Owen knelt and cleared away the few pieces of rubble that covered the bag, then picked at the knot in the top of the bag. “Phew! It smells.” His fingers finished their work and he pulled open the top to peer inside; his eyes had to work hard in the dim light. He let out a sudden cry and jumped back.
“What is it?”
Owen staggered off into the gloom, unable to answer. Steve could hear him being sick behind a nearby bush. Gingerly he approached the open bin bag, trying to ignore the warning being given by the smell.
He peered in cautiously. A small face, eyes closed, turned away from the world, seeking the safety of the darkness inside the bag. It was covered in smears of red and black. Feeling oddly dizzy, Steve stepped quickly away.
Owen emerged from behind the bush and stood off to one side, wiping his mouth. “How old is it, d’you think?”
“It hasn’t been born, has it? It’s been got rid of.”
“How do you know?”
“Well … just look at the size of it!”
Owen backed away quickly. “No. No, I can’t … not again.”
“Well, you were the one who wanted to see what was in there.” Steve’s voice had an edge of regret as he looked at his friend’s sad expression.
“I thought it was an animal at first,” muttered Owen.
“No. It’s not an animal.”
“Christ!”
Steve looked around him nervously; a few cars passed by on the main road a couple of hundred yards away. “C’mon, let’s get away from it.”
“Hadn’t we … you better close the bag again?”
Steve grabbed Owen’s arm. “C’mon, for fuck’s sake. Let’s get going.” Breathing out heavily through his nose, he headed back to the safety of the lamp-lit street.
“So … what do we do now?”
“What now? We stick to our original plan, chief, that’s what. I could do with a pint, I know that much,” said Steve.
In silent agreement, Owen fell into place beside his friend.
A thin drizzle began to fall as they made their way to the pub. Settling on the shoulders of Steve’s jacket, it began to shine dimly in the yellow of the streetlights, as if his clothes were covered with glitter. Owen thought it made him look like some Glam Rock throwback.
They crossed the main road and found their way up the dog-legged side street, overlooked by the disused stretch of track. The pavement crunched grittily under their feet.
The Butcher’s Arms was underlit as usual. In one corner of the bar a group of surly boys and loud girls crowded around the fag machine, coveting their prize of nicotine. Besides them, the bar was empty. A sad song from several years ago struggled to be heard above the squawk of the small group.
“Stella?” asked Steve. Owen nodded, staring at a hunting print that he thought distinctly out of place. His moment of art appreciation was spoiled when Steve added: “I’ll bring ‘em over.”
He found a place away from the cackling gaggle and moved the heaped ashtray to the next table. When his pint arrived he picked it up and stared at the ring of grime around the top of the glass. “Look at that!”
Steve made a face and said: “I’d take it back, if I were you. On second thoughts, I wouldn’t bother – you’ll only get the same … or worse.” He chuckled to himself, noticing at the same time how pale his friend looked.
Owen gazed up at the smoke-stained ceiling for a second before asking: “Well, what are we going to do?”
His friend looked at him warily. “You mean about what we just found?” Owen nodded.
“Nothing. Nothing we can do, is there?”
Owen looked suddenly very serious. “Report it to the police.”
“Why? What good would that do?”
“It was dead. That’s murder,” said Owen quietly.
“Murd … look, you don’t know that! You’re just jumping to conclusions. Don’t get involved, that’s best.” Steve jabbed his finger annoyingly at Owen, who tried to frown it down.
“But you said you thought it’d been ‘got rid of’ or something, didn’t you?”
Steve sighed. “Yes, well, I just meant it hadn’t been born properly.” He looked around him nervously. “I’m not a fuckin’ mind-reader. I don’t know what happened to it … but it may have been an accident, don’t you see?”
“Aye. But just dumpin’ it there like old rubbish. That’s never right. We ought to report it. We did.”
Steve shook his head in frustration and stuck his face into his pint of S.A.
The next few minutes passed in silence until Owen kicked Steve under the table. “Ow! Watch what …” Steve began before being silenced by Owen’s hand signal.
Steve looked puzzled. “That’s ‘im,” said Owen. “That’s the bloke we saw.” He nodded and added, significantly: “And there’s a woman with him.”
Distrusting Owen’s over-active imagination, Steve rose to go to the toilet. Owen nodded, fathoming his intention to get a closer look at the pair as he passed them.
Steve was quick. He sat back down and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It’s not like we got a good look at him.”
“But he’s got the same jacket on; same logo and everything. And he’s walking funny, too,” protested Owen.
Steve grimaced. “There are loads of jackets around like that. That’s no proof.”
The man at the bar turned to look around the room and Owen was sure he recognised the same long face and slightly anxious manner. The man’s skin was sallow and covered in blemishes.
The girl looked pale and puffy. She was carrying too much weight, attempting to hide it under black clothes. She pulled her jacket around her tightly as she searched for a table, eventually pushing herself into a corner by the door. When she glanced around the room, Steve and Owen made sure they were interested in their pints.
The jukebox was getting excited now and the group by the fag machine were obviously enjoying it, singing along to the few words they could recall.
When her companion joined her at the table, he handed the girl a colourful bottle before sitting down opposite her with his pint. She brushed her greasy brown hair from her face and tipped the bottle to her lips before saying something to him. Owen could only see half of the man’s face from where he sat, and the music was too loud to hear the girl, but her words had obviously angered him. He pulled out a packet of fags and waved them at her. She shook her head, looking down in resignation.
The man’s shoulders hunched forward suddenly. He waved his hand above the surface of the table as he spoke to the girl.
Owen leaned across to Steve. “I’m sure it’s them. Positive.”
“Whaddaya mean ‘them’? A minute ago it was just the bloke you recognised. You’re putting two-and-two together and coming up with nine … making up stories about them. It might not even be the same bloke. You want to be careful. Just drink your Stella and wise up!”
Owen glanced over at the couple again. The man was hunched over, looking defeated. The girl was talking slowly. Her face wore a miserable expression.
“I’m sure they’re talking about it, see,” said Owen.
Steve exhaled in exasperation. “Look, mind your own business. Life’s not a soap opera and it’s not a spectator sport. Leave them in peace.”
“But – if it’s them – and I’m certain it is, right, then we should do something to help, shouldn’t we?” pleaded Owen.
“Who is it going to help? Tell me that, eh? These poor sods – if it IS them, and we don’t know if it is – they probably think their problems are over … then along you come, trotting down merrily from your moral high ground, and fuck things up for them royally! For God’s sake, give someone a break, eh?”
Owen picked up his pint and sipped it thoughtfully, eyes sliding towards where the couple sat. “But it’s wrong. That’s all.”
“Who says? I mean, what does the law know about real people’s lives, eh? You should know that.”
“But that still d
oesn’t make it right, does it?”
“Who’s to say what’s right or wrong, eh?”
“Well, it doesn’t feel right.”
Steve let Owen’s words dissolve into the song thumping out of the jukebox. He sipped a few more mouthfuls of his beer and looked around the room. The barmaid, obviously bored with the slow trade, had disconnected from the events around her and was texting someone. The crowd in the far corner were stuck in the same rut they’d been in all evening. The couple by the door were sunk in their troublesome dialogue.
The clock behind the bar said that closing time was coming. “C’mon. I’d better get you out of here before you do some damage,” said Steve.
As they left, Owen couldn’t help staring at the couple by the door. The girl met his gaze and he shuffled out quickly, followed by Steve.
The drizzle had become rain, falling heavily from the black sky. It met them full in the face as they left the pub. Turning back towards the doorway, they hunched their heads into their shoulders to protect themselves.
“Right,” said Owen.
“Right what?”
“I’m going to tell the police what we found. I’ve got to.”
Steve looked at him with uncertainty and disappointment on his face. “Well, you go, then. I don’t want that sort of thing on my conscience. The poor buggers have probably got enough troubles as it is.”
“No, well, I don’t want that on mine,” he said, nodding his head back towards the patch of ground by the tracks.
Steve shook his head. “Well. OK. If you can live with that.” He half turned and looked back at Owen. “I’m going to find a taxi. You know that I think you’re wrong.”
Owen nodded, then watched Steve’s back as he disappeared through the rain, silhouetted by the headlights of passing cars.
The telephone was still ringing when Steve finally managed to get his front door open. Swearing as he kicked a magazine rack out of the way, he reached across the sofa to pick up the handset.
“Hello?”
“Steve, love, thank God! I’ve been ringing and ringing.”
He was surprised to hear his mother’s voice. “What? Why?”
“Susan’s mum’s been tryin’ to reach you all evening. We didn’t know where you’d gone or anything. Listen, love, there’s been an accident. Susan’s in the hospital. She fell.”
Steve’s face suddenly felt cold. His head filled with small nonsenses; the memory of Susan sneezing just after she’d smiled at him for the first time, the way she always licked her lips just before opening her eyes in the morning, his mother’s cat purring happily and loudly in her lap.
“Wha … is …?”
“No, no. She’s OK. But … oh, I’m so sorry, love, it’s a shock and I’m sorry but … she’s lost the baby.”
The phone suddenly felt like a bar of lead in his hands. But then it became as light as a feather and he couldn’t understand why it made such a noise as it hit the floor.
SONGS FROM SPIDER STREET (REPRISE)
Michel’s mind struggled back to the surface, the grey light that shut him off from consciousness fading as he came closer and closer. Then he was back in the street, standing in the morning cold.
He was sweating now, despite the chill. The quality of the light hadn’t seemed to alter at all since he’d stepped outside, as if no time had passed by. He hugged himself as he shivered, then looked about him.
Mrs Wilson no longer stood behind him with her hand on his shoulder. The spiders had lost their weird glow and there was nothing but a long, cold silence that seemed to fill up the morning. Suddenly Michel felt lonely.
He didn’t think he’d been standing there long, but decided all the same that he’d better gather up his things and get back home; his father would have other errands for him to run.
Retracing his steps, he saw that both the gate and the door to the apartment house had been left open. He stepped inside and pushed open the door to Mrs. Wilson’s apartment.
It seemed dustier and dirtier than he remembered. The table was covered with a thin layer of dust, he noticed. Maybe it had blown in from outside, he thought. But it seemed like it had been left for days, or even months. He called hello but got no answer.
Then he saw the figure sitting in the armchair near the window, facing the half-closed curtains. He began to explain that he had better go but, as he drew near to Mrs Wilson, he realised that she couldn’t hear him.
The woman sat facing the window, the soft light falling on her face, which was white and webbed over completely. Her whole body had been covered in a soft silky cocoon. But there wasn’t a spider anywhere near her.
Michel gasped and stepped back. He couldn’t see if she was breathing. He dared to lean forward to listen for her breath but daren’t get too close. He could hear nothing though he could see her mouth was open wide. Was it a scream, or a final gulp of air before her gauzy prison enclosed her forever.
“They’re saving her for later,” he thought, and shuddered. Or maybe it was a cocoon and she was changing, growing into something else inside a chrysalis of her own making. Michel was sure he didn’t want to know what that something might be. Picking up his rucksack, he shook the dust from it and headed for the door.
He passed the glass-fronted cabinet and noticed that the spider ‘city’ had grown even more enormous, pressing against the glass and threatening to break it, ready to spill out onto the floor. Dark shapes moved swiftly and ominously within it.
In the half-light inside the apartment he could see several points behind the glass begin to glow softly; a high sweet sound began to itch inside his head. Michel bolted for the door before he became ensnared by the spiders’ song.
Once in the street, Michel clutched his rucksack to him and stayed well away from the complex web puzzles on either side of the street. Finally, through the milky light, he saw the street that crossed Rue d’Araignee. His heart lifted. The spiders can have their street, he thought, and quickened his pace. They can have the whole damned city.
As he headed towards the river, and home, a thousand-legged army followed him silently, leaving their white gossamer webs behind them to find a new home with their new master.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Howard Jones was born in Mountain Ash, south Wales, in 1963 and has had dozens of stories published on both sides of the Atlantic.
His novella The Garden Of Doubt On The Island Of Shadows was published in 2006. His eBook Against The Wall is available to download free from screamingdreams.com.
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