The Memory Closet: A Novel (20 page)

I staggered up, tottered unsteadily two or three steps, grabbed the door and slammed it shut, hammering the latch on it down so hard it hurt my hand. Then I jumped back. A wave of revulsion raised goose bumps on my arms, and I didn’t want to touch any part of that building.

That’s when I spotted it. There was a crack under the door. Not a very big one, but big enough. They’d get out that way, crawl out through the crack! Spiders the size of toasters would squeeze through. Even the big one. They’d slide under the door and …

The bay door! I suddenly noticed a three-inch space between it and the ground. The spiders weren’t shut up in the building at all! They could escape under both the doors, maybe out other cracks I couldn’t see.

And they would escape, all right. They’d crawl out and come after me, all of them. They’d find me. Climb up my body onto my face. The spiders would never stop, never give up until they killed me.

Unless I killed them first.

Someone shouted in my head, hollered so loud the tinnitus in my ears protested with a roaring buzz.

Burn it!
the voice yelled.
Go on. Do it, Annie. Set it on fire.

It wasn’t my voice, but I knew it. I’d heard it before.

I looked around, fighting hysteria, still breathing in hitching gulps. My eye fell on the gasoline can Billy had left by the lawn mower in front of the garage door.

“You still got the whole five gallons,” he’d said.

I dropped to my knees beside the can and tried to open it. But my hands were trembling so badly I couldn’t unscrew the lid.

“Aggghhhhh!” I let out a cry of frustration so ragged it hurt my throat, and slapped the side of the can as hard as I could.

Calm down. You can do this. You have to do this!

The pain in my hand steadied me, at least enough so I could wrestle the lid off the can. Then I picked it up, stepped to the garage and began to splash gasoline from it onto the building. The liquid hit the walls and soaked instantly into the ancient, parched wood. Down the side of the building across from the chicken yard fence. Around the back. I had to climb over a pile of concrete blocks someone had stacked between the back wall of the garage and the cedar tree hedge that separated the property from the open prairie beyond. Up the other side, where the hedge blocked the view of the weed-covered vacant lot between our house and the nearest neighbor.

Sucking in gasoline fumes with every breath, I was dizzy and light-headed by the time I’d circled the building. I used the last of the liquid in the can on the big bay door on the front that hadn’t opened for a car in a quarter of a century. I drenched it in gasoline.

Every second counted now. When the spiders smelled the gasoline, they’d know I was trying to kill them, and they’d come pouring out of the garage. They’d come for me, angry, that wheezing wail in their ragged, death voices.

Matches. Had to have matches!

There was a barbecue grill on the back porch. Wasn’t there a sack of charcoal lying in it, maybe a can of starter fluid? I dropped the empty gas can and ran to the grill, looking over my shoulder every few seconds at the cracks under the garage doors, expecting to see hairy legs poking out from under them, feeling around like fingers.

Charcoal. Lighter fluid. And a butane lighter, the long-nosed kind!

I grabbed a dish towel hanging over the porch railing and squirted the lighter fluid all over it, soaked it as I crossed the yard to the garage. Then I flicked the little black switch on the barrel of the lighter. Nothing. I flicked it again and again, over and over. Just sparks. Maybe it was empty. Maybe it had just been sitting unused outside for too long. I was one flick away from giving up when it suddenly caught and a blue flame danced on the metal tip. I held the flame to the bottom of the cloth drenched in lighter fluid. There was a
whump
sound; fire bit into the fabric and gobbled it whole. I tossed the burning cloth against the bay door of the garage seconds before the blue flames burned me.

I threw the lighter toward the blazing towel, picked up the lighter fluid can where I’d dropped it on the ground and chucked it at the same spot. Then I just stood, panting, staring into the flames.

Run, you idiot. Run!

I did my best. My legs rubbery, I started down the newly mown strip of grass in front of the garage door that stretched between the cedar hedge and the house all the way to the street.

But I only made it a few steps past the porch before I stopped and turned around. I had to see. I had to stay and be sure. I sank to the ground, shaking violently, staring transfixed at the gap under the garage door.

Please. Please, no …

The cloth burned bright; flames leapt up from it to the gasoline-soaked door and smoke started to pour out of the ancient wood. Then the flames began to lick along the line of splashed gasoline, crackling, going both ways at once, across the bay door and around the side of the building.

Any second now, they’ll start crawling out. As soon as it gets hot, they’ll run, like the ground squirrels ran from the rising water.

I knew I should find a place to hide but I couldn’t. I was transfixed with horror. There was smoke now, lots of smoke boiling off the old wood, obscuring the flames in a black cloud.

Then I heard them—hundreds of gravelly death voices, shrieking, crying out inside my skull. The garage was an inferno and the spiders were burning. With flames all around them, they were scratching and clawing, trying to get out.

Just like Windy.

The thought dropped into my mind like a stone tossed from a great height into a still pool, and the ripples undulated in ever-widening circles, an echo reverberating:
like Windy, like Windy, like Windy.

Suddenly, the back door burst open, and Bobo was on the porch.

“Oh … oh, my! The garage is a’burnin’!” she gasped. She couldn’t see me, on my knees in the new-mown grass on the side of the house. She stood for a heartbeat on the porch, then turned and ran back into the house.

The whole building was engulfed in flames now, belching black smoke into the sky. I could hear the spiders screaming.

They’ll crawl out on fire. They’ll inch along, smoldering, dragging their fried bodies with burned-stick legs. They’ll come for me—even dead!

The panic inside me finally detonated with a thunderous explosion.

I jumped up and bolted toward the kitchen.

Have to hide! Have to find a place to hide!

I flung open the screen door; the back stairs door was standing open beside it and I flew up the stairs. I leapt out of the staircase into the studio and raced past Petey’s cage to the door.

Hide!

Where?

I darted across the hallway to my bedroom, slammed the door shut behind me and leaned against it gasping for breath. The front of my T-shirt jumped with the staccato hammering of my heart. My bedroom was on the front of the house, but out the window I could see smoke billowing over the roof. In the distance, I could hear a siren.

What if they put the fire out and some of the spiders are still alive! What if the big one …?

I felt above the door frame for the skeleton key. Somehow, I managed to fit it into the hole in the big lock, turned it and heard the bolt slide into place before the key flew out of my shaking hands and landed with a plunk on the floor. But that wasn’t enough. That wouldn’t stop the big boy! I had to block the door.

My antique claw-foot, four-poster bed was on one side of the door; a matching armoire on the other, six feet tall and probably five feet wide. It was solid oak and full of my clothes, but with sudden, amazing strength, I shoved it down the wall and across the door until it struck the door knob. Then I grabbed the foot post of my bed and dragged it sideways across the room until the bed rested crossways behind the armoire in front of the door.

I stood back, gasping for breath.

Hide!

I ran into the bathroom, slammed the door shut behind me and crouched down in the shower stall, scooted tight against the back wall, my eyes trained on the crack under the bathroom door. That’s how they’d get in. Under the door. I reached out of the shower and grabbed a metal trash can. I could use it to smash them, crush them before they got to me.

The memory of the spiders crawling on me, the feel of their hairy legs on my skin and the pain of their savage bites filled my head with a halogen-bright light, and I started to scream. But I clamped my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound. I crouched against the cool tiles, screaming soundlessly, clutching the trash can as my only weapon against unspeakable evil.

The siren got louder and louder until it was wailing right under my window. Then I heard Bobo, calling my name, banging on my door.

I got up, carefully opened the bathroom door and peeked out. Smoke had wafted in my open window and everything smelled of burning wood.

“Anne, Anne are you in there? Anne, the garage is a’burnin’. Annie!”

There was a hysterical ring to her voice and I called back, “I’m in here Bobo,” amazed that I could actually speak.

“Annie? Annie, open the door.”

“No!” I shrieked. Then more controlled, “No, I can’t open the door.”

“Why not? Annie what’s wrong with you? Why won’t you open the door? You got to come out here. The garage is burning.”

I couldn’t tell her about the spiders. What would a fragile old woman do if she found out there was a nest of giant tarantulas right by her back door, that they’d attacked me and tried to kill me. She’d have a heart attack or a stroke!

I balled my hands into fists as tight as I could, gritted my teeth and forced myself to calm down. I looked all around the room, carefully scanned the floor, then crossed to the side of the armoire and spoke into the crack between it and the door.

“Nothing’s wrong, Bobo. I’ve just … got a migraine headache, that’s all. Please stop shouting at me. Just leave me alone.”

“But Annie, the garage …”

“I know!” A little squeak of hysteria escaped along with the words but I didn’t think she heard it. Steady. Softer. “I know. The garage is on fire. You said that already. But the fire department’s here. You don’t need me. I’m sick. My head is splitting. Please, please, just leave me alone.”

She must have heard the desperation in my voice that time and mistook it for pain.

“OK, Anne. I’ll leave you alone. I got to go …” She paused. “Do you smell something burning?”

I turned and hurried back into the bathroom. I caught a fleeting glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink. My hair tangled, my face dirty, my eyes wild. I yanked a towel off the rack and hung it over the mirror. I knew what I’d see behind me if I looked full into it. I’d see eyes, hundreds of little eyes, pools of pure hatred burning fiery red holes in the darkness.

Then I shut the door and got back into the shower stall.

Time passed. I didn’t know how much. I could hear muffled sounds through the bedroom window, voices, the low hum of a crowd of people, men shouting. The smell of smoke had even seeped into the bathroom. But it was a good smell, I liked it. It meant the garage was still burning.

Gradually, the smell and the sounds faded away.

Then there was a knock on my door. Not Bobo’s timid tapping. A strong, purposeful knock. A voice called my name.

“Anne!” Not Annie. It was Dusty. “I need to talk to you, Anne.”

I opened the bathroom door. It was late afternoon. I had been crouched in the shower stall for hours. I didn’t trust my voice, but I had to say something. I carefully checked out the floor, then quickly crossed the room and spoke into the crack between the armoire and the door.

“Not now, Dusty. Maybe tomorrow. I’m not feeling well.”

“I need to talk to you now, Anne. Bobo’s worried about you.”

I heard him try the door knob. The door was locked, but all he had to do was get a key from one of the other bedrooms. All the locks were the same. If he unlocked the door and tried to open it … no, I couldn’t let him do that.

“I have a migraine headache.” The tremble in my voice made me sound weak, in pain. “It’ll ease off in a few hours if everybody will just leave me alone.”

I was surprised at how reasonable, and how sick, I sounded.

“You know about the fire, you know the garage—”

“Bobo told me. Please, Dusty, it hurts to talk.” I sounded like I was about to cry. And I was. “Noise and light make it worse. Please, don’t knock anymore. I’ve taken medicine. Just leave me alone until it has time to work.”

“OK, Anne. I’ll be back to check on you later.”

Then there was silence outside my door again.

I ran back to the bathroom, sat down in the shower stall and watched the door. But the terror was easing. I didn’t expect that any second I’d see black hairy legs poking under it like fingers. I was alert, ready to smash the trash can down on anything I did see. But the tension was easing. Slowly, I began to relax.

Maybe I got them. Maybe I actually killed them all.

Bobo called to me later through the door. She didn’t knock. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw that it was dark outside.

“Annie, are you all right in there, Sugar?”

I went to the door and spoke through the crack, trying to sound all right and sick at the same time.

“I’m OK, but it still hurts. The medicine I took hasn’t done any good yet. Sometimes nothing works. The only thing that helps is quiet. Dark and quiet.”

“Don’t you want no supper? I could bring you a tray—”

“I couldn’t eat, Bobo. Food would make me sick.”

“Can’t I get you nothing to make you feel better?”

“Nothing. I just need silence.”

I heard her feet shuffle across the hardwood floor. Wait, I needed to know—

“Bobo!”

She hurried back to the door. “What is it, Hon? Just open up the door and—”

“I just wondered …" I tried to sound only mildly interested. “The garage, did it burn down?”

“Sure did! The fire department come, but they couldn’t put it out. Somebody poured gasoline on it and set it a’fire on purpose! All the firemen could do was squirt water all over them trees to keep the fire from spreading. The hedge got singed pretty bad behind the garage. It was easier to get water to the side, though, and it ain’t burnt hardly at all there.”