by The Web(Lit)
Movement from some of the tanks, but again, the rain overpowered the sounds.
Thirteen steps. He'd said it twice, then counted each one out loud.
Making a point? Knowing this night would eventually come and preparing us for a descent in the dark?
I took Robin's hand. What I could see of her expression was resolute. Step number one.
Now I could hear it. Scurrying and slithering as we got closer to the tanks.
Even as we searched for Moreland, I knew we wouldn't find him. He had something else in mind.
Welcome to my little %po.
Gustave's girl will be assisting...
The little glass houses were dark, and identical. Where was the tarantula... On the left side, toward the back.
As I tried to pinpoint the spot, Robin guided me to it.
The cage was dark, the mulch floor still.
Nothing on the table nearby.
Maybe Moreland had removed the creature and left something in its place.
I stooped and looked through the glass.
Nothing for a moment. Maybe I'd misunderstood. I started to hope Emma shot up out of the moss and leaves, and I fell back.
Eight bristly legs drummed the glass frantically.
The spider's body segments pulsed.
Half a foot of body.
Slow, confident movements.
She's spoiled... eats small birds, lizards... immobilizes... crushes.
"Good evening, Emma," I said.
She kept stroking, then scooted back down and sat in the mulch. Light from a neighboring tank hit her eyes and turned them to black currants.
Focused black currants.
Looking at Robin.
Robin put her face up against the glass. The spider's lipless mouth compressed, then formed an oval, as if pushing out a sound.
Robin tickled the glass with one fingertip.
The spider watched.
Robin made a move for the top lid and I held her wrist.
The spider shot up again.
"It's okay, Alex."
"No way."
"Don't worry. He said she wasn't venomous."
"He said she wasn't venomous enough to kill prey, so she crushes."
"I'm not worried I have a good feeling about her."
"Women's intuition?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"I just don't think this is the time to test theory."
"Why you and not me?"
"Who says it has to be anyone?"
"Why would Bill put us in danger?"
"His being reasonable isn't something I'd take to the bank."
"Don't worry."
"But your hand-' "My hand's fine. Though you're starting to hurt my wrist."
I let go and before I could stop her, she nudged the lid back half an inch and was dangling her fingers in the tank that damned dexterity.
The spider watched but didn't move.
I cursed to myself and kept still. Sweat mixed with the rain on my skin. I itched.
The spider pulsed faster.
Robin's entire hand was in the tank now, hanging limply. The spider caressed its own mouth again.
"Enough. Pull it out."
Her face expressionless, Robin let her fingers come to rest near the spider's abdomen.
Touching tentatively, then with greater confidence.
Stroking.
The tarantula turned languidly, spreading to accept the caresses.
Nudging up against Robin's undulating fingers.
Covering them.
Encompassing Robin's hand.
Robin let the animal rest there for several moments, then slowly lifted her hand out of the aquarium.
Wearing the spider like a grotesque hairy glove.
Bending her knees, she placed her palm flat on the table. The spider extended one leg, then another. Stretching again... testing the surface. Peering back toward its home, it walked off the hand.
Then back on.
Nosing Robin's fingertips.
Robin smiled.
"Hey, fuzzy one. You feel a lit de like Spike."
As if encouraged, the spider continued up Robin's forearm and came to rest on her upper sleeve, its weight pulling down at the fabric.
"My, Emma, you've been eating well."
The spider curled around Robin's bicep, hugging the arm, then inched forward, like a steeplejack scaling a pole.
Coming to a stop on Robin's shoulder.
Nuzzling the side of Robin's neck.
Stopping right near the jugular. All the while, Robin talked and stroked.
"See, Alex, we're buddies. Why don't you see if there's anything in the tank?"
I started to put my hand in, then stopped was there another one in there? Mr. Emma?
Oh hell, hadn't I read somewhere that the females were the tough ones? Removing the glass lid completely, I peered down, saw nothing, and plunged in. My hand groped leaves and soil and branches. Then something hard and grainy lava rock.
Something underneath. Paper.
I pulled it out. Another folded card.
Too dark to read. I found a tank whose blue light was strong enough.
Impressive though Emma may be at first sight, Everything's relative si%e as well as time.
Relative.
Something bigger than the tarantula?
My eyes drifted to the last row of tanks.
One aquarium, larger than the others.
Twice as large.
A big piece of slate resting atop the lid.
What lived there was twice Emma's length.
My brontosaur us... significantly more venomous.
Over a foot of flat-bodied leather whip. Spiked-tail, antennae as thick as linguini.
Scores of legs... I remembered how the front ones had pawed the air furiously as we approached.
The flat, cold hostility.
I haven't quite trained it to love me.
Sadistic old bastard.
Robin was reading over my shoulder, Emma still resting on hers.
"Oh," she said.
Before she could get brave again, I ran to the back of the zoo.
The centipede was just where it had been the first time, half out of its cave, the rear quarters concealed.
It saw me before I got there, antennae twitching like electrified cables.
All the front legs pawing this time.
Battling the air.
Everything's relative.
Including my willingness to go along with his little game.
I was about to leave when I noticed another difference about the large aquarium.
The entire tank was raised off the table.
Resting on something. More pieces of slate.
When I'd seen it a few nights ago, it had sat flush.
I ran my hand along the surface of the table. Dust and chips.
Moreland remodeling.
Creating a miniature crawlspace it looked just wide enough to accommodate my hand.
As I extended my arm, the centipede coiled. As my fingers touched the edge of the slate platform, the creature attacked the glass. A cracking sound made me jump back.
The pane was intact, but I could swear I heard the glass hum.
Robin behind me now.
I tried again, and once more the monster lunged.
Kept lunging.
Using its knobby head to butt the glass while snapping its body into foot-long curlicues.
Something oily oozed down the glass. like that rattler-in-a-jar game in old Westerns; I knew I was safe, but each blow sent a jolt to my heart.
Robin made a small, high, wordless sound. I turned to see the spider doing pushups on her shoulder.
Jammed my hand under the slate and kept it there.
The centipede kept hurling itself. More cracking sounds. More venomous exudate.
Then something coarse and throaty I could have sworn was a growl came from inside the aquarium, rising above the rain.
I gr
oped hyper actively Touched something waxy and yanked back.
The centipede stopped attacking.
Tired, finally?
It glared and started again.
Crack, crack, crack... I was back in. The waxy thing felt inert, but God knew... predators... pull it out. Stuck.
Crack.
Right angles... more paper? Thicker than the card.
The centipede continued to tantrum and secrete.
I clawed the wax thing, got a purchase with my nails and pulled hard enough to feel it in my shoulder.
The wax thing slipped out of reach and I fell back, kept my balance, and crouched, eye to eye with the centipede.
Separated from its maniacal thrusts by a quarter inch of glass that trembled with each impact.
Its primitive face dead as rock. Then an infusion of rage turned it nearly human.
Human like a death-row resident.
The tank rocked.
I found the corner of the wax thing again, pinched, clawed, scraped... crack... missed, tried again it moved, then resisted.
Stuck to the tabletop? Taped. The bastard.
Hooking a nail under the tape, I tugged upward, felt it give.
One more yank and the damned thing came out.
Thick wad of waxy paper, the edges crumbling between my fingers as I stepped away as fast as I could.
Robin followed me. So did Emma's black eyes.
Crack, crack... the beast reared up against the lid, trying to force it off. Noble in its own way, I supposed. A hundred-legged Adas, fighting for liberation. I could smell its fury, bitter, steaming, hormonally charged.
Another push. The slate atop the lid bounced and I worried it would break the glass.
Spotting a flowerpot at the end of the aisle, filled with dirt, I used it for ballast.
The centipede continued lunging. The entire front of the aquarium was filmy with slime.
Crack.
"Nighty-night, you prick."
Taking Robin by the hand, I hurried back to the front of the insectarium, stopping at a spot where the light through one of the broken windows was strongest. Then I realized Emma was still with us why had I ever worried about her?
Everything's relative... time, too.
Moreland's point: nothing was what it seemed... I unfolded the wax paper. More pieces flaked off.
Dry. Old. Dark paper black or deep blue, oversized, scored with light lines.
Blueprints.
Squares and circles, semicircles and rectangles. Symbols I couldn't understand.
Lines tipped with arrow points. Directional angles?
An aerial layout. The rectangles and squares were probably buildings.
The largest structure on the south side. Nearby a round thing water waves within.
The front fountain.
The main house.
Oriented, I located the insectarium with its thirteen steps and central spine, lots of small rectangles angling off like verterbrae.
The baths...
I found my office, Moreland's, the other outbuildings.
To the east, a mass of overlapping amorphous shapes that had to be treetops. The edges of the banyan forest.
A map of the estate's center.
But what did he want me to see?
The longer I studied the sheet, the more confusing it got.
Networks of lines, as dense as the streets on an urban map.
Shapes that had no meaning.
Words.
In Japanese.
34. The original construction plans," said Robin.
"Can you make any sense of it?"
She took the blueprints and studied them. All those months at the job site in L.A. reading plans...
She traced lines, came to a stop.
"Maybe this?"
Guiding my hand to a rough spot a pimpling of the paper, like Braille.
Tinhole," I said.
"Right in the center of this building here his office. And look at this leading out of the office." She ran her finger along a solid line that continued off the paper.
Due east. Out of his bungalow, through the neighboring buildings, past the border of the property, straight into the banyans.
"A tunnel?" I said.
"Or some kind of underground power cable," she said, flipping the sheet and examining the back. This has to be it."
A circle had been drawn around the pinhole.
"A tunnel under his office," I said.
"That explains the night I saw him go in there and turn the lights off. He went underground."
She nodded.
"He's got a secret hiding place, and he's inviting us to see it."
She lifted Emma from her shoulder, talked soothingly to the spider, and stroked its belly. Eight limbs relaxed and stayed that way as the animal was returned to its home. Pausing a moment, Robin smiled.
"Nothing like new friends," I said.
"Careful or I'll take her home with us."
I folded the blueprints, tucked them in my waistband under my jacket, and we edged out of the insectarium.
The rain had lightened a bit and I could make out the shapes of shrubs and trees.
Nothing two-legged... then I heard something from behind and froze. Scraping a tree branch rubbing against something.
We pressed ourselves against the wall and waited.
No human movement.
Moreland's bungalow was just a short walk under swaying trees.
Off in the distance the main house was visible lights on. Pam and Jo back?
We made a run for it.
The door was unlocked, probably from Pam's initial search. Or had Moreland left it that way for us?
Double-sided key lock. Once inside, I tried to bolt it with the key to my office and when that didn't fit, the new one. No go.
We'd have to leave it open, too.
And the lights off.
The door to the lab was closed. Moreland's desk was clear as it had been this afternoon, except for a single shiny object.
His penlight.
Robin took it and we crouched behind the desk and, shielded by wood, spread the blueprints on the floor. She shined the light on the plans. The ink had run. Our hands were indigo.
"Yes," she said, 'definitely from behind there." Pointing to the lab door.
She gave an uneasy smile.
"What is it?"
"All of a sudden I have visions of something disgusting on the other side."
"I was just there, and there was nothing but test tubes and food samples. Nutritional research."
"Or," she said, 'he's feeding something."
The lab looked untouched. Keeping the penlight low, Robin walked around, pausing to consult the blueprints, then resuming.
Finally, she stopped in the center of the room and stared, puzzled, at a black-topped lab table with a cabinet below.
"Whatever's down there would have to start here."
A rack full of empty test tubes and an empty beaker sat on the counter. I placed the glassware on a nearby bench, then pushed the table. It didn't budge.
Wheels at each corner, but they weren't functional.
No sink, so no plumbing.
But attached, somehow, to the floor.
I opened the cabinet below as Robin aimed the penlight.
Nothing but boxes of paper towels. Removing them revealed a metal rod running the height of the rear wall.