Craddock

by Paul Finch

  “Rafferty … get out of it!”

  Rafferty immediately sensed someone behind him. He turned quickly, but was struck on the temple by a steel object. His helmet fell off as he slumped to the ground. A boot then caught him under the chin, and for the next minute nothing made sense.

  When he finally came round, he’d been dragged through the dirt and deposited beside Munro, who made an effort to help him to his feet. It was no surprise to Rafferty to now see two men levelling guns on them: Reverend Pettigrew and his baleful bodyguard.

  “Why should Britannia tremble?” Pettigrew said scornfully.

  “You’ve gone too far this time,” Munro snapped. “You can’t assault police officers, hold them prisoner at gunpoint …”

  “On the contrary, my friend, I can do anything I want.”

  “You think we won’t be missed? You think another hour will pass before this brow is alive with people looking for us?”

  Pettigrew shrugged. “Let them look. They won’t find anything … unless they’re prepared to scour the miles and miles of galleries below ground, because that’s where your last resting-place will be. You … and the rest of them.”

  Munro shook his head. “You’re a raving lunatic. I thought, when I heard your story, there might be some chance for you, some excuse you could give the judge … but no. I can see now, they’re going to have to hang you. Very, very high.”

  Pettigrew chuckled. “You can’t hang a man for murder when there’re no bodies to be found. Even I know that.” He turned to Rafferty. “You … where is Craddock?”

  Rafferty was still probing at the gash on his brow. He made no reply.

  Pettigrew grinned. “Loyal to the last. How touching. Well … if he’s gone where I think he’s gone, he’ll soon wish he hadn’t. In fact …” and he thumbed the hammer back on his blunderbuss, and raised it to his shoulder, “ …your death will be infinitely preferable …”

  A flying coal-shovel then made ferocious contact with the back of Pettigrew’s skull.

  It clanged like a church-bell, and he dropped in a heap, his eyes rolling white. Krueger turned wildly, to find William Childs standing there, shovel clasped like a battle-axe. The Boer raised his pistol to fire, but Munro had already launched himself, and now brought the man down with a head-on tackle. For savage moments they rolled on the slag locked together, butting, biting, and then came a loud and ringing report – a pistol-shot.

  Major Craddock heard the distant gunshot, but it made no impression on him. For all the insanity he’d thus far witnessed, he’d never considered that the creator of this enormous web might also be its denizen. Even now, as he stared into the shadowy recesses to see where the thing had vanished to, he didn’t quite believe it.

  He glanced back at the girl. She too had seen it; in the flickering lamplight, she’d gone white with terror. Craddock realised he had to work quickly. Placing the lantern on an overhead joist, he took the stick from his waistcoat, twisted its silver handle and, clicking it loose, drew out a long slim bayonet – the dim light glittered on its wicked edge. He leaned over to Laura and spoke quickly and quietly.

  “Listen to me. I can’t just cut you loose … you’ll drop like a sandbag. I’ll have to work slowly and carefully, but you must help. Hang onto anything you can, anything.”

  She nodded sluggishly; the pain and anxiety were overwhelming her. The last thing Craddock wanted now, of course, was her to faint on him.

  “I’ll try and free your hands first,” he said, sawing at the ligature on her left wrist.

  The web again began to thrum.

  Craddock glanced over his shoulder. At first he saw nothing, only the network swinging, probably due as much to his own exertions as anything else. But then he spotted it … that horrible, misshapen shadow. It was still thirty feet away, but higher up, among the rafters, and moving with effortless ease. A second later, it had melted into blackness again. Was it circling him?

  He was now bathed in sweat. Where the devil were Rafferty and the others? He slapped at his waist, trying to find his whistle – only to remember that it sat in his greatcoat some twenty feet below. He dabbed his sleeve at his brow, and turned back to Laura. Her eyes had lidded. There was a bluish tinge to her cheek.

  “Just hold on there,” he said. “Hold on.”

  He reached out with the blade again, only for the web to vibrate even more, far more. Craddock had to cling on to avoid falling; a disgusting stench of sweat and filth assailed him. He gagged and coughed, wafted at the air – and then he sucked his breath in sharply, and held it with a mixture of shock and numbing terror. The ghastly inhabitant of the web had suddenly overcome its shyness, and exposed itself to the lamplight. Craddock could only goggle as a figure of lunacy came creeping along the ropes until it was only a few feet away.

  The ‘scuttling shadow’, as the street urchins had called it, almost was a shadow so black was it with dirt and grime, though at this close range the obscene detail of its anatomy was only too visible. Perhaps it once had been human, for under the filth its flesh was pallid and it only had four limbs – two arms, two legs – though those limbs had grown to inordinate length and were now spindly and tapering yet taut with wiry sinew, stretched and distorted through the endless clambering and clawing in this demented world of its own creation. Its torso was also elongated, and honed down to the very basics; tight-ridged with super-tensile muscle. But its most awful feature was surely its head – though that was an irony in itself, as its head was probably the only part of it not malformed. Completely human in shape, it looked too large for the narrow shoulders and slim body, and was hung with a matted tangle of white and greasy hair, from beneath which two milky bulbs for eyes observed the major with unblinking intensity. Drool ran from its unnaturally wide mouth, which was filled with broken, jagged teeth.

  Laura gave a muffled squeal, and began wrestling with her bonds. She quickly yanked loose the hand that was almost free, and plucked at the remaining knots. Craddock could hardly move. The apparition transfixed him with its blank stare. Its musty animal stink was as dense as fog, and utterly repulsive.

  Shouting, Craddock came abruptly to his senses.

  He made a swipe with his bayonet, only for the monstrosity to evade him easily, leaping into the ropes above and lashing down with a hand, the fingernails of which had grown into talons. They ripped across Craddock’s scalp, leaving three stinging gashes and dripping hot blood across his brow. He gasped, but the thing struck at him again, the lethal claws tearing through his shirt and waistcoat. He thrust up with the bayonet. There was such force in the blow that it might have disembowelled a normal human, but again the thing showed inhuman agility. It leaped down behind him, and in his efforts to turn and face it, he nearly overbalanced and fell through the web. Laura gave another muffled scream, the rope-gag chaffing her mouth so that blood dribbled over her chin. Craddock slashed out again, yet the horror swung around him with the grace of an acrobat. Another raking claw took its toll, this time across his face, down his neck and under his collar, whereupon it snatched hold and yanked him sideways, attempting to dislodge him. Craddock clutched at the rigging. The thing swiped a third time, gouging his back. He tried to climb out of the way, but then remembered the lantern on the joist. Reaching up quickly, he grabbed hold of it, and turned to face his foe.

  Somewhere in the retarded mass of its brain, it recognised the danger that fire might present, and briefly it held its position, perched only two or three feet away. Craddock hefted the lamp as if to throw it, and the creature tensed.

  “I see I have your attention,” he panted. “So whoever you are, whatever you are … if you understand a word I say, you’re well advised to take heed. Now back off … do you hear me! Back off!”

  But the brute wouldn’t back off. The grey orbs of its eyes peered through the gloom, still unblinking. The crinkled flesh of its lips drew back on brown-yellow fangs.

  “You think I’m joking? You think I’m playing a game? … well try
this for size!”

  Craddock drew his arm back as if to launch the missile, but, instead of throwing, he dummied with it.

  The creature sprang out of the way, but instead of finding another perch and presenting itself as an easier target, it pitched down through the webbing and swung up again from beneath. Aiming the lantern directly downwards was difficult, though Craddock tried anyway – only to see the burning globe sail past the monstrosity and hit the ground, where it exploded in glass and flame.

  Like a coiled spring, it now flung itself upwards, reaching through the webbing to tear at Craddock’s feet. He struck down with the bayonet, hacking, chopping, but it was blind, frenetic rage, and he didn’t notice when his fourth blow connected with the rope on which he himself rested, and sheared it. The next thing he knew he was falling – though so was the monstrosity, for the line on which he’d rested was also the line from which it hung. Craddock grabbed at the rope, and they swung across the shed together, like men on a trapeze. The major dropped the bayonet in his efforts to save himself, but even as he swept back and forth through the darkness, still a good sixteen feet from the floor, the deranged beast clawed up and rent at his ankles. It was agonising; his legs and feet were being cut to the bone; the taut rope was torture on his wrists and palms. He knew he was going to fall, but he was determined not to fall alone. In a sudden mad moment, he released his grip and plummeted.

  Of all the things he could have done, this alone seemed to catch the creature by surprise. He hit it in the back with both his knees, hooking an arm over its shoulder, to break his fall. Incredibly, the creature held on, thrashing madly.

  “Damn you!” Craddock spat through gritted teeth.

  Proximity to the thing no longer held revulsion for him; fear of falling was no longer of consequence. He wanted only to kill this hybrid, this merciless shadow of the night. But it was resilient; it refused to be dragged loose, and clung to the rope all the harder – even trying to ascend.

  “You’re coming with me!” Craddock snarled. But for all his anger, his middle-aged frame was weakening. The effort to hang on was too much. “No,” he gasped. “Noooo …”

  CRAAAASH!

  The explosive roar was like a canon-shot, but in the enclosed space of the railway shelter, three times as deafening.

  Neither Craddock nor the thing he fought even saw the cloud of nails and filings sweep up in a blizzard of steel, and sever the rope like piece of thread. Neither saw the mud-spattered shape of Jack Munro, as he stood in the doorway below, aiming up with the blunderbuss. They saw only the rugged ground as it sped towards them, as it spun round them. It was pure fluke that they wheeled as they fell, that when they struck the earth in a flailing mass of arms and legs, the man was on the top and the monster underneath.

  Craddock lay stunned, too torn and bruised at first even to move. He didn’t know where he was, though he was fairly certain that he’d broken his right shoulder and possibly his collar bone. It was painful just to breathe, but it didn’t take too long for the appalling memories to flood back. He sat up as sharply as he was able, preparing to duck another blow – but the next thing he saw stopped him rigid. The monstrosity lay beside him, its neck hinged over the rusting edge of a railway girder at a grotesque angle.

  Craddock glanced round. Munro was standing in the entrance, the smoking blunderbuss limp in his grasp. Sergeant Rafferty was also present, along with constables Coogan and Butterfield A fifth man, the taller, rangier shape of William Childs, completed the group; they peered in disbelief at the thing that had come down from the rafters.

  Craddock climbed painfully to his feet. “Where’s Krueger?”

  Munro looked at him askance, as if unsure how to reply. “He’s er … I’m afraid he’s dead, sir. His gun, it went off … a complete accident …”

  “So where’s Pettigrew?”

  “On the pithead forecourt,” Rafferty replied. “He’s …”

  The major pushed past them. “Coogan, Butterfield … get up to that web and get that girl down! Sharp!”

  Bewildered, their attention still fixed on the broken corpse, the two constables shuffled forwards. Munro followed the major. Though he was lamed by his wounds, his shoulders see-sawing with pain, Craddock moved swiftly across the brow and through the gutted buildings, until he reached the pithead forecourt, where Krueger lay sprawled, his chest shattered by a single pistol-ball. Of Pettigrew there was no trace.

  “I don’t understand it,” Munro said. “He was here … he was out cold.”

  Craddock set off walking again. “We’ll try his house. Whatever that abomination was, Pettigrew knew about it. And he’s not getting away from us.”

  “He more than knew about it,” Munro replied, hurrying to catch up. “He sired it.”

  Craddock shot him an astonished glance; they froze where they stood. In a faltering, breathless tone, Munro explained what he’d been told about the reverend’s ill-fated mission to Bechuanaland, about the loss of his son, about Krueger’s hair-raising discovery of the child. Craddock listened intently, his face too bloodied and drawn to show the true horror he felt. In standard police fashion, he fought to suppress the more lurid detail, to put aside the disturbing actuality. All the same, when they set off walking again, it was with urgent haste, and, by the time they breasted a low spoil-heap and saw the squat, red-brick outline of the reverend’s vicarage, they were practically running. The sight of flames in the ground-floor windows, and churning, black smoke from the roof and chimney served to alarm them more, but when they reached the front gate it was clear that they were too late.

  Martha Pettigrew, besmirched all over and coughing throatily, was staggering back and forth at the front of the building, screaming for help, her eyes red with tears. An inferno already roared behind the shattered windows: the brickwork was visibly cracking; joists snapped like gunshots. The woman shrieked that her husband was still inside; that he’d come rushing in, raging with anger; that he’d started the fire himself, heaping his hymnals and books of psalms into his study grate; that he’d refused to come out when the blaze spread to the curtains and furniture.

  It was all Munro could do to restrain her from dashing back in through the open front door, and even then she fought him every inch of the way. Craddock got as close as he could, but, before he reached the steps, the heat and sparks beat him back. He had to shield his eyes just to look inside – and was amazed to see the tall figure of Pettigrew come forwards through the conflagration. The reverend’s dark suit of office was already smouldering, his face twisted and blackened with char. Still, however, he grinned from ear to ear, a light of insane triumph in his bright but streaming eyes. Then he turned, and as casually as any man could, strode away into the depths of the fire, which folded behind him like the closing curtains of Hell.

  ADDENDUM. The danger to humans from poisonous spiders is still relatively slight. Last year, in the whole of British East Africa, there were only 26 fatalities attributable directly to spider bites. In the same period of time, in the Metropolitan Police area alone, there were three times as many murders and seven times as many life-threatening attacks by one person upon another. As always, the fiercest killers in Nature are but Mankind’s apprentices.