Cult of the Spider Queen: An Arkham Horror Novel by S A Sidor

Author:S A Sidor [Sidor, S A]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: historical fantasy, cosmic terror, Arkham Horror
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

31

Death Chandeliers

Jake spotted more of the body bundles hanging, not high in the canopy, but just above the water ahead of them. The web ropes swayed despite no wind blowing. He didn’t like the look of it.

Why were they moving?

“Are those what I think they are?” Andy said.

“They’re the same as the others I found.”

“Why aren’t they up there with the rest?”

“I don’t know.” Jake gave them a wide berth. But soon they were floating through another low hanging cluster. They looked like Christmas ornaments. The sticky webs sparkled icily like tinsel and glass where the sunlight hit. You’d find them beautiful if you didn’t know what they contained. As the canoe passed through the hanging forest of bundles – there was no avoiding them now – Jake couldn’t help but peer through the gauzy encasements to make out the grisly decomposing contents. Bones mostly. Like the canopy sacks. One body per. A skull pressed against the gluey netting. Vacant eye sockets staring at Jake head-on. Fleshless jaws gaping as if it were having a good laugh at them.

No, not laughing. Screaming.

He told himself not to look but couldn’t help it. Shredded clothing. Khakis and linen. Scuffed, mud-caked boots. So, not native. More forest workers. None of these bodies had any hair or skin. Strangely, there was no insect activity, only a bit of fungal growth. He guessed they might be older. They didn’t stink. Whatever snacked on them had finished with its leftovers.

“Jeez, there are so many,” Andy said. “Do you think whatever made them… the thing that caught and bound them up… fed on them… it probably lives alone? I mean, there’s only one of those web-spinning things wandering around here we need to worry about. Right?”

Jake shrugged. “Hard to say. Most spiders are solitary.”

“That’s what did this, then? A giant solitary spider?”

“It’s my best guess,” Jake said. “A creature unknown to modern science. A new species.”

“Great. I can put that in my book if I don’t end up inside one of these,” Andy said, pointing with the end of his paddle as they passed a sack with a leg bone sticking out, dipping its toes in the river. He trembled, racked by a shiver despite the soupy heat.

Jake smiled grimly. Andy was holding up for now. But Jake didn’t know how long it would last. Keep calm. Plan. Act. Ursula’s survival lesson kept him going. If they got lucky, they wouldn’t encounter the spinner of these macabre food baskets. It had to be one huge arachnid, given the amount of cached sustenance. And it lived close by.

“Hey, look!” Andy said. “That one’s empty.”

He was pointing to a sack dangling loosely over a patch of river glowing in the sun. Like a golden pool in the middle of a void: its reflection created a second sun, shining and bright.

“You see anything in the water there?” Jake asked.

Andy half-stood in the bow. “Nope. The light penetrates far down. It’s creepy.”

“I’ll paddle closer. Be careful.”

“Sure thing,” Andy said. “What am I looking for?” He gripped the edge of the boat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.