“Size of a squirrel. Built like an insect. A lot of legs, maybe twelve. It had a mouth like—”
I turned and saw the cop standing in the bedroom doorway.
I nodded sideways toward the phone and said, “This is John. He’s on his way.”
“Good.” He nodded toward the back door. “Do you have a key to that toolshed outside?”
I pocketed the phone without saying good-bye to John.
“Oh, no. I’ve lost the key. I mean, I haven’t been out there in months.”
“I’ve got a pair of bolt cutters out in my trunk. Tell you what, let me open that up for you.”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary.”
“I insist. You don’t want to be stuck without your lawn implements. You can finally rake all these leaves out here.”
We stared each other down. Man, this just kept getting better and better. I found myself wishing the spider would jump down and eat this guy.
“Actually, I think I have a key.”
“Good. Get it.”
I went into the kitchen and plucked the toolshed key off the nail next to the back door, where it had been in plain view the entire time. Franky the Cop let me lead the way outside to the shed, staying a few steps back so that he could have time to shoot me in case I decided to wheel on him with fists of fury. I held out the key and took a deep breath. I slipped it into the padlock and snapped it open. I pulled the toolshed door slightly ajar and turned to Franky.
“What’s in here… I, uh, collect things. It’s a hobby, that’s all. And as far as I know, there’s nothing illegal here.”
“Could you go ahead and step back, sir?”
He opened the little shed and stabbed the darkness with a flashlight beam. I held my breath. He went right to the floor with the light, where a body would be, I guess. There wasn’t one there, not right now, and instead he illuminated the crust of grass on the wheel of my lawnmower. Then he flicked the flashlight beam to the set of metal shelves along the back and side walls. The beam hit a glass jar the size of a can of paint and illuminated the murky liquid inside. Officer Franky Burgess stared at it, waiting for his eyes to register what he was seeing. Eventually he would figure out it was a late-term fetus, a head the size of a fist, its eyes closed. It had no arms or legs. Its torso had been replaced by a jointed mechanical apparatus that hooked around to a point like the tail of a sea horse.
I manufactured a chuckle and said, “Heh, uh, I got that off eBay. It’s a, uh, prop from a movie.”
The cop glanced at me. I glanced away.
He shined his light back onto the shelf. Next to the jar was an ant farm. The tunnels between the panes of glass had been dug neatly to spell out the word HELP.
Next to that was my old Xbox, the cables wrapped around it.
He moved the light down a foot, to the shelf below. He passed over a stack of old magazines, not noticing that the top one was an old, faded issue of
I said, “It’s, uh, broken.”
Franky the Cop inched the beam to the next object, a mason jar containing a twisted, purple tongue suspended in clear liquid. Next to it was a duplicate jar, only with two human eyes floating side by side, trailing a tangled tail of nerves and blood vessels. The cop didn’t notice that when the beam swept past the jar, the eyes turned to follow it. Next to the jars was an old battery from my truck, matted with smears of black grime. The light made it to the bottom, where it found a red plastic gasoline can sitting on the floor next to an old CRT computer monitor with a screen that had been shattered by a gunshot. Next to it was the one thing I didn’t want the cop to see. The Box.
We heard crunching leaves behind us.
“Yo, what’s up?” The cop and I turned to see a dark figure with one hand swinging the orange coal of a burning cigarette. John. “Hi, Franky. Dave, sorry I sent you all those pictures of my dick. I hope that’s not what caused you to injure your eye.”
The cop put the flashlight on John, maybe to make sure he wasn’t armed. John wore a flannel shirt and a black baseball cap with the word HAT on it in all caps.
Franky the Cop thanked John for coming over. I was hoping he would back out of the toolshed because each minute he stood there made me more and more nervous. My eye and shoulder were throbbing. The wind shifted and I picked up the scent of alcohol from John.
The cop swung the flashlight beam around and spotlighted the floor of the toolshed again. Light fell on the box, and I mean
“What’s in the green box there?”
“Don’t know.”
That was sort of true, I guess.
John said, “We found it. You can’t get it open.”
That was also true.
I said, “You can take it back with you, if you want. Put it in the lost and found at the police station.”
The cop clicked off the flashlight, then asked John if they could go inside and talk. He then gestured toward the toolshed with the flashlight and said to me, “You want to close that up while I have a word here with John?”
I said that seemed like a fine idea and their shoes crunched through the leaves until they reached the light of my back door. I closed the toolshed and clicked the padlock shut, then let out a sigh of relief. The relief lasted approximately four seconds, the time it took me to realize John and Franky the Cop were now back inside the house with the murderous alien spider. I hurried back inside and saw John and the cop in my living room having a low conversation out of my hearing, the cop I guess was asking John to babysit me and to call if I showed more signs of craziness. I moved closer and barely heard John say, “… Been real depressed lately…” and wondered what kind of portrait he was painting in there.
I scanned the kitchen for the spider, being sure to check the high ground. No sign of it. I closed some of the open drawers and cabinets, tried to straighten the place up. I made it all the way out of the room before I turned and realized that cabinets would be an ideal hiding place for the little bastard. I’d be getting out my cereal tomorrow morning and the fucker would launch itself at me. Could I search through them without drawing Franky’s attention? Better wait. Instead I checked the bedroom, again under the guise of straightening up. I looked under my blankets and then under the bed. I pushed around the clothes in my closet, I checked behind the door. No spider.
When I came out, I saw John and the cop were on the front porch. Progress. John was thanking the man for coming out, saying he hoped Franky would remember me in his prayers because I could really use it right now because my life was really a mess and I was just a complete pathetic loser struggling with my weight and financial problems and alcohol and erectile dysfunction. I decided to join them before John could defame me further.
The cop was already walking back toward his patrol car as John said, “… And his girlfriend is away and she’s only got one hand. She lost it in an accident. You can imagine the problems that causes.”
Franky was desperately trying to escape the conversation, talking into the little radio mounted on the shoulder of his uniform, letting headquarters know that everything was under control here. John and I watched him go. Then we heard a skittering by our feet and saw the goddamned spider run past our shoes. It vanished into the darkness, heading right toward the cop.
I jumped off the porch, waving my hands. “Wait! Franky! Officer Burgess! Wait!”
The cop stopped just short of the squad car and turned to me. I opened my mouth, but the words retreated back into my throat. A bundle of thin black legs appeared over Franky’s left shoulder, touching his bare neck. And he couldn’t feel a thing.
