Violet Eyes

by John Everson

  Fear.

  “Go away,” she mouthed again and again, and sank slowly towards the floor, resting on her haunches as the pounding continued.

  Terry emerged from the hallway, looking a little confused as he rubbed his eyes and wearing only his shorts. He’d barely pulled them on; the belt buckle hung to the side, unfastened.

  “Who is it, Mom?” Eric asked, stepping into the room behind Terry. “Why aren’t you answering it?”

  Rachel held out one hand, motioning both of them to stop, and then put a finger to her lips, shushing Eric.

  “It’s your father,” she said.

  Eric’s face brightened. “Dad?” he asked. He started to walk forward, as if he would open the door himself.

  “Eric,” Rachel whispered. There was a steel edge to her voice that made the boy stop and listen. “Terry is here. You know your father. What do you think he’ll do?”

  She looked at him with pleading in her eyes. There were lots of times that Eric didn’t listen to her. He was headstrong, just like his father. But this time, out of all times, she desperately needed him to go along with her. For all of their sakes.

  Eric paused, and then finished walking to the door. Then he turned around, and sank to the floor next to her, back to the door.

  He didn’t say a word. After a second, Terry joined them, sinking to the floor. “Strangest way of answering the door I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

  Eric put a hand over his mouth to stifle the laugh.

  On the other side of the door, the pounding paused, then banged five more times, then paused again. It recovered, but then stopped and started, stopped and started. The knock had grown strangely erratic.

  “He’s got a bad temper,” Rachel hissed. “If he sees you here… I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  Terry nodded. He opened his mouth to ask how long they would sit there, when suddenly the vibrations against all of their backs ceased.

  The pounding had stopped.

  Rachel should have been relieved, but all she could think was, What will he do next?

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Tuesday, May 21. 6:35 a.m.

  Anders slapped at the flies that were stinging him on the shoulders and back. They’d started biting as soon as he’d stepped up on Rachel’s stoop, and were getting worse and worse. He wondered how people dealt with these annoying things down here. The bites stung like a bitch.

  “That’s whatcha get for living in a fuckin’ swamp,” he mumbled, and banged harder on the door. He knew she had to be in there. No way his lazy little Rachel was out and about this early on a weekend morning. And anyway, he’d seen her car still parked in the carport. She was here.

  “Wake up, damn it,” he growled. Anders stopped knocking and slapped at the flies on his shoulders and back. Then he pounded again.

  Then slapped.

  Then pounded.

  “Fuck this shit,” he said, and stepped quickly off the stoop, trying to lose the swarm of bright-eyed black flies that were all around. The buzz of their wings had steadily grown louder as he’d stood there on the concrete.

  Anders looked around and saw that the swarm was more than just around him. All down the street the air was dotted with thousands, millions of insects. The air was dark with them. He suddenly felt more nervous than angry, and Anders decided that he really needed to get inside, whether Rachel was home or not. And there was one way to find out what the deal was. Check the bedrooms.

  He walked quickly around the side of the house, swatting flies away from him with every step. “Damn. Fuck. Shit,” he complained.

  The damn tent worms were all over Rachel’s yard too, he saw as he walked along the side of the house. They clung to the frame beneath a window, and Anders kicked the cotton-candy shit aside, before leaning in against the house and putting his face to the window, a palm on either side of his eyes.

  The room was Rachel’s. Across the room, he recognized the blonde wood of the dresser that had formerly sat next to his own. The bed was unmade, sheets hanging down to touch the floor. He couldn’t believe she’d leave the house that way; Rachel had always made their bed as soon as she’d showered in the morning. It was like, her ritual to start the day. Teeth, shower, bed, dress. Sometimes she shooed him out of the bed so she could follow her usual order. And sometimes, Anders would yank the damp towel off her when she did, and pull her naked little twat back to bed with him for a bit before complying.

  No, it wasn’t like her to leave without making the bed.

  That thought only made him angry. Because that meant that she was inside, and she was just ignoring him. He slipped his fingers around the edges of the window, trying to find enough purchase to get a little grip. He locked his fingernails in along the crack and pushed his palms against the frame. Then he tried to ease the window up. He couldn’t tell if it was locked or not from where he was. But he intended to force it, either way. He had a crowbar in the bed if he needed it.

  He felt something bite him on the leg, and absently slapped at it. But before he looked down, something buzzed behind his ear, and he was slapping the damn flies away again.

  “Motherfucker!” he complained.

  Anders stepped to the left of the window, and then remembered the web. He could feel it sticking to his pants, and he kicked his leg a bit to shift it off him. But somehow, the motion didn’t work that way. Instead of knocking the shit off him, he felt his leg tangle in the stuff. He looked down and his eyes grew large.

  His legs were completely obscured by the gray-white web.

  Anders kicked with one leg, but it only seemed to draw the stuff around him even more. He turned and twisted his body the opposite way, trying to “roll” out of it, but again, the shit only seemed to grow thicker. He couldn’t even see his jeans now through much of it.

  What he could see, however, was that the silken threads were not spun by worms.

  Anders slapped at the eight-legged thing that crawled out of the dirty silk and darted up his belly. The thing crumbled and drew up its legs as it released its life in a yellow paste across his shirt before falling off to the ground.

  “Goddamn spiders?” Anders said incredulously.

  As if on cue, a dozen more eight-legged creatures appeared from the web to walk up Anders’s thighs. And then a dozen more appeared behind those.

  He stared at them, ice suddenly growing in his veins. He’d never seen spiders like these. They were jet black, but with little slashes of purple across their backs…and their eyes glimmered like violet flames. Were they poisonous? Because right now, he had apparently stomped right into a nest of them. And they were creeping up his midsection like a black insect army.

  He worried if he moved fast, they’d bite. And if he slapped…they’d bite.

  Anders was afraid to breathe. He could feel the sweat leaking down the center of his back like a river. He couldn’t stand here for many more seconds or the things would be crawling up his face.

  Anders decided to run.

  He took a deep breath and got ready to sprint towards the curb.

  Instead, he fell on his face.

  The web had trapped him as effectively as a rope tied around both feet and knotted to the underside of a chair.

  The bites began then. Pinches, followed by a small burn. They didn’t hurt much…except when they were clustered together. Anders turned his head to look at his legs, and saw they were covered by a mass of dark shapes. A million legs shivered and shifted and skittered across his calves and thighs and ass.

  He could feel something cold in his legs now, and when he tried to kick, just a little, to loosen the creatures…nothing happened.

  Anders realized he could no longer feel anything below his waist.

  As he stared at the things darting up and down his back, he realized that they were spinning a web. The spiders were creating a cocoon around him, tying him to the grass. There were colors shifting at the sides of his vision…it looked like the thread was turning to cotton candy aroun
d his legs, blue and pink and orange…

  Anders felt something tickle his neck, and then he saw it. An inch-long spider stood tall on his cheek, fat black abdomen raised high on predatory legs, violet eyes staring straight into his own. He lifted his arm to slap the bastard.

  But his arm didn’t move.

  Anders realized that his entire body was grown numb, and everything that he looked at seemed to have a strange caste to it. As if the world had gone blue.

  He’d never done this in his life as long as he could remember. But he had to do it now. He only prayed someone was nearby to hear.

  “Help!” Anders screamed. “Somebody please!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Tuesday, May 21. 6:37 a.m.

  “Did you hear that?” Rachel whispered. The three of them were still sitting with their backs to the door.

  “I think someone was yelling out there,” Eric said. His voice was still quiet.

  “There it is again,” Terry said. “C’mon.” He stood up and motioned for them to follow him down the hall. “It came from this side of the house.”

  The three of them crept down the hallway towards Rachel’s bedroom. As Terry crouched down below window level, he heard a scream from outside. It bleated again and again, though with lessening intensity.

  Terry held his hand out to keep the other two in the hallway, out of sight, and ran across the room to crouch below the window. Then slowly, he brought his head up, and pressed one eye to the edge of the frame.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “Rachel, come here.”

  Rachel ran over and joined him, hiding out of sight of the glass.

  “Don’t worry about him seeing,” Terry said. “Take a look.”

  She stared out and didn’t see anything at first.

  And then she looked down.

  Anders was lying on the grass, his legs wrapped in white spider web, his chest and face covered in small, shifting black shapes.

  He was screaming for help, but his voice was getting less distinct. Even as she watched, it seemed like what had been words was now only a shrill, dying siren of a sound. And each time he pushed the sound out, it grew fainter.

  “We need to help him,” Terry said.

  Rachel shook her head.

  Eric jumped on the bed and looked out the window. “It’s Dad! They’re hurting him!”

  “We have to,” Terry said.

  “You don’t understand,” Rachel began. But Eric grabbed her arm.

  “Damn it, Mom, we have to help him. They’re killing him.”

  Rachel slapped him on the butt. “I told you to stop swearing!” she said. “I’m not going out there because I don’t think he came down here for a good reason.”

  Eric jumped off the bed and ran from the room. “Well, I’m going to,” he said.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Rachel said. But Eric just ignored her.

  Terry patted Rachel on the shoulder. “We can’t leave him out there.”

  He followed Eric out of the room.

  When Rachel turned the corner, she saw Terry dragging Anders by the wrists away from the spider webs that covered the whole side of the house. It looked as if he were dragging her ex out of a tent. Eric had found a newspaper, probably from the stoop, and was slapping it across his dad’s legs and belly, trying to knock off the spiders.

  “Be careful,” Terry warned. “They could swarm you just like that.”

  “I’m being careful,” Eric promised.

  Rachel ran up to him and took the newspaper. “Go!” she commanded. “You’ve had enough bites for one day. Go to the house.”

  Eric backed up, and Rachel took over slapping the dozens and dozens of spiders from her ex-husband’s torso. She maybe brought the paper down a little harder than she had to as she did it. And that felt good.

  Terry dragged Anders around the corner of the house as fast as he could, and by the time he’d gotten him to the sidewalk in front, Rachel had beaten most of the spiders off. Around them though, the air began to clot with flies.

  “This is crazy!” Rachel complained, as she waved her hands in the air and tried to bat the pests away.

  “We have to get him inside,” Terry said. “Help me.”

  Terry brushed the remaining spiders off Anders with his hands, and then pulled the remains of the web from his pants, rolling it across his palms until he had a ball of the sticky stuff that he threw on the lawn. Then he grabbed Anders under the shoulders, and Rachel grabbed him by the feet.

  “Get the door, Eric,” she asked, and they pulled him inside, depositing him on the living room floor.

  “We need to get him undressed, put him in a cold bath, and get some Benadryl and anti-venom serum in him. Same drill as last night.”

  “I’m not undressing him,” Rachel complained.

  “Are you really going to make me do that?” Terry asked, cocking his head. “You were married to him.”

  “Oh, all right.” Rachel grumbled. She bent down and unbuttoned Anders’s long black shirt. Eric knelt down next to her, and put his hand on one of the welts that had blossomed on the stubble of Anders’s face. She could tell her son was struggling to hold back tears.

  “Eric, go start the bathtub. Make the water lukewarm.”

  Her son sniffed, and shook his head affirmatively. “Will he be okay?”

  “This is exactly what we did for you last night,” Terry said. “He’s just going to be a little more difficult to get into the bathtub.”

  Eric grinned, just a hair. “Okay,” he said, and ran down the hall to start the bath.

  “He’s pretty bit up,” Terry observed as Rachel undid his pants and pulled them off. The gun Anders had been packing slipped out with a clatter to the floor, and Terry silently retrieved it. But he held Rachel’s eye for a moment after he picked it up and looked it over before slipping it into his own pocket.

  Beneath the denim, Anders’s thighs were so swollen that Rachel had to yank and shimmy and shove to get the pants down.

  “I thought I’d pulled this asshole’s pants off for the last time,” she complained.

  “’Til death do us part,” Terry joked.

  Rachel shot him a dirty look.

  “Help me lift him,” Terry said, and grabbed Anders by the shoulders again. The welts across his body were angry pink, and growing larger and thicker.

  Anders was heavy as hell. The man was not a string bean. More like a truck driver. But together, they lugged him down the hall, and then with a double groan, hoisted him up and over the wall of the tub.

  “Be careful!” Eric warned, as they laid him down in the six inches of water that had accumulated.

  Terry took the Benadryl from Rachel with a glass of water, and tilted Anders’s head back. With his fingers, he shoved the antihistamine to the back of the man’s throat and then poured the water in after. Anders gulped instinctively, and Terry was fairly sure the man swallowed the pills.

  “Double dose,” he said. “I’ll go get the anti-venom, and that’s about all we can do.”

  “Does he need to go to the hospital?” Eric asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Terry said. “We’ll watch him for a few minutes. If he doesn’t come out of it, we’ll call an ambulance.”

  “I’d rather push his head under the water,” Rachel murmured.

  Terry shot her a look. With his eyes, he motioned at Eric. She rolled her eyes, but then nodded.

  “He’s going to be fine, honey,” she promised.

  Part of her hoped she was wrong.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Tuesday, May 21. 7:03 a.m.

  At a glance, you would have looked at the window and thought the day was overcast. A perfect gloomy morning to curl up on the couch with a cup of coffee and a book.

  But the sky wasn’t overrun with clouds; just the opposite.

  The air was alive with flies. Eric knelt on the couch and looked out the window, watching them fly past, thousands of dark wings that made the air looked f
oul.

  “Mom,” he called. “They’re everywhere.”

  Rachel came to stand beside the couch and looked out the window with him.

  Eric was right. The world outside looked like a dark shadow overlaid upon the world that they knew. Swarms of flies made the distance between their house and Billy’s look like it was miles, not yards. They could barely see the spider webs that draped the place, let alone the house and driveway.

  “There are, like, a million of them,” Eric observed.

  “Yeah,” Rachel said. “We need to be really careful.”

  “They got Billy and Feral,” Eric said. “They bit them to death.”

  Rachel nodded. “We won’t let them get us.”

  “What about Dad?”

  Rachel had to swallow a comment about that. “He’ll be okay,” she promised.

  “Hey!” Terry’s voice called from the bathroom.

  Rachel got up and hurried down the hall. In the tub, Anders had opened his eyes.

  “You tryin’ to embarrass me in front of your new boyfriend, or what?” Anders asked. His eyes were open, and he appeared to be fully conscious. He reclined in the tub filled with lukewarm water, head lying on the back ledge. The thick thatch of his chest hair just broke the surface. They had stripped him down to just a white pair of briefs before hoisting him into the water.

  “Just gettin’ back at me for that Miami Dolphins game or what?” he asked. “I’m just glad I wore my new underwear and not one of those pairs that has holes. Momma always said not to wear those…not that I listened to her most of the time.”

  Anders levered himself up with a groan. Angry red blemishes covered his arms, neck and face. The hives that had accompanied each bump had gone down, but he still looked a mess.

  “So who’s the asshole?” Anders asked Rachel. He raised one pointed eyebrow towards Terry.

  “He’s a friend,” Rachel said. Her voice was thin. “You can thank him for your life. I was going to leave you out there for the spiders.”

  “Good to know that Christian charity is alive and well in my little pun’kin,” Anders drawled. “Hardly the way to treat the father of your child.”