In The Lair

In The Lair

Elsie sat silently the by the hotel window, all her attention focused
on a spider's web in one corner of it. The only reason she could stand
to sit and stare so close to the web was because it was on the outside
of the window. Had it been on the inside, Elsie would never have been
so close to it. She would have found her own corner to cower in,
because she was terribly afraid of spiders. Behind glass however, even
her intense irrational fear could be held at bay. The web was not
especially large, but it made a sizeable enough arch in the corner of
the window. In engineering terms it was a beautiful construction, and
strategically too it was well-placed for the catching of flies. Elsie
felt relaxed staring at it, because the spider was nowhere to be seen.
She could even begin to appreciate what an almost beautiful
construction the web was. Then, suddenly, everything changed. Elsie saw
a small housefly blown into the web by a gust of wind. Its legs just
twitched a little in annoyance at first; as if it did not understand
the danger it was in, that it was about to meet its end in the most
archetypal way a fly could. Elsie felt sorry for the fly, and was just
about to open the window and see if she could free it from its prison
when suddenly the spider bounded into view. Elsie recoiled in shock,
her heart pounded. The spider had been lying in wait, out of sight, for
just such a moment. The wind was still blowing however and it struggled
to reach the fly, like a sailor climbing rigging in a storm. It was
making steady progress though, this indefatigable eight-legged death.
It was the movement that scared Elsie the most, the sudden, jerking
movement of the many legs. It was fast and unpredictable, even behind
glass Elsie cowered as the little black icon of horror scrabbled over
to its prey. She felt a familiar rushing in her ears as she watched the
spider, her mind screamed irrationally for her to run and her skin
crawled as if the spider was clambering over her instead. It was almost
as if she was the one stuck in the web. Elsie felt a terrible shaking,
creeping, fear-sick sensation wash over her as she became totally
absorbed in the drama of the spider and the fly.

The spider was almost upon its prey. The fly's legs flailed in utter
panic and desperation. Elsie's heart pounded in terror and loathing.
The spider's maw gaped in hunger and longing. Then, just as the spider
prepared for the final pounce, a well-timed twist of fate occurred, and
another gust of wind rose and blew the fly right out of the web and
into the safety of the morning sky. The spider would go hungry today.
Elsie felt a quite ridiculous feeling of relief because of this, simply
because one small fly had escaped death for a few more hours. She felt
a kinship with the fly however, they had a mutual enemy, and that made
them friends. The spider remained in its web for a few moments longer,
it remained in the same posture as if it simply could not believe what
had happened. Then, having admitted defeat at least for the moment, it
clambered back up its web and into its lair.

Elsie was a woman of about fifty-five years of age. She had worked as a
cleaner in a local school for most of her life. She was not a cheerful
woman, but she was often happy in her own way. Her job did not pay vast
sums of money, but with it and her husband Percy's income they had
enough to live comfortably. In the past few years they had even been
fortunate enough to be able to afford a few holidays in exotic places.
This year they were staying in a small hotel in the south of France.
The one thing Elsie hated about holidays in foreign countries was that
they always had bigger insects than those back home. She did not
understand why the insects had to be bigger, or why there had to be so
many more of them, it made no sense to her. Percy told her that in
hotter countries there were more insects because the heat made them
reproduce more, it was obvious, he said. He also rather carelessly
suggested that the insects were bigger because the heat made their
bodies expand, just like in hot-air balloons. After some thought, Elsie
had replied by arguing that, if that was the case, why then did the
front-door of their house expand in winter, when it was colder, and not
in summer, when it was warmer? Percy said wood behaved in a different
way to insects' bodies, Elsie replied by saying why then did hot-air
balloons not behave in a different ways to insects' bodies too? Percy
always managed to make some further reply to try and prove his already
fairly nonsensical point. He never gave up. That was one thing Elsie
disliked about him, and it constantly led them into petty, ridiculous
arguments. Elsie would argue bitterly with Percy over his theory of why
insects were bigger in hot-countries, not because she cared about the
answer, but because she hated the way Percy always had a reply for
everything and never admitted he was wrong. She longed to pin him down
on some topic and get him to admit, just for once, that he had been
wrong. She never achieved this however; no matter how right she knew
she was, Percy, just like the government, would never admit he had been
wrong.

Percy appeared in the doorway behind her. He was a short, fifty-seven
year old man with precious little hair and a conspicuous gut that he
tried his best to cover with loose-fitting clothing. Age had not been
kind to him, but Elsie didn't care, it hadn't been gentle to her
either, and besides, when their arguments got too much for her she
could always make herself feel better by taunting him about his weight.
He was very touchy about that subject, though one thing she knew never
to taunt him about was his height; everyone who knew Percy knew that
you never, ever taunted him about his height. It was simply not
done.

"We're all ready to go Els"

The sound of Percy's voice startled Elsie, normally she heard him
approaching but this time she had become lost in her own thoughts.
Steadying herself, she rose from the chair and turned to him.

"Cab driver says he'll take us as far as the first site and then we can
walk from there, he'll pick us up later"

"Ok love"

Elsie followed Percy out of the room, down the steep hotel stairs and
into the lobby. The young, dark-haired receptionist (whom Percy was
developing something of an obsession over) waved and said "Au revoir"
in her thick French accent as they left the lobby.

"I'll give her 'au revoir'" muttered Elsie under her breath; Percy just
smiled stupidly, like a schoolboy with a crush on his teacher.

The taxi was taking them to a collection of stone-circle sites and
standing stones in the countryside surrounding the hotel. There was not
much in the way of tourist sites in the area. Elsie was not really
interested in seeing what she thought must amount to nothing more than
a couple of large rocks, but she knew Percy was interested, he always
liked that kind of thing. Percy sat in the taxi next to his wife, still
smiling from seeing the receptionist and sweating profusely. He really
didn't want to go and see the standing stones, things like that bored
him to death, but he always had to pretend interest for Elsie's
sake.

They reached the first site about twenty minutes later. It had been
very hot in the taxi and both passengers were grateful to get out into
the fresh air, Percy because he could no longer stand the heat of the
taxi, and Elsie because she could no longer stand the smell of her
Percy. The taxi drove off, leaving them in a small clearing by the
roadside. The French countryside stretched off into the distance all
around them, Elsie stared out above the dense forest and into the
rolling hills in the distance. The landscape was truly beautiful, and
the sky was a clear and motherly blue. Elsie drew the cool air deep
into her lungs, it felt good to be alive on such days, no matter how
old you got. Percy meanwhile was already investigating the rather
paltry stone-circle they had been dropped off at. The 'circle'
consisted of five stones, only two of which were still standing,
situated in a rough oval shape and with a smaller stone in the centre.
Percy was busy examining the stones and taking a few pictures since
there was nothing else to do. Elsie looked at him and smiled, he was
just like a little boy sometimes.

"Not exactly Stonehenge is it?" laughed Elsie as she walked over to the
stone circle.

"No, but interesting all the same" Percy replied, smiling to himself.
The circle was anything but interesting. "They say they lined up these
stones with the stars you know" Percy stopped taking pictures and sat
down on the central-stone.

"How do they know that?"

"Well, measurements and things. This circle probably matches a
constellation of some sort."

"They could have built this thing for any number of reasons though
couldn't they?"

"No no, they're quite certain it's to do with the stars." Percy gazed
knowingly up at the sky. Elsie was about to make a further reply but,
for the sake of avoiding an argument, decided better of it. She walked
into the stone-circle to sit down by her husband. As she entered the
circle the air suddenly felt colder, and she felt a strange, prickling
sensation.

"Oooh, I don't like this Perce"

"What?"

"Being in this circle, it's making me feel all funny."

"Don't be daft love."

"You mean you don't feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"It's colder here, there's something funny about it."

"There's something funny about your head woman. It's just a couple of
rocks put in a circle together. Look, three of 'em aren't even standing
up anymore."

"I know but&;#8230;I don't think I like this Perce, can we move on
now?"

"We're only going to be moving to another circle, so what's the point
if you don't like them?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll be alright, you're right, it's just me being
silly."

"Told you so, come on then, let's get going." Percy pushed himself off
the stone he was sitting on and strode out of the circle and onto the
path leading to the next site. Elsie hesitated a little, she was
certain the air was colder in the circle, she was certain she had felt
something strange.

"Come on Els, I thought it made you feel 'all funny'?" Percy mocked.
Elsie was certain she was right, but even she realised how stupid it
must have sounded. Percy turned and began walking down the path,
muttering something under his breath about the strangeness of women.
Elsie rushed after him.

Elsie walked some distance behind Percy on the forest path leading to
the next site. It was cooler and darker under the cover of the trees,
but Percy was still sweating visibly from his exertions. Soon they
reached another clearing and another stone-circle, this one even more
dismal than previous one. Three small rocks were arranged in a rough
triangular shape, with another, larger standing stone situated a metre
or two from the 'top' of the triangle. Percy was dismayed to find that
none of the stones were suitable for sitting on. Disgruntled and
dripping with sweat, he set to work photographing the site
methodically, being far too hot and bothered to put on a show of
enthusiasm, even for Elsie's sake. Elsie stepped cautiously into the
circle, but there was no repeat of the strange sensation she had felt
in the last one. The air felt the same. She must have imagined
it.

They spent very little time at the second site. Once Percy had caught
his breath and taken six or seven photographs they moved on. Percy was
becoming bored and uncommunicative and Elsie was lost in thought. They
moved towards the next site in silence, but on the way Percy noticed
something through the trees off the path.

"Look at that Els" Percy pointed at a small stone structure down the
slope to their left. Two large stones stood close to each other, with a
small gap in between and another stone on top acting as a 'roof.' The
space between the stones was very dark and the whole thing had an
appearance of a cave, except of course that it was clearly man-made.
"Let's go and have a look." Percy was bored of stone-circles, but the
strange structure interested him. He began to scrabble eagerly down the
slope and into the forest.

"I don't think we should leave the path Percy."

"Oh come on love, it'll only take a minute." Percy was ignoring her and
continuing his descent.

"It's not one of the sites, we shouldn't be going over there."

"Just a quick look, come on love." He continued down the slope, almost
slipping on some loose stones but catching himself just in time. "Come
on, we're on holiday." That was no excuse, thought Elsie, but against
her better instincts she followed her husband carefully and slowly down
the slope.

The sunlight fell in sharp shafts through the cover of the trees, but
even so it was very dark at the bottom of the slope. On closer
inspection the structure resembled a tomb more than a set of standing
stones. The gap in between the two support stones revealed a set of
steps leading down into further darkness.

"Well this is much more interesting don't you think?" Percy exclaimed
eagerly. Elsie was not convinced, she hadn't wanted to leave the path
they were supposed to be following and did not relish the prospect of
entering the crypt-like structure.

"Yes Perce, it's very interesting, can we go now?"

"Go? Don't you want to have a look inside?"

"It's too dark, and if we were supposed to go in there it'd be on the
list of sites wouldn't it?"

"It's not that dark, besides-" Percy pulled out a small flashlight from
his shirt pocket "- I've got this." He smiled devilishly at his wife,
knowing that he would be entering the tomb regardless of what she
thought. Elsie knew this too, and was not in the mood for
arguing.

"Fine, you go in, I'm staying out here."

"Okay love, I won't be long."

Percy turned on his flashlight and began to walk carefully down the
steps, illuminating each one as he went.

"Be careful!" Elsie warned as stridently as she could manage. Percy
just laughed to himself; of course he was going to be careful.

Inside the structure it was not as dark as it first seemed it would be.
The sunlight gave Percy a rough outline of the interior even without
his flashlight. The steps looked old and worn, but they were not very
steep and Percy could already see the bottom of them. The stone walls
were rough and moss covered, as was the ceiling. It was an altogether
unremarkable structure, but the darkness and the adventure of it made
Percy quite excited. A few minutes later he reached the bottom of the
steps. The air was cold and moist, and it cooled Percy down
wonderfully. He shone the torch around to get a better idea of his
surroundings. He was standing in a small room, almost like a hallway,
with solid stone walls to his right and at the far end. To his left the
wall was interrupted by two window-like openings situated at each end.
This part interested Percy the most, and he walked over to inspect them
more closely. He leaned his head into one of the openings and shone his
flashlight into it. He recoiled sharply out of instinct; the first
sight that greeted him was a thick, dusty web and a large, red spider
the size of a dragonfly. Percy was not scared of spiders, but the
initial shock had set his heart racing. He calmed himself down and
inspected the spider more closely. It was a blood-red colour with an
angular carapace-like body. It looked sharp and deadly like a samurai
sword. Percy wondered whether it was venomous. Looking past the spider
he saw that there was another room behind the wall and through the
openings. He couldn't see anything of it though because the entire room
seemed completely covered in thick webbing. The spider had clearly been
busy.

"What's down there Perce?" shouted Elsie to her husband.

"Not much, you wouldn't like it, there's a great big spider down
here."

Elsie felt familiar fear flood her mind. "Watch out Perce, it might be
dangerous."

"I know I know, certainly looks dangerous. Don't you just want to see
it though? It's quite impressive."

"No." Elsie was firm in her answer; there was no way she was going to
enter the lair, no matter how remarkable a specimen the spider may have
been.

"Go on, it can't hurt you."

"No, you know I hate those things, let's just go." Elsie was getting
annoyed. Percy could hear it in her voice. He knew he wouldn't be able
to persuade his wife to change her mind, and besides he was no longer
so sure he liked the strange tomb, or its eight-legged resident. So he
left the tomb and emerged into the subdued daylight of the
forest.

"I tell you something Els, I wouldn't like be a fly stuck in that web."
But Elsie already felt that she was. In her mind she imagined the
monstrousness of the spider, its gigantic size and terrible deadliness.
It made her feel quite sick with fear even though she had not even seen
it. They both left feeling quite unnerved, whilst, in the lair, the
spider hung completely still in its web, an empty husk of a body,
long-dead.