Spiders

by Tom Hoyle

  Megan ran.

  Adam started to force the toilet door: it wasn’t locked, but the body obstructed it. He could push it just enough to peer round.

  There seemed to have been a fight inside the cubicle. The toilet seat was broken and the top of the cistern was smashed on the floor. There were two crater-like depressions in the boy’s head. But Adam’s eye was drawn to the dreadful sight of a ski pole sticking out of his neck. It looked as if it had gone a long way in – certainly far enough to be sticking upright. Adam looked away, but felt his eyes being drawn back to the pole and the boy’s face.

  It was the boy who had crashed into him.

  Megan arrived with an attendant from the front desk and the other older boy. ‘Is he in here?’ the boy was saying, apparently unaware.

  The other boy was slow to accept that his friend was actually dead, and it was only when several adults, one the first-aider, came from the slope that the children were forced out of the area. There was a horrible fifteen-minute wait before police and an ambulance arrived at almost exactly the same time.

  In the Snow Place’s entrance hall, Adam and Megan edged away to one side where they were hidden by a board advertising disco nights on the slope. ‘I don’t believe it, Meg,’ said Adam, his eyes filling with water but short of actual tears. ‘It’s all happening again.’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ started Megan. ‘I can’t stop seeing the . . .’ She stopped again.

  Adam put his palms over his eyes and breathed in and out deeply.

  ‘It’s so awful. That poor guy. Why do these things always happen around me?’

  Megan steeled herself. ‘It’s all a dreadful coincidence. This time it couldn’t have been you. You didn’t leave the slope.’

  ‘I hope everyone else understands that.’

  They were both picturing the same awful image of the murdered boy.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE CEREMONY (SATURDAY 15TH NOVEMBER 2014)

  The noise of a helicopter woke Abbie from a dream about flying spiders. She was groggy and had no idea how long she had been asleep. After groping around for the light on the bedside table, she found her watch: it was only 11.18 p.m.

  After ten restless minutes, Abbie opened her window and a whistling blast of icy air billowed into the room. She peered down three floors on to the frosty grass that was murkily lit for about twenty yards until the darkness gradually won. Invisible in the night, the loch lurked in the distance.

  She heard chanting rising with the wind and could just about make out one section of what looked like a large circle of people looking into the clear night. Arms were raised and something was being said to the heavens, but Abbie couldn’t quite make out what, even though the night was now silent. Stars and planets twinkled in the sharp Scottish sky.

  Abbie dashed back and turned off the bedside light. When she nervously looked down again, the circle had unravelled into a procession. She could just about see three people in the middle, dressed in white; they looked like Noah and his parents.

  Why hadn’t she been invited? In fact, thinking about it now, her father had even encouraged her to go to bed early.

  Abbie shivered and was about to close the window when she noticed someone even more familiar. Her father. Behind him came other black-cloaked figures. One man’s glasses caught the dim light: Alistair, a thin man, dog-like in his loyalty to Bolleskine, with a salamander-shaped birthmark on his cheek. And at the very back . . . She thought it was Bolleskine himself, but it was hard to tell.

  Abbie sat on her bed but kept the light off, then went back to the window – now there was nothing to see apart from the frosty grass. She tried to lie down but was wide awake and restless. Over to the window again. Back to her bed.

  ‘What the hell is going on in this place?’ she muttered as she felt for her clothes in the darkness.

  You’re being bad , came a spidery voice. Stay where you are. You’ll be caught. You’ll be punished.

  Abbie slapped her forehead and crept to her door. She could certainly explain going as far as the bathroom. The corridor, unevenly lit by bulbs in old-fashioned glass fittings, was deserted. She tiptoed past strips of light under some bedroom doors, but most rooms were silent and dark. Almost everyone must be at the gathering.

  Why hadn’t her father mentioned it to her?

  Soon Abbie was at the door that she had gone through the night before. She turned the handle slowly, quietly, and pressed gently with her palm. This time it was locked.

  Turning around, her body tense, Abbie expected to see Bolleskine. But there was no one, just the erratic breezes that found their way into the castle. In the distance, she could hear low, regular chanting coming from below.

  Abbie shivered as she paused against a stone wall. This part of the castle had kept a lot of the original features, but was comfortably decorated. ‘This isn’t a monastery,’ she had heard someone say when they arrived, ‘it’s a house for us to live in for a while .’

  Abbie reached the top of the main staircase and peered over the banister. Empty. She heard two sharp knocks, and then louder chanting. It certainly wasn’t English. Latin? Possibly. German? Hungarian? It was all a mix of harsh g’s and k’s and then short flowing sounds that seemed to be entirely vowels.

  Abbie dashed across the top of the staircase towards a large door opposite. This was one of the YOU MAY NOT ENTER places, and had always been locked before, but was now ajar. If anyone found her beyond that door, she wouldn’t be able to talk her way out of it easily.

  As before, the watery yellow on the walls gave way to dark reds. Every three or four paces there was a mirror. The chanting became clearer still. The procession must have come inside and entered the Great Hall, which was the name always given to the very large old chapel.

  Suddenly Abbie heard a rustle of movement behind her. This was a straight corridor leading, presumably, to the balcony above the Great Hall – no alcoves or turns, though there were closed doors down the left-hand side. She tried the first. Locked. The second – also locked. She ran on down the corridor, unsure of where she was heading and fearing she would run, literally, into trouble. Ahead there was a small outside window and the corridor turned ninety degrees to the right. She darted round the corner just as a cloaked figure reached the top of the main stairs and went through the door that was still ajar.

  Abbie didn’t like sneaking around. As soon as she was round the corner, she made up her mind that if anyone gave her trouble on her way back they would regret it. Bring it on.

  Then she heard the first scream. It wasn’t a yell of pain – it was a screech of terror. Another scream, this time lower in tone, a man’s voice, and then a third – ‘No! Please no!’ The three voices overlapped and mingled together into a chilling choir.

  As Abbie edged from the corridor on to the balcony overlooking the dimly lit Great Hall, the screams became whimpers. Rising above them, she heard Bolleskine’s voice. ‘We welcome you as chosen ones who will travel to the Golden Planet.’ Abbie slowly stepped forward. ‘This is why we must escape this world,’ Bolleskine was saying. ‘This bread helps us to see the demons that surround us. Just as we know our guardian angels, the Valdhinians, are waiting for us on the Golden Planet, so on this earth there are demons to torment and mislead us.’

  Abbie crouched down and crawled nearer to the balustrade at the edge of the balcony, from where she was now able to see the backs of cloaked heads arranged in neat rows. Lying flat on the floor, she peered through the wooden struts and saw Noah and his family in white cloaks at the front. ‘Welcome to our family.’ Bolleskine was addressing Noah. Then he turned to the congregation: ‘We have new travellers to accompany us. We are now less than two moons away from our departure. Then we will be free of all the evil of this world. But we must become free of ourselves.’

  Everyone chanted: ‘We must become free of ourselves.’

  Abbie saw Alistair step forward and whisper to Bolleskine, who nodded. Bolleskine first spoke in the same stran
ge language she had heard earlier, and then seemed to translate his own words. ‘A message from the Golden Planet for Laura: Michael says that the pains in your leg will disappear when you arrive . . .’

  A woman gasped and said, ‘Thank you!’

  Abbie wriggled back from the balustrade as another couple of messages were ‘translated’.

  ‘. . . and, finally, a message for Mark.’

  Abbie froze.

  ‘Soon it will be just how it was when we were first married. Please come, with our daughter.’

  Abbie dropped flat and lay still as Bolleskine paused. Her head swam with possibilities and fears. Her father had said this was ‘a straightforward placement’. He must know what he was doing.

  ‘Now approach for our drink from the chalice,’ Bolleskine said.

  Abbie had to see this. She moved closer to the edge.

  Alistair, narrow-shouldered and gaunt, stood in front of Bolleskine and drank from a golden chalice.

  Bolleskine said, ‘Receive this drink from our angelic masters!’

  As another person went forward, Alistair staggered away on to the stage, his face full of peace and delight.

  Her father was next. He gave a tiny glance behind – towards Abbie.

  Immediately recoiling, she shot backwards, sprang to her feet and hurried back down the corridor. As she turned the corner, heading towards the main staircase, she heard Bolleskine say, ‘Remember that we are free! Free of all law! Empty of ourselves! Free!’ There was cheering.

  Abbie ran back up the stairs and along the passageway towards her room. She didn’t notice the man standing in the shadows at the bottom of the main staircase, the man who had left the door ajar. The man who later told Bolleskine that Abbie had seen the ceremony.

  CHAPTER 12

  BATS (SATURDAY 13TH DECEMBER 2014)

  Despite having had weeks to get ready for the trip to Scotland, Adam was still throwing things into his case on the morning of departure.

  ‘Right, have you got everything?’ his mum asked as he bounced his case down the stairs.

  ‘Yep.’ He tapped different parts of his luggage as he spoke: ‘New trainers, iPad, food for the journey . . .’ He felt in his coat pocket. ‘Phone.’

  ‘I was thinking of underwear, shower gel, gloves, thermals and waterproofs,’ his mum said before she hugged him. ‘Have a great time.’

  Three minibuses were going from Gospel Oak Senior. It wasn’t an especially popular trip, but it did have a small and committed following, largely of Duke of Edinburgh Award types. Adam’s friends had convinced their parents it was a good idea by claiming that it was useful for Geography GCSE.

  Asa was waving goodbye to his parents’ yellow Freelander when Adam and Megan arrived just before the seven-thirty deadline. ‘Where’s your case?’ Megan asked.

  ‘All the essentials are here,’ Asa declared, pointing at a bag that was no bigger than aeroplane hand luggage. ‘Lynx, razor and the finest collection of boxer shorts in the galaxy. I haven’t bothered with things like pyjamas.’

  ‘Razor?’ mouthed Megan to Adam.

  Leo’s mum was fussing, asking about arrival times and handing over the contents of a sizeable medical cabinet to Mr Macleod, the geography teacher running the trip, and Miss Frances, his assistant. All dangers and diseases were prepared for, including those with no connection to the Scottish winter: ‘. . . insect repellent . . . hayfever tablets . . . Strepsils . . . and this is a very good homeopathic remedy for dry coughs – he gets those, you know . . .’

  A tall, thin man in a black coat was speaking to Oliver about a hundred yards up the road. Adam had a feeling that the man was glancing at him, but he pushed the thought from his mind and loaded himself and his luggage on to the last of the minibuses. Inside, he could see Megan and Rachel greeting one another with excitement.

  It was a lengthy journey to their overnight stay at Stirling, four hundred miles away, but the route was motorway throughout, so they managed the first quarter of the trip in just over two hours. Asa had tried to start up some rugby songs he knew from his dad, but Megan successfully tackled each attempt before they reached the second line. Apart from that, electronic devices kept everyone quiet, and there wasn’t a hint of Are we nearly there yet?

  Mr Macleod, excited by the return to his Scottish homeland, pulled into a service station and let his passengers loose with no more than a return time as guidance. The attack on Jake and the dreadful death at the indoor ski slope the previous month and subsequent murder investigation were temporarily forgotten, and the danger that lay ahead was unknown, so Adam lived in the happy moment.

  While the girls were getting something to read on the journey, Asa discovered that the beans he had for breakfast were generating potent smells, sometimes accompanied by significant noises. At first he tried to blame Leo and/or Oliver, then claimed it was a passing jet, but after the usual exchange of ‘He who smelt it dealt it’ and ‘He who said the rhyme did the crime’, Asa owned up and referred to the odour as ‘a fine vintage’, and then as ‘a new weapon for the army’.

  He then told a joke that started with ‘There were two nuns in a bath . . .’ and Adam responded with one a Year 13 had told him about something that he’d never dare mention in front of Meg.

  Best of all for Adam, Megan dashed over and pulled him away by the hand. ‘Look what I’ve seen,’ she said. There was a magazine with the Triumph Daytona on the cover. Megan was baffled by Adam’s interest in motorcycles – she knew nothing about them apart from what she couldn’t avoid – but she saw how much Adam liked them. ‘I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Meg,’ said Adam, thrilled that she wanted him to be happy.

  Then, rather than drifting into motorbike-speak, Adam spotted a face he vaguely recognized from Megan’s wall on the front of a magazine: someone called Kendall Schmidt. ‘Let me get this one for you ,’ he said.

  Result.

  Megan kissed him properly, in the middle of the newsagent’s, ignoring a passing Miss Frances and a whooping Asa, who only stopped cheering when Rachel hit him on the head with a water bottle.

  The journey continued as usual: games became increasingly dreary and most of the entertainment came from waving at people in other vehicles.

  The final stop of the day was just a hundred miles from Stirling. ‘Toilet only,’ said Mr Macleod. ‘No dithering around –’ and then with a quick glance at Adam – ‘or anything else.’

  It was in these twenty minutes that Adam first started to feel strange. He didn’t exactly feel ill, but there was something odd about his hearing, as if everything was hollow.

  ‘You’ve probably eaten too many Haribos,’ suggested Megan.

  ‘I also had a couple of Oliver’s cheese-and-pickle sandwiches,’ he said by way of defence, but then imagined cheese and pickle and Haribos together in his stomach and started to feel a bit queasy as well.

  ‘How about having an apple? They’re good for you,’ said Oliver, plucking one from his bag.

  Adam couldn’t explain what was wrong with him – it was easier for him to say what was not wrong. He didn’t have a temperature, or feel dizzy, but he felt worried and unsettled. He didn’t even want to mention it to Megan, but he felt scared .

  ‘You certainly don’t look right,’ said Megan. ‘Your eyes are really wide and staring.’

  Adam thought:

  Why are all these people looking at me?

  Something else bad is going to happen.

  Megan will start to hate me.

  Leo said that he had something in his case that would help, and he plucked out three different medicines.

  Adam’s anxious feelings slowly evaporated, but he still felt strange when they arrived at the accommodation outside Stirling.

  It certainly would have been a late night with plenty of messing around with Asa, but Adam thought he would take advantage of sharing a room with Oliver to get some rest. He curled up in the top bunk and pushed the thin duvet up over his ears.


  He had lost all sense of time, but it was only thirty minutes later that he woke up, terrified. Adam didn’t know the cause; he didn’t even realize that he was behaving irrationally.

  Where he should have seen the innocent lights of the smoke detector, he saw the demonic eyes of a hungry bat. The movement of the thin curtains became the threatening rustle of bats’ wings.

  And there was another noise. Someone crying out.

  He could hear his own voice.

  Pyjamas damp with the sweat of panic and fear, Adam fell down from his bunk and crawled to the door.

  ‘Aaaa-dam.’ Oliver’s voice was low and from the back of his throat.

  Adam spilt out into the corridor, shouting at he-knew-not-who and he-knew-not-what: ‘Why are you after me?’

  He stumbled past the other bedrooms, eyes glazed, panting. ‘I need to get out of here!’

  Rachel was whispering to Megan about Asa when they heard the noise. Megan leaped up and raced, barefoot and in her pyjamas, towards the sound. She knew that voice. As she opened the door, Asa appeared at the next doorway, pulling on a T-shirt.

  Adam rounded the corner to the reception. Eyes. All staring at him. Mr Macleod, Miss Frances and the teachers from the other buses were standing with room keys in their hands.

  Adam saw the adults leer and sway towards him, their features increasingly pinched and bat-like. ‘Why is everyone after me?’ Out of the corner of his eye he could see creatures hanging upside down from the ceiling – but when he looked they had gone. He had to escape.

  As he backed away, Megan caught him. ‘Adam, you’ve had a bad dream,’ she said, holding on to him from behind. ‘It’s me, Megan.’

  Mr Macleod edged forward and forced a smile. ‘Don’t worry, Adam. You’ve woken up and are muddled, that’s all.’ They were used to being sympathetic after what Adam had suffered a year before.

  Adam sat down on one of the reception chairs. ‘Everyone is after me,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Megan. ‘That’s all over now.’