It was not far. At the top of the bill, near the berry patch where little Hope Wiggin had been attacked by the red spiders, she pointed and said: “There!”
“Why, that’s a schoolhouse!”
“The schoolhouse where your sweetheart taught the children of this district. But the school term is over now, and what better place could John Slayton find for the brewing of his evil schemes?”
She led him forward again, this time along a path that terminated in the school yard. It was quiet here, almost too quiet, and the squat little building with its boarded windows exuded an air of desolation. The road was at least a hundred yards distant, hidden by trees and brush. A perfect hideout indeed! And who would be likely to come here snooping?
Cautioning Gale to make no noise, Fada paced stealthily to the rear door and opened it. The empty building amplified her footbeats as she entered. In a moment she was on the threshold again, beckoning.
“You’ll find proof enough in here!” she said bitterly, as Gale crossed the sill. “Look for yourself, and be quick about it. If Slayton finds us here—”
She was pointing to a five-gallon milk can that stood near the door. It was the only thing in the room that seemed the least unusual. The rest of the room was bare. Desks and benches were stacked against the walls. A pot-bellied wood stove loomed in one corner.
Gale paced forward, frowning. It was dark here. The boarded windows admitted no light, and Fada had cautiously closed the door. The little room seemed more like some dark, heathen temple than like a schoolhouse. The wailing importunities of a black-robed temple priest would have been more appropriate here than would the shrill voices of school children.
He bent over the milk can and wondered what evil thing it contained.
Fada, moving up behind him, whispered fearfully: “Listen! You can hear them crawling in there! Ugh!”
He could hear something crawling inside the can. When he tapped the metal with his foot, the hollow reverberation was accompanied by a sudden slithering sound, as if hundreds of imprisoned insects had been disturbed from sleep and were frantically seeking to escape.
Was the can full of spiders? Red spiders?
Gale gripped the top of the milk can and turned it. Uneasiness had conquered his curiosity, and he acutely wanted to get the job over and get out of this gloomy place. The darkness was stifling him. The air had a musty, unpleasant odor that made breathing difficult.
Suddenly, with a hoarse cry, he put both hands to his throat and could not breathe at all.
The thing had happened with uncanny quickness. His attention had been focused on the task of opening the can. Fada, slipping a wire noose from under her dress, had attacked without warning!
The noose bit deep into Andy Gale’s neck as he staggered back. It strangled him. He slid to his knees, gasping and choking, and fought frantically to tear the thing loose.
But Fada’s hands were at the back of his neck, twisting the wire tighter. Despite her deformity, she was agile as a cat, and those bony wrists possessed amazing strength. He could not reach her with his hands. She kept behind him, forced him backward.
When he ceased struggling at last, she stood over him and uttered a low, gurgling laugh of triumph.
“You were a fool,” she said, “to trust me. You should have known better, darling.”
Gale did not lose consciousness, but hovered on the brink of oblivion for at least five minutes, his face purple, his body laden with sickness. There was nothing gentle about her treatment of him. Loosening the noose only enough to let him breathe, she gripped his arms and dragged him across the floor, propped him in a sitting position against the wood stove.
There, with rope enough to hold a dozen men, she bound him. And the last coil of rope went around his mouth, holding in place a wad of unclean cloth that gagged him.
“You won’t escape, darling,” she told him. “In the first place, I lied to you about John Slayton. This is my little hideout, not his. It was I who brought the milk can here.”
He stared, trying to analyze the odd look in her eyes as she gloated over him. It was not a look of hate, but rather one of anticipation. He wondered if she were insane.
“You won’t escape,” she said again. “I won’t be gone that long.” Then, turning, she limped to the door and was gone.
Gale worked feverishly for half an hour to free himself. At the end of that half hour, his wrists and ankles were bleeding and his lame body was drenched with sweat. But, by rubbing a double section of rope against the stove’s iron door, he had worn the strands almost to the breaking point. He had one foot free when he heard the tell-tale limp of Fada’s returning footsteps.
A groan welled into his throat and he ceased struggling, stared dully at the door. He heard voices then and realized that Fada was not alone. The door opened. Arachne Reid stepped over the threshold. Fada was behind her.
At that moment the sweat on Gale’s body turned ice cold, and he tried mightily to shout a warning. Arachne stared at him and uttered a muffled cry of horror. The warning yell went no further than the gag in Gale’s mouth, and died there. To Arachne it must have sounded like a moan of pain.
She rushed forward. “You were right!” she sobbed to Fada. “Oh, why did I doubt you? Help me!”
On her knees, she clawed at Gale’s bonds. And he, powerless to intervene, saw the whole ghastly routine as Fada leaped to the attack.
The wire noose encircled Arachne’s slender throat. It bit into soft, tender flesh and yanked her over backward. Arachne screamed, but the noose smothered the scream and drew blood. And then, while Gale raged like a madman at his bonds and Arachne writhed in agony on the floor, Fada knelt beside the stricken girl and calmly twisted the noose until the job was finished.
Arachne lay unconscious. Rising, Fada limped to the far wall and seized a heavy wooden bench. Piled-up chairs fell with a crash as the bench shuddered out from under them, but with the same unholy fixation of purpose Fada dragged the bench across the room, upended it, and bound Arachne to it.
Deliberately she tore the front of Arachne’s dress, exposing the soft, creamy flesh of molded breasts. Then, limping over to Gale, she removed his gag, inspected his bonds and reinforced the frayed sections. And then, rolling the five-gallon milk can from the corner, she set it upright near the stove and said softly: “Now, darling, we begin!”
Gale’s eyes bulged in their sockets as the girl came closer. Her hands were outstretched, and he shrank from the touch of them. In her eyes glowed an unholy menace, a flame of dark, evil desire.
She flung herself upon him, forced her twisted body against his. Her lips fastened on his mouth; her hands pawed at him.
“You are mine!” she whispered. “Mine! You’re going to marry me!”
“You’re mad!” Gale gasped.
“Mad? What if I am? You’re going to marry me and love me! If you refuse—” She backed away, leering at him. “If you refuse,” she said, “Arachne dies horribly, and you die with her.”
Mad or not, the crippled girl evidently knew exactly what she meant to do. There was no hesitation, no indecision. Bending over the milk can, she tugged the top loose and held it just above the opening; held it there until a hideous, hairy thing crawled over the lip of the aperture and escaped. Before others could follow, she thrust the top back again.
The hairy, eight-legged horror dropped to the floor and became motionless. A dew of cold sweat formed on Gale’s face as he watched it. He had been wrong! The crawling things imprisoned in the can were not red spiders; they were another variety of a far more terrible breed.
Tarantulas!
“Kill it!” he gasped. “Step on it, you fool! Those things are deadly poisonous!”
Retreating to a safe distance, Fada gazed at the tarantula and began chuckling. “Of course they’re poisonous,” she said, nodding. “And this is only one of them. There are half a hundred more in the can. Now—will you promise to make me your wife?”
The tarantula had apparently oriented itself
to its new surroundings. It turned, crept sluggishly toward Gale’s bound legs. A swelling mass of terror threatened to explode in the man’s heaving chest, and he strove frantically to twist himself out of the way.
The crippled girl limped forward. Her foot came down on the huge spider, crushing it. The smile still lingered on her lips as she halted beside Arachne Reid and gently caressed the unconscious girl’s bare shoulder.
“You saw what the little red spiders did to Hope Wiggin,” she murmured. “Think of what these things would do to this poor girl. It would be horrible, wouldn’t it?” And she turned, calmly awaiting Gale’s answer.
“You can’t do it!” he groaned. “You can’t!”
“Oh, but I can. And I will unless you promise to marry me.”
She was enjoying herself. Every word she spoke was tainted with sadistic triumph, and she tasted each syllable before uttering it. She was mad; but she knew what she wanted, and knew she could not fail. Patiently she awaited Gale’s decision.
His heart filled with revulsion, he stared at her, stared past her at the limp, lovely figure of Arachne. God, how different were the two! And he loved Arachne, had loved, worshipped her for years. He had come to Flood River Valley to make her his wife, after an eternity of waiting.
And now …
“Don’t forget,” Fada whispered, “that you will die, too. If you refuse me, I shall release the spiders, all of them, and go away from here, locking the door after me. The tarantulas will destroy both of you.”
Gale shuddered. Already he could feel the hideous things crawling over him; could see them climbing Arachne’s legs to reach the alabaster flesh of her uncovered breasts. His gaze strayed to the milk can, and a cold, constricting wave of terror crept through him, thinning his blood, forcing an icy dew through his pores.
“Well?” Fada demanded.
“You can’t do it!”
“Can’t I?” Again she pulled the milk can top, this time gripping the handle of the container and tipping it so that the great spiders could escape more easily. “Can’t I?” she murmured. “You’ll see!”
“No, no! Wait!”
“Wait? What for?”
“Give me time!” he groaned.
She replaced the lid and shrugged her shoulders. Evidently she was in no hurry. She could wait. She was sure of herself.
His eyes glazed with torment, Gale stared again at Arachne. Silently he prayed for courage enough to do what had to be done. Arachne did not love him; she loved John Slayton. Of that he was positive.
By sacrificing himself—by dooming himself to a hell-union with a woman who was both mad and deformed—he could give Arachne to the man she loved. Otherwise, both he and she would die horribly.
“Well?” Fada said again.
“I—I’ll marry you,” he groaned.
“You swear it?”
“Yes, I swear it.”
“Good!” she whispered.
Suddenly she was like a child delighted with a new toy. Limping forward, she draped her arms about his neck and embraced him, kissed his mouth, his eyes, his bloodless cheeks. “You’ll learn to love me,” she said, gleefully. “We’ll be so happy together!”
The transformation was amazing. No longer a leering, maddened woman, she clung to him in a frenzy of childish delight and then made haste to unbind him. Apparently it had not occurred to her that he might refuse to keep his promise. Her warped mind had not wandered that far from its original fixation.
He shook himself loose and strode forward to free Arachne. Fada went with him, hugging him. Even when he placed Arachne’s limp body on the floor and worked over it, Fada continued her idiotic chuckling and kept annoying him with kisses.
“Get some water,” he ordered. “Help me.”
She brought water, and he bathed Arachne’s face. Before long, the eyes in that white face were open, staring up at him.
“What—what happened, Andy?” Arachne asked weakly.
“Nothing,” he said dully. “Nothing—much. Fada lost her head and attacked you.”
Arachne gazed, bewildered, at the milk can. “What’s that for?”
“That,” he muttered, “is full of Fada’s pets. Spiders.” Suddenly he turned, gripped the arms of the crippled girl and glared at her. “Fada! Where did those spiders come from?”
“Why, from my father’s laboratory.”
“You’re lying! There were no spiders in that laboratory! I looked!”
She snuggled close to him. “You didn’t look in the right room,” she said simply. “There are two rooms, you know. If you’d looked in the little one, you’d have seen ever so many boxes and containers, all filled with different kinds of spiders. My father has some black widow spiders, and tarantulas, and some wolf spiders—oh, all kinds. He breeds them.”
Gale stood still, staring at her. The significance of her words beat like a sledge-hammer into his brain. For a moment his tongue refused to form words.
“How long have you known this?” he suddenly flung out.
“Oh, a long time,” she admitted. “He never told me about the room, but I found it for myself and went there often.”
“Then your father is responsible for the plague of red spiders! He turned them loose to destroy the farms!”
It was hellishly clear, all of it. Nicklus Brukner had released a plague of death and destruction upon Flood River Valley in order to bankrupt the farmers. He held mortgages on most of the valley farms. He had lied in declaring that he didn’t want the land. He did want it; and this was his way of getting it!
Not content with the havoc already wrought by his crawling red armies, he was now experimenting with all the poisonous great spiders themselves, breeding them, assembling new hordes!
Andy Gale seized the woman he had sworn to marry, and dragged her close to him.
“Listen to me, Fada,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to take me to that room. Do you understand? I want to see what it looks like.”
“You want to see the spiders?”
“Yes!”
“And does she want to come, too?” Fada frowned, indicating Arachne.
“Yes,” Arachne said almost inaudibly.
“Well—all right. Come on. Only don’t forget you are to be my husband, not hers!”
IV: POISON BREW
THE FARMHOUSE OF Nicklus Brukner loomed gray and gaunt at the foot of the hill, and seemed deserted as Andy Gale pushed open the gate. Red spiders, crawling like ants over the front steps and the veranda, had apparently taken possession.
“Nicklus,” Arachne said fearfully, “must be in his laboratory.”
The crippled girl pulled Gale back as he put a foot on the steps. Clinging to his arm, she steered him around the house to the rear door. He opened the door and entered, stared across the kitchen and saw that the door at the head of the cellar stairs was open. Arachne and Fada followed him as he paced forward. In the strange silence that seemed to have taken possession here, it was impossible to muffle the thud of his feet as he advanced.
He wondered dully what he would do after discovering Brukner’s secret laboratory. Go to the state troopers? As for his promise to marry Brukner’s mad daughter, he had not dared think about it. It was too horrible.
“Show me,” he muttered, pausing at the foot of the stairs, “where the spiders are!”
Fada led the way. Oblivious to any possible danger, she hurried to the far end of the cellar and entered the room where Arachne, not long ago, had stolen a pint of Brukner’s poison. And with a sudden low cry she stepped back, colliding with Gale as he entered behind her.
On the floor in front of the work-bench lay a sprawled, contorted shape—Nicklus Brukner!
Gale strode forward, stared down at the man. There was nothing much left to stare at. An earthenware crock lay shattered on the floor, and the oily liquid had eaten away Brukner’s hair and clothes and most of his flesh. The liquid, gurgling and bubbling even now with an uncanny life of its own, was still feeding on the man’s rema
ins.
“Dead,” Gale mumbled, shuddering. “Yes—dead. He must have upset the crock while working here and—”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Arachne said dully, horror in her staring eyes.
“What?”
“The liquid in that crock wouldn’t have killed him. It wasn’t even a strong poison—certainly not strong enough to—to eat into him like that.” Her face was chalk-white as she whispered the words. Twin smears of rouge stood out like bloodstains on her waxy-white cheeks.
“You see,” she said, “I—know. I took some of that liquid to John Slayton, and he tested it.”
Gale glanced at Fada. Apparently the crippled girl had not realized that the dead man was her father. Rather stupidly she was staring at the corpse, and the expression on her face was bewilderment, not horror.
“Where are the spiders?” Gale demanded. “We might as well see this thing through to the finish!”
Fada limped to the opposite end of the room and pushed aside a crudely built cabinet. A door loomed behind it.
“It may be locked,” she said. “If it is, we can’t get in. I have no key.”
The door creaked open when she turned the knob.
It was dark in there—dark as the interior of a vault. Leading the way, Gale fumbled for matches and struck one against the wall. The sputtering flare showed him a room only half the size of the chamber where Brukner lay dead.
Boxes and wooden barrels, some of them carelessly covered with ill-fitting boards, occupied two-thirds of the floor space. A pool of blood gleamed red and wet at Gale’s feet.
He turned slowly, his gaze stiffly following the rivulet of blood which had formed the pool. The match expired in his fingers as he lurched forward. Striking another, he went to his knees beside the inert figure of John Slayton. Arachne saw, and uttered a shrill scream of horror.
“John! Oh, God! Darling!”
Gale closed his eyes and moved aside. He had no desire to do any staring as Arachne gathered that bloody shape in her arms. Her pitiful sobs tore through Andy Gale, hurting him almost as much as the assailant’s knife must have hurt Slayton. Even Fada seemed to realize the intensity of Arachne’s anguish, and stayed at a distance.
The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories Page 28