Infested by Mark R Faulkner

Author:Mark R Faulkner [Faulkner, Mark R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-01T23:00:00+00:00

I’d negotiated a few brick steps and reached the lower end of the lock when I heard her scream, a piercing sound that could only mean trouble and the type which triggers an instinctive response. Without consideration of further damage to the canoe, or to myself, I threw it to the ground and while it landed with a loud, hollow thunk and rolled, I was already sprinting toward the lock keeper’s hut.

Lindsey was standing just outside the door, rooted to the spot with her hands raised around her face. What I saw when I reached her made me pull up short and gasp before shoving her aside to avert her trembling stare.

On the floor, just inside the hut were three - what appeared to be at first glance - cocoons of white thread. Closer inspection showed them for what they really were, bodies, tightly wrapped from head to toe in spider silk. The lock keeper was amongst them, identifiable by the orange of his life-vest showing through the web and the toes of his shiny shoes, poking out the end. The others, I assumed, were the owners of the boat in the lock. An ear stuck out of the side of one of the silk wrapped bundles, a gaudy Pat Butcher style ear ring trailing from the lobe. Although the bodies couldn’t have been more than a day old, they were as desiccated as a three thousand year old mummy. A spider crawled from the decorated ear, not a large one, probably smaller than the average house spider. Its body was round, with an iridescent beetle-like carapace and its legs were about twice as long as its body was wide. Closer inspection showed more of them moving in the silk cocoons, feeding on what lay within.

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