A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “We have called the FBI,” said Captain Hall, chief of the Monroe police department. He adjusted his belt around his ample gut for the hundredth time since he’d stuck me in here. “And there’s no such agent as Caskie assigned anywhere in New York.”

  “It’s a deep cover thing! That woman posing as a Jensen is Regina Ciullo, a federal witness against Bruno Papillardi!”

  “Who told you that?” Captain Hall said.

  “Agent Caskie.”

  “The agent who doesn’t exist. How convenient. When did you meet him?”

  I described my encounters with Caskie, from the cemetery to my apartment.

  “So you were never in his office—if he ever had one. Did anyone see you with him?”

  I thought about that. The funeral had been over and everyone was gone when I’d met him in the cemetery. We’d stood side by side for less than a minute in the foyer of the FBI building, and then we’d been together in the alley and my apartment. A cold lump was growing in my gut.

  “No. No one that I recall. But what about the picture? It’s got to have Caskie’s fingerprints on it!”

  “We’ve searched your car three times now, Mr. Santos. No picture. Maybe you should plead insane. Maybe this FBI agent is all in your mind.”

  “I’m not crazy!”

  Captain Hall’s face got hard as he leaned toward me.

  “Well then, maybe you should be. I know you’ve had a terrible thing happen to your family, but I’ve known Maria Jensen since she was a girl, back when she was still Maria Wainwright. That was poor Maria you sliced up. And what’s more, we think we’ve found the killer—the real killer—out in Islip a few hours ago.”

  He had to be wrong! Please God, he had to be! If I did that to the woman—

  “No! You got to listen to me!”

  A disgusted growl rumbled from Captain Hall’s throat.

  “Enough of this bullshit. Get him out of here.”

  “No, wait! Please!”

  “Out!”

  Two uniformed cops yanked me out of the chair and dragged me into the hall. As they led me upstairs to a holding cell, I spotted Caskie walking in with two other cops.

  “Thank God!” I shouted. “Where have you been?”

  His face was drawn and haggard. He almost looked as if he had been crying. And he looked different. He looked trimmer and he held himself straighten The rumpled suit was gone, replaced by white duck slacks, a white linen shirt, open at the collar, and a blue blazer with an emblem on the pocket. He looked like a wealthy yachtsman. He stared at me without the slightest hint of recognition.

  One of the cops with him whispered in his ear and suddenly Caskie was bounding toward me, face white with rage, arms outstretched, fingers curved like an eagles talons, ready to tear me to pieces. The cops managed to haul him back before he reached me.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I said to anyone who’d listen as my two cops hushed me up the stairs.

  My attorney answered from behind me.

  “That’s Harold Jensen, the husband of the woman you cut up.”

  I felt my knees buckle.

  “Her husband?”

  “Yeah. I heard around the club that she started divorce proceedings against him, but I guess that’s moot now. Her death leaves him sole heir to the entire Wainwright fortune.”

  With my insides tying themselves in a thousand tight little knots, I glanced back at the man I’d known as Caskie. He was being ushered through the door that led to the morgue. But on the threshold he turned and stole a look at me. As our eyes met, he winked and gave me a secret little thumbs-up.

  ITSY BITSY SPIDER

  The moon was high before Toby spotted the first one. A hairy hunter—the hunters only came out at night. He hadn’t seen this one before. Big, but not thick and bulky like a tarantula. Its sleek body was the size of a German shepherd; its eight long, powerful legs spread half a dozen feet on either side, carrying its head and abdomen low to the ground. Moonlight gleamed off its short, bristly fur as it darted across the backyard, seeming to flow rather than run. Hunting, hunting, always hungry, always hunting.

  A cool breeze began to blow through the two-inch opening of Toby’s screened window. He shivered and narrowed it to less than an inch, little more than a crack. It wasn’t the air making him shiver. It was the spider. You’d think that after a year of watching them every night, he’d be used to them. No way.

  God, he hated spiders. Had hated them for the entire ten years of his life. Even when they’d been tiny and he could squash them under foot, they made his skin crawl. Now, when they were big as dogs—when there were no dogs because the spiders had eaten them all, along with the cats and squirrels and woodchucks and just about anything else edible, including people—the sight of them made Toby almost physically ill with revulsion.

  And yet still he came to the window and watched. A habit . . . like tuning in a bad sitcom . . . it had become a part of his nightly routine.

  He hadn’t seen this one before. Usually the same spiders traveled the same routes every night at about the same time. This one could be lost or maybe it was moving in on the other spiders’ territory. It darted to the far side of the yard and stopped at the swing set, touching the dented slide with a foreleg. Then it turned and came toward the house, passing out of Toby’s line of sight. Quickly he reached out and pushed down on the window sash until it clicked shut. It couldn’t get in, he knew, but not being able to see it made him nervous.

  He clicked on his flashlight and flipped through his spider book until he found one that looked like the newcomer. He’d spotted all kinds of giant spiders in the last year—black widows, brown recluses, trap door spiders, jumping spiders, crab spiders. Here it was: Lycosidae—a wolf spider, the most ferocious of the hunting spiders.

  Toby glanced up and stifled a scream. There, not two feet away, hovering on the far side of the glass, was the wolf spider. Its hairy face stared at him with eight eyes that gleamed like black diamonds. Toby wanted to run shrieking from the room but couldn’t move—didn’t dare move. It probably didn’t see him, didn’t know he was there. The sound of the window closing must have drawn it over. Sudden motion might make it bang against the glass, maybe break it, let it in. So Toby sat frozen and stared back at its cold black eyes, watched it score the glass with the claws of its poisonous falces. He had never been this close to one before. He could make out every repulsive feature; every fang, every eye, every hair was magnified in the moonlight.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the wolf spider moved off. Toby could breathe again. His heart was still pounding as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  Good thing they don’t know glass is breakable, he thought, or we’d all be dead.

  They never tried to break through anything. They preferred to look for a passage—an open window, an open door—

  Door! Toby stiffened as a sudden chill swept over him. The back door to the garage—had he closed it all the way? He’d run some garbage out to the ditch in the back this afternoon, then had rushed back in—he was terrified of being outside. But had he pulled the door all the way closed? It stuck sometimes and didn’t latch. A spider might lean against it and push it open. It still couldn’t get into the house, but the first person to open the door from the laundry room into the garage . . .

  He shuddered. That’s what had happened to the Hansens down the street. A spider had got in, wrapped them all up in a web, then laid a huge egg mass. The baby spiders hatched and went to work. When they finally found the remains of the Hansens, they looked like mummies and their corpses weighed only a few pounds each . . . every drop of juice had been sucked out of them.

  The garage door . . . maybe he’d better check again.

  Don’t be silly, he told himself. Of course I latched it. I’ve been doing the same thing for almost a year now.

  Toby left the window and brushed his teeth. He tiptoed past his mother’s bedroom and paused. He heard her steady slow breathing and knew s
he was fast asleep. She was an early riser . . . didn’t have much to stay up late for. Toby knew she missed Dad, even more than he did. Dad had volunteered for a spider kill team—“doing my civic duty,” he’d said—and never came back from one of the search-and-destroy missions. That had been seven months ago. No one in that kill team had ever been found.

  Feeling very alone in the world, Toby padded down the hall to his own room where even thoughts of monster spiders couldn’t keep him from sleep. He had a fleeting thought of the garage door—yes, he was sure he’d latched it—and then his head hit the pillow and instantly he was asleep.

  Toby opened his eyes. Morning. Sunlight poured through the windows. A year or so ago it would be a day to go out and play. Or go to school. He never thought he’d miss school, but he did. Mostly he missed other kids. The spiders had made him a prisoner of his house, even in the daytime.

  He dressed and went downstairs. He found his mother sitting in the kitchen, having a cup of instant coffee. She looked up when she saw him come in.

  “Morning, Tobe,” she said and reached out and ruffled his hair.

  Mom looked old and tired, even though she was only thirty-two. She was wearing her robe. She wore it a lot. Some days she never got out of it. What for? She wasn’t going out, no one was coming to visit, and she’d given up on Dad coming home.

  “Hey, Mom. You should have seen it last night—the spiders, I mean. One crawled right up to the window. It was real scary; like it was looking right at me.”

  Fear flashed in her eyes. “It came up to the window? That worries me. Maybe you shouldn’t sit by that window. It might be dangerous.”

  “C’mon Mom. I keep the window shut. It’s not like I have anything else to do. Besides, it can’t break through the glass, right?”

  “Probably not. But just play it safe, and move away if one looks like it’s coming near you, okay? I don’t know how you can stand to even look at those things.” She grimaced and shivered.

  Toby shrugged and poured himself some cereal. They were running low on powdered milk, so he ate it dry. Dad had stocked the whole basement with canned and freeze-dried food before he left, but those wouldn’t last forever.

  When he finished he turned on the TV, hoping there’d be some news about a breakthrough against the spiders. The cable had gone out three months ago; news shows and I Love Lucy reruns were about the only things running on the one channel they could pull in with the antenna.

  At least they still had electricity. The telephone worked when it felt like it, but luckily their power lines were underground. People whose power came in on utility poles weren’t so fortunate. The spiders strung their webs from them and eventually shorted them all out.

  No good news on the tube, just a rehash about the coming of the spiders. Toby had heard it all before but he listened again.

  The spiders . . . no one knew where they came from, or how they got so big. Toby had first heard of them on the evening news about a year and a half ago. Reports from the Midwest, the farmlands, of cattle being killed and mutilated and eaten. Then whole families disappearing, their isolated houses found empty of life and full of silky webs. Wasn’t long before the first giant spiders were spotted. Just horrid curiosities at first, science-fictiony beasties. Local governments made efforts to capture and control them, and hunting parties went out with shotguns and high-powered rifles to “bag a big one.” But these weren’t harmless deer or squirrels or pheasant. These things could fight back. Lots of mighty hunters never returned. Toby wondered if the spiders kept hunters’ heads in their webs as trophies.

  The army and the National Guard got involved and for a while it looked like they were winning, but the spiders were multiplying too fast. They laid a couple thousand eggs at once; each hatchling was the size of a gerbil, hungry as hell, and growing all the time. Soon they were everywhere—over-running the towns, infesting the cities. And now they ruled the night. The hunting spiders were so fast and so deadly, no one left home after dark anymore.

  But people could still get around during the day—as long as they stayed away from the webs. The webbers were fat and shiny and slower; they stretched their silky nets across streets and alleys, between trees and bushes—and waited. They could be controlled . . . sort of. Spider kill teams could fry them with flamethrowers and destroy their webs, but it was a losing battle: Next day there’d be a new web and a new fat, shiny spider waiting to pounce.

  And sometimes the spiders got the kill teams . . . like Dad’s.

  Toby didn’t like to think about what probably happened to Dad, so he tuned the TV to its only useful purpose: PlayStation. NHL Hockey and Metal Gear Solid 7 were his favorites. They helped keep him from thinking too much. He didn’t mind spending the whole day with them.

  Not that he ever got to do that. Mom eventually stepped in and made him read or do something “more productive” with his time. Toby couldn’t think of anything more productive than figuring out all of the MGS 7’s secrets, or practicing breaking the glass on NHL Hockey, but Mom just didn’t get it.

  But today he knew he’d get in some serious MGS. Mom was doing laundry and she’d just keep making trips up and down to the basement and wouldn’t notice how long he had been playing.

  As he was readying to pounce on an enemy guard he heard a cry and a loud crashing sound. He dropped the controller and ran into the kitchen. The basement door was open. He looked down and saw his mother crumpled at the bottom of the steps.

  “Mom!” he cried, running down the steps. “Mom, what happened? Are you okay?”

  She nodded weakly and attempted to sit up, but groaned with agony and clutched at her thigh.

  “My leg! Oh, God, it’s my leg.”

  Toby helped her back down. She looked up at him. Her eyes were glazed with pain.

  “I tripped on the loose board in that step.” She pointed to the spot. “I think my leg is broken. See if you can help me get up.”

  Toby fought back tears. “Don’t move, Mom.”

  He ran upstairs and dialed Dr. Murphy, their family doctor, but the phone was out again. He pulled pillows and comforters from the linen closet and surrounded her with them, making her as comfortable as possible.

  “I’m going to get help,” he said, ready for her reaction.

  “Absolutely not. The spiders will get you. I lost your father. I don’t want to lose you too. You’re not going anywhere, and I mean it.” But her voice was weak. She looked like she was going into shock.

  Toby knew he had to act fast. He kissed her cheek.

  “I’m going for Doc Murphy. I’ll be right back.”

  Before his mother could protest, he was on his way up the steps, heading for the garage. The Murphy house was only a few blocks away. He could bike there in five minutes. If Dr. Murphy wasn’t in, Mrs. Murphy would know how to help him.

  He could do it. It was still light out. All he had to do was steer clear of any webs and he’d be all right. The webbers didn’t chase their prey. The really dangerous spiders, the hunters, only came out at night.

  As his hand touched the handle of the door into the garage, he hesitated. The back door . . . he had closed it yesterday . . . hadn’t he? Yes. Yes, he was sure. Almost positive.

  Toby pressed his ear against the wood and flipped the switch that turned on the overhead lights in the garage, hoping to startle anything lying in wait on the other side. He listened for eight long legs rustling about . . . but heard nothing . . . quiet in there.

  Still, he was afraid to open the door.

  Then he heard his mother’s moan from the basement and knew he was wasting time. Had to move. Now or never.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned the handle and yanked the door open, ready to slam it closed again in an instant. Nothing. All quiet. Empty. Just the tools on the wall, the wheelbarrow in the corner, his bike by the back door, and the Jeep. No place for a spider to hide . . . except under the Jeep. Toby had a terrible feeling about the shadows under the Jeep . . . something could be t
here . . .

  Quickly he dropped to one knee and looked under it—nothing. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  He closed the door behind him and headed for his bike. Toby wished he could drive. It’d be nothing to get to Doc Murphy’s if he could take the Jeep. He checked the back door—firmly latched. All that worry for nothing. He checked the backyard through the window in the door. Nothing moving. No fresh webs.

  His heart began pounding against the inner surface of his ribs as he pulled the door open and stuck his head out. All clear. Still, anything could be lurking around the corner.

  I’m going for Doc Murphy. I’ll be right back.

  Sounded so simple down in the basement. Now . . .

  Gritting his teeth, he grabbed his bike, pulled it through the door, and hopped on. He made a wide swing across the grass to give him a view of the side of the garage. No web, nothing lurking. Relieved, he pedaled onto the narrow concrete path and zipped out to the front of the house. The driveway was asphalt, the front yard was open and the only web in sight was between the two cherry trees to his left in front of the Sullivans’ house next door. Something big and black crouched among the leaves.

  Luckily he wasn’t going that way. He picked up speed and was just into his turn when the ground to his right at the end of the driveway moved. A circle of grass and dirt as big around as a manhole cover angled up and a giant trapdoor spider leaped out at him. Toby cried out and made a quick cut to his left. The spider’s poisonous falces reached for him. He felt the breeze on his face as they just missed. One of them caught his rear wheel and he almost went over, almost lost control, but managed to hang on to the handlebars and keep going, leaving it behind.