam. “So where shall I begin?”

  “How about a real introduction? You already know me, but I know almost nothing about you two.”

  “Of course.” Antonio stepped away from the wall and extended his hand toward Adam. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Antonio Devante Montez, Chief of The People…sometimes known as The Dog People, but if you ever heard of us it was probably as the Karankawa Indian Tribe.”

  “Karankawa?” Adam frowned. The name sounded familiar and it only took him a moment to place it. “Wait a minute. They taught me in seventh grade Texas History the Karankawa tribe was extinct.”

  “We almost were,” the Chieftain answered. “We could be a rather aggressive people back then, and against your ancestors that wasn’t a very practical idea. Not to mention, we were at war with pretty much every other tribe near us during those final years as well. Then the Spider People took advantage of the situation to manipulate things and try to exterminate an age old enemy, and they almost succeeded.”

  “Almost?”

  “The last remnants of our people fled into Mexico where we hid and tried to recover. Much was lost. We didn’t start to return until the mid twentieth century, and even then we did it in secret.”

  “So you’re saying the Spider People were your enemies before Europeans even came to Texas?”

  “Yes, Adam. We’ve been at war for centuries.”

  “But,” he stared at Antonio in confusion, “that doesn’t make sense. You’re Native American, but the woman with the hand cannon is as white as I am. So was the man at the swimming pool…and come to think of it so were those guys at the gas station.”

  “Mostly,” Antonio conceded, “although they have a much higher percentage of Native American blood than normal. As a matter of fact, Grandma Lilah may be fully half Karankawa herself. But there’s where history took an odd turn…a turn that has confused us for a long time as well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they used to belong to the Karankawa people too.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “Well…”

  “Sir,” Olivia interrupted as she packed away the last of her stuff and shouldered her bag, “this would be an excellent point to simply start the story from the beginning instead of continuing with the question and answer method. May I recommend doing it over breakfast somewhere so I can collate this recent data while you two talk? Perhaps the little coffee and pastry shop back in the courthouse square.”

  “Good idea, Olivia. Are you hungry, Adam?”

  To Adam’s amazement, the mere mention of food brought a loud growl of hunger from his stomach.

  “Actually,” he realized aloud, “I’m famished. I know this sounds crazy after all this, but right now I could eat a horse.”

  “I noticed they had scones at that shop. Scones are good,” Olivia offered helpfully.

  “Ah yes, a perfectly healthy response to danger,” Antonio beamed, “Back in my younger days, when I participated in raids on the Spider People, I always followed a successful raid with a towering stack of waffles! Manfood!”

  “Or there are always waffles,” Antonio’s niece deadpanned.

  “Oh god,” Adams mouth watered, “drowned in whip cream and syrup. With a whole package of bacon on the side. Or just bring me the pig and I’ll take it from there.” He stood and pulled on his jacket. “Antonio, lead me to waffles!”

  The big man laughed and snagged his hat from the nearby lamp table.

  “Adam,” Antonio slapped him on the shoulder, “you’re going to be alright. We have a lot to discuss, and you’re going to find a lot of it hard to believe, but you’re going to be alright.”

  ###

  Good lord, Adam!” Antonio whistled. “When you said you were hungry, you weren’t kidding.”

  Adam shoveled the last of the second tall stack of waffles into his mouth and gave an embarrassed shrug to the pair across the table before reaching for his third glass of milk. He had been uncomfortably hungry on the ride over to Carol’s Waffle Haus, and after making his order the wait for the food had been agony. It had been all he could do not to snatch the plate from the waitress when she arrived, and he had been eating nonstop since.

  Now he was starting to feel a little more in control of his appetite again and became acutely aware he had been cramming food into his mouth with an intensity that had precluded any conversation on his part for the past quarter hour. Antonio and Olivia had watched the spectacle with a quiet bemusement he found mortifying, but he still couldn’t help himself. He had been like a starved wolf presented with a lamb buffet.

  His side of the table featured several empty plates and glasses. He also became aware neatness hadn’t been a priority either.

  “Sorry about that.” He grabbed a napkin and made an effort to get the syrup off his chin. “Now that I’m through convincing the two of you I was born in a barn, I really would like to hear the history lesson you were talking about earlier.”

  “Not a problem, Adam,” Antonio chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “Even our legends don’t really tell where it all originally began. We only know…”

  “Pardon me a second, sir,” Olivia interrupted her uncle and leaned over the table to put her palm against Adam’s forehead. Her slender hand felt cool and dry against his face.

  “I feel fine,” Adam protested…not that he had any objection to attention from the lovely assistant, he just didn’t want anything to delay getting more information about the insanity his life had become.

  “You’re running a fever, Mr. Sellars.”

  “Really?” He blinked in surprise. “I don’t feel sick. Actually, I feel rather good.”

  “I wouldn’t claim to be as accurate as a thermometer, but I would say you are hovering above a hundred degrees, and you’re flushed. Are you sure you don’t feel chilled, or achy?”

  “No. Seriously, I feel great.” And it was true. Adam felt more physically robust than he had in ages. He seriously considered taking a walk somewhere after the meal, if for no other reason than to get a little badly needed exercise and get a better feel for his surroundings. “I was actually going to suggest a look at this park they want to meet us at after our meal. I could stand to get out a little, and scouting the area ahead just seems smart.”

  “Very good, Adam!” Antonio laughed and reached across the table to clap him on the shoulder. “You’re starting to think! He’s fine, Olivia. Let the man be.”

  “Very well.” She looked doubtful. “I apologize for interrupting.” The assistant leaned back into her seat, pulled her laptop from her shoulder bag, and started typing.

  “As I was saying,” Antonio continued, “we don’t know when our war with the Spider People truly began, but it predated the arrival of your ancestors by centuries. The Spider People were a small sub-tribe of The People living in this same area, even back then. They were reclusive, and unlike the rest of The People they stayed in one place. They were also greatly feared by the Wacos, Tonkowas, Caddos, and other tribes who were close enough to encounter them, and they were given a wide berth.”

  “After last night, I can certainly understand why.”

  “It wasn’t only their companions that made them so feared, Adam. It’s not easy to make war against a tribe who can read your mind. Especially back in the days of Stone Age technology. The Spider People guarded their territory jealously, were hostile to intr
uders, and left no survivors when they did battle. This made them a mystery best left avoided as far as the other tribes were concerned.”

  “But not the ‘Dog People?’”

  “No,” the other man smiled, “not us. You see, we knew their secret…or at least the secret of their telepathy.”

  “Veneno.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And veneno,” Adam concluded, “comes from the spiders.”

  “Very good!” Antonio looked genuinely pleased. “You are putting this together fast, Adam. I’m impressed.”

  “Well, I had the extra clue of knowing Olivia was allergic to veneno. Then when you told me of the danger the spider in the totem posed to her, I started to wonder. And finally, when I saw those spiders last night…well, let’s just say I haven’t entirely figured out how yet, but I’m now sure it’s all about the spiders.”

  “The word ‘veneno’ is Spanish for venom.”

  “Of course,” Adam nodded, “that would explain a lot. Some scout or hunter got bit by one of these spiders far in the past and discovered it gave him the ability to read minds. He brings his family in on the secret, and since they share his genetics a lot of them would respond to the venom too. A few generations later and you have the little sub-tribe you call the Spider People. And since the Spider People were originally Karankawa, a decent percentage of the rest of the Karankawa tribe would carry those genes as well. Which brings me to a problem…”

  “What is it, Adam?”

  “Why not use the spiders yourselves? Why not simply get some of your own… or do you already have them?”

  Antonio didn’t answer right away. Instead he turned and gave Olivia a meaningful look, as if to ask her opinion.

  “Sir,” she offered after a brief pause, “I see no point in withholding that part. It will come up later in our dealings with the Spider People anyway.”

  “Right, as usual.” He turned back from his niece and addressed Adam again. “Well, that is where things start to get mysterious. You see, our ancestors did try that. With great difficulty, and occasional loss of life, they captured a few smaller spiders and brought them back to our own lands. Then we allowed them to bite our braves to see what would happen. As you said, some of our people responded to the venom, exactly like the Spider People did.”