a and she heard it coming, heard its legs thumping over the floor.
She slammed the bedroom door and locked it. She walked quickly backward away from it until she hit Dana's bed and flopped into a sitting position on the mattress.
Dana sat up and squinted at her. "What's the matter, Mommy?"
"Just lie down, honey, okay? Just lie down and a "
It thumpeted over the floor and up onto the wall in the hallway, then knocked against the door.
Maxine gasped as her head jerked toward the door. She stared at it a moment, then turned back to Dana and said, "Just get under the blankets and cover your ears, okay? Will you do that for Mommy?"
"But what's a "
"Just do it, honey, please."
"Okay." She lay back down and pulled the covers up over her head.
The thing outside went back and forth. It's legs thumped unnervingly over the floor and wall and door.
"Keep it together," she said, breathing the words to herself. She looked at the phone, turned it on, punched nine-one-one and put it to her ear.
Twenty-Five.
Harker had driven slowly through Hope Valley Heights, up and down every street, and even down the cul de sacs. Cats darted across the streets through the beams of his headlights. A dog had chased him a few yards. If there were still cats and dogs roaming the streets, chances were the sun spider had not been through there. Not yet.
He left the neighborhood behind and went to the next development, where he did the same thing.
Shelly's voice came over the radio. "I got a woman who says she has a spider in the house. Thirteen forty-two Sunset Way, one-three-four-two, Sunset Way."
Harker immediately made a U-turn and left the neighborhood. He flipped on his lights and siren.
"I'm on my way," he said. "I'll want back-up. Is she still on the line?"
"Yes."
"Tell her to get into a room and close the door, then try to get out a window."
"She's already in a separate room."
"If she can't get out a window, tell her to stay where she is and a "
Twenty-Six.
" a don't open that door," the woman on the phone said.
"Hang on," Maxine said, "I'm going to try the window."
She put the phone on Dana's dresser and went to the window on the back wall. She unlocked it and slid it open. There was a screen on the outside. Maxine pounded it with her fists, pushed at the edges, then pounded some more.
Something suddenly changed about the sounds the creature was making in the hall outside the bedroom. It had thumpeted over the door, but it had not come back a it had kept going down the hall.
Maxine turned to look at the wall between the two bedrooms.
Harve, she thought.
She listened as she stared at the wall.
The bed creaked.
Harvey screamed. It was a high, shrill scream and it abruptly ended in a low gurgle.
Maxine stood with her mouth open, looking at the wall.
Dana sat up, eyes bulging with fear. "Mommy, what's happening?" she said, near tears.
Maxine rushed to her side and picked her up. "C'mere, honey, c'mere." She set her down under the window, then went back to work on the screen. "Just stand right there, honey."
Dana began to cry.
"Please don't cry, Mommy needs you to be strong, okay? Can you be strong for me?"
She heard a siren. She listened a moment a it was getting louder.
"Oh, god, please make them hurry," Maxine whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. She went on pounding at the screen as Dana cried. The top corner came loose, and she worked harder. The bottom corner gave and she bent half the entire screen outward. She turned to pick up Dana to send her out the window, but she stopped and looked at the wall again.
What if the thing in the next room decided to go back outside?
Maxine walked over to the wall and listened.
The siren got louder, closer.
She heard clicking in the other room, and wet sounds. Ugly sounds. She remembered seeing it on Dudley, and she realized now that it had been eating the dog.
That was what it was doing to Harve now a eating him.
Maxine was filled with a terrible shame when she realized all she could feel was relief.
Twenty-Seven.
Harker arrived first. He parked at the curb, grabbed the shotgun, and got out of his cruiser. The red and blue lights throbbed over the sidewalk and lawn. He racked the shotgun as he approached the house.
Another cruiser arrived right behind him. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Deputy Walter Barrens get out of his car, shotgun in hand.
"We're over here!" a female called. "Over here!"
Harker followed the voice. It came from the side of the house. He jogged across the unmowed front lawn and around the corner.
The woman peered at him through the bent-open screen.
"There's a key to the front door on top of the porchlight," she said. "It's in one of those magnet thingies. You just slide it open."
"Is the spider still in there?" he said.
"Yes, it's in the next room eating my husband. Down the hall, second door on the left."
Harker was startled by the casual way she said it. But he knew people behaved strangely when in stressful circumstances. He jogged back around the corner to the front door a Barrens was already there a and took the key in its magnetic container off the top of the porch light.
"Is it in there?" Barrens said.
"Yep. Back bedroom." He opened the screen door, used the key to unlock the front door and left it in the lock. He turned the knob just enough, then shouldered the shotgun. He aimed low and kicked the door open.
There was nothing there. He went into the living room. The television was on but no one was there a no one and nothing. He saw the opening of the hallway.
"Down the hall, second door on the left," he said to Barrens, who came up beside him.
They went to the hallway, looked down to the other end.
"You stay here," Harker said. "If I miss it, you get it coming out." He turned to Barrens. "You okay?"
"Scared shitless."
"Me, too."
Harker started down the hall, shotgun aimed low. He wished his heart would stop pounding in his ears. He passed a door on the left, then an open bathroom on the right.
He approached the second door on the left wide. It was open and dark inside.
He heard it slurping and sucking in the bedroom.
He leaned forward, peered into the open doorway and saw it on the bed.
Harker approached the open doorway cautiously, the flashlight held under the barrel of the shotgun. It did not hear him. It kept eating. Standing in the open doorway, he fired.
Its legs shattered on this side, and the spider tumbled off the bed.
Harker rushed forward as he racked the shotgun.
What was left of it was on its back and the legs that remained twitched and pumped.
Harker fired again.
The spider's body broke in half in a splatter of pale goo.
When he heard Barrens come into the room, Harker said, "Turn on the light."
The light came on and Harker squinted a little. The man on the bed had been opened up, like the others. He was naked, somehow making it worse.
The spider lay in pieces on the floor beside the bed.
Harker's cheeks puffed as he let out a big breath.
"You got it?" Barrens said.
"Got it."
"Holy shit," Barrens said as he looked first at the dead man on the bed, then at the spider on the floor. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"I'm not sure, but I've got my suspicions."
Another unit pulled up outside, siren wailing.
Harker took the microphone from his shoulder, depressed the button with his thumb, and said, "Two-oh-six at the scene. I got it. It's dead."
"Ten-four, two-oh-six," Shelly said.
Harker leaned against the wall a moment, feeling weak with relief. He went to the next room and knocked on the door. "Sheriff."
"Is it dead?" the woman said on the other side of the door.
"It's dead, ma'am."
The door's lock clicked, then it was pulled open. She stood there in an enormous robe holding a little girl in her arms, a phone in her hand. "Is my husband dead?" she said.
Harker nodded solemnly and said, "I'm afraid so."
"Okay," she said, "I'll need to call my sister and have her come get my little girl." She turned to the girl. "You wanna go over to Aunt Barbara's and play with Celise?"
The little girl, eyes wide and uncertain, nodded as the woman held the phone out before her and punched buttons with her thumb. She put the phone to her ear and turned around, walked back into the room, then turned and came back out, pacing in and out.
"Hi, Barb, it's me," she said. "I'm sorry for calling so late, but something's happened. You need to come over and get Dana. ... Harvey's dead. ... I don't know, something, some animal, some ... thing, it came in and ... and ... "