WEB – A short story
It's dark. So dark. I have found myself here, without recollection of how I arrived, or
why. I fumble, my eyes open wide with fear -although the
impenetrable darkness means I may as well keep them closed – grasping
along the walls and taking in sharp, jagged breaths as I try to quell
my rising panic. Where am I? How did I get here?
My hands slowly graze along the length of the walls, and I know I am in a room, some sort
of room, but I can't find a ridge, a gap, a slither of space to
suggest an opening, a window or a door. The idea that I am trapped
suddenly springs into my mind with sudden ferocity, and the thought
sharpens my senses, all too suddenly. "Help me! Somebody! Is
anybody there?"
"Shhh. Stop it."
The voice seems to come from behind me. I spin around, but my eyes meet darkness and
shadows. I sense no movement. "Who is that?" I ask, my voice
shaky, unsteady.
"Gary," comes the whispered, delicate reply.
"Gary… where are you? What's happening? Where am I?"
"Shut up," he snarls, his voice like the hiss of a snake. "You'll wake… them."
The words alone send an uncomfortable trail of goosebumps along the nape of my neck and
back, but the way he said them communicates something far
darker.
"What do you mean? Who? I need help – I need to get out of here!"
Gary laughs softly, and I hear slight movement from the far corner of the room. "You
won't. Not now. You're too late. Once they get you here… that's
it."
I shudder, involuntarily, and run my hands along my arms. I remember I am
wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. The space around me seems
impossibly cold, and I know that if the room wasn't so dark, I would
see the fog of my breathe cloud the air before me. It is that
cold. "Stop talking shit," I bark, impatient and confused."Tell me what's going on!"
"Shut the fuck up," Gary rasps. "They are everywhere, you just can't
see them at night, because it's so dark here… but they can see you.
They're waiting for you, like they waited for me."
I inhale deeply, and the cold air stings my lungs. I exhale, try to
clear my thoughts. I begin slowly pacing the room again, my hands
slapping along the cold, damp concrete. The walls seem bare, there is
definitely no door. My heart thuds noisily, the only sound I can hear
for a few moments, then I pause, stare into the far corner again.
"You're fucking crazy. What are you, a hobo or something? A
trespasser?"
Gary laughs again, and I suddenly wish I could hit that mother in the jaw.
"What's so funny?"
"If only it were all that simple," he says. "Look, instead of pacing
around, looking for a fucking door you won't find – trust me, I
tried – just sit down. Stop moving. Stop pacing. They'll be here
soon, then you'll know."
I wonder if I'm going to be sick, trapped here in the darkened hole. I
retch, leaning forward, my hands pressed onto my thighs, and produce
a thin, stream of bile. I spit it onto the floor and wipe my mouth
with the back of my hand. "Have we been kidnapped – is that it?
Are we going to be hurt?"
For a moment, there is quiet. Nothing but the light rasping of my own
breath, and the hammering of my own heart."It's spiders," Gary
says at last. He falls silent, as if that explains everything, and
leaves me wide open with questions, confusion, fear.
"Huh? The fuck you on about, Gary?"
"Spiders," he repeats. "They took you, that's why you're here. That's why I'm
here. It's why you won't be leaving."
"You're crazy. I'm not listening to this shit."
"Doesn't matter if you believe me, you don't need to take my word for it.
You'll see it for yourself, soon."
"How did I end up here?"
"Nobody ever knows. Other's asked the same question – I know I did.
Spiders, they fit through cracks, don't they? They fit in everywhere,
in the smallest spaces. How they get us here, I don't know. Nobody
gets to know."
"You're telling me," I say, my back leaning against the wall, staring into
blank, nothingness, "that spiders brought us here."
"Yes."
I laugh. I can't help it, it's the only natural response, and I enjoy
the feel of it, of the light relief it brings me, here in this shadow
world.
"When you're here long enough," Gary says, his voice deep, serious,
solemn, "you will get tired, you will sleep, and that's when it
happens."
"What?"
"The web."
I feel more bile rising, the acid sour and sore in my throat. I fight
it, swallow it hard, try to remain calm as I feel more panic closing
in. I hate spiders.
"The web," Gary repeats. "When you're so tired, that you can barely
sit up straight, that's when they'll come for you, that's when
they'll begin spinning. Spinning their web until they have you
trapped… Then, they feed. I've seen it."
I choke back a sob and shake my head, as if trying to deny the words my
mind so feverishly digests. "Gary, how do we get out? I want to get
out of here…Please, there must be a way. Please help me." I
realise how limp and weak I sound, but I no longer care. My entire
body is now trembling from fear, from cold.
"There is no way. There is nothing, I tried. I don't know, I just don't
know. If you get down on your hands and knees, feel your way around.
Somewhere on the floor – if it still works – there is a torch. A
small, plastic torch. Somebody before me had it, it worked the last
time I tried using it. Feel around, see if you can see it."
Without saying a thing, I slowly descend until me knees meet the hard, wooden
floor. I start moving my hands forward, in wide, sweeping arcs, and
move slowly, inching my way across the floor. Every now and then, I
feel something small and quick scamper across my hand and I flinch,
pulling back. After a few moments, my hand meets something cold,
hard, long. I pick it up and move my hands around its smooth surface,
and realise that it's the torch, I have found it.
My fingers roam around the edge until I feel the small stub of the
button, and I hesitate, frightened to illuminate the darkened world
in which I have found myself. I take a deep breath, release slowly,
and lift the torch into the air, pressing it on at the same time.
At first, I see nothing; a bare and empty space, no obvious entrance or
exit. Then, I hear a soft moan, and I lift the torch into the far
corner, where I see it. Where I see him.
Gary, but I can only see his face. His entire body has been wrapped in
layer upon layer of web. He is suspended by the thread-like
substance, in the corner of the ceiling, and I can see the web tremor
as he breaths, trying to weave himself free of the silky prison. He
shakes, his shoulders rippling beneath the white substance he is
bounded by, and then falls still again. His eyes are half-closed, his
mouth hanging open, agape. "They keep you here until you are so
tired," he says faintly, looking down at me, "until you can't
fight no more… then they come for you."
I look away, and vomit, my dinner from earlier that night spilling and
slopping onto the floor. The vile smell visits the air and taints the
entire room about me.
"No," I say, reaching out and steadying myself against the wall. "There
has to be a way. Surely we are bigger, stronger, we're…" My voice
trails off, cold and empty.
Gary coughs. "There are millions of them, millions. I've seen them come.
I've seen them feed."
Above the trembling breath that escapes me, above the thundering of my
hammering heart, I suddenly hear a tap, tap, tap penetrate the quiet
of the room.
Tap, tap, tap.
Gary's eyes widen, his face contorted into a mask of terror. "That's
them!" he shrieks, jerking and pulling. The web he is encased by
doesn't give – it remains strong against his thrusts. "They're
coming for me."
Without wanting to know, without wanting to see, I flip off the torch and
cower far into the corner of the room, pressing down low, my face
nudged into my knees, which I now draw up to my chest. I don't want
to hear it, don't want to see it.
Tap, tap, tap, tap….
I feel the vibration of a million black feet scatter across the floor,
and the air in the room suddenly feels charged, alive.
I hear the slap, the tearing, the groaning. The plop of Gary's body
hitting the floor beside me. I sing to myself, cupping my hands over my ears, trying desperately not
to hear anymore.
It is only when, hours later, I pull my face free and wipe my eyes
clear, that I worry again. I am feeling so, so tired.
I can't let sleep come. Can't become weak.
I stand and pace the room, and almost trip as my foot comes into
contact with the bones of Gary's remains.
I try to ignore the yawn I am stifling and know that the time will come
when sleep will invade my mind, and then, the spiders with it.
The web is waiting.
Written by Fiona Dodwell
