Kumo

It was Halloween and Gareth was driving towards the castle. His
girlfriend Eva was moaning.
"It had better be good. Why do we have to come here? We could have gone
to Teri's party instead."
2I've told you before. Ian has rented the castle for the weekend and
this is sort of a bonding exercise. We are all supposed to get to know
one another better. It will help us at work. You'll have the time of
your life, there's all sorts of things arranged."
"Humph," she stared out of the window and watched the old trees lining
the driveway drop the rain onto the road. The car splashed through the
puddles. Then she saw the castle, stark against the dark sky. It looked
very old and as they drew nearer Eva could see that most of it looked
ruined.
"Gareth, it's a ruin," she exclaimed.
"There's been no one living here for ages, it's rumoured that an evil
spirit drove the last occupants away. But some rooms have survived. We
will not be sleeping in the open air. Don't worry."
He parked the car at he rear of the castle and they walked towards an
opened door, which led into a modern kitchen. A large man nodded at
them then said,
"Hi, I'm the cook for the weekend. I'll show you where the others
are."
They left the modern, clean kitchen and went into a corridor that
looked as if no one had cleaned it since the castle was built. The
cook, who was called Edward, showed them into a massive room then left
them to go back to his kitchen.
Eva looked at the Great Hall. Two roaring log fires provided most of
the light. In the flickering light she saw what might have been swords
over the fireplaces and the stone walls had tapestries on them. The
decorations did little to life the gloomy effect. Eva shivered. She
moved towards the fire where a small group of people were
gathered.
"Ah Gareth, great, I was hoping that you would turn up." It was Ian
Brown, the man who had arranged everything. "Come and have a drink. I
think you know everyone. And Eva, you look charming my dear." He moved
to Eva and kissed her cheek. She struggled to prevent herself from
cringing and put her arm round Gareth as if to say I'm with him. She
noticed that Ken, the man she worked with, wasn't there yet.
The stilted conversation was halted by dinner being served, then they
all went back to sit by the fire. Edward joined then from the kitchen
and pored drinks for everyone. He sat down by the fire and joined in
the halting conversation.
Desperately trying to get things going Ian suggested that they told
ghost stories. He started with a very lame one then he asked Gareth to
tell one.
"I don't know any I'm afraid. But I'll tell you a true story that my
father told me."
Everyone nodded; anything would be better than to have to hear another
of Ian's stories.

"My father was stationed in Gan during the latter part of the Second
World War. He actually lived on one of the smaller islands. One night
he went to bed in his crude wooden hut but he was woken by a strange
noise, a slithering, sliding noise. He got out of bed and looked out of
the crude window. There was a bright moon but he couldn't see any
movement so he went back to bed. The next morning there was a headless
chicken outside his door. He asked his batman about it but he knew
nothing, so he asked his native servants and all they did was roll
their eyes and shake their heads.
Nothing untoward happened the next night nor on any of the following
nights until the night of the full moon when he was woken again by the
same strange sounds. This time he left his shelter and starting walking
around the island. It wasn't very big and it didn't take him very long.
I suppose he was worried in case the Japanese had landed there. Anyway
he said that he saw nothing that shouldn't be there. The next morning
there was a headless chicken by his door.
To cut a long story short this continued for several months and my
father grew very angry. He punished his servants even though they swore
that they knew nothing. He was away in Gan, at the airbase, for the
next night of the full moon and he never went back to his
island."
""Why was that?" asked Ian.
"His replacement had vanished from the hut. There was no sign of him,
except for one of his boots found on the far side of the island. No
boats were missing and no one had seen him. My father said that all he
knew about this man was that he was nicknamed "sleepy" because he slept
so soundly that air-raids and thunderstorms never woke him."
"Spooky," said Eva
Then Ian asked Michael to tell a story, Michael agreed but said that he
wanted someone to do the sound effects fro him. Eva volunteered and
soon the sounds of laughter were echoing from the walls of the Great
Hall. People were beginning to feel tired, partly from drinking the
abundant supply of alcohol, so they all decided to find their rooms and
go to bed. They lit candles from the fire and Ian showed them where the
bedrooms were.
"I'm sorry it's so primitive but at least you are not sleeping on the
floors," he said as they saw mattresses on the floor.
Eva helped Gareth drag their mattresses together.
"What's that in the corner of the room?" she asked.
"I don't know and I don't care, I'm tired," he finished pushing the
mattresses together then lay down. "It's probably dustcovers for the
mattresses. Don't worry about it."
"I thought I saw it move," said Eva
"Naaah, it's probably just the candlelight," said Gareth.
They slept.
Eva woke up with a start. She couldn't move; she felt as if she was
tied up. But whatever was tying her was also sticky. She opened her
eyes and by the light of the dying candle she saw a spider standing
over Gareth. No not a spider. Spiders didn't have eyes as big as
saucers. Spiders were not as big as a man. What she saw was a Kumo. It
stood there on its very long legs and opened its mouth to reveal very
sharp teeth. It closed its mouth and moved from Gareth towards
her.
Eva screamed and screamed loud enough to wake every body in the castle
but only Ian came running into the room. Ian saw Eva and Gareth were
imprisoned by a huge sticky spider's web. Ian shouted while Eva
screamed but the spider took no notice of the commotion. Ian tried to
pull the webs away but hey wouldn't move he ran down stairs to get one
of the swords from the walls.
Meanwhile the Kumo opened its mouth and sank its teeth into her arm.
Piercing her skin it began to suck her blood. Eva had stopped screaming
and was now sobbing.
"Please help me, please."
Ian came back carrying a sword and he began to hack at the sticky
threads of the web but nothing he did would sever the strands that were
sticking to Eva and Gareth. He went for help but every room he tried he
saw the neatly tied packages of spider food.
Ian ran back and tried to attack the Kumo that was attacking Eva and he
drove it into a corner. But try as he might he could not move the webs
that held Gareth and Eva in their final embrace. The Kumo moved back to
Eva and drained her blood, then turned to Gareth to finish what it had
started when Eva woke up. Replete it moved back to its corner and
slept. Ian cautiously tiptoed out of the room only to see the other
Kumos, less replete, standing blocking the passageway. He backed away
from then, stumbling when he reached the staircase. Ian fell backwards
down the staircase. He lay at the bottom, senseless. A Kumo skittered
down the stairs and began to spin a web.