Phil's Workplace

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Location: Heanor, Derbyshire, United Kingdom

I am 56, married for 32 years, have two children and NO mortgage. Check out short stories on www.storiesville.com

Monday 26 May 2008

Selected Short Stories

Great news...................sold my first copy of the compliation today! Just wondering now where it will lead.

Sunday 25 May 2008

Newsflash

Check out new book listing on www.lulu.com

Search under surname (neale) for my Selected Short Stories. Here's a taster that's not in the volume.......

Grapes and Wrath

Cecily Winston-Smythe stood at the open double doors of the French windows which looked out across the perfectly manicured lawn and down to the stream which formed the southern border of the ample property. She and George had lived at The Pastures all of their married life but it had been far from an easy existence. Daddy had bought the place as a wedding gift and a trust fund set up in her name provided all the income the two of them needed without George having to lift a finger……….and he didn’t. That had been over thirty years ago and despite being offered a position within the stockbrokerage firm which her father Martin had formed; George showed no inclination to take responsibility for earning a crust. Not that they needed the money, but it would have been nice for him to have some interest outside the home and those blasted vines of his.

They had been on a trip to France when he had the notion of bringing back some vines to set up his own vineyard. The Chardonnay grape was his favourite and the plants were duly purchased and replanted in suitably treated soil on the southern slopes of the grounds. From that point on, all his waking hours were spent in tending and feeding them. Cecily wouldn’t have minded too much, but it was like trying to compete with a mistress, except that with this one you couldn’t slap her around the face and tell her just what you thought. No, all she could do was watch in increasing frustration as he cosseted and cajoled the things into growth and output.

“George! Dinner’s ready.” She called across the lawn, knowing from experience that it was a forlorn hope.

He turned, shaded his eyes as if to ascertain who had called his name and raised one hand in acknowledgement and shook his head. It was the same every day. Up before her, out in the grounds all day and up to bed when she was already asleep. She had even begun to doubt her own attractiveness, but standing before the full length mirror after her bath last night she could not understand his lack of interest. For a woman in her mid fifties, the reflection looking back could have been that of a woman fifteen years her junior, and more than one set of admiring glances had come her way at the summer fêtes which were the custom in the county. The skin was firm and but for the tell-tale lines around her neck she was a perfect specimen………in her own opinion at least.

With one more glance down the garden, she snorted in indignation, turned on her heel and went to the dining room. After an unsatisfying meal Cecily picked up her bag and light summer jacket and headed off for the Paddock, a country pub frequented by the circles of ladies of similar interest to her. Jenny was always good for a moan and had strong opinions on men like George.

“You sure he hasn’t got a bit of fluff stashed away somewhere darling?” She drew lazily on the cigarette in the ivory holder and blew out a steady stream in the direction of the open window.

“Not a chance! He’s too lazy even for that. Heaven forbid that he would have to make effort of any kind. Anyway, the exercise would probably kill him.” They both laughed at the thought.

“Shame he couldn’t have an accident of some kind. Got him insured for enough?”

“Don’t need the dosh dear, but an accident sounds promising. I’d never get away with arranging anything like that, but the thought was nice.”

The conversation proceeded in a similar vein throughout the two hours and a steady intake of white wine, and when they parted for the day Cecily was left with another evening alone to look forward to. It was a further hour and a half before she made any attempt to discover the whereabouts of her errant husband, and stepping out on to the patio overlooking the grounds, was surprised to find that George was nowhere to be seen. It was getting late and time for locking the doors and despite her annoyance, she was not prepared to leave him out there all night. She went down the path towards the vines – he was probably crouched somewhere amongst them, the poor little darlings!

Search as she may, there was no George to be seen and it was not until she made her way around the bottom border of the property that she found him. The greenhouses were located some distance from the vineyard and much of the equipment was kept in an old grain store which stood on a set of broad wooden stilts. George was lying at the bottom of a large ladder from which he had clearly fallen whilst she was out. His eyes were open but lack of movement obviously meant that he had suffered some kind of paralysing fracture to his back or neck, or even both. Instincts took over and she began running back to the house to summon medical help. Stopping halfway through the journey she turned around. What was it that Jenny had said? Shame that he couldn’t have an accident? This was manna from heaven and she retraced her steps.

George lay where Cecily had found him, the look on his face clearly anticipating salvation from his misery. He couldn’t speak, and rolled his eyes as if to plead for help. She turned to the open area beneath the grain store and dragged out a small ladder. He looked at her in puzzlement, and then horror as the excruciating pain of movement hit his brain. Clearly not all sense of feeling had been cut off and she smiled sweetly at him as he came to rest across the rungs. It was now getting quite dark, and with no-one else on the property, what she was about to do would go completely unnoticed. Dragging the ladder all the way across to where the vines were growing, she returned to the store for a garden spade. George’s eyes almost shot out of his head when she moved him into the first space between the rows and started to dig.

For a relatively slight figure, she had always kept herself fit and the fairly loose and well drained soil presented very little in the way of a problem as she worked her way lower and lower. At around three feet she stopped, climbed out of the hole and very deliberately rolled him in. The job was completed in just less than two hours and by the time the ground had been compressed and any surplus earth redistributed amongst the rest of the vineyard, there wasn’t a trace of any unusual activity at that end of the garden area. Now all she had to do was cook up some story to cover his disappearance. His car would have to go in order to make the explanation seem plausible, and taking it down to the local reservoir she released the handbrake and watched as it disappeared beneath the deep, murky waters. Dusting away the tyre tracks with a loose piece of brushwood, she returned on foot to the house to complete the deception.

Having put away all the tools used in the act, she showered and changed, poured herself a stiff whisky and sat down to write herself a ‘goodbye’ letter. God, but it was good! She’d been forging his signature for years, and concocting something like this was child’s play. Reading it back at the end, she could not have been more emotional than if he had actually been the author. It explained that he’d left her for a woman up north whom he had met in France. They had kept in secret touch since their return, and he no longer felt the need to remain with someone whom he had never loved. Sealing the note and reopening it five minutes later, she rang Jenny and explained through a flood of tears what George had done. Naturally her friend was round in an instant, if only to bask in the latest gossip which she would be able to circulate around the rest of the girls. Having persuaded Cecily that, despite the tears, she was far better off with out the unmitigated cad she took her fill of the free alcohol and went home at an appropriate time.

Cecily decided not to report George missing, using the letter if anyone asked as to his whereabouts. He had no male friends in the area, so no-one really missed him. She took on a gardener to look after the grounds, a nice young man, tanned and muscular with a twinkle in his eye. They got along famously at first and then, after a suitably discreet time, they got along in a much more intimate way. The talk in the village was how well she was looking now that grumpy old George was gone, and the more knowing amongst the sisterhood cast a few sly comments about the company which she was now keeping.

It was on a hot and sultry summer evening in late August, a year after the disappearance of George that Cecily was standing by the stream just beyond the vines, admiring the view and feeding a pair of swans which had taken up residence. A rustling sound from behind made her jump as it cut through the perfect stillness of the scene. Anticipating the arms of her gardener she turned, smiling sweetly.

“Oh, what the…………………?”

Those were the last words that she uttered as the ligature looped around her neck and tightened. Grasping at her throat for some relief from the constricting pressure on her windpipe, she was soon on her knees as her head began to throb with pain. With one last pull, the garrotte snapped her neck and she fell lifeless to the ground. The rustling sound moved away as the killer retreated and left the immediate area.

Jenny became concerned when her repeated phone calls went unanswered, and although Cecily’s new lover was the talk of the district it was unusual for her to abandon friends in such a way. She got in her car and drove the fairly short distance over to The Pastures to seek her out. The front door was locked, but with a new gardener that was understandable if they spent all their time around the back of the property. She smiled as she made her way around the immaculately trimmed lawns and stood at the top of the garden looking down to the stream. At first she thought that her friend had merely taken a picnic down to the vines and fallen asleep in the sunshine, but as she got closer a more sinister scene revealed itself. The scream sent a shower of rooks out of the oak trees on the other side of the waterway, and she ran to the patio doors at the back of the house. Finding them wide open she rushed inside and called for help.

The police and forensics teams could make no sense of what they found. Clearly Cecily had been strangled but no weapon was to be seen. More gruesomely, her entire body bore the look of a mummy. Her skin was completely without moisture and the pathologist could find no trace of any blood either inside or outside the corpse. Her face was frozen in one final, terrifying scream. With the gardener nowhere around, he became the prime suspect but despite exhaustive enquiries he was never found. Eventually the case was consigned to the mountain of those labelled as ‘open’, and gathered dust in the local police files.

New owners moved into The Pastures the following spring, and were delighted to discover the now fast maturing vines at the bottom of the property. Their delight turned to rapture when the first grapes appeared. Tight, boxing glove groups hanging heavily downwards in large bunches. They were the reddest grapes anyone in the locality had ever seen and the taste was absolutely sublime.

The vines basked peacefully in the hot sun of that record-breaking year. Feeding from the nutrients of old George had given them a sentience beyond their natural chemical make up, and an awareness of the surroundings which had enabled the taking of Cecily Winston-Smythe. They would, of course require further sustenance of a similar nature eventually, but by the size of the new family that would not present a problem when the time arose……………

Saturday 17 May 2008

Bitter Sweet

As she stepped down from the National Express coach Liz’s feelings of apprehension reached a new peak. One more journey by local bus and she would be at her destination after a trip of three hundred miles from her home in the north east. It was a fair distance to travel on nothing more than a whim, but the feeling had been growing stronger since her mum died almost a year ago. She had always assumed that her father was dead and her mother Joan had done and said nothing to persuade her otherwise. In the final weeks of her futile struggle against the cancer which was consuming her however, Liz’s mum had let slip one or two things which had stirred her daughter’s interest in their family history. Going through a box of old photographs one day, Liz came across one of her mother in her mid to late thirties at the seaside and in the arms of a man of around forty years of age. She turned it over and read out the writing ‘Margate – July 1975’.

“What’s this, mum?” she asked.

“Give it here, love” Joan replied, and smiled as she took in the faded image. It was one of those calm, wistful expressions which always comes with pleasant memories half forgotten.

“Mum?”

“Oh, sorry love I was somewhere else for a moment just then.”

“Well, who is it?”

Joan coloured up, and for a terminally ill cancer sufferer the change in her complexion made her look almost well. She looked down again at the photograph and began humming a tune to herself. Liz recognised it as ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ – a favourite of her mother’s down the years, the source of which she had always refused to divulge but now that her time was coming she released the memory.

“It’s your dad. We met on holiday in Margate. He was there with his brother and family and I’d gone with my mum and dad and your aunty Pat. We had a wonderful time for a fortnight and I’m afraid he swept me off my feet. The song was popular at the time and we adopted it as ours.”

She went on after some encouragement to elaborate the story. They exchanged the usual addresses at the end of the two weeks, and Joan half expected that to be an end to it. She got a pleasant surprise shortly after returning home to North Shields when a letter arrived bearing a Bristol postmark – it was from Tom, the man in Margate, and he wanted to see her again. To cut a long story short, they met up again and picked up where they had left off in Kent. A whirlwind romance ended abruptly when he found out that she had cheated on him whilst he had gone back to the south west for a few days. It had been a stupid thing to do but there had been no way of repairing the damage. He left on the morning after she told him about it and she never saw him again. Nine months later Liz was born and Joan was sure that she was Tom’s daughter even though, in those days, there was no way to prove it conclusively. She was christened Elizabeth Jane after her grandmother, but no attempt was made to inform Tom of the event. Joan ended up marrying Paul Williams, the man she had the brief relationship with, but they were never in love and their association only lasted eighteen months.

Joan died a few weeks later leaving Liz as her only surviving family member and sole beneficiary in her will. Apart from the house, she had few possessions of any great value and her savings, though sufficient for her own needs, amounted to little more than modest sums. Liz moved into the two bedroom semi for a while, but the memories of her mother became too strong and after a quick sale she moved into a new city centre apartment purchased with the proceeds. This kept her in touch with friends and work colleagues but she was becoming aware of a growing sense of curiosity about her father and she felt that an attempt should be made to trace him and get in touch.

Joan had told her that his name was Tom Parsons, he was forty when they met, and this would now make him sixty-four. She also knew from her mother that he had been employed as a draughtsman with a Bristol firm, so Liz decided to take some leave from work and make the trip down to the West Country to see what she could discover - in any case one of her college friends lived in the city and it would give her an excuse to get in touch again. That was a month ago, and as her bus pulled into Bristol city centre she felt like a small child arriving at the seaside for the very first time. She knew the name of the firm where Parsons worked and clung to the slim hope that he was still there, albeit nearing retirement. The lateness of the hour gave her time only to find accommodation for the night together with somewhere to eat. This being a Monday, tomorrow would see her at the doors of Barton and Wallis, Architects at the start of business for the day.

Enquiries at reception revealed that a Tom Parsons did, in fact, work for the firm as Project Director, but Liz’s excitement was tempered by the fact that he was tied up in meetings all morning and would not be free until 2.30pm. She was advised to leave her name and an address, and call back in the afternoon. Her morning trip around the city delayed the return to the offices, and by the time she arrived at three o’clock he had left for an appointment with a client and would not be back until the following day. Disappointed, Liz returned to her hotel where she showered and changed in preparation for dinner in the Brasserie restaurant. When she later returned to reception for her room key, it was to discover that a visitor had made enquiries after her. A change of shift had meant that no-one knew she was still in the hotel, and the man had departed half an hour earlier. He was described as being in his sixties and said his name was Parsons – she had been within yards of him and now he was gone who knows where.

Frustrating as it was, there was nothing left but to return as planned to the architects offices in the morning and hope that he would have time to see her then. She spent a restless night tossing and turning as sleep evaded her, and she rose early the following day with her mind still buzzing in anticipation. Breakfast was a non-starter and after a quickly consumed coffee she set off again for Barton and Wallis. Arriving at 8am, she was admitted into the building by a security guard who sat and chatted with her until the receptionist arrived half an hour later, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember anything of their conversation. The receptionist recognised her from the previous day and said that Tom Parsons was due in at nine o’clock. She checked his diary and confirmed that apart from normal work commitments his morning appeared to be clear. Liz breathed a sigh of relief and resumed her seat, picking up a magazine which she knew she would be unable to read.

At around nine people began arriving and Liz looked anxiously amongst them for a man matching the description given to her by hotel staff the night before. She had begun to think she may have missed him once more when a silver haired man in a dark blue suit entered, signed in at reception, chatted pleasantly with the girl behind the desk and headed for the staircase. He was called back by the receptionist.

“Oh, Mr Parsons I’m sorry I nearly forgot, there’s a lady to see you over in the corner.”

He turned to face Liz, smiled politely and offered his hand in greeting. She took it nervously and introduced herself. They made their way up to his office on the first floor where he asked for tea and coffee to be served as he waved his arm in the direction of two armchairs over by the window.

“Now then Miss Williams, what it is that I can do for you? It seems that we were destined not to meet yesterday.”

“I hardly know where to begin, it’s a rather personal matter really. My mother died some months ago and amongst her possessions was a number of photographs – this is one of them.”

She passed over to him the snap taken in Margate in July 1975 and watched as he studied it. The smile on his face vanished instantaneously as he turned it over to read the writing on the reverse side. He pulled out his wallet and removed an old photograph of his own.

“We had two printed you see, and kept one each. The hand writing is mine, and the woman in the picture is Joan Taylor. You say she was your mother, so your name is Williams because………………”

“Because the man mum married walked out leaving her to bring me up alone. I wasn’t two at the time and never knew him. I had no idea until just before she died that you even existed. Mum told me that you are my father.”

Tom Parsons sat back in his chair and sipped at his coffee absently whilst he thought. Joan had written to him after he left her but he had never replied to any of her letters. Looking back it was probably not the kindest thing to do, but how was he to know that she was pregnant when there had been no mention of it? Had he been aware of the facts things might have turned out differently. Too late now, except for the fact that before him sat an attractive young woman who claimed to be his daughter. He and Joan certainly had a passionate relationship and no-one thought too seriously about contraception in those days – you were just unlucky if you got caught. There had been a number of women in his life down the years, but he had never married and the thought of having children had never crossed his mind. He looked across at Liz and could see the resemblance to Joan in the 1975 photograph – his heart started to melt. Pulling himself together he spoke again.

“Well Miss Williams, I really don’t know what to say. This has all come as a surprise to me as you will appreciate and whilst I am sure that you believe the story your mother told you, I think proof of our relationship is required before we go any further. I can schedule blood tests with my doctor at short notice if you wish. DNA profiles are the best way of resolving such matters”

Liz had no option but to agree. If nothing else it would ease the increasingly fond feelings which she was experiencing for this man. The appointment was made for early in the evening at a private surgery across the city and the day seemed to drag interminably until they met up again at five thirty that afternoon. The procedure was quick and relatively painless and a quiet word in the right place ensured that some urgency was attached to the results. They would know by the end of the week whether or not they were, in fact, father and daughter. There seemed to be no point in taking up any more of Tom Parsons’ time than she already had for the moment, so Liz made her excuses and headed off back to her hotel. She decided to call Sheila, the friend from her college days at Warwick, and catch up on old times. They met up for a meal at the hotel and spent the rest of the evening reliving past glories and disasters. As the time wore on and the wine flowed, Liz related the story of Tom Parsons to her old friend and Sheila was intrigued by the whole matter. Liz was glad of some supporting opinion in her ‘quest’ and by the time Sheila left her spirits had brightened considerably. They made arrangements to meet during the rest of the week until the deadline for the DNA results arrived.

That day was surprisingly quick in coming, and when she got a telephone call from Tom Parsons it caught her slightly off guard. She was to meet him at his offices and they would travel to the private surgery together. Arriving just after four o’clock they were shown into a private consulting room immediately where Tom was greeted by John Grant, his GP. After explaining the unusual situation of Liz being present Grant agreed to discuss the case with both of them present. The results proved conclusively that they were, in fact, father and daughter and Liz could hardly conceal her delight at no longer being alone. She threw herself into Tom’s arms and called him ‘daddy’ – a word she had never had the opportunity of using before. He responded to her embrace awkwardly at first, but as she looked up at him with tears of joy in her eyes he opened up and clasped her firmly to him. As they thanked John Grant and turned to leave, he called Tom back for a moment to discuss another matter. Liz left the room to wait outside.

“Tom, we’ve now got the full results from your earlier tests and there’s no easy way of telling you, but the outlook is not promising.”

Parsons was stunned. In one instance his world had been built up and then instantly demolished. Grant explained that the condition was fairly well advanced and would inevitably lead to a rapid deterioration of his health – he was going to die. How was he now going to explain all this to Liz?

One year later a young woman is pushing a wheelchair occupied by an ancient man in his mid sixties along the seafront of a small Devon resort. Liz and Tom had sold up and moved there to spend whatever remained of his now severely curtailed life. They had crammed an enormous amount into the brief time since their first meeting and the bond between them was now complete. He was resigned to his fate, and she was his rock as he slid slowly but inexorably downhill towards his destiny. She had made him very happy in the months since the meeting with John Grant with stories about her mother and their twenty years together, and he had developed a kind of serenity as he accepted his situation. Liz parked the chair at the side of a bench close to the railings near the sea wall and sat down. She looked at her father and smiled, noticing that he had dropped off to sleep. Leaning across, she stroked his thinning hair and planted a kiss on his cheek. As she looked out across the sea to the horizon a tear made its way slowly down her cheek.

“He’s coming home to you mum, he’s coming home.”

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Thursday 8 May 2008

The Spiders and Johnny Bailes

The greenfly were the first to vanish, and the first clues to their decimation lay in the abundance of the roses, sweet peas and dahlias which were the usual first casualties of their relentless procreation each summer. All the neighbourhood gardens were resplendent in the variety and colour of the flora on display, and the local garden centre reported its worst annual sales of proprietary pest control spray in living memory. Local gardeners then began to notice the complete disappearance of other traditional pests such as Red Spider Mites, Wood Lice and, surprisingly, ants. Any new predator could feast upon the more vulnerable members of the insect kingdom, but it would take a particularly suicidal or ravenous species to tackle the ant. The gardeners, however, revelled for the moment in the riotous display of nature’s bounty whilst failing to notice the absence of the airborne army of pollinators which would guarantee next year’s ‘crop’. There were no flies, wasps, bees or butterflies and, curiously, no spider webs either.

Ernest Bailes had been an avid gardener for as long as he could remember, and had tried to pass his passion on to his son Johnny. His success was only partial for, although the lad enjoyed their time in the garden or at the allotment, his interest lay not in the plants and vegetables grown there, but in the wildlife which shared the territory. More particularly, he was a keen arachnophile and had studied all aspects of the life cycle, habitat and behaviour of the majority of the indigenous members of the British spider family. At the age of thirteen he already knew more about the subject than any of his teachers, and this had made him a figure of fun for the rest of his class, a matter which was causing him increasing annoyance as time passed. Today his attention was drawn quite suddenly to the rhubarb leaf on his right hand side where a Tubular Web Spider had appeared, a common enough sight in a garden environment, but what was less than common was the way in which it waved its front legs at him.

Placing his right hand up to the leaf he waited patiently as the arachnid stepped on to his palm as if some instructions were being followed. It was a handsome blue/grey in colour with a body size of about one inch and legs of around twice that length. Johnny never ceased to be amazed at the reaction which the species engendered amongst humans – what was the saying? ‘If you wish to live and thrive, let a spider run alive.’ He knew that there were only two or three British spiders which carried a venom potentially harmful to man, but the general opinion amongst his peers was one of distaste and blind panic at the sight of them. This one now sat in the middle of his hand and once again waved its front legs in the air as if attempting to gain his attention. Johnny raised it slowly to his face for a better look and became aware of a pulsating sensation in his head. He frowned and cocked his head to one side as the gentle throbbing changed slowly but surely into a word. ‘Who? Who? Who?’


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The spider had stopped waving and now sat quite still as if awaiting a reply.

“Johnny” he said.

The spider remained motionless for a while, and then repeated its performance. ‘Who? Who? Who?’ The gentle throbbing insisted again, and this time Johnny thought the reply. The arachnid was spurred into action and danced around his palm as if in celebration. More pulsing in Johnny’s brain as the spider turned to face Ernest Bailes and the same question with a single word reply ‘Dad’, progressed through his subconscious. The boy was astounded – was this spider communicating with him? If so, why, and why him? Too many question for now and he needed to keep this arachnid for further study. Picking up a discarded matchbox he was about to pick up the Tubular Web when the spider amazed him by walking into the small container of its own accord as if it understood the box’s purpose. Putting it into his pocket as his dad called to him to help pack away the tools, Johnny had already planned out his evening and couldn’t wait to get home.

Dinner was soon over and both his mum and dad expressed surprise at the unusually clean plate which their son left before excusing himself from the table. Up in his room he took out the matchbox and freed the Tubular Web spider on to his bed side table. Over the next three hours, a rudimentary system of communication developed, and Johnny wondered if the spider would respond to some commands. He thought a series of basic instructions and was delighted when the spider performed each one without hesitation. He sat back on his bed and pondered this new-found power as a mischievous smile crept across his face. Ellen Farley, now there would be an interesting task for his new friend. The girl next door had made a point of belittling Johnny at every opportunity – maybe this was the time for revenge. No sooner was he aware of his own thoughts, than the spider was gone. He hadn’t even seen it move and was disappointed that his evening entertainment seemed to be over – how wrong he was.

Downstairs a while later as he sat watching television with his parents, the silence was pierced by a spine-chilling scream which seemed to be coming from the house next door. Outside in the street a number of neighbours had appeared, alerted by the same noise, and Johnny came out of his front door to see Ellen Farley rolling around on the front lawn in hysterics. Concerned parents were attempting to calm their daughter down as she pulled at her hair and thrashed at her clothing in a frenzy of panic.

“Off! Off! Get them off me! Mum, dad, help me, help me.”

It took almost a full hour for Mr and Mrs Farley to persuade Ellen that whatever it was that had scared her, had gone. Only then was it clear that a large number of ‘enormous’ spiders had dropped on to her bed from the ceiling and had run amok in her room. Johnny knew instantaneously that the Tubular Web was the culprit, but could not at first imagine where the others had come from. Only later when he returned to his own bedroom to find the spider waiting for him, did things begin to fall into place. From behind the curtain another six appeared, all of the same genus, and they lined up behind the blue/grey like some army platoon awaiting inspection. The pulsing sensation returned in Johnny’s brain as a single word whispered into his sub-conscious ‘Friends, friends, friends’.

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Later, as Johnny Bailes settled down to sleep, the spider troop left the room and returned to their lair to prepare for the night’s hunt. They had no need to waste valuable energy resources in spinning webs any longer, and since they had started to work together there was food for all and some to spare. They knew where their insect prey was, and the hunting pack would flush them out into the waiting horde – it would be a truly memorable feast, an event to which they were becoming accustomed. Soon they would be able to seek out larger prey to satisfy the needs of their demanding ruling elite.

Back at school, the events of the previous week had become general knowledge and somehow Johnny’s name became linked with Ellen’s unfortunate encounter with the Tubular Web Spiders. The innocuous teasing gave way to a sinister and more serious treatment of his out of school hobbies. One or two of the larger boys began following him around school and it was not unusual for him to return home with a number of unexplained bruises each week. As a result of his last ‘instructions’ to the arachnid squad, Johnny had refrained from all thoughts of a similar nature in their presence, but with the escalation of treatment meted out to him out of sight of his teachers, he felt that the time was ripe for some payback. Almost as if they sensed his mood, the spiders appeared one evening shortly after the latest beating. Lined up on the table in Johnny’s bedroom they waited motionless for their assignment. He was not aware of any definite command nor were any names given, but the group vanished into the gathering gloom.

The three boys had arranged a sleepover and were alone in the house during an evening when parents were out. On a windless night, the keen observer would have found it curious that the grass on the back garden moved in a strange manner as if some breeze flitted across its surface. In reality it was the relentless march of an army of arachnidkind, single-mindedly heading for the upper floor of the house. The same observer would puzzle over the apparent growth before his very eyes of an ivy-like creeper up the back wall towards an open bedroom window. By the time that one of the boys had noticed the invading horde, something upwards of ten thousand spiders had crossed the window sill and were swarming across the floor. Once again the peace of the neighbourhood was shattered by a series of terrifying screams. This time neighbours were more reluctant to leave the safety of their homes to investigate, and by the time the local police arrived the upper floor of the house was a scene of carnage.

The one boy remaining alive told a story of a sea of spiders attacking from all sides as he and his friends sought to beat them off with anything which came to hand. Bloodstained cricket and baseball bats were discovered at the scene, but not a single arachnid was to be found. Clearly the boys had beaten at their supposed attackers with a fury which defied belief, but when the investigating officer found a number of partly smoked joints in the parents’ bedroom, the whole matter took on a different aspect. Despite the boy’s vehement denials the conclusion was one of an evening of Cannabis-induced hysteria which went disastrously wrong. Post mortem results on the two bodies later confirmed a lack of any narcotic substance, but for the present the police were satisfied that there had been nothing suspicious relating to the deaths.

Whispers around school the following week were that Johnny Bailes was at the heart of the incident and teachers were faced with a boycott of all lessons involving him. An announcement from the headmaster failed to change the mood of the pupils, and the boy was forced into staying at home pending a meeting of school governors. Up to this point there had been no evidence to connect Johnny either to the spiders or the two recent events, but when the remains of Mrs Gerrard’s cat were found in the Bailes’ garden a few days later, matters began to move quickly forward. The local vet had never seen injuries like them on a domestic cat, and called in a specialist friend to advise him. The marks on the corpse, and there were hundreds of them, were all made either by the same creature, or a number of individuals of the same species. In any case, the species was never in doubt – they were arachnid bites, and measurements showed that the spider concerned would be approximately the same size as a human hand.

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Police and media interest now took on an intensified role centred upon the Bailes household, but despite meticulous searching of both the property and the surrounding estate no trace of arachnids of any kind could be found. One by one the caravan of television and radio equipment left the area and the police scaled down their efforts to trace the source of the infestation. Quietly the whole matter became forgotten and life appeared to return to normal in this outwardly peaceful corner of suburbia. The refusal of Johnny’s former school friends to attend classes with him forced the family to move away from the district, and there was a communal sigh of relief at their departure. Over the next six years his educational progress found him at university studying entomology and at the end of his second year he was well on the way to a first class degree. During the intervening time there had been no repetition of the symbiotic-like relationship with the spiders, and Johnny had consigned the memory to the box marked ‘File and Forget’.

All of his fears returned, however, one afternoon when rumours circulated the campus of a mysterious discovery at the end of the playing fields which backed on to the main road forming the perimeter of the university grounds. According to a shaken athletics student, he had seen what he believed to be a football left out from them previous day. He went across the pitch to pick it up but was horrified to find not a piece of sports equipment, but a rolled up and quite clearly dead spider. Its legs made it appear larger than it really was, but the size scared him so much that he ran back to the changing rooms and reported the find to a caretaker. The body was removed to the Entomology Department where Johnny and two of the staff were waiting. There was a collective gasp of surprise at the size of the spider and measurements revealed the body to be ten inched across. They were interrupted by the reappearance of the caretaker, who this time carried a black plastic bag.

“You need to see this, Mr Ronson I found it in the hedge bottom in the same field as the spider” he said to the more senior of the two department staff, and emptied the contents on to another table. It was a fox and a mature male at that.

“Thank you Mr Holmes, we’ll take care of it”

Leaving the spider for the moment, all attention focussed on the second body. It was covered in bites, thousands of them and had clearly died in some agony. They could only suppose that it had mistaken the arachnid for one of its normal prey during an evening hunt and had come off worst in the encounter. Turning back to the spider, their examination revealed another set of bite marks, far fewer in number and centred on the head and neck. They pegged both bodies out for post mortem examinations and prepared their instruments. Johnny had been watching whilst this was happening and now approached the tables. The spider was Aaraneus Diadematus the common garden variety, but its size was unbelievable and it was obviously a mutant strain of the species. The two staff returned and as he was their star pupil, Johnny was allowed to stay and observe. His attention focussed on the spider, and from the first incision it was clear that something was seriously amiss. Ray Brown, the senior entomologist stepped back from the table, dropping his scalpel in the process. The noise rang out like an alarm bell in the stillness of the laboratory.

“Butterfingers” Mick Parlour, his colleague laughed. The silence which greeted this comment puzzled him as there would normally have been some form of riposte. He turned to see an ashen faced Ray and Johnny standing well back from the examination table, wide-eyed in horror.

“What? What’s up then?” He walked across to them and followed their gazes to the table. The spider was spread eagled with its abdomen pinned open and Parlour could not believe what he saw.

“Ray, Ray…………….this can’t be. Do you realise what this means? The only thing preventing these buggers from being our size is their respiratory system. This bloody thing has lungs!”

They had often talked about the remarkable abilities and lifestyle of the arachnid, and frequently joked that the day they learned how to breathe would be the beginning of the end for the human race. On the table before them was clear evidence of a major mutation and the question which none of them dared ask was ‘How many more were there out there?’

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The isolated and desolate scenery of the North Yorkshire Moors had formed the romantic backdrop for the novels of the Bronte sisters, but in reality it was the home for the most hardened of farmers and their animals. It was a tough life in an unyielding landscape, but here the sheep farmer eked out a living along with breeds specially developed for the harsh environment. Sid Barks was one such man, and he had farmed this land for forty-five years. He stared down in consternation at the carcasses of a dozen or more of his flock, shaking his head in the resigned manner of all truly Yorkshire farming folk. If money wasn’t tight enough already this was the last thing he needed, and so close to market day as well.

The hunting pack of seven wolf spiders approached from the western corner of the field, timing their attack to coincide with the setting of the low winter sun. The kill would be easy, and they were looking for a fresh taste from the tough meat of the moor land sheep. Sid Barks would never know what hit him as they made their slow, silent approach and all bodies would be removed to feed their growing and increasingly ravenous brood. There would be nothing left to indicate what had happened, but investigations would bring with them a fresh supply of unwary prey.