House of Spiders

If you have ever harmed spiders… start fearing them now…. Or the house of the spiders shall call upon your soul, for all eternity, to live on as one of them, as a member of the family of spiders….
Holy Faith Health Care Centre: 3:17 p.m.
The message flashed on the mobile, vibrating off the edge of the table. Vienne glared at the dangling mobile. The message flashed two more times and fell visibly silent, the screen went black. She reached out toward the charging wire and pulled. The mobile landed in her lap….
A few seconds later, a nurse passing by the rehabilitation ward saw Vienne standing by the window. Deathly still. Very pale.
"Ms. Vienne?"
No response. Just the shifting of weight from one leg to another.
"I’d advise you to please come back to your bed, you need to rest…."
The nurse heard the creak of the wood beneath her. Vienne turned, her hair pulled back, as if someone had shaved off quite a part of her hairline backward. Her forehead was red from inflammation, the nurse noted. As she neared Vienne, something black caught her eye. A tuft of the dark black hair that had belonged to Vienne’s scalp sometime back. The nurse shifted uneasily. Vienne looked ghastly.
She whispered, her voice tight with fear- "You should go to sleep…."

Vienne smiled, showing her bleeding lips, which bled more as she purposefully stretched her lips unnecessarily to smile, insanity dancing in each eye. A broken cracked voice came out of her equally cracked lips, "How can I? They won’t let me sleep…." She was pointing to the mobile, which lay smashed in a corner, the charging cable still connected.
The nurse stared at the mobile, its cover shattered. And didn’t turn to look at Vienne push herself beyond the window and out into the fall 32 floors below.
She heard a scream a few minutes later. From the ground floor. A woman screaming, feet clattering across the concrete to reach the lifeless body of Vienne Susannah Price. Not turning to look at the spot where the patient had been standing, she walked stiffly to the mobile and picked it up in her trembling hands. The message was still there.
‘Down the stairs and up the attic,
In every crook we lie in wait,
For our next kin to join,
After he has passed through soil,
In the only place we call our own,
In every angle, in every room,
Sits a corner,
So deep it could drown you,
So wide it’d consume you,
Shadowed by our offering,
The cobweb calls you,
Unluck befalls you,
As we welcome you to the house of the spiders….

***
The weather was going for its worst. Sherry tucked her black coat around herself. Ten steps ahead lay the grave of her brother and his wife. A honeymoon gone wrong. They’d gone in love and come back dead. A sob escaped from her as she laid a bunch of white roses on each grave. A cool rush of air made her hair bellow on her face. Goosebumps rode her skin as she said a small prayer for them. It had been a week since the two had been found dead. The beauty that was her sister- in –law, had committed suicide after jumping off a building and her brother had drugged himself to death. The timings had been unknown. Sherry suspected foul play. Her brother as well as his wife were both hard headed people. And nothing suggested suicide in the right sense. She racked her brains for a sensible solution but nothing came up. But maybe it was just a random burglary… but there were no valuables with them, no documents…
"Ssshhhh….errrryyy", a whisper, cut raggedly through the thick air of the graveyard. Sherry whipped around, she just saw her colleague, Eldon leaning against the car. He was gazing at the darkening skies. Patiently waiting for her.
"Donnnn’t leeeeaave meee," a gasp followed and again, "Ssshh…e..rrryyy…. donn’t".
That was when she noticed a strange mark on the stone inscription. It resembled cobwebs… but it was very lightly done. As if the person who made it had done it on order. Strange. She looked once again at the grave stones …
Derek Price and Vienne Susannah Price.
She tucked her coat, looked at the flowers which had wilted to the core and looked at least a week old…. The roses had been fresh from the florist… an hour ago. Shivering all over, Sherry ran from the graveyard, the feel of wet grass against her heel as her sandal struck the ground. The call of the eerie voice ringing in her ear.
"Ssshherrry… donnn’t leeeaave meee…."