Free This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong

you’re not gettin’ the bed.”
    I took away Molly’s cereal box, which was now just empty cardboard bent in the shape of a dog head. I said, “You sounded crazy on the news, by the way. I hope you know that.”
    “What? I was tellin’ the truth.”
    “To what purpose, exactly? The only people who’ll be convinced by that are people who’re already nuts. I can see you’ve got your blog up right now. For what? So you can tell the whole nonsense story and be one more nutjob ranting on the Internet? It doesn’t do anybody any good. It just makes you look crazy. It makes both of us look crazy.”
    “Hey, aren’t you going to be late for your court-mandated therapist appointment?”
    “Fuck you.”
    I glanced at my watch. He was right.
    *   *   *
    The drive through town was surreal. I had to go past the hospital (okay, I didn’t have to but curiosity got the better of me) and it had the air of a natural disaster. News vans were parked outside of barriers that were blocking the street. Cops were at a checkpoint, directing traffic away from the parking garage entrance. Three blocks later I had to wait at an intersection for five minutes while a row of green trucks rumbled past. Military. I suddenly wanted to get far away from there.
    I had half hoped I would find the psychiatrist’s office closed today, as if the aftermath of a shooting rampage would be treated like a national holiday. No such luck. People got to make a paycheck I guess.
    I barged in before I realized there was somebody else in the waiting room. Should have looked in through the window or something, I would have waited outside if I’d known, since the potential for really awkward conversation seems pretty high in the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office. I tried to think of a plausible excuse for turning around and leaving. The best I came up with was to grab the potted plant in the corner and just walk out, as if it was a rental I was repossessing. I decided not to.
    The lady in the waiting room didn’t even turn to me when I came in, she was transfixed by a television in the corner tuned to Fox News, covering the shooting. Jesus, slow news day. People get shot all the time, right? I found a chair as far away from her as possible. I grabbed a magazine and held it in front of my face. Seemed to be a lot of articles about wedding dresses.
    “It’s happening all over, you know,” said the woman from the other side of the room. She was probably forty-five or so, hair a desperate shade of blonde.
    I said, “What’s that?”
    “Demon possession. All over the world. You see news from the Middle East and such and you can see it spreading like wildfire.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “It’s easier now, now that all the souls are gone.”
    “Hmm.” I flipped the page in my bridal magazine, acting engrossed in the ads. The only thing worse than always being the craziest person in the room is when suddenly you’re alone with someone crazier. She was still talking.
    “Did you know the Rapture happened already? In 1961. The Lord called all the souls up to Heaven. But the bodies were left behind. That’s why the people walking around today don’t seem to have souls. It’s because they don’t. You see that story last week, the man who was being chased by the police in a stolen car? There was a newborn baby in the backseat? He just threw it out the window. A baby! People these days are just common animals. Because their human souls are gone, see.”
    I lowered the magazine and said, “That’s … not a bad theory actually.”
    “They called it the mark of the beast. But they don’t need a mark. They reveal themselves as beasts, with time.”
    The door to the office creaked open and out walked a gorgeous teenage girl. For a baffled second I thought this was somehow my therapist, like maybe she was filling in today. But of course she was just a patient and Dr. Tennet was behind her. The crazy woman in the waiting room stood and thanked the