Fear of Old

Henry was no longer afraid of spiders, so when he finds him self face to face with a large house spider in his kitchen, wicked thoughts cross his mind, but will his fear come back to bite him?

Henry Burrows was once terrified of spiders. Large ones; small ones; hairy ones; smooth ones, it didn’t matter what kind of spider it was, he would be totally paralyzed with fear at the mere sight of the crawly little blighters, but, that was then, and this is now.

Henry had grown more bold as he had aged, and as the decades rolled by he became less and less afraid of the arachnids, now at the ripe old age of 46, he was not afraid anymore (with the reasonable exceptions of the more plate sized and hairy types), which is why he was currently able to crouch eye to eye with a particularly large house spider in the corner of his pantry.

As a matter of fact, in this instance it was not Henry Burrows that was paralyzed, it was the spider! Not so much paralyzed with fear as Henry had used to be, more a case of being paralyzed due to physical restriction �" that restriction being the can of beans that Henry had rather cruelly plonked down on top of two of the creature’s rear legs, preventing it from reaching the hole in the skirting board that it had tried to escape towards as the giant human had made its approach.

Henry felt proud, proud that he had come so far, proud that he had conquered his most debilitating phobia and at that moment he felt less like the prey and more like the predator! He stood up and puffed out his chest, looking down on the spider that once would have seemed so large and now seemed so small.

               “I’ll show you little spider” he said, “This is my house, and you’re trespassing on my property, that just won’t do, no it won’t…. I think you need to be punished little spider, I’ll let you go, but I want you to take a message back to all of your hairy legged little friends - that Henry Burrows is not to be messed with!”. Henry crouched back down, the spider’s six free legs wriggled and tugged as he came closer and closer, each of them trying to move its fat, round abdomen out of danger but to no avail, it was hopelessly stuck. The spider reverted to instinct and pulled its legs close to its body as if pulling up the draw bridge in anticipation of an attack �" it was hunched up like a small black ball, waiting helplessly.

Henry moved his face within a few inches from his foe and he grinned. He was a rather ordinary looking man of average height with a round, bloated belly and with skinny arms and legs that bore him a passing resemblance to a toad, he was balding albeit for a lone tawny brown island just above his forehead. He wasn’t a particularly evil looking man, but in that moment, when he bared his slightly yellowing teeth into a fiendishly wicked grin, he could have passed for the devil himself �" wicked thoughts were entering Henry Burrows’ head, and he had a mind to act on them…

The little spider wasn’t as frantic in it’s attempts to escape as it had been ten minutes earlier, maybe it resigned itself to its fate or maybe it simply didn’t have the energy anymore, after all, losing three of your appendages will do that to anyone or anything. Henry rolled the three legs between his right fingers and thumb, holding them just above his nose as he watched, then with a yawn, he flicked them over his shoulder onto his kitchen floor. He reached out and put a hand onto the can that pinned the spider to the floor.

               “Now, you vile little monster, you can go, BUT let your missing legs serve as a warning to you that MY house is off limits! And remember, I expect you to pass the message on to all of the other little creepy crawlies in your little insect village”! With that he lifted the can of beans and the spider made a half-hearted scurry toward the hole under the skirting board, rocking left and right in an uneven manner as it went. Henry stood and stretched his arms above his head and yawned, he checked his watch, it was the wrong side of 11pm and he had to get up for work in the morning “Time to hit the hay” he muttered to himself as he turned to walk through the kitchen.

Henry stopped as he walked over the floor tiles in his bare feet, he suddenly felt all the hairs rise on the back of his neck and he felt that deep, turning feeling in his stomach that one feels when overcome with acute sense of dread, he felt eyes on him, many eyes. He turned and looked back at the hole in the skirting board but nothing was there, he looked up at the ceiling in the kitchen but nothing was there, he looked out of the kitchen window into his rather unkempt back garden, but nothing was there, and then he saw something, in the slightly over grown rose bushes at the near side of the garden he thought he saw several large, dark eyes reflecting in the light shining from within, round eyes; black eyes. He shut his own eyes and shook his head,

               “Come now Henry, you’re passed this, don’t start getting squeamish on me”, he took a deep breath and opened them, there was nothing outside in the slightly over grown rose bush other than thorns and dying red roses swaying with the night breeze, he closed his eyes and looked again, still nothing. After looking over the minutiae of his garden from his kitchen window (as best as a person can in the pitch blackness of night) he resolved himself a whimpering fool and went upstairs to bed.

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Henry awoke in the early hours of the morning in a cold sweat, to say he’d had a poor night sleep so far would be an understatement. Scenes of running through dark forests and damp caves had filled his nightmares, always from an unspeakable terror behind him in the shadows. In the dreams he could not see what the thing was as it was always cast in shadows, but he could hear it.. and that sound… he knew that sound, the pitter patter of legs in constant motion, each sounding like it was moving independently of the others, the sound of his gravest of fears, the sound that stalked his childhood.

He’d had nightmares like these before many years ago but they were consigned to the past, he sat up in his bed and wiped the sweat from his brow with his grey pyjama t-shirt and he sighed, he had spent too long that night thinking of spiders, too long inches away from the little beast in his pantry and then he realised he had gone too far, not least by needlessly and cruelly torturing the thing but also by allowing it to enter his sub conscious and terrorise his dreams once again, never would he be such a stupid, arrogant fool again he told himself. Henry opened his mouth wide and inhaled a gush of yawning air, he allowed the sand bags to close his eyes and reclined onto his pillow, he began to think of mundane things such as what shopping he needed to get in after work tomorrow and when the MOT was due on his Citroen Picasso and how he hoped to god that it wouldn’t cost him dear as it had last year, then he started to drift off to sleep.

He opened his eyes - all of his senses primed and taking notice.. he was sure he heard a noise through the comfortable fuzziness of half sleep; BANG he sat up, his back straight, his neck stretched, his head tilted to the left, listening with his right ear facing the direction of the sound.

tick tock,

tick tock,

tick, tock…

a gust of wind rushed into room pushing his door ajar; BANG, it was the window in the spare bedroom, he realised he must have left it off the latch. Henry’s shoulders slumped, he hadn’t realised how tense he was until he allowed all of his muscles to uncoil,

“Stupid fool” he cursed himself…

And then he heard it, the noise of his nightmares; pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter… or maybe “skittering” would be a better word to describe it, the noise of numerous legs moving from the spare room and across the laminate flooring of the hallway.

“I’m still dreaming, this has to be a nightmare”, he thought to himself, it couldn’t possibly be real, the dreadful sound was far too loud to be what he had thought it was, surely this dreadful night must be taking its toll on him. Henry closed his eyes tight “Wake up Henry, wake up” pitter patter pitter patter “WAKE UP YOU MENTAL OLD FUCKWIT!” he shouted. The noise stopped, time stood still for what seemed like the length of the night, he stared at his bedroom door, the moonlight spilling in through his window illuminating the corner of the room. His eyes wide open, he was too afraid to blink, they started streaming and mixing with the sweat coming from his forehead, his whole body was stiff as a board. Henry had heard of “fight or flight” but right now he was experiencing the lesser mentioned third option of “freeze”.. a tip of something long and pointy slowly peaked out from behind his door… halfway up his door… the leg continued and another two came into view as some beast was prowling into his room. His door creaked as the bulk of whatever it was pushed its way over the threshold into his room, he snapped out of his frozen state and pulled the duvet and sheets over his head.

Henry was far too scared to make a sound but he started to whimper involuntarily and under normal circumstances he would have realised that the bed sheets were sticking to his flabby belly and thighs due to him emptying his bladder, but at this time it had not even occurred to him. He heard a shuffling over the wearing thin carpet and he held his breath, the shuffling noise stopped as it relentlessly creeped over his thick shaggy rug at the foot of his bed “Arrgghhhhhhhhhh” he wailed as he felt the bed slump by his right foot and again by his left, judging by the level of sinking of the bed, this creature was vast..

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” he paused to sob uncontrollably “Please, I’ll never hurt another living thing ever again….pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaassssseeeeee NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo” the thing lurched over his quivering form, and he was once again the same terrified 8 year old boy he had been all those years ago.

Author's Note

My first attempt at a short story (any story actually) - all comments welcome, i'm eager to improve.