6ml.
She hesitated. Grant had closed his eyes tightly now. His mouth also was clamped shut, his lips bloodless.
Kelly, the needle still clutched in her hand, the point buried in Grant’s vein, looked at the man. He was visibly turning pale. Had she given him
enough?
‘Mr Grant,’ she said.
He didn’t answer.
‘Mr Grant.”
A weary grunt was the only reply she received this time.
Kelly pushed harder on the plunger.
6.5ml.
7ml.
Perspiration formed in salty droplets on his face, some running together to trickle in rivulets across his flesh. On his arms too there was moisture, glistening like beads. The skin around the needle was beginning to turn a dark crimson, the blue veins pulsing more strongly.
7.5ml.
8ml.
Grant moaned, his mouth dropping open. Thick sputum oozed over his lips and onto the sheet beneath. His tongue lolled uselessly from one corner and he grunted-again, coughed. Particles of spittle flew into the air and, as he moved slightly, the needle came free.
Cursing, Kelly pushed it back into the vein, ignoring the single tiny droplet of blood which had welled up through the first miniscule hole. She looked at his face which was now grey, streaked with perspiration. She knew she was taking a chance but this had to work.
9ml.
9.5ml.
10ml.
Kelly withdrew the needle and stepped back, dropping the syringe into her pocket once more. She switched on the tape recorder and moved the microphone as close as she dared to Grant. His body began to undergo almost imperceptible movements, tiny muscle contractions which made it look as if he were being pumped full of mild electrical current.
‘Mr Grant,’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’
He muttered something which she couldn’t hear so she took a step closer, bringing the microphone nearer to his mouth.
‘Mr Grant.’
His eyes were shut, the lids sealed as tightly as if they’d been stitched.
‘Can you hear what I’m saying?’
Grant suddenly grabbed her wrist in a grip which threatened to snap the bones.
Simultaneously, his eyes shot open like shutters and she found herself looking down into two glazed, rheumy orbs which seemed to be staring right through her.
Kelly suppressed a scream and tried to pull away from the vice-like grip but it was useless.
‘Help me,’ murmured Grant, refusing to release Kelly. ‘Oh God they’re everywhere.’
He suddenly let her go, his hands clutching at his face.
‘What can you see?’ she demanded.
Grant suddenly sat up, his face contorted in a mask of rage and hatred.
‘Fucking bastard,’ he snarled, his blank eyes turning to face her. ‘You stinking cunt.’ His lips slid back in a vulpine grin and more saliva dribbled down his chin. ‘She betrayed me. She thought I didn’t know. She thought she could fool me.’
Kelly edged away slightly.
‘Who thought she could fool you?’ asked the investigator, moving to the end of the bed.
‘Her. My wife,’ Grant rasped. ‘Fucking whore. She made me think the child was mine when it was his all along.’
‘Is that why you wanted to kill her?’ asked Kelly, moving towards the restraining straps, waiting for her chance to slip them over Grant’s ankles although she didn’t give much for her chances.
And what if she failed …?
‘Yes, I wanted to kill her. Her and the child. His fucking child,’ Grant raved.
But, his anger seemed to subside with alarming speed and he was cowering once more from some unseen menace. Shielding his face and eyes with shaking hands.
‘Get them off me/ he shrieked.
‘What can you see?’ demanded Kelly, deciding that it was time to fasten the straps.
‘Spiders,’ he told her. ‘Thousands of them. All over me. Oh God, no.’
Kelly managed to fasten the two ankle straps, securing Grant to the bed, at least for the time being. The leather looked thick and stout. She hoped that it would hold.
Maurice Grant wondered why she could not see the eight-legged horrors seething over the floor of the room and onto the bed. Over his body, inside his clothes. He could feel their hairy legs on his flesh as they crawled onto his stomach, up his trouser legs, across his chest, up his neck to his face. And there they tried to force their way into his mouth. He felt one on his tongue and he plunged two fingers into his mouth to pull the creature out. The probing digits touched the back of his throat and he heaved violently.
Above him, the spiders were coming through the ceiling. They were emerging from the stone-work itself and they were getting bigger. One the size of his fist dropped from the
ceiling on to his face, its thick legs probing at his eyes and nose. One of the smaller creatures scuttled up his left nostril, trying to pull the swollen bulk of its abdomen inside the orifice.
From the wall beside him, a spider the size of a football emerged and clamped itself on his arm, pinning it to the bed. Another did the same with his right arm.
Kelly watched mesmerised as Grant wriggled beneath the imaginary host of arachnids but she was not too engrossed to by-pass the opportunity to secure his wrists to the bed.
They’re inside my head,’ screamed Grant as he felt more and more of the spiders dragging themselves up his nostrils, into his ears.
‘I know where they’re coming from,’ he screeched. ‘She sent them.’
‘Your wife?’ asked Kelly, watching as Grant continued to squirm.
‘Fucking cunt. Fucking slut.’
His fear had been replaced once more by rage.
‘I’m glad I killed her,’ he roared. ‘She deserved to die.’
The veins on his forehead bulged angrily as he strained against the straps. ‘I don’t care if anyone saw me. I had no choice. I saw them together’, he said, his body jerking wildly. ‘I saw her with him. He stuck it between her legs, in her mouth. AND SHE FUCKING WANTED IT. I don’t want to see it anymore.’
‘Can you see it now?’ Kelly asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What can you see? Tell me exactly.’
Grant was using all his strength to tug himself free and Kelly noticed with horror that one of the wrist straps was beginning to creak under the pressure.
‘I can see her on the floor of the bedroom. Our bedroom. She’s naked and so is he,’ Grant snarled.
‘Who is he?’ Kelly wanted to know.
‘She’s sucking his cock. He’s using his tongue on her.’
The right hand strap creaked ominously as Grant continued to thrash around.
i don’t want to see it anymore. Never again.’
Kelly wondered if she should get help. Grant was hallucinating madly it appeared but he was largely coherent.
