Free Screaming Science Fiction by Brian Lumley Page B

lucky to get onto him so quickly. It started a week ago yesterday, on a Saturday morning. Rather it started on the Friday, when his wife asked him to clean all of the cobwebs and spiders out of the cellar of the gatehouse where they live. She hates spiders, you see. Yes, that was on the Friday. He told her he was busy, said that Lord Daventry was worried about poachers and he’d be out in the woods for most of the night, but that he’d clean out the spiders in the morning. He believed in spiders then, you see? But when she reminded him on the Saturday he ignored her. And when she took him down into the cellar to see how badly infested the place was, he—”
    “He couldn’t see the spiders?”
    “Right! At first she thought he was kidding her on, but later she started to worry about it. On Monday she told Lord Daventry about it and he had a go at Old Thomas. Then he contacted me. It seemed such an interesting case that I took it on gratis, as a favor. I drove over the hills to The Lodge that same afternoon….” He paused.
    Interested despite himself, Bleaker prompted him: “And?”
    “Jerry, it’s like nothing I ever dealt with before. For the last five or six days spiders have had no place whatsoever in Thomas Waterford’s life. Here, listen to this tape. I recorded it on Wednesday morning, five days after the thing began.” He went over to his tape recorder and pressed a button, listening as snatches of speeded-up conversation babbled forth until he found the spot he was looking for. A second button slowed the tape down and the recorded conversation became audible:
    “Well, we really don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do we, Thomas?”
    “P’raps we would, sir, if I knew what you was after. I’ve plenty of work on at The Lodge, and—”
    “But Lord Daventry said you’d be only too happy to help me out, Thomas.”
    “‘Course, sir, but we don’t seem to be doing much really, do we? I mean—wot am I ’ere for?”
    “Spiders, Thomas!”
    (Silence)
    “Why are you afraid of them?”
    “Afraid of wot, sir?”
    “Creepy-crawlies.”
    “Wot, bugs and beetles and flies, sir? I hain’t scared of ’em, sir! Wotever made you think that?”
    “No, I meant spiders, Thomas, Hairy-legged web-spinners!”
    “I mean, I sees bugs every day in the woods, I do, and—”
    “And birds?”
    “Lots of ’em.”
    “And trees?”
    “‘Ere, you’re’ aving me on!”
    “And—spiders?”
    “‘Course I sees trees! The ’ole bleedin’ forest’s full of ’em!”
    Conway speeded the tape up at this point, and while it crackled and blustered on he said to Bleaker, “Listen to this next bit. This was the next day, Thursday. I had some rough drawings for Thomas to look at….”
    He slowed the tape down and after a few seconds Bleaker heard the following:
    “Just have a look at this, Thomas, will you? What do you reckon that is?”
    “Bird, sir. Thrush, I’d say, but not a very good drawing.”
    “And this one?”
    “An eft. Newt, you’d call it, but I’ve always called ’em efts.”
    “And this?”
    “A tree, probably a hoak—but wot’s the point of all—”
    “And — this?”
    “Blank, sir. A blank piece of paper!”
    (Pause, then a cough from Conway.)
    “And how about, er, this?”
    “A bleedin’ happle, sir!”
    “Yes, but what’s on the apple?”
    “Eh? Why, a stalk, and a leaf.”
    “And?…What’s this thing here, staring at you?”
    “‘Ere! You’re ’aving me on again, hain’t you? There’s nothin’ there ’cept your finger, sir!…”
    Conway switched the tape recorder off. He looked at Bleaker and said, “Both the ‘blank’ and the thing on the apple were—”
    “Spiders?”
    Conway nodded.
    At that point the women came in from the kitchen carrying plated salads. “Spiders!” exclaimed Dorothy, Conway’s wife, in disgust. She turned to Bleaker. “Don’t tell me he’s going on about old Tom Waterford again? I’ve had to listen to nothing else for a