by Nick Keller
William struggled to breath. He forced in a long, full gulp of air and held it hearing the tiny motor under the table whirr and spin, feeling the strap begin to press against his trachea. He slammed his eyes shut. The breath in his body was his last. Pressure built up inside him. His chest constricted. His throat began collapsing. His eyes bulged open. Graves was over him staring down into him with fascination and curiosity, watching him die through that monstrous face. He would kill Graves if he could, drain his blood, consume his parts if he could.
Instead, his mouth opened and out came a tiny sound, perfectly androgynous, like the people in his dreams. Then his vision began to fade. Everything darkened. And all that was left were visions of The Spider.
29
Gamma Oscillations
William had never seen anything so perfect. Most of his fellow classmates regarded the thing with disdain. The girls shrank away from the sight of it making despicable faces. The boys ooh-and-awed over it, marveling over its more sinister qualities, but their interest was vague at best, and short-lived. They always moved on to the next creature in the display. To them, it was an entirely different life form—a misunderstood alien thing. But not to William. There was something gruesomely perfect about it. It’s shape, its striated coloration, the size of it in relation to a dangerous world, the way it moved, the way it operated. It was more machine than animal, more designed than evolved. Inside that thing William found himself looking at God.
“Theraphosa Stirmi,” came Mr. Pinkerton’s voice. William pulled his gaze away from the glass case and looked up at his biology teacher. Pinkerton had an old face grizzled with a half-groomed mustache and beard, but his eyes were kinetic and glistening. He loved teaching young minds, introducing them to pieces of the world they had never seen. He smirked, “A real killer, that one.”
William looked back at Theraphosa Stirmi as it sat comfortably in its cage, perfectly still as if poised to spring. “A killer?” William said.
“Oh yes. Not to worry, though. Not dangerous to humans, Mr. Erter.”
William cleared his throat and said, “What does it kill?”
“Well, Theraphosa has a large appetite. It feeds mostly on insects—grasshoppers, crickets, things of that sort. But,” Pinkerton grinned, and said, “every now and then he likes warm blood. Mammal blood. You see, Theraphosa lives in ground burrows, either of its own make or ones previously occupied by jungle rodents—mice and such. Then it waits very patiently for its favorite meal to come along, being the aforementioned mouse. And then,” he snapped his fingers making William flinch. “Nice warm meal, Mr. Erter.”
“It eats mice?”
“Oh yes. Quite effectively, I might add.” Mr. Pinkerton studied his young student, reading William’s interest. The boy stared into the spider like he was hypnotized by it. It stoked Pinkerton’s excitement. He said, “The largest Theraphosa recorded was male. It had a two-and-a-quarter inch mandible, also called chelicerae—tubules that house their venom. Their attack can be timed by the fraction of a second and they sink those long, drooling chelicerae into their prey’s flesh, you see, and inject their toxin.” He illustrated this with two fingers making a fangs motion. “It causes paralysis, then death. And that, Mr. Erter, is when the venom goes to work.” He took a dramatic breath and said, “It digests the animal from the inside, turns their internal organs into liquid.”
William nodded slack-jawed, wide-eyed. He blinked snapping out of his trance and whispered, “That’s fascinating.”
“Yes, it is isn’t it? So listen, William, this Theraphosa is ready to feed. I wanted to show the class—let them watch it—but as you can imagine, the school was against the idea.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” William said.
“But, uh, you seem interested enough, and I don’t think there’d be a problem. After school today, how would you like to stop by the classroom here and help me with …”
He blurted, “Absolutely.”
Unfortunately, William’s biology class was the first period of the day, nine o’clock. He’d have to wait the entire rest of his school day before returning to the labs after-hours to assist in Theraphosa’s feeding with Mr. Pinkerton. His excitement was palpable. It was sure to distract him. But as his father was keen to say, focus on one thing at a time, Son, see what task is directly ahead of you, work it to your optimum ability, then move on to the next. It was a simple philosophy, but it didn’t change the fact that Theraphosa waited to eat.
Eventually, William found himself in speech class drawing spider pictures in his notebook. They were sketchy renderings that showcased his artistic talents well, given he had none. Nevertheless, when one sketch turned out grotesquely wrong in its proportions, he started over. It was the legs that he found difficult to emulate. Theraphosa was a thick beast, almost muscular, and its legs articulated independently from the others, some of them rising up in jointed angles while others spread across its crawling surface. It made William baffle about its mind. How many parts would an eight-legged creature’s brain have, and what methods of association did it use to communicate with those parts? Or was Theraphosa more of a single collective, thoughtlessly employing economy to maximize efficiency? Was it even a conscious thing, did it dream when it slept, did it kill with random impulse? Or was it a remorseless machine when it struck, perfectly tactical about its death-dealing? His pencil renderings became darker and heavier as he mashed the lead onto the paper in a sick, sweaty frenzy.
“William!” Mrs. Ferguson called, snapping him back to the here and now.
“Yeah—uh, yes ma’am?” he blurted.
“Are you with us?” she asked. The class giggled.
“I—I’m—yes, ma’am.”
“Well good, because we’re assigning teams for the Truman competition. It’s in two weeks, got it?”
“Right, yes ma’am,” he said, and glanced around embarrassed. His classmates chortled at him.
“Team A—this will be Tanvir, Milo, DeAnna and William,” Mrs. Ferguson said, giving William an admonishing look. “Can you handle that. Mr. Erter?”
Milo smacked him in the head from the desk behind and spat, “Yeah, Mr. Erter, can you handle that?”
William forced a grin and said, “Yes, Mrs. Ferguson.”
“Excellent,” she said, then thrust her pointer stick at Milo and said, “Enough of that!” Milo shrank with a devilish grin.
William searched out DeAnna across the room. They would be teammates on this debate. It made him gulp as she looked back and gave him a coy grin.
DeAnna Marsh. Catty eyes. Wide smile. Utterly beautiful. She was his dream girl—giggly and sweet. What was she doing in debate class, he wondered. She was more cut out for the cheerleading squad. Or Hollywood movies. It made him swoon savoring that tiny grin she gave him.
Ferguson continued from the front of the classroom. “Okay, so as usual, the topics you’ll be debating have been chosen randomly and you will be judged by your performance at researching a case and mounting an argument, right? And Team A, you’ll get culture and policy.”
William turned around and gave Milo a grin. Culture and policy was his strongest topic. Milo nodded back.
“Specifically, you’ll be arguing legal tactic.” She cleared her throat reading the competition leaf. “The U.S. spends nine billion taxpayer dollars a year on criminology, particularly in the treatment of unsolved crimes. You will argue for this expenditure, your opponents will argue against, is that clear?”
“As a bell,” Milo mumbled.
William left class with his team quick on his heels.
“So, same as before?” Milo said.
William rolled his eyes. “I always do the research.”
“I’m a better cross-examiner than you.”
“How am I supposed to get better at cross-examination if you always do it?”
“What does that matter,” Milo said. “You’re the better researcher.” William gave him a cross look. Milo offered that grin of his. “C’mon,
man, you know you’re like research god, dude.”
DeAnna said, “I can help with the research.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” William said. He didn’t even hesitate. The chance to research shoulder to shoulder with DeAnna—that was like a date!
“How about after school?” DeAnna said. “I can meet you in the library.”
“Oh, uh—” William groaned turning down the hall. “I can’t today. I have something after school.” Nothing on Earth could peel him away from the opportunity to get close to her, except watching Theraphosa Stirmi feed.
“How about tomorrow?” he said.
“Yeah, okay, tomorrow.” She smiled in her piercingly beautiful way.
Last class of the day. Waiting for the 3:30 bell to ring was worse than having to pee. His knee bounced up and down nervously. He drummed his fingers on the desk like a rapid tapper machine. Mrs. Cravens, his American History teacher, had asked him to stop twice. Apparently, William was vibrating the whole room and driving his classmates nuts during her lecture.
Then the bell rang.
The halls exploded with students, all hurrying to their post-class routine. Most headed for the bus pickup area. Others rushed to the parking lot. The jocks hustled toward after school practice. Band members and drama nerds headed toward their respective places. William hit his locker and started stuffing homework material into his backpack. Milo came up behind and stuck a finger in William’s ear making him turn toward one shoulder, then the other.
“Cute,” William said.
“So, what’s the story with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon man, you’re passing up the overwhelming opportunity to hook up with the woman of your dreams in the library?”
William made a crooked face. “Man, please.”
“Man please? Dude, it’s me.” Milo laughed.
William clicked his locker shut and turned to face his buddy. “Hooking up? That’s just …”
“Just what?”
William rolled his eyes and started walking off muttering, “Whatever, man.”
“Okay, you don’t want to tell me—I mean, it’s all good. Might hurt my feelings and all, but …”
“I just have something to do, that’s all,” William said, hoping to pass the conversation off as benignly as possible. He knew that wasn’t Milo’s style, though. His friend was going to rib him for information until he broke. But there was no feasible way to explain how Theraphosa had tugged at the back of his mind all day. It had tugged at him so hard he was passing up elbow-time with DeAnna. Milo would never understand.
They walked down the hall together. “So, you’re not going to need me to give you a ride then?” Milo said.
“Not today. I’ll call my dad,” William said.
“Okay, but you better take advantage of my good graces while you can.”
William broke a grin. His seventeenth birthday was in a week. His parents had promised him a car. He would no longer need Milo for rides home. “Don’t worry, Milo, in a week I’ll return the favor.”
Milo blurted laughter. “And let you drive me home? No way. Besides, you know you’re going to get a hoopty hatchback.”
William laughed sardonically. “Uh—no.”
“You really think your old man’s going to spring for a Tahoe?”
“Let’s hope,” William said.
“A Tahoe.”
“Yeah—a Tahoe.”
“Heh, yeah right. It’ll be a hoopty hatchback.”
William gave him a cross look, lips canted in a half frown. “Whatevs.”
“So catch you mañana?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Milo took a right turn and vanished into the crowd leaving William standing alone in a hall full of rushing students. His thoughts went toward the spider. He inhaled large grinning impulsively. First things first, however. He dug his phone up out of his pocket, flipped it open and dialed the contact for dad. He waited as it rang once then twice. With his thoughts still on Theraphosa he started off toward Mr. Pinkerton’s classroom. The phone rang a third time, then clicked to voicemail:
You’ve reached Oscar Erter. Please leave a message at the beep and I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thanks. Beep.
“Yeah, so dad, uh I’m staying late at school and I was wondering. You know, mom’s got that thing today. Book club or whatever. Might need a ride. I was wondering if you could pick me up, like, on your way home from work. If not, that’s okay, I can walk it, but I was just wondering. Call me back, bye.” He slid the phone into his pocket all targets sighted. It was time.
William hesitated before entering the room. He’d been looking forward to this all day, but deep down inside, it felt like it had been much longer. Perhaps he’d been waiting to find Theraphosa for years in ways he couldn’t explain, as if a piece of the whole had been missing inside him, something he couldn’t connect together. He needed to see the spider again. It was embarrassing, so he forced any thoughts of obsession away and entered the classroom.
Pinkerton looked up. The old man was finishing his day collecting grading materials into his old, leather attaché and clearing away his desk. He grinned at William as he entered. “Mr. Erter, I’m pleased you stopped by. Wasn’t sure you would.”
“Why?” William said.
Pinkerton paused, looking at him with an understanding smile. “End of the day. Students want to get home. No time to watch nature’s finer points, and all.”
William’s grin showed confusion. “Nature’s finer points?”
“Yeah,” Pinkerton said, moving to his supply closet at the far end of the lab room. “Spiders feeding—especially on mice. Not exactly the uh,” he looked at him secretly and said, “not exactly the sweetest thing, you know.”
William plopped his book bag down and reassured, “Oh, I’m excited, Mr. Pinkerton. I want to see.”
Pinkerton chuckled. “It does take a certain bloodthirst to behold some of the creatures in the kingdom.” He pulled down a small glass container from the closet with a tiny white mouse jittering inside it. “Okay, shall we?”
“Yeah,” William said, moving across the room to Theraphosa’s cage. It was a glass case three feet cubed with a sandy-loess-covered floor and a small fake rock. It had a cave molded through it offering a small dark spot in the overhead light. That was it. That was home to Theraphosa, where it was dark. To the creatures and underlings of the microworld that little cave was a hellish place full of doom, the house of dread. And inside, not much more than a pulsating lump two-toning the dark, was the beast. It was shapeless and still, pulling William’s gaze over to it.
Pinkerton lifted the lid on the mouse container, reached in and lifted the creature by its tiny tail. It wiggled and kicked suddenly feeling the binds of gravity slough away. Pinkerton hovered it over Theraphosa’s cage. Pinkerton said, “You sure?”
William nodded, yes, with vigor.
“Okay. First, notice the mouse. It moves rapidly in my hand. It wants to escape, needs to flee.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It senses danger. It does not know yet what form that danger takes, but it knows something is amiss. The sensation tugs at the back of its tiny, animal brain.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It makes you wonder if animals have a sense of fate, doesn’t it?”
“Do they?” William whispered.
“No,” Pinkerton said. “But they have a sense of self. They understand that a survival instinct is not merely an instinct. It’s a mental mechanism that ponders the world from an internal place. It lets them know when they’re hungry, or in the presence of a mate, or even in danger. Watch the mouse.” He lowered the tiny creature into the cage. Its struggle increased clawing at Pinkerton’s fingers like a lifeline. “Its internal alarms are going off. The mouse can feel the fingers of terror grip him.” Then he lifted the mouse back up and drifted a look back to William. “Life is an incredible force. Two of the most curious things we experience as
humans, is watching it begin. And watching it end. But Theraphosa there only knows one thing, Mr. Erter. It knows it must feed.” He plopped the mouse down inside the cage.
It landed square, unmoving, as if to inspect its sudden new world with a heightened sense of anxiety, afraid to move. Its nose twitched capturing a dozen new scents that William would never understand. The scent of metals in the sand, the soap that had washed out the cage weeks ago, the lingering scent of something alien.
Theraphosa.
William’s eyes went to the spider in its haunt. The thing didn’t move. It accepted the mouse’s presence without a single notion. William knew it was waiting.
The mouse twittered around facing the edge of the cage. It scuttled over to it sniffing the glass, analyzing something it didn’t understand—a barrier on the air. It turned around, still gathering its surroundings. It moved toward the rock cave and stopped. William held his breath. Theraphosa still did not move. The mouse seemed to be within striking distance, fat and plump and juicy, yet the spider only waited from inside its shadowy place.
“What’s it waiting for?” William said.
“Shh,” Pinkerton said. “Patience, Mr. Erter. No one knows when the killer will call … except the killer himself.”
William’s phone rang in his pocket making him jerk back with a grunt. He slid the phone up and looked. It was dad calling.
“Shoot,” he muttered, his attention ripped into halves. He flipped the phone open and said, “Hello?” staring back into the cage.
“Son, this is your dad. Sorry I didn’t answer before, but I just got your message.”
“Okay,” William said half-mindedly. He was glued to the struggle between life and death inside Theraphosa’s cage. The mouse whirled away from the entrance to the cave and moved back to the side of the rock, its senses still pulled taught like high-tensile steel.