…Welcome back to radio station WQLX Ohio, and now we have a special treat for all those at tonight’s concert…
‘Oh my God!’ said Giselle, taking one hand off the Chevrolet’s steering wheel and pumping her fist..
‘Turn it up, Sam,’ said Freda from the back seat.
Samantha, in the passenger seat, twisted the volume knob to full.
‘I come home in the morning light,
My Mother says when you gonna live your life right
Oh, Mother dear, we’re not the fortunate ones
But Girls just want to have fun…’
The three girls sang along at the tops of their already hoarse voices. Giselle nudged the accelerator a little more as they sped down the interstate.
…that was the great Cyndi Lauper with the song taking America by storm. Speaking of storms, please be aware that the National Weather Service has warned of high winds and the possibility of a heavy snowfall. So for those traveling home from the concert, please keep safe…’
‘That concert was the best ever, I never wanted it to end,’ said Giselle, in a raspy voice.
‘Well girls, it doesn’t have to end. We’ve got this,’ said Freda, rummaging through her handbag and holding up a cassette tape of Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual.’
‘Yes! What else have you got in that magic bag of yours?’ said Sam.
’My Marlboros and a lighter – and a can of VO5.’
‘Of course,’ said Sam. ‘What else?’
‘A pocket-knife…’
‘Ha. You need it in case those cowboys at your uncle’s ranch get a bit ornery, don’t you Freda?’ said Giselle.
‘That’s for sure. But the best thing is what’s in my overnight bag in the trunk. I pinched two bottles of bourbon from my parents’ cellar,’ said Freda.
‘Hot damn, we’re gonna have a party in our motel room,’ said Samantha.
‘If we can find it,’ Giselle added.
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Samantha.
‘It’s just that I know we have to take a turnoff about 20 miles out of Cleveland, but I’m not sure which one.’
‘I’ll get the map,’ said Freda, unfolding the Texaco road map that was in the pocket of the seat. Turning on the Chevrolet’s interior light, she held it over the front seat so Samantha could see it as well.
Samantha placed a finger on the map. ‘I think we’re here. Travelling west…or is it north?’
Freda screwed up her eyes before pointing to a different spot on the map. ‘Okay ladies I think I have it. There should be a turn off about two miles to the left.’
‘Left, you sure?’ asked Giselle.
‘Yeah, I’m sure…sort of,’ replied Freda.
They took the next turn left on to a narrow country road. The car bumped and bounced on the rough road past woods and farmlands. Every now and then they could see the lights of a farmhouse back from the road. They didn’t pass any other cars at all. Trees on either side of them were swaying violently. A noisy gust of wind buffeted the car.
‘They weren’t wrong with those weather warnings. And now it’s starting to snow as well,’ said Giselle, turning on the windshield wipers. Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska played on the radio:
‘From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska
With a sawed-off .410 on my lap
Through the badlands of Wyoming
I killed everything in my path’
‘Change the station, Sam. That song creeps me out,’ said Freda.
‘Holy shit!’ Giselle shouted. She hit the brakes. The girls screamed as the Chevy slewed across the road. It careened out of control until it came to a stop with a heavy thump. Out of her side window, Freda thought the trees were growing at a strange angle.
‘Sorry girls. A tree came down right across the road. Is everybody alright?’ said Giselle.
‘I’m okay,’ said Freda, scrabbling around the floor of the Chevy, trying to pick up the contents of her open handbag.
There was a groan from the passenger seat.
‘Sammy, are you alright?’ said Giselle, a tone of panic in her voice.
‘I got a little bump on the head. I should be fine.’
‘Okay girls, it seems like we’re in a ditch. I’ll see if I can get us out of here.’ Giselle turned the ignition. It spluttered and barked then cut out. She tried it again. It was no use.
‘So what do we do?’ said Freda.
‘We’ll have to flag down a motorist,’ said Giselle. ‘I’m sure someone will be along soon.’
But nobody came.
‘I’m dying for a cigarette, said Giselle.
‘Me too,’ said Freda. ‘I’ve got my Marlboros. Let’s have a smoke outside. I need to stretch my legs anyway. Sam are you coming?’
’No. I’ll stay here.’
Freda and Giselle stood near the car. The wind was biting. It whistled and whirred through the branches. Snow settled in the girls’ hair. They had a hard job lighting the cigarettes, cupping their hands around the lighter’s flame.
‘What do you think about Sam? said Giselle.
‘She don’t look so good. I’m worried about her. Plus it’s getting damn cold in the car. What if nobody comes? With these weather warnings people might not be traveling on these out of the way roads, especially at this hour.’
By 1AM no one had come down the road and Samantha was drifting in and out of sleep.
‘Listen up girls. Sam needs help. I think we better walk to the nearest farmhouse and see if we get some help for Sam. Who’s with me?’ Giselle said.
‘I am,’ said Freda.
‘Me too,’ mumbled Samantha.
Giselle fetched a blanket from the trunk and wrapped it around Samantha’s shoulders. ‘Bit smelly I’m afraid. It’s been in there for years. Was a favourite of the dog’s.’
Samantha smiled but the effort made her wince in pain. Taking it in turns to support Samantha, the three friends walked down the slippery road in the direction they’d come from.
They stopped at a gate at the top of a driveway. Freda flicked on her lighter. Through swirling snow she read the name on the mailbox.
‘I hope Mr and Mrs Spinner prove to be nice folks,’ she said.
* * *
With the wind blowing the girls’ hair in their faces and making their eyes water they stared in the direction of the farmhouse. It was around half a mile away down a tree-lined drive that was fast getting a layer of snow on it. The house appeared to be a two-story wooden structure with shuttered windows and a big balcony upstairs. No lights were visible from their position at the gate.
‘It looks like a relic from the Civil War,’ Giselle said.
‘I’m not sure I want to go in there,’ Freda said, the wind almost tearing the words from her mouth.
‘Come to think of it, it would be better if you stay here near the road and hail any cars that might come. It will give us more chances of getting help,’ said Giselle.
Freda was only too happy to stay there, although each blast of wind made her shiver a little more. Freda and Giselle wrestled the gate open. The girls gave each other a hug before Giselle and Samantha made their way down the drive, with Samantha leaning on Giselle’s shoulder.
Freda watched the dwindling forms of her friends down the drive. Nearing the front door she lost sight of them behind some trees. She listened for any sound of them but the wind battering against her eardrums made it nearly impossible to hear anything.
Freda looked down the deserted road. She hugged her arms about her but could not get warm. She walked a way down the road and back again. Still nobody came. She looked at her watch. The girls had been gone for an hour. Something wasn’t right. They should have been back by now. There were still no lights on the farmhouse. There was nothing else to do but go down to the house herself.
She took a few hesitant steps down the drive and stopped. She really wanted to go back and huddle inside the car. But her friends were down there in that creepy house. She forced herself onwards.
The trees lining the driveway groaned in the wind. A creature dashed across the driveway and made her jump. A fox perhaps?
‘Ouch!’ She’d kicked a tree root that had grown across the path. Nearing the house she came across an entire tree that had fallen across the driveway. She stood there and looked up at the old house. One of the shutters upstairs was loose and swinging in the wind. Other shutters rattled. Some had fallen off altogether. Ivy had grown up one side of the house. On the front porch a rocking chair swung back and forth as if somebody was sitting on it. More alarmingly, Freda noticed the front door was ajar. She ducked down behind the fallen log. Her legs desperately wanted to take off back up the driveway. But she desperately wanted to see her friends again.
She decided not to enter through the front door. That’s what Giselle and Samantha must have done. For a moment she felt like calling their names but if the girls had got into trouble she didn’t want to give herself away.
Stepping out from behind the log she veered off the driveway forcing her way past two of the trees whose branches were so close they intertwined. She felt a gooey substance on her face and pulled it off. It stuck to her hands and everything she touched.
Freda crept past the ivy-covered wall at the side of the house. As she came to the back of the house she noticed a partly open window next to a lean-to shed. She tried to lift the window and it opened a few inches. Freda put an arm through the gap and flattened her body as best as she could. Still the gap wasn’t wide enough. ‘Just a few inches more,’ she said to herself. She wedged her shoulder into the gap and pushed. With a disconcertingly loud clunk the window moved ever so slightly. It was enough. She was through.
Freda slid down from the window and landed on something lumpy. She prodded at it with her fingers. A cushion? Her hands gripped a wooden armrest. A couch. She was in a small parlour of sorts. It smelled of mould and damp – and something like rotting vegetables. As she took a few tentative paces she walked straight into a spider’s web. ‘Shit!’
She opened a door that led to a corridor. She walked slowly along it whispering ‘Giselle’ and ’Sam,’ but there was only the sound of rattling windows, creaking timbers and the branches of the trees scraping the walls of the house.
There was an open door to the left. Poking her nose inside the room she saw the shadows of moving branches through the window. Then, a larger shadow. This one wasn’t moving because of the wind. It looked like a large animal, perhaps a horse escaped from the stable. But no horse Freda had seen ever moved in such a stilted jerking motion. She felt goosebumps rise on her arms. She crouched down and scurried past the open door.
Reaching a staircase she wondered if she climb it. Yes, she thought, I’ll go upstairs and see what’s out there. The staircase creaked with each step. She hoped the sound of the wind would drown out her footsteps.
She came to an upstairs room with a bed next to a window. There was a foul stench and blobs of gunk on the floor. Feeling her way along the wall, her fingers were covered with more of the sticky spider webs. She sat down on the bed and looked out the window. The ground outside was white with snow and more was falling. Not too far from the house was an old style wooden barn just like the one at Uncle Jeb’s. She used to go there and pet the animals. It was in the hayloft of her Uncle’s barn that she’d lost her virginity to Toby Stanford. Toby was such a good-looking boy.
A movement near the trees caught her eye. Was it that fox? Suddenly a darker, larger shadow flew across the yard. There was a yelp – yes, it was definitely a fox. She couldn’t see what was going on behind the tree but after a few pitiful yelps the fox went quiet. There was a noise like somebody chewing gum with their mouth wide open.
Slowly, from under the trees, came a creeping monstrosity on angular hairy legs with a giant swollen belly. The creature walked backwards on its awful long legs – Freda counted eight of them – dragging a cocoon like object along the snow. There was something else that was so bizarre it made her wonder whether she was hallucinating. Attached to the creature’s abdomen was a human torso with a head. It resembled a centaur that Freda had seen in picture books, except the lower half was a hairy arachnid. The human half was a muscled man with matted dark hair and a long beard. The creature emitted a hideous human cackle and dragged the cocooned fox towards the barn. The human part of the creature opened the barn door with its hands and the creature and its prey disappeared from view.
Freda sat under the window sill trembling. She thought she could go out the front door of the house and head back up to the road and flag a passing car – but that was the reason they’d come to this farmhouse. There’d be no cars. Not at this time on such a foul night. She wondered about the barn. If that’s where the creature took its victims, maybe Giselle and Sam were in there as well.
She remembered seeing a TV show about how spiders would capture their prey and store it to eat later. If that was the case she might still be able to save her friends. She knew she had to get to the barn. Slowly she lifted her head above the window sill. Her breath had fogged up the glass. With her sleeve she rubbed the glass to get a better look. No sooner did she touch it than the glass pane fall out and smashed when it landed.
Freda instinctively stepped away from the window and flattened herself against the wall. On the back of the door she watched the ghoulish shadows of the tree branches twisting in the wind. Another shadow appeared on the wall. A human head with a long mane of hair. She shrieked.
She ran out the door, the chuckle of the monstrous creature ringing in her ears. Turning to the right she ran down the corridor into the next bedroom, and jumped straight through the dormer windows which exploded in shards of glass and snapped timber. She landed on the tiled sloping roof of the lean-to and slid down its slippery surface and swung on the gutter for a moment before hopping off and running across the snow covered yard into the barn.
Thrusting her hand in her jacket pocket she took out her lighter and flicked it on. There was a shovel leaning against a wall that she picked up and slid through the handle of the barn door. Nearby were a pile of hay bales and she pushed some of them up against the door.
She walked further into the barn. Holding the lighter up she gasped when she saw two objects like sacks hanging from a beam. They dangled like extra large punching bags at the gym and were covered in dull grey webs. The side of one of them bulged briefly. Then it bulged again. The other sack also bulged.
‘Giselle, Sam. Is that you?’ Freda said.
There was an inaudible mumble from within the sacks. Her two friends were still alive.
The handle of the barn door rattled. The wooden shaft of the shovel flexed but the doors stayed shut.
From the other side of the barn door a voice spoke: ‘Come, my dear. Don’t run from me like those other two. I offered them a way out but they refused and now are part of my larder. Open the door. I wish you no harm.’
‘No,’ said Freda firmly. ‘You are evil. Leave us alone.’
‘Just open the door and we can talk. You’ll see that all I want is to be your friend.’
The door rattled again, a little firmer this time.
‘No! Get away from me,’ she screamed at the door.
‘I’m running out of patience. I need a mate. My name is Spinner, and I am the last of my race – I can tell that you are good breeding stock. Open up now and don’t reject me.’
’Never. You are.. a monster.’
‘You would let my race die out? You would support genocide? Now stop wasting my time. If you will not breed willingly I will force you – do you understand?’
Freda didn’t answer but pushed more of the hay bales up against the door. She piled others on top. She scattered loose hay around them. The door shook under the blows of the creature trying to get in.
As the barn door rattled on its hinges Freda raced to where the two girls were hanging. Standing on a couple of hay bales, she took the pocket knife from her handbag and slashed at the webbing. The web was like thick rubber and stuck to her hands and arms. At last Giselle’s wriggling fingers poked through the webbing and Freda cut through with more purpose. Finally Giselle was free enough to untangle the rest of the web and she dropped to the ground, pale and wet but still alive.
Handing Giselle the pocket knife, Freda said ‘Take this and cut Sam down. I’ll see if I can hold off this spider.’ As she did, there was another crashing thump against the barn doors.
‘Quick, Giselle, hurry up.’
‘Nearly there,’ Giselle said in a panic-stricken voice. ‘What are you planning to do?’
‘A long shot. Just get Sam out and prepare to run,’ Freda said.
Freda opened her handbag and took out her can of VO5 hair spray. Holding the can in her right hand and the lighter in her left she stood in front of the door behind her barricaded of hay bales.
Thump, thump, crash! The shovel snapped and the door broke on its hinge. A set of spider legs gripped the door and started pulling at it.
Freda tried to flick on the lighter but her thumb was sweaty and she couldn’t get a grip. The doors were pulled clean off and the creature hoisted itself by its hairy spider-legs onto the hay bales.
‘Watch out, Freda,’ Giselle screamed.
‘Don’t worry about me. Just go up the ladder into the loft,’ Freda said, wiping her hands on her jeans and flicking the lighter on again. She pressed the button on the hair spray just as the lighter sparked. A ball of flame hit the creature, the hair on its front legs catching alight. The creature rubbed at its legs to extinguish the fire but it only spread to the hay bales. Soon the hay was ablaze. The creature screamed a human cry of agony and Freda turned and fled up the ladder.
‘Come back, bitch,’ screamed the creature.
Freda took the ladder steps two at a time. At the top she looked back to see the human-arachnid in flames but crawling clumsily towards her.
In the loft, Freda found Giselle and Sam huddled together in a corner. Down below the creature gave another shriek. The smoke was rolling in thick and the heat was intense. There was no chance of going back down into the flames. And besides they could now hear the creature pulling itself up the ladder.
Freda stumbled her way through the smoke in the loft and found the hinge of the doors. She drew back the bolt. A chill breeze blew in from the outside offering momentary relief from the smoke and heat. She looked into the night sky. The other girls joined her at the opening.
‘This is it girls,’ Freda said. ‘There’s no turning back now. Time to show our true colours.’
Freda stepped onto the lip of the opening. Giselle and Sam joined her, on either side, taking hold of a hand each.
‘I can’t do it,’ screamed Samantha, stepping back down into the burning barn.
‘Come on Sam,’ screamed Giselle. ‘If you don’t jump now you die.’
‘And if I do jump I die anyway,’ said Samantha.
Freda and Giselle grabbed hold of Samantha and pulled her back to the opening.
‘On the count of three we jump. ONE-TWO-THREE!’
The girls all jumped together. But instead of hitting the ground hard they bounced mid-air as if they were on a bungee cord.
‘What the hell?’
A hairy leg had gripped Freda under the armpit and was dragging them upwards. ‘Let go of my hand girls,’ Freda said.
‘No we can’t abandon you,’ said Giselle.
‘Just do it. There’s no time to argue.’
The other girls let go and dropped to the ground. Freda punched and scratched at the spider’s legs. She was able to reach into her handbag and fumbled around but remembered she’d given her pocket knife to Giselle. Freda could feel herself getting dragged upwards, and she twisted and squirmed and slipped a little out of its grasp. The creature still clung on, its leg wrapping round her face, the burnt spider flesh making her want to gag. The creature pulled her up and she bit down hard. Her mouth filled with the putrid taste of gooey arachnid blood just as the creature let go.
Freda closed her eyes and imagined the pain of the landing. While she was still thinking about it she realised she was on the ground on what felt like a wet mattress. All around her was white. The thick snow had taken the impact of the fall.
Looking up she saw the human-arachnid’s body poking out the loft doors, the barn well alight. With an ear-splitting crack the entire wall of the barn collapsed towards her.
She got up and ran through the thick snow as the wall fell almost within touching distance of her. The creature gave a few convulsive jerks before being engulfed in the flames. The human half of the creature emitted a series of ghastly shrieks before falling silent.
Giselle and Samantha ran to Freda and the three of them hugged in front of the burning barn. They weren’t sure how long they were like that before a shaft of a flaslight played on their faces.
Two state troopers were standing there gawking at them.
‘We’ve had a report of a suspected arson attack. Maybe you young ladies might want to tell us what happened here.’
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
