Phantom (21 page)

Ned went back to the landing, and this time
he came up with a lump of fallen plaster. It was crumbly, but-
there was enough of it to hold together. He took off his knapsack
and flung the piece of plaster as hard as he could into the spider
web. It should have flown through the flimsy stuff and bounced
along the floor. But, instead, it disappeared into the darkness and
made no sound at all. Ned couldn't believe it. He got another hunk
of plaster and hurled it with such force that he felt a twinge of
pain in his arm muscle. But again the missile was swallowed up
silently. What kind of spiders are these? he wondered. .

Ned held both flashlights together and moved
as close as he dared to the webs. He put his head against one wall
of the corridor and directed the light along that side. The spider
colony stretched back as far as the light reached. They've
completely filled the passageway, Ned thought, from here to the end
of the wing. His lips formed the word "wow," but the sound stayed
in his dry throat.

Now he turned the light to the center, where
he had torn a small opening with the stick. Spiders, in uncountable
numbers, moved about in the depths. The astonishing network of webs
glinted like dull silver lace. There were several small tunnels
swirling through the web, reminding Ned of Swiss cheese. They keep
the air moving through the colony, he thought, as well as providing
a kind of internal highway system. And the larger passages would
also bring insects into the interior. The whole thing must be
incredibly well organized and put together.

Ned noticed a few bulky shapes hanging here
and there in the spider kingdom. They were dark, wrapped in
web-shrouds, and they hung like macabre Christmas-tree decorations,
or shrunken heads. Birds? Ned had never heard of spiders killing a
bird, but he was beginning to believe that anything was possible in
this place. It wasn't so fantastic, now that he thought about it.
Sparrows flying in through the open skylight, getting caught in
that mighty web, and then being bitten to death by scores of small
spiders. It was the sort of thing you might imagine happening in a
tropical jungle, but that didn't mean it couldn't occur here. There
was no other way Ned could explain what he saw. Do spiders lay
eggs? Probably, but he wasn't sure. Anyhow, those things didn't
look like egg clusters-they were far too big for that. They looked
like food, bagged and hung. Or ... trophies.

Ned crossed the landing to
the other wing. He came up against the same thing: a massive colony
of spiders. So, they ruled the entire top floor of the spa, both
sides, with only the exposed central landing as a clear zone. Ned
sat there for a few minutes, looking left, then right. He had seen
large spider webs before, but nothing like this. At least there was
nothing supernatural about it; it might be a very unusual natural
phenomenon, but it was just that, a
natural
phenomenon. The sort of thing
that must have a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation.
Perhaps the water at the spa was bad (something to do with the
scandals decades ago), and an odd mutant strain of your everyday
house and garden variety spider had developed here, one that built
elaborate colonies of tough webs. Why not? It might be an item for
Burgess Meredith and "Those Amazing Animals" on TV, but it had
nothing to do with Ned's problem.

He glanced again at the corridor closest to
the top of the stairs. Something seemed to be moving there. A few
spiders on the floor. But they don't hunt, Ned thought. They wait
for their prey to blunder into the web and get caught. Maybe this
was another aspect of the unusual phenomenon—that there were so
many of them they were driven to search among the leaves on the
landing for bugs. Colonies this size would certainly require a lot
of food.

A lot of food ... ? No, that's crazy, Ned
thought. But now he noticed that there were more spiders crawling
around at the top of the stairs. What were they trying to do, cut
off his only exit and trap him there? It was a silly idea. They
were small spiders, probably even incapable of piercing human skin.
Still, their numbers were increasing and Ned thought again of the
birds, or whatever they were, hanging in the webs. Drained and
mummified. Ned began to feel uneasy. He put the flashlights away,
stood up and slipped the knapsack on over his shoulders.

A second wave of spiders had gathered around
the entrance to the other corridor. Ned was in the middle. Unease
turned to worry, and then anger. This couldn't be what it looked
like. It was ridiculous, impossible. Vaguely, he recalled the tale
of Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. That was not a
true story, Ned knew. But what about that morning not so long ago
when he had awakened early to find he couldn't move? Even his eyes
had been stitched shut then, and he had felt something like .a
spider on his face. That had been real, and perhaps it was an omen
he should have given more thought to afterwards. What if the
spider, and these spiders, were but one manifestation of the
phantom presence he had sensed and the voice he had heard? Wasn't
it possible for a supernatural force to change itself from one
shape into another—like a vampire into a bat, or a man into a
werewolf?

Why are you standing here?

The spiders advanced out onto the landing in
irregular surges. They formed a gray-brown carpet, rolling
inexorably toward the center. When one spider came close to Ned he
flicked it away with the toe of his shoe, but it was as if his foot
had acted on its own. The spiders no longer worried Ned.

Move.

They were fascinating to watch. They must
have attained a very high level of cooperation for colonies of this
size to come about and survive. It was possible to see them all as
components of the greater whole, the higher unity, not unlike the
volvox, Ned's favorite microscopic creature. Yes, these spiders
were truly extraordinary.

Get out of here.

Ned didn't want to move. Now the spiders
reminded him of a tide, lapping gently closer. Why, it might even
be nice to lie down and let it wash over him. It would feel cool,
but pleasant, and somehow ... delicious. That's right. Yes, he
could lie down and let it bathe him, and he could leave his mouth
open and let the tide splash in, cool and sweet as the best water.
Just a few drops. At first.

It's hypnotizing you. Get out while you
can!

Ned's feet moved, and the movement made him
feel dizzy.

He closed his eyes, hoping it would stop.
With each step he took he heard terrible squishing sounds. They
seemed to be trying to say something to him, but he couldn't make
out what it was. The sounds were cries of agony, pleas for him to
stop what he was doing. Every step crushed dozens of them, and
their noise was the anguish of loss. Don't do this to us, it said.
Don't murder us, don't leave us. But still Ned's body moved and the
sounds grew more unbearable. Then his foot came down on a clear
marble stair. His shoe slid on the spider pulp it carried and Ned
wheeled through the air, crashing on hard stone and falling. Pain
snapped him out of the daze he was in and he managed to stop
himself after he had bumped down about a half-dozen steps. He sat
up and leaned back against the inside wall on the stairway. There
was a lump on his forehead and his left arm ached because he had
landed on it, but apparently there were no serious injuries.
Suddenly Ned yelled and grabbed his leg. It was as if a hot needle
had been jabbed into his calf. He pulled his pant leg back and saw
the single spider. He snatched it up and squashed it between his
fingers, then quickly wiped his hand vigorously on his jeans. Gray
slime, the same horrid stuff that still clung to the bottoms and
sides of his shoes. Ned felt sick, and he couldn't move for several
minutes.

The spiders. They had been
all around him up there. It came back to him in a rush, and he
shuddered at the thought of what had almost happened to him.
It
really is here today,
he decided somewhat ruefully. He was in a different ballgame now.
Twice already he had come close to giving in to it, surrendering
himself like a lamb for the slaughter. How much longer would his
strength—and luck—hold out?

The spiders. How close he had come to lying
down and letting them sweep over him. Unable to penetrate human
skin? Ha. They would have eaten through his eyeballs and poured
down his throat. Ned pulled himself to his feet and looked back up
the stairs. They were still there, waiting for him should he be so
foolish as to return. Sorry, boys. I'm not your prize. Be glad I
forgot to bring a flame-thrower. But behind the mental quips, Ned
felt shaken. It had been that close. He scraped the spider pulp off
his shoes as best he could and then went down to the next
landing.

The corridors on both sides were
unobstructed here. The doors in each wing stood slightly ajar,
providing sufficient illumination in the hallways. Each room seemed
to invite Ned to enter. On the floor above he had been unable to
explore a single room; here, every room was open to him. He didn't
know whether to feel glad or worried. Where to begin? At least this
looked more like what you would expect of an abandoned
building.

Be careful, take nothing for granted.

He moved cautiously into the first corridor.
On his left, the doors opened into rooms overlooking the maze of
gardens out back; to his right, the rooms ran along the front of
the spa. Ned decided he would go up this wing checking the rooms on
the back, and take care of the others on his return to the landing.
He pushed the first door wide open. The room was neither large nor
small, and it was virtually empty. A few rusty beer cans on the
floor, and the remnants of a magazine. Ned bent over to look at the
pages and saw the photograph of a naked woman. The colors had
pretty much washed out, leaving the picture with a pale bluish
tint. Ned poked the magazine with his shoe to flip over some pages,
but they had hardened into a lump. He had seen pictures like this
once before, last year, in the school yard in Washington. They gave
him a funny feeling inside. Ned walked across the bare room to the
open window and looked out on the gardens. They seemed somehow
different from his previous visit—but perhaps it was just because
he had a higher vantage point here. Ned left the room, slightly
disappointed. Traces of teenage visitors some time ago, nothing
else. Nothing sinister here.

The next room was the same size as the
first. It had the same bleached, chipped walls, and the same plank
floor. A few more beer cans and, this time, a pair of women's
underpants, so weathered and ragged that they were almost
unrecognizable. Again Ned had that funny feeling. Why would people
come here, of all places, do whatever they did—and then leave
without their underpants? It didn't make sense.

The third room was the same, except that it
was completely empty. And the fourth. Ned began to feel annoyed as
he proceeded along the corridor, kicking open the doors of one bare
room after another. The spa was not living up to its promise, at
least not on this floor. But as Ned approached the end of the wing
he noticed something curious. The corridor seemed to narrow down
around him, the farther away from the landing he walked. Was it
just his imagination, another optical illusion? No, the ceiling was
definitely lower here, the walls closer, the passageway tighter.
Ned looked back. It was like being in a tunnel. All four sides
appeared to focus down toward the point where he stood.

Ned opened the last two doors on the left
side of the corridor. Nothing. He had reached the end of the wing,
and now he turned to work his way back, examining the front rooms.
But as he turned, the perspective hit him, and it was disturbing
now. Both walls and the ceiling were so close Ned felt like he was
in a box. The whole building seemed to be settling around him,
resting its weight on his body. It was a frightening sensation, but
what made it worse was the sudden rush of sorrow and sadness that
overwhelmed Ned. He found himself crying, sobbing violently. His
body shook so much he was sure he was falling to pieces. Some
immense, fearful image had seized his mind. He couldn't make out
exactly what it was, but he knew it had something to do with his
mother. She was in trouble. She was in grave danger, maybe she was
even dying at this very moment, and there was nothing Ned could do
about it. He wanted to run and help her, but he couldn't move. He
felt as if he were being buried alive, entombed in the spa.

Mother, take me with you.

Her face swam in and out of his mind like a
fragment of a lost dream. Her eyes were wide with terror, and her
lips—they were a shocking bluish-purple—moved frantically but
silently. Then her face was spinning away into the distance like a
pale coin. Ned wailed and ran after it.

Don't leave me! Mommy!

As he ran his body seemed to
grow lighter and faster, as if he were disappearing, transmuting
into a single, final subatomic particle flying nowhere at the speed
of light. Ned shot out of the corridor onto the wide landing and
stopped sharply. The vision of the mother was gone, the image
vanished. He was a boy again, in his own body. Pain knifed through
his side and he doubled over, gasping loudly to catch his breath.
He sat down heavily, unceremoniously, on the floor. Moisture
streaked his face, but he didn't know whether it was sweat or
tears. Not that it made any difference. The important thing was
that he was coming out of it now. Ned was still trembling, but he
managed to smile faintly.
It
had tried again, and failed. Surprise, surprise,
another inning gone by and the underdog kept the lead. The phantom
presence had even tried to use Ned's mother against him, but it
hadn't worked. I'm going to make it, Ned thought. I may get bumped
and bruised, and it may take every ounce of strength I have in me,
but I am going to make it. For sure.