Day of the Spiders

by Brian O'Gorman

  Both of his parents had enough money to last them well beyond their years on earth. His father had become something of an expert on the stock market. He was pretty much all self-taught too, and didn’t he just love to tell people about that one. I’m a self-made man, he would crow, his hands out at his sides as if he was waiting for everyone to give him a standing ovation. Bravo, well played that man. It was such a lot of old bollocks. His mother was equally annoying. She had been as working class as anyone could have possibly have been without resorting to old clichés such as flat caps and fish and chips. She had grown up in a council house, sharing with four other siblings. She had known everything there was to know about hardship and poverty, and yet to look at her now you would never have known it. She had gone from half-a-lager to gin and tonics almost overnight. Her wardrobe had gone from jeans and t-shirt to trouser-suits and jackets that she never put her arms inside, wearing it balanced on her shoulders like an absurd cape. Now she had an outfit for every occasion, including one for just being at home. She had to get changed into the right clothes whenever they stepped out of the house. Meeting one of Father’s golf buddies? She had an outfit. Going to a restaurant? She had an outfit. Just going to the cinema for a little light relief? She had a fucking outfit for that too.

  Perry was more than happy to reject the whole damn thing and make it on his own, working his night shift in a wholesaler warehouse to bring home the bacon. It gave him a sense of self, a sense of worth that he had never had living amongst the so-called financial elite. Loading up those vans was backbreaking work, but he enjoyed every moment of it. The people that he worked with were rich in other ways. They were interesting, they were travelled and they didn’t live inside a bubble. They liked a joint of an evening (or even a morning if they were on shift with him.) They loved to fuck and drink and tell bullshit stories and bad jokes. It was a whole new colourful and gritty world for Perry, and he lapped it up. He wanted to be entrenched in it, to feel every moment of it, to stink of it and to have the sweat of it come out of his very pores, and Katie had rounded off that package perfectly.

  From the moment he had met her he knew right from his balls through to the deepest part of his bones that he wanted to be with her. It had been a chance meeting over in the Ash Tree pub which was, at the time, the most popular place to be in the whole town on a Friday night. Perry had been in the beer garden with some of the boys from work. They all liked to be out there, despite the fact that it was just cold enough to put a shiver down your back. They all liked to smoke and it was just too much hassle to keep going in and out of the pub, especially when it was as busy as it was that night. Perry had been sent to get the drinks in, it was his round after all, and he had been halfway up the stone steps which led to the back door when Katie literally fell into his arms. She had been on her way down, a bottle of Diamond White cider in her hand, when she had mistimed her footing on the second step down. She had gone running forwards, closing her eyes and pursing her lips at the inevitable collision with the stone floor at the bottom of the steps. Her mind was telling her that there was no way that this was going to end well. The next moment she felt something, someone wrap a strong, well-muscled arm around her middle, stopping her descent. The bottle flew from her hands and crashed to the floor, spraying glass and white cider up the wall. She opened her eyes and looked right into Perry’s concerned face. He had been asking her if she was alright? She had to get her breath back, but she was fine. She had thanked him and then she had seen the shattered remains of her freshly bought drink spread out all over the floor in front of her.

  Don’t worry, Perry had said. I’ll grab you another.

  And that was how it had all started. At first they had sought each other out every Friday night, then it had been twice a week, then three times…..until they had ended up seeing each other pretty much every day. They fit together perfectly, they really did, and one day he was going to marry her….he was…

  “Are you Perry Williams?” said a voice from above him, jerking him out of his thoughts.

  “Yes,” he said standing up. The voice had come from a man in a light blue nurses’ uniform. He was wearing spectacles which had ridiculously thick frames.

  “Miss Underwood has got a pretty serious break of her upper leg, which you probably guessed. The x-rays confirmed it.”

  Perry nodded politely.

  “She needs to have surgery on the leg just to straighten it out and to add a metal fixator into the bones to hold them in place. Other than that, she is going to be just fine,” said the nurse.

  Perry stuck out his hand, “Thank you, thank you so much. When is she going for surgery?”

  The nurse shook “Oh, you’re welcome Mr. Williams. The surgery? Well, there’s no time like the present, she is being prepped right now. She will be in hospital for a little while afterwards, so it might be worth you going home and getting some of her things together whilst the surgeon fixes her up.”

  Perry mulled it over for a moment, “I’d rather wait until I know she’s ok,” he said, “It just wouldn’t feel right……y’know.”

  The nurse held his hand up, “No need to explain, I understand.” I’ll show you to the ward where she will be staying. They have better facilities up there, and a vending machine if you need a snack.”

  Perry nodded and the nurse led him towards the lift.

  10.

  Braden Benson had made it to the Bowl-a-rama on the Redwick Wood complex on the outer edge of Hemmington city. He was planning the right moment to go and look at his phone, without making it obvious that he was up to something. Jax had wanted to go on the arcade games the moment she had got through the door. Mary had told her that they could play on them after they had finished their game of bowling. Jax had protested a little, but she was smart enough to know that her mother wouldn’t go back on the deal if she didn’t make a fuss so she kept a lid on it. They had gone to the shoe hire and Braden had handed over his high-top converse that he had been wearing on a casual basis for the past three years. Those shoes were battered and they were worn out, but to his feet they felt like home. Jax handed over her bright green trainers. Those trainers had lights in the heels that danced a little electronic jig every time she took a step. Braden wondered why the hell they didn’t make such fun shoes for adults as he probably would have worn them himself. They were handed their pairs of slippery-soled shoes which were as stiff as boards. After they had squeezed their feet into them, Braden and Jax took turns trying to moonwalk across the carpeted area in front of the bowling lanes. Mary sat tying her shoe laces and smiling at them. Jax was cackling with laughter as she watched her dad trying out some Michael Jackson dance moves. Mary finished putting on her shoes and went over to them.

  “I can’t take you two anywhere can I,” she said with a smirk on her face.

  “Hey, you can’t do this stuff with regular shoes on. You should give it a go,” said Braden.

  Mary shook her head at him and then she turned and did a perfect moonwalk, her feet sliding and snapping at all the right moments. Jax roared with infectious laughter again. Braden cheered and clapped her on, a big grin spreading on his face. Mary finished the steps with a twirl and then grabbed her crotch.

  “Ooooww.”

  “Bravo, bravo. Nice moves Mrs. Benson,” said Braden, still applauding. Some of the other patrons in the bowling alley had stopped their games to look at what was going on.

  “That was awesome mum,” shouted Jax and wrapped her arms around the top of Mary’s legs.

  “Now then, are we going to bowl or not. I think I’m going to be on a winning streak today,” said Mary.

  “The gauntlet has been thrown down. I accept your challenge fair maiden,” said Braden bowing to her. He knew quite well that Mary was likely going to thrash both of them. Jax would inevitably want to team up with the person who was winning. Not a bad strategy by any means.

  They bowled for a good hour. Jax insisted that the gutter bars be put up so she could at least hav
e a chance to hit some of the pins. Most of her shots ricochet off the bars and sluggishly flattened the bright white pins. Mary bowled the best out of all of them as Braden had accurately thought. She hit four strikes in a row and showed off some more of her dance moves when she did so. Jax joined Mary’s team after the first strike. Braden didn’t bowl much better than Jax. He hit the middle of the pins a few times but he was cursed with six seven-ten splits that he completely missed every single time. When the game was over Braden changed a twenty-pound note into pound coins and gave Jax ten of them to go and play in the arcade. She usually went to the claw machines that gave out little bags of sweets. These machines weren’t as frustratingly hard to beat as the ones that gave out stuffed toys, so she would be kept amused for a little while. Braden and Mary knew better than to hang around Jax whilst she was playing the machines so they left her to it whilst they went and sat at a table and ordered some diet cokes. They could keep an eye on Jax from where they were sat. Every so often, she would turn around and give them the thumbs up to indicate that she had won something. They would return the signal and then she would go back to her game. Braden and Mary sat and held hands, both of them feeling like a couple of teenagers. They had both been in their early twenties when they had first met. They had both been young and reckless and they had nothing but fun times, bar the occasional barn-burning argument. Braden remembered those time as being some of the best of his life. Sitting here now with his wife and watching their daughter playing away on that damn claw machine, he was beginning to think that those times of old, the times of his life when he was young, and Friday night was nothing more than an oversized playground for him and Mary to frolic in, were slowly but surely falling into second place behind the day he was having right now. In fact, it would have been the perfect day if part of his mind wasn’t somewhere else. There was that little voice at the back his mind, reminding him over and over that he had his mobile phone stuffed into his inside pocket and that with a few button presses he would be dipping into the story of Corsica Road. It was a war inside of his mind. A war that was making him choose between everything he had right here in front of him and going for that one big scoop. That one last hit that would give him the key to unlock the door of satisfaction and retirement from the job for good. He could go and do anything he wanted with his life if he got that scoop. He could freelance and charge top whack for his services. He could take a year off and write that novel that he had always wanted to write. He could be at home with his family more. It was a no-brainer. But, that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was what would happen if he didn’t do it. If he didn’t go after the story, he would always be wondering. He would always be thinking at the back of his mind….What if?

  There was nothing worse in life to Braden Benson than What ifs?

  Oh, that would nag him. That would nag him and dog him for the rest of his natural life. He would carry it around in his mind like a sack of bricks on his back. Dear lord, it would dog him and nag him until it drove him crazy, until he went right out of his fucking mind. He knew it would. He wouldn’t be able to let it go, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. He would lie awake every single night with all of it rolling around his head like marbles on a tray. What if…..what if….what if…..what if……

  He picked up his glass of coke and took a long drink. As he set his glass down Jax turned and gave them another thumbs up. Braden and Mary gave her the thumbs up right back in perfect unison.

  “We should get one of those machines at home and put her dinner in it. At least then she might eat some of it,” said Mary.

  Braden laughed, “That’s not a bad idea.”

  He picked up his glass again and drank more coke. The glass was nearly empty and Braden saw an opportunity. “I just have to go to the little boys room,” he said standing up.

  “Oh Braden, you’re getting old. You can’t handle your drink with your weak bladder,” said Mary.

  Braden stuck his tongue out at her and then walked in the direction of the toilets. He went over to Jax on his way.

  “How’s it going champ?”

  “Dad, I won loads,” she crowed. She was in the middle of another game, deftly working the claw with the little black joystick. She hit the button and the claw descended. It clamped down and pulled up another helping of cellophane wrapped treats. The claw returned to its start position and deposited the win down the chute. Jax jumped with joy and grabbed her winnings. She tried to stuff them into her pockets. But they were already full of her previous gains.

  “Dad can you look after these?” she said handing the winnings to him.

  “No problem,” he said. He took the sweets from her and put them in the pocket of his sports coat. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Be back in a sec. There is a coke on the table for you.”

  “’K Dad,” she said and went back to her game.

  Braden went off into the toilets. It was still pretty early so there weren’t many people around. The toilets were completely empty and still smelling clean and fresh. He went into one of the cubicles, put the seat down and made himself comfortable. He whipped his phone out of his pocket and began to pummel the screen with his finger. He looked at the local news first, and the story of Lottie Richmond was right at the top in big bold letters.

  TODDLER KILLED IN HER BACK GARDEN

  “Shit,” said Braden, probably a little too loud. He was still alone in the toilets, but it still wouldn’t be good for someone to walk in right now and hear him talking to himself. He scrolled through the report, speed reading it and picking out the titbits of information that he needed.

  Corsica Road.

  Lottie Richmond had lived on Corsica Road.

  “Fuckin’ bingo,” Braden said, again having to check the volume of his voice. His fingers worked the screen as fast as they could go, his eyes skimming the writing for any information that he could get.

  He stopped for a moment at the picture of Lottie Richmond’s nursery photograph. Her hair was about as blonde as you could get without actually being white. It was tied up in a top pony tail and held in place with a bright pink scrunchy. She was smiling in the picture, her little baby teeth held together in almost a snarl. Her grin looked like one of a child who was somewhat mischievous but at the same time bright as a button, sharp, intelligent, a future genius in the making. Braden shuddered and a wave of disgust ran through him. It was easy for stuff like this to get to him. He had a daughter. If anyone put a hand on her so help him God he would….

  He shook it off. He had to get to the meat of the problem. What had happened to her? He scrolled again and found the picture of the pale and tear stained face of Lilly Richmond. He lingered on it for a moment and then moved on, not wanting to imagine how she must have been feeling right now, it was too horrible to imagine, even for a moment.

  Insect sting.

  He paused at that line and read it again.

  ….caused by a possible insect sting.

  His mind went back to the mutilated cat that had found its way back home. The pictures of its swollen and bitten body, the broken eye hanging out of its socket. Was there a connection? There had to be a connection.

  Bingo.

  Whatever had injured that cat had to have been the same thing that had put the screws to Lottie Richmond. That was the connection, that was the story. It looked to Braden that nobody had worked it out yet.

  You gotta move fast boyo….

  He didn't realise it, but his heart rate had picked up and a sweat had broken on his forehead. The thrill of the potential chase was upon him, that same rush that he had got from the very first day he began as a journalist. His fever was short lived, as the reality of what he was about to do struck him. He was about to go out there and tell his wife and his daughter that their ideal day out was over and he was going to chase the story. There would be the shocked looks upon their faces and then the realisation that he had gone against his word, then there would be the tears from Jax. She would be so upset
and she would cry, and that was the sound that jabbed long and sharp daggers into his heart. Then there would be a row with Mary. She would call him all the names under the sun, and she would be perfectly entitled to do so. She didn't understand how much this would change their lives, how much easier it would be after he got his one big payoff. She had no long-term vision for the rest of their lives. She didn't have the worry of what they were going to do for money during the wilderness of middle age. She didn't get that he was just trying to do the best he could for all of them, to ensure that they didn't have to live in the poor house for the rest of their lives. And what about the fact that he had done everything he could for her and for Jax the whole time he had been chasing the news. He had to put the hours in he just had to. That was the nature of the job after all.

  He took a deep breath, trying to get his head to make sense of it all. There was no easy option on this one. If he wanted to go for it then it had to be done now. He had to get back into town which was going to take at least half-an-hour, barring any traffic. Now that the story was breaking, someone would put two-and-two together soon enough. What choice did he have?

  There is always a choice kiddo, always. You just have to make sure that you make good ones.

  That was the voice of his dead father echoing around his mind. The man that had tried in vain to show him right from wrong. His father and Mary had always got along very well. He understood what a pain in the arse that Braden was, and how he never seemed to put Mary's needs before his own. He hated Braden's line of work, but he had the good sense not to voice his opinion too much, after all it was Braden's choice to do what he did. There were a thousand other occupations that he could have taken up with the skills and qualifications that he had, but he chose to sensationalise the suffering of others, as he had so eloquently put it. But, his father wasn't here anymore and he couldn’t help but think that if someone had got off their backside and done something then those damn spiders would have never made it to Newtown and his father might still be around. Yes, it played heavily on his mind and it had done from the day that it had happened. Perhaps now, with the death of the little girl, that he could perhaps come up with something, just a little something that the police had missed that could blow the whole case wide open.