Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Author:Caitlin R. Kiernan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction
ISBN: 9781101212394
Publisher: ROC
Published: 1998-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

He did not leave her lying there, wrestled her limp and bleeding body from the glittering tangle that had been Spyder’s menagerie. Not because he was brave or because he loved her, but because he was more afraid of being alone, much more frightened of the sounds outside the painted windows than he could ever be of the pinprick of venom fangs. Had hauled her from the wreckage and into the hallway, towing her under the arms because he couldn’t pick her up. Sobbing and his face a wet smear of sweat and tears and snot and ruined eyeliner; angry red welts already rising on her face and hands, a jagged gash across her forehead that had peeled back enough scalp that he caught a sickening glimpse of skull through all the blood. And one of the widows, snarled in her hair, and he stomped it, ground it beneath the toe of his boot until it was unrecognizable pulp.

“Robin, don’t be dead, don’t be dead, please don’t be fucking dead,” repeated like a mantra, something holy or unholy with power against the night and the storm and whatever he could hear moving about on the roof and scritching beneath the floor.

He dragged her roughly across the rug, wouldn’t allow himself to consider the trapdoor or what wanted out, but her boots snagged on the carpet and pulled it back, like the flap of skin above her eyebrows.

“Come on, Robin, remember what she said? Remember what Spyder said? You just fucking told me, remember?”

Robin’s head lolled back on her neck like a broken toy, eyes half open to scleral whites, and he knew she was still alive, still breathing, because of the air bubbling out through the blood clogging her nose.

“Hardly anyone ever dies, Robin. Hardly anyone ever dies.”

Through the laughing, vindicated house and back out into the cold, the razor wind so much worse than when they’d gone in and the snow falling so hard and fast, pelting him with its touch like needles and feathers. It had swallowed the world, mercifully swallowed the house as soon as they were halfway across the front yard. But Byron didn’t stop until they reached the street, a thousand miles from the porch, until they were all the way off Spyder’s property and all the way across the street, a meandering, Robin-wide swath plowed through the snow.

And then he collapsed, slumped and gasping against the curb, no air left in his lungs and his muscles aching in ways he’d never hurt before. Robin sprawled at his feet, the blood from her face almost black on the snow, the places where the widows had bitten her turning dark, bruise livid. He lay there, hearing the snow and his heart and listening for anything else, anything at all, until the dizziness and nausea had passed and he’d stopped wheezing.

“Robin?” and her eyes fluttered, half-mast lids and no recognition there, so he slapped her cheek softly and spoke louder. “I have to get help. I have to find someone to call an ambulance.

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