by C S Allen
“So, you’re going to let Tom or whoever else comes after you kill you, is that it?” my aunt asked. She was angry with me.
“To be honest with you, Aunt Kelly, I forgot, and once I remembered, I felt stupid that I didn’t bring it,” I replied.
“Okay, well at least I have mine, and if someone tries anything stupid, I’ll shoot them in the balls. I know once I see that house, I’m going to be really angry, so if I cry or start cursing, just ignore me. Your mom’s house had a lot of memories in it and for it to be burned down like that makes me mad!” Aunt Kelly stated.
As we drove down the street where my parents’ house was, we could smell a nasty stench through the car’s air vents. It was my parents’ house, stinking up the neighborhood with all that was burnt.
“There it is, Will, or what’s left of it,” my aunt said, as she pulled alongside the driveway.
I just stared as my aunt parked her car and then turned off the ignition. We didn’t say anything for about two or three minutes as we looked at everything. I didn’t pay much attention to a deep breath that I took and let out with a sigh until my aunt said, “Yeah, that’s how I feel.”
I looked over at my aunt, as she looked back at me, and said, “Let’s go check the place out.”
We got out of her car and slowly walked up to the yellow caution tape that was staked down in the front yard and passed under it. The front door was open, and I could see half of the living room was burned up. My aunt mentioned that my mom’s car was untouched by the fire, and that we could at least take that back to her house. We walked up the few steps onto the porch and looked through the door. “Well, this place is a damn mess,” I said, feeling anger rising.
“The living room floor looks good to walk on, but let’s go slow walking on it, all right, Will?” Aunt Kelly asked.
“Let’s go inside and take a look around,” I replied. We carefully made our way into the living room. Some of the furniture was burned, and the walls were scorched from the fire. Water had dripped down from the ceiling, making pools of water on the carpet. I didn’t care to look around downstairs, so I told my aunt I needed to go upstairs to see what was left.
“Aunt Kelly, I have to see if that spider is still up there and see what I can salvage,” I stated as I walked over to the stairs.
“Will, I have my camera in my purse back at the car if you want photos. Let me go with you if the stairs are safe enough for us to go up,” my aunt replied.
I walked over to the bottom of the stairwell and looked up and saw that they were a mess. Water and black stuff covered the stairs from whatever had been in the air at the time of the fire. I took one step at a time, slowly putting weight down on each foot, hoping to not fall through. The stench in the house was getting worse as I went up, and I hoped that the smell was the spider, either bloated from all of the water, or because it was burned up. I made it to the top step, and to my surprise, there it was, the spider that had tried to kill me. The legs were half gone, burned up by the fire, and the body looked like it was bloated.
“Aunt Kelly! It’s here! The spider is here! Get your camera!” I said, looking back down the stairs at my aunt[pe21].
“No, no, I’m coming up, I have to see it first, Will,” my aunt replied excitedly. Aunt Kelly quickly came up the stairs and stood behind me to take a look. “Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t look at that anymore. I gotta get downstairs and get the camera,” Aunt Kelly said, shaking her head, and then she went downstairs.
I watched her go out the door, and I laughed at her for a moment and then looked around at the second-floor area. My bedroom door was scorched, but looked intact, even with the bullet holes through it. I wondered how in the hell Tom had gotten the spider into the house without getting bitten. Across from my door the ceiling was coming down, and the wall was burned up pretty good. My parents’ room was totally gutted by the fire and I could see inside it. The ceiling had fallen in, along with part of the roof, which made the room look strange. I looked back at my room and didn’t know how I was going to get into it with the damn spider in the way. I heard my aunt close her car door, and then I heard what sounded like a vehicle stop out front.
I headed back down the stairs to see who had pulled up, as I didn’t want my aunt to be alone. As I walked out the front door, I saw a red and white van had parked near the driveway. The van had the words ‘State Fire Marshal’ on it with the state seal underneath.
“Oh shit,” I said to myself.
As I stood there looking, my aunt walked over to the van before the people inside it could get out. Two men were talking inside the van, as my aunt waved to get their attention. The passenger got out first, and I could hear a little bit of conversation, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Then the driver got out and walked around to the front of the van and stretched out his hand to shake my aunt’s hand. By that time, I had to hear what was going on, so I hurried off the porch to catch up on what was happening. As I walked up to my aunt, she introduced me to the two men, John and Robert; they were fire inspectors for the state of Maine. Both were wearing long-sleeve, white dress shirts with fire inspector’s badges and dark blue pants.
“Are you two the owners of the residence in question, sir?” John asked me.
“I am the owner of the house. Is there a problem?” I asked worriedly.
“No sir, we just have to investigate what happened, and I’m glad that you are here. We gave a call to the place where you are staying and left a message on the answering machine. This is all good timing because we need you to tell us what happened or what you think happened that caused the fire to your residence,” John said.
I looked over at my aunt, smiled, then looked back at John, and said, “You’re not going to believe me until I show you what’s upstairs. Better yet, would you mind going upstairs and looking at what’s on the floor? You have to see it before you believe it,” I stated with a smile.
“What are we looking for, sir?” Robert asked.
“The biggest dead spider on the planet; it’s the size of a medium dog with half of its legs burnt to a crisp,” I replied.
“Okay, if you two don’t mind, we would like for you to stay outside while we do a quick inspection of the dwelling,” John said.
“Sure, no problem,” I replied.
Aunt Kelly started to walk over to her car, and I followed her, passing under the caution tape. “Wait until they see that damn thing up there, Will, they are going to freak out,” my aunt said and giggled.
John and Robert went to the back of their van for a few moments and then came back around with what looked like bio-hazard suits on.
“Hey, at least they won’t get their nice white shirts dirty,” I said, giggling to my aunt.
We watched and waited for about ten minutes before both inspectors came out of the house. They walked over to the passenger side of the van and opened the door. Robert reached in and got onto what looked like a two-way radio and mumbled something that we couldn’t. Then someone on the radio called back and said something that we couldn’t hear. After hearing this conversation for about two minutes, John and Robert came over to us.
“How in God’s green earth did that thing get into your house? I mean, where did it come from?” John asked me.
“More like, how in the hell did a spider get that big?” Robert asked, looking at me.
“That’s what caused the fire. I had to shoot at it with a flare gun, and it caught the place on fire,” I replied anxiously.
“Folks, this house needs to be quarantined now after what we just witnessed. There’s going to be so much interest in this mess that someone is going to be either famous or in trouble,” John stated, looking at me and my aunt.
“John, this is some serious stuff that is going on. I don’t know if you follow the news, but I was attacked by a spider that size three years ago and survived it. However, my friends and two county deputies were killed trying to save us from a couple of similar spiders. The government cover
ed it all up by saying a man murdered them at our campsite. They set the whole area on fire to cover up their tracks and that they let lose those giant spiders. Now, I have proof that the damn spider exists.”
“Wait a minute, I remember that. You were man number one, who everyone was talking about, who killed all of those people. But then something happened, and they found the real person who did it,” Robert stated.
“Damn, this is really crazy. This whole time you were telling the truth and everyone thought that you were off your rocker,” John said, shaking his head. “Look, we have to take some photos of the structure and of that spider that’s up there. Can you both stay outside until we do our job and the house gets fumigated? That spider will be taken to a lab and dissected, but we need you to stay out here until further notice, okay?” John asked.
“Sure, but I need something really important, if I can get one of you to do it for me. Can either of you take a couple photos for us with our camera and then go inside the room that the spider is blocking to get a notebook on my bed? We will stay as far away as you need if someone can do that for us,” I stated.
“Sure, give us at least ten minutes. Where’s your camera?” John asked.
We gave John the camera and waited for both of them to go back inside and do their thing. Neighbors came by and looked at the house and said many nice things and wished me luck in the future. Some wanted to know everything, and I just mentioned an electrical fire on the second floor. Ten plus minutes went by, and I was getting a bit frustrated because I wanted to go and get my photos developed. I was about to go to the front door and yell upstairs for someone to give me back the camera when a truck and a police car pulled up behind John’s van.
“Hey, I found what you were looking for, and I got pictures taken of that creepy spider. Damn that thing gives me the willy’s!” Robert said, as he walked over to me. “There ya go, Will. We’ll have someone call you later when it’s safe to go back inside, okay?” Robert said, giving me the camera and my journal, which hadn’t been touched by the fire.
“Wow, that’s great! Thanks a lot, you guys, we appreciate it!” Aunt Kelly stated.
“Yeah, thanks for helping us out!” I said excitedly. I took a few photos around the house before going back to my aunt’s car. But I almost stumbled when I saw the government license plate on the truck. I stated, “Oh my God, Aunt Kelly, that truck has government tags on it!” I said loudly as we walked.
“What the hell is the government doing here?” my aunt asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m about to find out, damn it,” I stated, becoming agitated.
As I got closer to the truck, I could see the two people inside had on the same kind of safety suits that Robert and John had used. The passenger got out of the truck first, so I introduced myself and told him that I was the owner of the half-burned house. “What part of the government needs to be at my house today?” I asked.
“Hello, sir, my name is Dale Reynolds. I’m from the CDC, and my partner, who’s still sitting inside the truck, is Rick Williams. We were called out to investigate a possible spider problem that you may have inside your house. Is there a spider that needs to be looked at?” Dale asked with a smile.
“You’re never going to believe it until you see it upstairs; it’s the size of a dog,” I replied.
“If this is true, we will need to take it out and examine it at our facility. There’s never been a report of such a creature, and it will be interesting to see up there,” Dale replied, looking back at his partner Rick still in the truck.
“Take that thing out of here and burn it to the ground,” I stated, looking at my aunt beside me.
“Let’s go, Will, we have a lot to do now,” my aunt stated, as she pulled on my arm.
When we got into the car, my aunt stated that something seemed a bit off with these guys from the CDC. “Don’t you think the CDC came out rather fast? I feel like something isn’t right, Will. I want to ask Robert if he called them, and if he didn’t, then something is wrong here,” my aunt stated.
“Let’s go ask them,” I replied and got back out of the car. Aunt Kelly met me on my side of the car, and we walked back over to the house.
“Robert? Are you up there?” Aunt Kelly yelled from outside the front door.
“Yeah!” Robert replied.
“Can you come down here so I can ask a question?”.
“Sure, I’ll be right there!” Robert replied.
While we waited, the two CDC guys walked by with a box and what looked like a plastic tarp and went inside the house. We could hear a conversation going on, but couldn’t understand any of the words. Robert then appeared from around the door and walked onto the porch.
“Yes, ma’am, what can I do for you?” Robert asked, putting his hands on his hips.
Aunt Kelly walked over to Robert so she could talk in a low voice. “Did you guys call the CDC or did they just show up on their own?” she whispered.
“We didn’t call them, but it’s a good thing they are here. We don’t know what we are dealing with here. I hope to God that there’s no other spiders like this one,” Robert replied.
“So, if we didn’t call the CDC people, how would they know to come out here?” I asked.
“Someone had to have notified them that there was a potential health risk here. Maybe the local fire department saw that ugly thing and called it in,” Robert replied.
“Okay, thanks for letting us know, Robert, you guys have been great,” my aunt replied.
Robert went back inside, and I had a feeling that Aunt Kelly t wasn’t quite satisfied with Robert’s answer.
“Let’s go talk in the car,” she aunt stated, as she tapped my arm and started walking away. When we got in the car, my hunch was right; my aunt was still questioning everything. “Will, let’s get back to my house and make some phone calls. We have to call your insurance company, call the fire department to see if they called the CDC, find out how we can get you protection with the FBI, and something else, but I’m forgetting. Oh yeah, let’s get your mom’s car brought over to my house.[pe22]
Once we were back at my aunt’s house with both cars, we called the fire department and found out they were the ones who had called the CDC. After that, I called my insurance company to tell them about the fire, but they already knew about it. They explained to me that whenever there is a home fire, the insurance companies get alerted by computer. Then the insurance company that has the fire policy starts an investigation if anyone was injured or killed by the fire. They work with the fire marshal’s office to determine if the fire was an actual accident or if the fire was set on purpose. That’s s a pretty cool thing to do with a computer, I thought.
Calling the FBI hotline made me nervous, so I let my aunt do the talking. I sat in the living room and watched my aunt press buttons on the phone since the hotline was automated. I could hear the computer voice ask my aunt to press certain numbers to get to talk with an actual agent. Finally, when an agent came on the line, my aunt tried to explain my situation. I could only hear a one-way conversation, but it didn’t sound good with the way my aunt was making hand and facial gestures. After fifteen minutes, my aunt was done talking and hung up the phone.
“Well, the FBI is going to send out a field agent to talk with us tomorrow, Will. That’s a lot better than trying to spell it all out on the phone to a halfwit. I’m not sure if he was an agent or just a person who decides if the FBI is needed or not,” my aunt stated, shaking her head. “Do you want to get a new truck still or have you decided not to?” she asked.
“I’m thinking I should get life insurance, Aunt Kelly,” I replied.
“Whoa, where did that come from?”
“From everything that’s happened in the past three years,” I replied. “I need to be buried in the same cemetery as my parents. I wanted a full burial and to be laid in the ground like a respectable person would want. I don’t want to be taken care of by the state where they’ll just toss me in an oven and bu
rn my body up. Going to a life insurance company will be beneficial to me, and at least that way, I know I’ll be taken care of properly.”
My aunt was surprised and agreed it was an adult move on my part and she was proud of me even more.
So, to get out of the house, we decided to go to the insurance company that I used for my parents’ house and ask them about what kind of life insurance was available to me. I kind of wanted to look at trucks too, but I couldn’t because my mother’s car was all that I had left of my parents.
My aunt and I spent most of the day going shopping and seeing the insurance agent. I ended up getting a twenty-five-thousand-dollar life insurance policy for everything in case of accidental or natural death. Aunt Kelly told me not to mention that I had the government after me because then I would probably need to see a mental health counselor to get insurance. I laughed a few times when I saw the agent because I wanted to say that the government was after me along with little green men.
When we got back to my aunt’s house, I took my bags into the room I was staying in and hung up my new clothes. I saw my journal on the nightstand and thought about updating everything, but then my aunt came to the door.
“Will, you had a call on the answering machine from the insurance company about the house. They would like to know if you want to rebuild or take down the current one. You don’t have to answer right now, but we have to respond no later than a couple of days from now. This is another rough one for you to answer so take your time thinking about it,” my aunt stated.
I just nodded and said ‘thank you’ and decided to write in my journal and forget about answering anything. I had been having a lot of mental ups and downs and felt like I was beginning to become bi-polar. In my mind, it was just yesterday that I was with my friends, running from the spiders, and now I was still running from them.
I looked at my journal and thought I could smell the smoke from the fire and just sat down on the bed. I had an overwhelming rush of emotions come at me all at once, and it was awful. I started to hyperventilate and shake, my arms started to tingle, and I felt cold. I couldn’t catch my breath, so I stood up, ran out of the room, and into my aunt’s living room.