Deadman's Tome: Monsters Exist

by Mr. Deadman

  “I never believed in monsters, either,” he whispered. “Until I saw one.”

  The scraping came again, partially dampened by sounds of boats creaking and swaying in their docks around tobacco harbor.

  “It was a week into the expedition when the five of us began trekking in the Congo Basin,” said Charles, wiping his sweating brow with the tip of one shirt sleeve. He steadied his gaze upon Jason, and the man felt a shudder run through his veins. “Do you know how large the Congolese Basins are? 500 million acres. Larger than the state of Alaska. It’s the world’s second-largest tropical forest by a country mile, and we must have been crazy to go exploring unguided. But the locals were adamant we’d find the best fauna if we travelled south along the river. A thousand species of tropical plant at our fingertips sounded like a dream come true.” He smiled despite himself. “Imagine the discoveries we could unearth!”

  Jason said nothing, just picked up his glass and sipped heartily.

  “Things were good until we stumbled across a Kigelia Africana, or sausage tree, if you prefer. That fruit tasted sublime against our impoverished tongues, but we quickly realized our fatal mistake.”

  “Mistake?” said Jason, hanging on the other man’s words.

  “The worst of our lives,” confirmed Charles. “We should have checked that tree before plucking its fruits. But we were famished, our provisions running so low there was barely enough water left to see us back to civilization. It would have taken an hour to reach basecamp as it was, and light under the canopy was diminishing. That tree was our best option.”

  “I’ve never heard of a sausage tree before,” admitted Jason.

  “Well, I assure you they exist,” said Charles with a clip in his words. “Marjorie’s the tropical fruit expert. Ask her about it if you don’t believe me.”

  Jason averted his eyes from the old botanist, who in turn was staring reproachfully at him over the rim of his glass. “Not all facts can be found in a medical journal, you know,” he added before sipping the warm coppery liquid.

  Jason realigned his tie, then settled back. He’d promised Marjorie there wouldn’t be another ruckus, but sometimes the old man pushed his buttons. He always seemed to know exactly which ones, too.

  “Did poison flow from its vines?” asked Jason, trying not to be obvious in steering the conversation.

  “No, it was fine to eat. Better than fine. It was grand. But in taking from the Kigelia Africana, we disturbed something nesting within its thick twisted branches.”

  Charles stood, before leaning down to take away the spent decanters. “I’ll get us another drink,” he said.

  Jason reached out a hand and clamped it around his forearm. “Leave it, I’m not thirsty.”

  There was no emotion in Charles’s face. He simply nodded, then returned to his seat.

  “What was in the tree?” asked Jason.

  “Spiders,” said Charles with a grimace. “Dozens of them.” He shuddered despite the warmth cast by the fire. “They clung to us like sticky tape. Every time we managed to fight them off, more fluttered down from those twisted branches like falling autumn leaves. They landed on our clothes, our skin, and our supplies. I can still feel the patter of their legs scurrying over my body.”

  “Spiders are common in the Congo,” said Jason reassuringly.

  “So are gorillas, but that doesn’t mean you expect to encounter one.”

  Jason smiled, his teeth grinding back and forth behind his lips. “No, of course not. Thank you for enlightening me. Again.”

  “It was Luckman who was bitten,” said Charles, as though Jason hadn’t heard. “One of the beasts managed to gnaw through his jacket and sink its fangs into his flesh, right down to the white of bone. Lying in the infirmary, Luckman told me how the bite had felt going in. ‘Like rolling a naked vein in barbed wire.’”

  “Oh, God.” Jason ran a hand over his face, the frustrations with Charles quickly forgotten. “Marjorie never said anything. Does she even know?”

  “I thought I’d leave that news in your capable hands,” replied Charles. He was glancing about the room, but his mind no longer seemed present.

  Outside, the scraping sounds persisted unabated.

  ***

  Jason returned a short time later, carrying a silver drinks tray topped with fresh whiskey tumblers, bringing it into the study and setting it down gently beside the fireplace. The botanist glanced up, calmness on his face. Outside, branches still scraped against the door, but the wind seemed to have dropped off considerably.

  “It’s getting rather late,” said Charles, absently checking his watch. “I think we should make this our last drink.”

  Jason agreed, feeling both relief and regret. He wanted very much to get out of that stuffy old house, to be done with Charles for another few months. Marjorie would be pleased to hear her father was still alive and well, despite the strained relationship they shared. But breaking the news of Luckman’s death to her would be difficult. They were married for fourteen years, after all.

  “I suppose we shall finish the story,” said Charles with a resigned sigh.

  “There’s no need,” said Jason. “I should never have prodded you to tell it, and for that I am sorry.”

  “It is almost told,” replied the botanist, “so I shall finish. Truth be told, I want you to hear it. At least then it won’t come as a complete surprise.”

  “What won’t?”

  Waving a dismissive hand, Charles raised his tumbler and quickly downed it in a single gulp. “Top me up again,” he said, and Jason obliged.

  “We managed to get the spiders off us without further injury, but Luckman was in bad shape. That spider’s fangs left several large holes in his skin, and by the time we’d carried him back to camp, those holes were bruised the color of eggplant.”

  “My God. Was the spider venomous?”

  Charles held a shaking finger up at the young man. “I am almost at the crucial point, but if you insist on breaking my concentration, you will never hear how this story ends.” He lay back in the chair. “It might have been venomous, but we never got the chance to find out.”

  Charles saw the look of confusion on Jason’s face. “This is where you’re going to say I’m crazy.” He threw back another shot of whiskey, nerves steeled for the next words to roll from his loosening tongue. “Luckman was found hanging upside-down a hundred feet from our camp the next morning. His entire body had been cocooned in gossamer. It was white as snow, and thick as jungle vine, spread from ground to tree trunk. The biggest damn cobweb any of us had ever laid eyes on. And it was strong, Jason. We couldn’t burn it off him! Eventually, we had to leave him there. I still lose sleep over that.”

  “The little spiders, really?”

  “No, the thing that dragged Luckman kicking and screaming was larger, almost the size of a small dog or monkey.”

  “You saw it?”

  “What did I tell you about interrupting? I’d have been strung up, too, if I showed my face. I saw enough, though, believe me.”

  Jason did not respond.

  “The worst thing was how it didn’t just kill Luckman, but toyed with him first, tugging at his head like a dog playing with a stuffed toy. The way it used those gigantic hairy legs to rip through his throat while it probed and pushed inside his ears deep enough to cause blood to seep out will haunt me the rest of my life. Top me off again, would you, Jason.”

  Jason did as instructed, then handed the botanist a half-full glass. As he gulped it back, he glanced at the front door. “It’ll come for me soon enough, don’t you worry about that. I expect it any time now.”

  Jason, patting Charles on the knee, said, “That thing is still in the Basins. You’re safe here.”

  “So, you believe me then?”

  “I have no reason not to.”

  “There’s still more to tell.”

  “Well, I’m not needed anywhere else tonight,” said Jason.

  “Tell that to Marjorie.” Charles
rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, and Jason winced at the two wide puncture marks embedded in his skin just below the elbow. They were bruised a deep purple, mottled in red blots of burst blood vessels. The older man’s veins protruded like trails on a road map, and the longer he held out his arm, the more uncontrollably it shook.

  “But you said—”

  “I wasn’t bitten in the Basins,” finished Charles irritably. He threw a thumb toward the next room, and Jason looked over. A travel bag lay in the hallway, its contents strewn all over the floor. “It was in my backpack. One of those little baby ones. Must have climbed inside while we were still on the expedition. I heard it before I saw it. Sounds of scraping and scratching in my bag. It was wrapped around my arm before I’d time to react. When I threw it off, the thing scampered away, and disappeared into the undergrowth outside my house.”

  “When did it bite you?”

  “The day I got back.”

  “That was almost two months ago, which means it surely isn’t venomous.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  Charles sighed deep. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “Of course, but I don’t see how—”

  “When Luckman was bitten, we got the hell out. No messing around, we left that place and didn’t look back. And yet, somehow it found our camp.”

  “It could have been coincidence,” offered Jason meekly.

  “No, not coincidence. Fate.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Rubbing the back of his neck with one shaky hand, Charles said, “They followed us.”

  “Do you mean to suggest those spiders were actively stalking you? Like prey?”

  “Precisely.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I’ve had many nights to consider such a question,” explained Charles, “and although I have no way to prove it, I wholeheartedly believe those spiders sniffed us out using Luckman’s blood as scent.”

  Jason’s face flushed a warm red, and he scrambled unsteadily to his feet just as a sudden wave of anger coursed through him. “What you’re saying, it goes against all scientific proof. I can accept a giant spider living in the Congo as a possibility, but not spiders that can stalk their prey by blood scent. That’s madness, Charles.”

  “Madness, indeed,” agreed the botanist. “But that spider ended up inside my travel bag knowingly. Because it wanted me. And now it’s had two months in the wilds, feasting on deer and rabbit, growing as big as that one which killed Luckman. It’s been biding its time before coming back to finish me off.”

  Jason let a breath slip through his nose. Standing above the old man, he felt only a sense of loss. The death of a colleague, even one Charles had abhorred for many years per Marjorie’s telling, to the point where the two of them almost came to blows over the dinner table one memorable New Year’s Eve, had obviously harmed his mental capacity in some way. And in dealing with the guilt, Charles’ mind concocted a boogeyman, in this case a giant arachnid lurking in the darkness of jungle, to mask a much simpler truth: Luckman had died, most likely, from a nasty bout of jungle fever.

  “OK, I believe you,” he lied.

  “Thank you,” replied Charles, a wry smirk drawing up at the corners of his mouth.

  “If that’s the end of the story, I’ll be off.” He leaned down and clamped a hand on the old botanist’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “We can talk more then, alright.” Jason was eager to keep a close eye on the man, for Marjorie’s sake.

  “Very good,” replied Charles, nonplussed. “Would you mind leaving through the back gate, since I’ve already locked the front door?”

  “Of course. Good evening, Charles.”

  “Yes, good evening to you, too, Jason.”

  With one hand on the door handle, Jason suddenly stopped and turned. “You should really get someone to trim those unruly bushes. I think that scraping is getting worse. I can hear it from here.”

  Charles smiled humorlessly. “There aren’t any bushes outside,” he said.

  Jason’s blood run cold in his veins. He glanced towards the window, but darkness, spreading like spilled ink, blotted his view of the harbor.

  The scraping came again. And then stopped abruptly.

  For a moment, the two men merely glared at each other, neither breaking the silence. Charles’s face, backlit by yellow flame, wavered and morphed like some hideous crimson mask.

  “It was going to find a way in sooner or later,” he said, sounding only tired. “I couldn’t let it get me. Not in the Congo, and not now.” He stood up and began walking towards the front door. “Luckman was a decent fellow, but a lousy botanist. I don’t know what my daughter saw in him. He was…expendable. Like you.”

  The tiny hairs on the back of Jason’s neck stood at attention as the gravity of the man’s words became clear.

  He was half turned around when the back door exploded inwards. Shrapnel splinters embedded in Jason’s face and hands, drawing blood. Confused, he stumbled back into the living room, his right eye sightless and bleeding. Nonetheless, he spotted something large, black, and hissing, trying to squeeze itself through what remained of the door, its enormous legs thrashing and kicking like a pinwheel.

  “Oh dear God,” came Charles’s voice as the creature silently crept toward them like a cat, but was as large as a dog. “It’s even bigger than the one in the Congo!”

  Jason let out a screech of agony as one of the spider’s legs came down on his arm, injecting millions of tiny brown hairs into his flesh like poisoned thorns. He wished for death, but it wouldn’t come, not then, and his screams were eventually drowned to panicked muffles of grunts and wheezes as its elongated legs smothered his face.

  Jason’s hands sprung up, clasping the spider between shaking, feeble fingers, trying to pry it free with punches, but its pulsating purple body held firm. Gradually, his hands flopped at his sides, but not before fingers managed to tear loose one of its legs, and Jason heard a wretched groan escape Charles’s mouth as he got a glimpse of the gore which lay beneath the hissing monstrosity.

  Jason’s face had been completely eaten away.

  Charles’s paralysis finally broke, and he staggered to the front door, his labored breathing interrupted by curses and sputtering as his chubby fingers fumbled to unlock the deadbolt.

  He had to get outside – now – before the spider was finished with Jason. It would be his one and only chance to distance himself from the creature. He hoped its thirst for blood would be fully sated.

  Charles slid back the deadbolt and wrenched the door wide, feeling blessed as the cold air rushed against his face. Taking a deep, satisfied breath, he ran into lashing rain, ready to embrace its cool touch, but instead found himself knotted up in the giant cobweb crisscrossed over the frame of the door.

  The botanist twisted and thrashed, pushing hard against the web, reaching out to a world which was merely inches from his fingertips, but the sticky gossamer chains were welded to his skin like iron. Eventually he could take no more and screamed, emptying all the air in his lungs, his tongue brushing a loose tangle of webbing, sticking fast. Desperate, he closed a fist around a large tangle of white vine, tugging with all his strength, but it didn’t budge. He couldn’t unclench his fist, either.

  The last thing Charles heard before a shock of pain dimmed his lights was a scratching sound on the carpet, followed by a low, primal hissing.

  About the author:

  Christopher Powers lives in Essex, United Kingdom, with his wife and son and works full-time as a content copywriter. He's been writing scary stories for many years, and loves to scour market stalls and thrift stores for horror paperbacks. His previous works can be found at DeadLights Magazine and Deadman's Tome. He can be contacted at powers1902@yahoo.co.uk and Twitter @Powers1902.

  Kelpies

  Leo X. Robertson

  That day, though Fras
er didn’t know why, he took his daily Loch Lomond jog to Firkin Point, where he ambled along its white-stoned beach and found a rock to sit on. It was the beginning of spring, and the regimented Scots were back in its weak white sunlight in droves, scores of families and couples trying to find comfy ways to lie on bumped-up beach towels and bathe. A low wall of grey bricks teemed with disposable barbecues that billowed black clouds like smokestacks. Collies and labs and little barky dogs came out of nowhere, brushed against Fraser’s legs, and jumped upon him. Each time this happened, he performed a three-sixty frown to locate the animal’s owner, who would then bat away the beast without concern.

  It was as Fraser got up and sauntered further along the beach that he began to think about images on TV, in books or in photos, of beaches thronging with families, people who were but particles in an insignificant wave, of which he and everyone at Firkin Point today were one. He wandered off the main strip to a little sandy alcove that mothers had kept their kids away from, on account of the nettles and precarious-looking trees with their wizened branches that were tempting to swing from, where he discovered another runner who had taken solace from the beach and whose mind appeared occupied by similar thoughts.

  He stood watching the water with her, their shared silence serving as introduction enough for her to say, “I was just thinking.”

  “Hm?” He turned, pretending not to have noticed her.

  “I can stave off a feeling of insignificance when I run. I don’t stop, because it’s difficult to get going again. Inertia sets in almost instantly. Today I decided I wanted it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  She stood up. “You don’t think the beach is the perfect place to think about it?” She leaned down and picked up a smooth white pebble, which she flipped casually in one hand. “All these stones, rounded by the waves, waves that were before you, will still be when you’re gone. So many stones worn by geological ages, by the passage of time.” She skimmed the stone into the steely water. “A definite process, but a purposeless one. You look across the water and observe more molecules than there have ever been people.”