Day of the Spiders Read online

  But he hadn’t fallen. He still had hope. He still had a little fight left inside of him. Plus, he was no dummy. He knew he wasn’t going to just walk out of the door.

  They wouldn’t just let him go.

  Even through the residual fear that the dream had left him with and even with the knowledge that he was facing another day in this hole, another week, another month, perhaps even another year, a smile broke out on his face.

  It was just a matter of time, after all.

  The Break of Day

  “There is nothing finer than the birth of a new day. Be it full of hope and opportunity for thee. For some that walk this mortal coil, the coming of a new day signals their time is soon to be over. For all, their day will come.”

  1.

  Braden Benson made it home with two minutes to spare. He burst through the door with his arms out and a big cheesy grin on his face which was partially hidden behind six weeks of beard growth.

  “Ta-daaah” he sang, knowing full well that his ten-year-old daughter Jaqueline (or Jax for short) would be sat in the living room watching the clock to make sure that he made good on his promise. She looked over at him, trying in vain to give him a grouchy look. The moment she saw his stupid looking face with the silly beard and toothy grin she was done. The mock frown smoothed out and a smile broke out on her face, no matter how hard she tried to keep it pulled in. There was something about her Dad that just made her laugh. No matter how many times he broke a promise, or forgot something important (like picking her up from school which had happened on more than one occasion) she couldn’t help but love every moment that he was around. She jumped out of her seat and charged over to him. She crashed into his mid-section, causing all the air in his lungs to be involuntarily expelled. He let out a loud Huuh and enveloped her in his arms. She began to jump up and down like a frog in a box.

  “Daddydaddydaddy,” she sang over and over.

  “JaxJaxJax,” he sang back and joined in with the jumping up and down. They jumped around in a big circle until Braden got too near to the coat hooks that were on the wall next to the front door and hit his head on one of them. He bellowed in pain and clutched at his head. Jax shrieked with laughter.

  “Hey, that ain’t funny knuckle head,” he said and brought his hand down so he could rub his knuckles into her hair. She yelped and squirmed away from him.

  “It is funny, you banged your big thick head,” said Jax and laughed again.

  Braden put on his mock serious face and began to advance on her. Jax knew what was coming next and she ran for the sofa.

  “Now you’re gonna get it kiddo,” he growled with a terrible American accent.

  He threw off his overcoat and dived onto the sofa. He dug the point of his elbow into Jax’s left leg just above the knee and began to grind it a little. Jax screamed with laughter and then drove her own elbow into Braden’s collarbone. Braden roared and fell backwards clutching at his pretend injury.

  “Arrrgh, you got me kiddo, you got me good,” he growled and then he played dead with his eyes crossed and his tongue hanging out. Jax responded by yanking his shirt up and blowing a huge raspberry on his belly. Braden flopped his limbs around as if he was being electrocuted. Jax tried to hit another belly raspberry but she was laughing too much. She collapsed backwards on the sofa holding her belly and giggling.

  “Have you two quite finished now?” said Mary Benson coming through from the kitchen.

  Braden put up his hands. “Yes ma’am, I have conceded defeat to my worthy opponent.”

  “Thank God for that, you were giving me a headache,” she said.

  Braden jumped up off the sofa and went over to Mary. He planted a kiss on her lips and gave her a hug. She resisted a little at first but she soon warmed to him. She was just like Jax, she knew that Braden was a pain in the arse and unreliable, it came with the job after all, but when he did come home, there was no person on this earth that she would rather be with. He was one of those people that could light up a room just by being there. It was such a double-edged sword that she loved him as much as she did because no matter how badly he fucked up she would always forgive him.

  “What shall we eat tonight oh-not-so-virgin Mary,” he said. A wise-guy grin spreading across his face.

  “Well, it is Friday night and I don’t feel like cooking,” said Mary, her arms going up to the back of his neck.

  Jax jumped up on the back of the sofa. “Pizza, pizza, can we have pizza Dad, pleeeese,” she crowed.

  Braden looked over at her. She pulled out her bottom lip and opened her eyes as wide as possible. This had become known as the ‘Dad-face’ in the Benson household. It was the face that Jax used when she wanted to get her own way. Most of the time it worked just fine.

  “Weeeeell, I suppose we could stretch to a little bit of pizza,” said Braden.

  “Yay,” said Jax.

  “And perhaps a slice or two of garlic bread.”

  “Yay.”

  “We could even go mad and have onion rings,” said Braden his smile spreading out into a grin.

  “Can we have a bottle of coke too?” yelled Jax, jumping up and down on the sofa.

  “Let’s not go crazy eh?” said Braden dropping his grin into a pretend-serious look.

  The Dad-face re-appeared. Braden let it ride for a few moments before he relented. “Oh, go on then.”

  Jax shrieked with delight and jumped up and down on the sofa again.

  “You have to promise not to break the couch, that’s my only price,” said Braden. Jax leapt up one more time and dropped back down into a perfect cross-legged sitting position. She saluted him and then went back to her cartoons on the television. Mary kissed him on the lips, not minding the little tickle of beard that went with it. She made fun of his beard, but secretly she rather liked it. It made him look more grown up.

  “You spoil us, you know that,” she said.

  “Well, if I can’t spoil you two, who can I spoil?” he said. “Is there beer in our fridge, or have you drunk it all again?”

  Mary gave him a light slap across the cheek, “Cheeky bastard. Yes, there is. Shall we?” she said gesturing towards the kitchen. She went through and he followed her. She opened the fridge and brought two cans out. She handed one to Braden and then popped the tab on her own. Braden followed suit and they both drank in silence for a moment. Braden let out a loud belch.

  “Pig,” said Mary and then she let one fly which was longer and louder than Braden’s. They both laughed.

  “So, what’s been the big story today?” said Mary. She always asked him whenever he came home, be it at a regular time or in the middle of the night.

  “Well, we have a missing teenager that has already gone on the website and everywhere else, and a murdered cat,” he said and raised his can again.

  Mary’s face crumpled into a frown, “A missing teenager? Jeez, another run away?”

  Braden shrugged, “Not very likely, she is only thirteen. She never made it home from school yesterday. There is no other information at the moment. The police thought that it might have been her father because they are separated, but apparently, he is just as much of a mess as the girl’s mother, so they don’t think that he had anything to do with it, plus, his place has already been searched and there is nothing there.”

  “God, how awful,” said Mary and shuddered. She took a long drink from her can. Braden knew that she was thinking exactly the same thing that he had thought when he heard the story for the first time. He was just thankful that it wasn’t their daughter. The very idea of someone taking Jax away like that made his blood run cold. It wasn’t much of a stretch for him to knock off and get his backside home this evening. He had felt a terrible guilt come over him about how little time he spent with his family. They could just as easily have been snatched away from him just the same as the missing girl. He had felt for the first time in many years a sense of relief and joy in coming home tonight instead of the usual nagging itch to go fact finding and
writing more reports before any other newspaper got hold of it. Tonight the competition could eat it all up with his glad tidings whilst he ate pizza with his wife and daughter.

  “It is,” he said “But the story about the cat is not much better,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty grim,” he said. He had a sudden maddening urge for a cigarette, but he had given that shit up more than ten years ago. He would have that crazy urge rise up in him every so often, the same way that an amputee might feel the itch of an arm or a leg that had long since departed.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. About three hours after the girl had gone missing, a resident on Corsica Road had her cat come back home horribly mutilated. I saw the pictures and I can tell you I have never seen anything that gross in all my life. I nearly lost my lunch.”

  “Urgh, what did it look like?” said Mary. He was about to tell her when she put her hand up to stop him. “Don’t tell me, I don’t really want to know.”

  Braden laughed. “Shall we get more supplies and head for the sofa?” he said waving his can at her.

  “Sounds like a good idea. Are you working tomorrow?” she said, expecting him to say yes. Historically, he worked every Saturday, most Sundays too.

  “No. I’m having the weekend off to spend with my two favourite girls,” he said.

  Mary felt a jolt of happiness which quickly melted. She had heard him say this before and the next morning he had been up and gone before she had woken up. She looked at him and saw something in his face and his eyes that she hadn’t seen for a long time.

  He meant it.

  She felt a goofy smile pulling at her cheeks. She stepped forwards and kissed his beardy mouth. “That sounds lovely,” she said. “Now, you grab the beers and I’ll order the food. I promised Jax that she could choose a film for us to watch tonight.”

  Braden grimaced. He knew it would be ‘Mama-Mia’ again. The child had developed an obsession with that film. Still, if he had enough beers he wouldn’t care what he was watching.

  “Yeah, I know. But you love to listen to Pierce Brosnan singing, and you know it,” said Mary. They both laughed and then set about making their nest on the sofa for the evening. Braden suddenly noticed that there was something different about the room. There were two new floating shelves hanging above the television set.

  “How did those get there?” he asked.

  Mary opened her mouth to speak but Jax cut her off.

  “Trent came ‘round and did ‘em,” she said.

  Braden looked at Mary, there was a tinge of colour in her cheeks. Trent was their next door neighbour. Very handsome he was too, and divorced. Braden had a lot of reasons to hate Trent and there was two of them right there.

  “I didn’t know when you would be home. He… he just offered…” Mary spluttered.

  Braden held his hand up, “It’s fine, I understand.” Although he didn’t like the idea of that muscle head being in his home with his freshly signed divorce papers and his big posh Land Rover, he didn’t want to argue about it, not tonight. He took Mary’s hand and kissed it. She looked relieved.

  “I should go ‘round and thank him,” said Braden, slipping the needle in just a little.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” said Mary.

  “MUM!” yelled Jax. That was another twenty pence for the swear jar.

  An hour later, Braden was four beers and six pizza slices in. He felt wonderfully buzzed and full of junk food. Every so often he would glance to his right at the faces of his wife and daughter. There was no doubting that Jax was her mother’s daughter. They were both sat with their eyes on the television screen twiddling their hair in exactly the same way. He smiled to himself. He felt like todays little excursion into the dark and nasty side of the world had really struck a chord with him. He didn’t know why, after all these years of reporting all of this nasty shit, that it was suddenly getting to him? He was thirty-eight years of age now, not the fresh faced and hungry kid he had been when he had started at the Daily News. Back then, the nastier the story, the more dramatic the report and the more money he would earn in bonuses, especially if he got the story to press before anyone else. That shit had got more difficult these days with the advent of the internet and the rise of social media. Now, you had to be razor sharp, and even faster than you were before. One moment of hesitation and your story would have already broken on the ‘net. It was a cut-throat way to make living and in his younger years, that kind of challenge didn’t bother him. But, sitting here now, he had begun to think about perhaps not being at the forefront of everything. Perhaps he could let some of the younger and fresh-faced reporters have their day in the sun. He glanced over at his family again. By Christ, they were beautiful. And more to the point they were still here when he came home. He had given Mary a ton of reasons to go and find love and companionship elsewhere on many occasions, but she had always stayed with him. At his worst, he hadn’t come home for four days. Jax had only been four months old at that time and when he had finally poked his head round the door Mary had been ready to pack up and walk out. They had rowed, they had fought, but in the end, they had worked it out. Braden had practically begged her to stay, promising her that he would spend more time at home and he had done for a while, but the old habits had started to creep back up. He couldn’t for the life of him think why Mary had put up with him for such a long time. Then it occurred to him that this woman must really love him.

  His train of thought was interrupted by Jax ripping off a huge fart which rippled against Braden’s leg. Jax began to shriek with laughter, her cheeks turning red with the effort.

  “Jax!” yelled Mary, but she was laughing too.

  “Wow, that smells like pizza,” said Braden making the girls laugh even more. Eventually they settled back down again. The film was approaching the home straight.

  Yes, Braden had been a workaholic for fifteen years, and now he was thinking about shifting the gears down and moving into the cruising lane. Was that really possible? He had an idea that it was. After all, the buzz that he used to get off hitting on a good story had been partially derailed when he had written a piece on the Newtown Incident (as it had been christened.) That was the story that had started the shift. He had actually been thrown into a month-long depression after covering that one. Really, he shouldn’t have covered it, but he felt that he needed to close that one off by finding out just exactly what had happened that day. After all, his father had lived in Newtown and he was listed as one of the dead. Of course, there were no bodies and very little in the way of remains after the army had blown the whole town to shit. There had been a funeral of course and a coffin that had some little bits of memorabilia related to his father. None of his buddies had contributed anything, but then again how could they, they had all lived in Newtown. As soon as he had finished writing that story he put it to bed. There were all sorts of conspiracy nuts on the internet offering lots and lots of bullshit theories about what had happened. But Braden always went with the philosophy that an opinion was like an arse hole, everyone had one. After all of that, his enthusiasm had waned somewhat. He wasn’t putting in the same effort to find the story as he once used to. There was a deep subconscious part of him that didn’t really want to know anymore. The world was fast becoming an ugly place to live in and he didn’t want to be reminded of it.

  That’s your story and you’re sticking to it eh?

  He nodded to himself and took a long drink from his can of beer. It was going down pretty well at the moment, but at the back of his mind, he was beginning to fancy ditching the beer in favor of a nice cup of strong tea. He decided that he would wait until Jax had gone to bed before he made one, otherwise she would want one too and the caffeine content would have kept her going for another couple of hours. He would have ended up sitting up and playing endless games of rock, paper, scissors or slaps, which he was particularly bad at. He loved his dear daughter very much, but he wanted to be alone with Mary for a little w
hile. This new chapter in his life was just beginning and he wanted to kick it off in the right way. The film came to a merciful end and Mary announced to Jax that it was late and it was time for bed. Jax groaned, but her slightly flushed cheeks and half-lidded eyes gave the game away.

  “Can I have a story Dad? Pleeeease,” she said and then pulled the Dad Face again.

  “Oh, go on then, just the one though, ok?”

  She nodded, jumped up off the sofa and took off out of the room and up the stairs at a hundred miles per hour.

  “I don’t know where she gets her energy from,” said Mary. She looked like she could have done with a story and bed herself.

  “I’ll go and give madam a story and then we can have a nice cup of tea, what do you say?” said Braden.

  Mary stretched and yawned, “Sounds perfect.”

  Braden leant over and kissed her on the end of her nose. “Catch you in two.”

  Mary clapped him on the backside as he was leaving. By the time he got upstairs Jax had already chosen a book. It was ‘When a Monster is Born’ One of her favorites ever since she had been a youngster. She liked Braden to read this one because he would put silly voices on to entertain her. It seemed that she never got bored of his bad comedy, not ever. He read the book in his silly voices whilst Jax bellowed with laughter and afterwards he tucked her up in her bed. He leaned in and gave her a kiss goodnight and she blew a raspberry in his face (as per usual.) As he was walking out of her bedroom door she said:

  “I love you Dad.”

  He stopped in his tracks. He felt like he had been punched in the guts. She had never said that to him before, not ever. He was floored. He turned around and smiled at her. “Love you too horror bag.”

  Jax turned over and put her thumb in her mouth, a habit which she had been unable to leave behind no matter how old she was. Braden turned away and went downstairs with a big goofy grin on his face.