Spider Dreams: Chapter 13 "Attic Revisit"

ghostfish (60)in #story • 6 years ago (edited)

And in the morning, that kind of morning that leaks in slowly around the drapes feeling good and well drawn out like a thick moist fog before the sun’s rays come stirring it up and floating it off in yellow heat.

Empty thought.

Circling thought.

Fiddling loose strings

And untied screws.

All these haunting thoughts playing hide and seek with each other dancing around scattering and weaving intricate designs on the inside of my skull. They wind themselves up and it swells. A pressure accumulates pinching in my forehead like a squeezed lemon losing all its seeds. The bubbles come and a slow drain of carbonation. I lay there. I must look paraplegic, paralyzed and pathetic.

My eyes focus on the black dot along the ceiling. It is moving, lowering itself slowly, stealthy towards me. A massive abdomen with a pin-sized head and long thin outstretched legs scratch the air for me. I see venom on its fangs, clear liquid dripping. I cannot move. All my limbs frozen ice cold and solid. I feel heavy. The spider taps its wiggling long legs on my cheek. I feel its tiny prickle. It tickles. My eyes roll back in to my skull, white. I return to empty thought and escape. The spider crawls across my face and I can do nothing about it. It streaks down my neck exploring, tapping its tiny feet. The torture, the helplessness I felt.

Time moves on. I do not know how long I swam the deep cool waters below the subconscious, but I could move again. Maybe days later… I went to get a glass of water and caught myself in the mirror.

That’s me?

A gray angst and disgust sweeps through my being. I cannot understand this feeling. It is bleak and useless like there is something wrong. I feel dirty and I know it won’t do any good washing. It doesn’t matter how hard I scrub or how much soap or water I use. This is the dirt and filth that can’t wash off. No amount of cleaning or turpentine will get this ‘ick’ out of my pores. It digs deeper, setting in the stain thicker and spreading until it is covering my whole body.

I try to bathe and soak my suffering in a bed of water in hopes the ‘ick’ might temporarily dissolve as my skin softens, wrinkles, and becomes soggy.

But that’s how I look, staring back at me, blinking. My bloodshot eyes hurting with dilated little back holes for pupils. I don’t believe it. That is not me. That is not how I look. That is not how I feel I look. I do not want this body. I do not want to be contained and captured in this body, with this scruffy haircut, in these clothes, with this smile and this nose. Those noodle arms dangling like willow branches swaying with each footstep I make.

I wet my face with brisk cold faucet water get dressed and make my way to the attic with a quick stop in the kitchen to grab a leg of chicken. I figured the greckon might like chicken, kind of a gesture of thanks for the medallion. I place the chicken in a bag.

As I set myself before the attic door I fondle securely the gold coin at the end of the twine wrapped around my neck. The weight holds comfortable and feels good against my ribs. At the door I hear a faint buzzing or hum. Like a low frequency. I look through the dark skeleton key hole. There is no light on the other side. I place the key in the hole and knob turns rusty and stiff. With aching hinges the door sputters open and dozen of soft winged black moths pour out, cycling around me, and disorienting me. I swat my arms trying to clear the air. The black swarm continues to cloud around me and I am forced to sprint into the darkness up the stairs that creak under each step.

I can see it dangling, hanging draped like a tinsel or silk ribbon, thin near- transparent strings floating in the dry warm air. One end is attached to the poles or ceiling while the spider’s silk dances in the air like fishing line waiting patiently for a foolish fish.

Flies are creeping around. I can catch sight of them out the corner of my eye. I suppose they’re trying to avoid the webs as much as I am.

A proud procession of ants march along a railing beam. Where did all these insects come from? There is a major infestation problem. I’m going to have to take this up with the landlord. The ants march single file leading to a massive cone in the middle of the room.

I set down the chicken and approach the strange object to get a better look. As I get near the mound begins to appear like a three foot mudcastle cone or volcano with a large orifice out the top where the ants are crawling into like lemmings all following each other and jumping over the edge. Steam begins to rise out the dark void. The ants continue to jump in making the mound swell and grow.

I poke the gray-white slime mound. Webs of goo stuck to my finger. I tried to wipe it off on my pants. It continued to grow in mass as more insects funneled down the opening at the top. I poked it again a little harder feeling how firm the outer layer was. My finger indented the surface for a moment before the concave area popped back out and pulsed into a bubble, kind of like a wart. The wart inflated like a balloon until popping green slime that splattered across my face. It burnt, the acid eating at my flesh, melting, smoking, I could smell the sweet scent as my face dissolved. I gasped for air running in a frantic circle searching for water or something to wipe my face. The pain scorched into my mind.

In my moment of panic I noticed the slime mound pulsed to over five feet with a round belly and thinned out neck stretching out with an wide open orifice like a mouth sucking and circling the air, sucking harder and harder trying to swallow all that came near. The moths from down below were devoured in a black cloud of fluttering wings whirling about the air and pulled into the black hole mouth. The thing’s neck swiveled and spun for anything to eat elongating to reach me, searching for my face. The bottom of the thing grew round into a massive potbelly of beast. It found my foot and began swallowing it like a snake takes down an egg.

That’s about the last thing I can remember. The shock of the sighting distracted the pain eating away at my flesh. Blood, pus, and white bone, I passed out screaming.

Then I felt a moist sandy rubbing on my arm like a cow’s tongue. A long, pointed licking, I blinked my eyes half expecting to be dead. Confused to be alive, I felt even more confused to see the goblin creature licking my arm up and down like my skin was the most savory flavor. I pulled it back scampering backwards on my hands and feet until I hit a wall with my head.

“Oh?” It sounded disappointed. “You taste so salty. Kind of like candy. I never get such pleasures and flavors. Oh, please, one more lick? I know it’s not proper, but see, see, yesss, one more, please, please. Oh, please…” The creature moaned.

Another voice, a little shallower and crackling erupted from a nearby. “Yes, yes, a little flavor. Oh so nice, something to use something with spice.” I noticed two sets of yellow eyes peering out from a shadowed corner. The eyes blinked a few times disappearing and reappearing. The first creature came closer to me walking like a monkey on all fours leaning on the knuckles of long scaly three digit claws. It came closer to me, addicted with wanting eyes sedated and floating. The creature was waxed, tempted, and thirsting to lick. It wanted, hungry and drunk. I could see it in the slow motion it made and how those huge protruding eyes stared desperate at my arm, tongue hanging between sharp fangs.

I looked about the attic floor to the area where the pod vacuum mound was a few moments ago. Gone. Dust. Empty. Nothing, no trace left of the anomaly.

I can see the gremlin creature at my arm. I snap back and it growls hungry with an undying thirst for the opiate salts of my skin. I reach for the chicken leg pulling it from the page, I have caught the creature’s eyes and nose like a magnet. Throwing the meat to the other corner, it ran drooling like a rabid dog after it. Howling at a moon that wasn’t there.

The other voice steps from shadow revealing a dark leathery scale-skinned creature hunched over walking on two small legs. It moves almost mechanical towards the other brighter green lizard creature that’s now slurping away chewing meat and bone as one. It looks back at me and says:

“Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
The wanton Boy that kills the fly
Shall hear the endless spider’s cry
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth by” *

Excerpt from: William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”

The other creature, done devouring the bones turns to me. “Next time raw.” It has a crazed look in its eyes. “In the void of black and despair those who seek it look upon the sun drinking the morning air.”

I manage to squeak a sound, stuttering in cold fright. “What, what are you things?”

The darker, browner goblin lizard motioned in slow chilling movement twisting its body like a crawling worm towards me until I could feel its stale warm breath on my face. It smiled a row of crimson teeth, sharp and crooked.

“You have more fear in you now than before.” It whispered between reptile lips. “I should chew off your arm and keep it for flavoring. This eating like a scavenger type becomes a pathetic means to survive.” Foul breath lisps words, “so,” it hissed like a snake, “why don’t you dip right in. Let us allow it to begin. Let’s we go along lingering about the passage before us and diverge from scene to scene indulged in rhyme. We are Greckons, ancient creatures, if what we are is what you wish. Certainly not mere things. We are from a time before humans spread their filth across this planet. We are from the beginning, when the flood first came and the void created. We are soldiers from the ‘Grey Wars. Now a sad race of few hidden in exile between worlds. Your species strikes us as nothing more than monkeys trying to destroy and control everything.”

Speechless fright gripped my throat. I tried to speak but all that came out were muttering stuttering sounds.

“What is that? Is it trying to speak?” said the Greckon with half an eye open peering at me. “Here, this will complete the pendant you wear.” The creature reached out pinching a metal ring larger than the medallion. “It shall fit around the coin you now wear. It will enable you. Perhaps help protect you.” The creature turned and I followed the trail of thin bones protruding down its spine tapering off the end of a short stout curled tail. It held the silver circle over one eye while shutting the other.

“Remember, and be warned, for to see a world in a grain of sand and all of heaven in a wild flower, one must hold infinity in the palm of a hand and eternity in a hour. Because, a robin red breast in a cage shall put all this heaven in a rage. And a dove house festered with pigeons will shudder hell through all regions.”*

The Greckon dropped the shiny object in my palm.