Jenny had meant to get up early so that she could go to Aldi and do some shopping, and then meet her friend Carol for lunch at Persepolis Café. But this was her first weekday off in two months, and last night, she and Mick had gone to The Rye pub, and she had drunk about three fruity bangers too many. She couldn’t even remember walking home to their flat. Maybe Mick had carried her.
She had a throbbing headache, and her tongue felt as rough and dry as glasspaper. She knew they had run out of baked beans and coffee and milk, and they had nearly run out of toilet paper, but the bed was warm and comfortably rumpled, and it was gloomy outside, and she could hear that it was raining. She could always meet Carol for lunch and go shopping afterward. Or maybe she could go shopping early tomorrow morning before she had to go to work.
She turned over in bed and looked at the framed photograph of her and Mick sitting on their hotel balcony in Gran Canaria. She was lifting her glass of sangria and smiling, but Mick was frowning. That photograph had been taken about half an hour after he had asked her to marry him, and she had said no – well, more like not yet. She was only twenty-three, and even though she loved Mick, she didn’t want to settle down yet. She wanted to party and have fun, and she also wanted to build her career as an actress. She had already been given a small part in EastEnders as a waitress. It had been a speaking part too. Her line had been, ‘Ready to order yet, love?’
She closed her eyes and dozed off again. She dreamed that she was walking around Peckham trying to find her friend Tina’s house, but the streets in this Dream Peckham were all different from the streets she knew, and wet, and deserted, and she was lost. Although it was daytime, all the houses had their curtains closed, so she felt that even if she rang their doorbells to ask for directions, nobody would answer. It was still raining, and she was barefoot and wearing nothing but her white nightshirt, which was soaking.
She saw a newsagent’s shop on the corner, with its windows lit. When she reached it, she found that a CLOSED sign was hanging in the door, although she was sure she could see a hunched-up shadow moving around inside.
She was about to knock at the window when she was woken up by her cat, Persephone, mewling in the corridor outside her bedroom. She opened her eyes and stared at the side of the chest of drawers next to her bed. Persephone mewled again, and then hissed, and Jenny was sure she could hear her clawing at the carpet. Perhaps she had cornered a mouse, although they hadn’t had any mice in the flat since last year, after the landlord had arranged for most of the small overgrown garden at the back of the house to be bricked over.
She sat up in bed. The bedroom door was half open so that she could see the opposite wall of the corridor, with a framed reproduction of a print by M. C. Escher of people climbing up endless flights of stairs, but she couldn’t see Persephone, and she couldn’t see a mouse.
‘Perse?’ Jenny called out. ‘What’s the matter, sweetie?’ But Persephone had stopped mewling and hissing, and all Jenny could hear was the rain pattering against the window.
‘Perse?’ she called, one more time, and then she flopped back onto the pillow and dragged the duvet right up to her chin. Another twenty minutes’ dozing wouldn’t make any difference. In fact, she might even ring Carol and tell her that she didn’t feel well and couldn’t make it for lunch.
She closed her eyes again, but as she did so, she felt the duvet being lifted at the end of the bed, and then a brief, cold draught. She heard a scratching sound too.
‘Perse!’ she complained, kicking her feet from side to side. Persephone had done this before, when it was chilly – crept under the duvet and tried to snuggle up next to her. She knew that Persephone was only being affectionate and wanted to keep warm, but she purred like a football rattle and her breath smelled of tuna.
Something touched her bare left calf, but it wasn’t furry like Persephone. It was sticky and cold and it was crawling up between her legs like a giant spider. Jenny instantly threw back the duvet and rolled herself sideways, standing up beside the bed in shock and horror.
There was a creature in the bed with her. It was still mostly hidden under the duvet, but she could see two moist eyes looking up at her, and what could have been a finger sticking out, except that it had a bunch of small nobbles on the end of it.
Whatever it was, the creature didn’t move for nearly twenty seconds, but then it gradually inched its way back under the duvet until it was completely covered over.
Jenny’s brain was a jumble, and she couldn’t think what to do. She knew that one of Mick’s golf clubs was leaning in the umbrella stand beside the flat’s front door. Perhaps if she tiptoed out of the bedroom and went to fetch it, she could beat this creature to death. But what was it, and where had it come from? And why had it crept into her bed?
She edged her way out of the bedroom, without taking her eyes off the small hump under her duvet. She found Persephone in the corridor, cowering among the untidy heap of shoes and wellington boots. Persephone’s gingery fur was standing on end, and her little sharp teeth were bared. She hissed as Jenny approached, as if she were trying to warn her that the creature under her duvet was something dangerous and that she was right to be frightened of it.
‘It’s all right, Perse,’ Jenny whispered. ‘Mummy will deal with it.’ Then she thought, Why am I whispering?
She picked up Mick’s sand iron and made her way back to the bedroom, feeling as if she could hardly breathe. The hump was still in the same place, not moving. She didn’t know if she ought to start hitting it, or if she should leave it where it was and phone Mick. She knew that he wouldn’t be able to come home straight away, because he had gone to Sheffield for a meeting with his suppliers, but at least he could advise her what to do. If only she knew what the creature was, that would help. If it was some kind of stray animal, perhaps she ought to call the RSPCA. Or Rentokil, if it was a rat.
She approached the end of the bed. She hesitated for a moment, then she turned the golf club around and poked at the hump with the end of its handle. The creature retreated a few inches further across the bed, but then it stopped still again.
Oh my God, this is scaring me to death. I’ll have to call Mick. But the first thing he’s going to ask me is – what the hell is it, Jen? And I’m going to feel like a fool because I’m too frightened to look and find out.
She took hold of one corner of the duvet in her left hand, gripping the sand iron tightly in her right. She counted to three, then she whipped the duvet sideways off the bed and dropped it onto the floor. When she saw the creature that had been hiding underneath, she took two stumbling steps backward and gasped. She didn’t have enough breath in her lungs to scream.
It was about the size of a small child’s hand and shaped like a crab. It had a small bulbous head supported by four limbs that resembled fingers – although each limb had those bud-like protrusions on the end. They reminded Jenny of the stunted arms of children deformed by thalidomide.
What stunned her the most was that the head had a face. It was a baby’s face, with its eyes closed, and its pale lips puckered, and only two small wet holes where its nose should have been. It was breathing quickly and stickily, as if it were panicking.
Jenny dropped the sand iron onto the carpet and stood staring at this creature, shaking with shock. She couldn’t believe that it was real, and that she wasn’t still sleeping, and having a nightmare. How could such a thing like this exist, and how had it managed to crawl into their flat and into her bed?
Still shaking, her teeth chattering, she circled cautiously around the end of the bed to pick up her phone from the top of the chest of drawers. She had nearly reached it when the creature opened its eyes, and she froze. It stared at her, unblinking, then it opened its lips and let out a sound like nothing she had ever heard. It was a thin, plaintive whistle that ended in a cry, almost as if it were appealing to her to help it.
Its finger-limbs started to move, and it crawled across the bed toward her. It was then that Jenny completely lost it. She snatched up her phone and stumbled out of the bedroom, across the corridor and into the living room, slamming the door shut behind her. She jumped onto the couch, lifting her feet clear of the floor in case the creature somehow managed to follow her, and jabbed frantically at her phone.
Please answer please answer please answer! Oh God Mick please answer!
‘Jen? What is it? I’m right in the middle of a meeting. Can I call you back in half an hour?’
‘Mick, there’s a horrible thing in the flat! I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what to do.’
‘What do you mean, a horrible thing?’
‘It’s like a giant spider except that it isn’t a spider. It’s got a face. It crawled right into the bed with me. It’s still in the bedroom now. Well, I hope it is.’
‘Hold on, Jen. A giant spider with a face? Sorry, guys, it’s my girlfriend. She’s throwing a bit of a wobbly for some reason.’
‘It’s got a face like a baby, and it crawled right into bed with me. Right under the duvet.’
‘Jen, are you still pissed? You sound like it.’
‘I’m not pissed, Mick! I’m scared shitless! This thing frightened Perse and then it came into the bedroom. What am I going to do?’
‘Listen, Jen, try to calm down. Honestly, try to calm down. Whatever this thing is, maybe Bill downstairs can get rid of it for you. Go down and ask him. If he can’t, phone up the letting agents.’
‘I’ve shut myself in the lounge, Mick. I don’t want to go out there.’
‘Try to keep calm, Jen. I’d come down myself if I could, but it’s going to take me three hours at least. Take a look outside the lounge and, if this thing’s still in the bedroom, run down and knock on Bill’s door. He’ll help you. He was in Afghanistan, Jen. I bet he’s seen spiders a damn sight scarier than this one.’
‘I’m too scared, Mick. It’s horrible. You’d feel the same if you could see it.’
‘Just open the door a crack and take a look. Think about it, Jen. It might look scary, but I’ll bet it’s a lot more scared of you than you are of it.’
‘All right. I’ll look, but if I can’t see it, I’m not going out there.’
‘Fair enough. Call me back when you’ve decided what you’re going to do.’
‘Can’t you stay on the phone?’
‘I’m right in the middle of a meeting, Jen, and everybody’s staring at me and drumming their fingers.’
‘All right. Sorry.’
‘You don’t have to be sorry, sweetheart. Just go down and fetch Bill.’
Jenny put down her phone. She knew that Mick was right, and that the creature was probably much more frightened than she was. With its four finger-like limbs it looked like a giant spider, but it had the face of a vulnerable baby, and its cry had been desperate rather than aggressive.
She climbed off the couch and went over to the door. She listened for a while, with her ear pressed against it. Nothing. Only the rain, and the intermittent clonking of the central heating. But she was just about to turn the handle when she heard a scuffling sound, and then a scream from Persephone. A harsh, high-pitched scream, more like a child than a cat.
She flung open the door. Persephone was struggling among the shoes and wellingtons in the corridor. She was lying on her back and the creature was on top of her, furiously tearing at her stomach with its finger-like limbs. It looked as if claws were sticking out of the bud-like nobbles and bits of ginger fur and red flesh were flying everywhere, sticking to the boots and shoes and the wallpaper too.
Jenny rushed up and screamed at the creature, ‘Get off her! Get off her!’ But the creature carried on ripping at Persephone’s stomach, staring up at Jenny with no emotion in its eyes at all, its moist nostrils flared and its lips tightly pursed. With a sharp crackle it split open Persephone’s ribs and Jenny could see her cat’s dark red heart, still beating.
She tried to seize the creature’s limbs, but they were slippery and strong, and they wriggled so much that she couldn’t get a grip on them. Its claws scratched her fingers, too, and the scratches stung. She managed to force her hand underneath its head, into the bloody, furry mess that it had made of Persephone, and she pulled it upward as hard as she could, but the creature jerked and jumped and scrabbled so ferociously at her wrist that she had to let it go. As she staggered back, the creature let out another high-pitched whistle, but this time it sounded more triumphant than appealing.
Whimpering with pain and distress, with both of her hands covered in scratches, Jenny limped back to the bedroom and picked up the sand iron. Now she was going to do what she should have done before, and smash the creature into a pulp. She could worry if it was human or animal or giant spider once she had killed it.
She went back out into the corridor with the sand iron held high. Persephone was lying on top of the shoes and wellingtons, her head still intact but her stomach ripped wide open and her legs splayed apart, like a tiny tiger-skin rug. The creature, however, was no longer on top of her, and there was no sign of it.
Jenny cautiously made her way along the corridor to the front door, still holding up the sand iron, ready to strike. Where are you, you demon? Where are you hiding yourself?
The bathroom was off to the right, and its door was slightly ajar. Jenny poked the door open wider with the sand iron and then quickly reached inside to snatch down the light pull. The bathroom was small and windowless, so if the creature had crawled in here, there was no way for it to escape. Before she went in, Jenny bent down so that she could see under the washbasin. Nothing. The creature wasn’t hiding there.
She stepped inside, immediately swinging the door back, but the creature wasn’t hiding itself behind the door either. The bathroom was too small for a bathtub, although there was a shower with pale-green polyester curtains, with a seahorse design on them. Jenny hesitated, but then she took hold of the left-hand curtain, counted to three, and yanked it aside, holding the sand iron ready to beat the creature to death.
The shower tray was empty, except for Mick’s sodden orange sponge.
Jenny immediately left the bathroom and hurried back along the corridor, trying not to look at Persephone’s mutilated body. She was so frightened that she felt she was going to be sick. If the creature wasn’t in the bathroom, where was it? She hadn’t seen it run back into the bedroom when she had gone to pick up the sand iron, but she supposed it might have scuttled past her into the living room or into the kitchenette. There was a small airing cupboard too, halfway along the corridor, although that was tightly closed.
She went into the living room first. There was no sign of the creature in there – not behind the curtains, or under the couch, or hiding in the small corner beside the bookcase. She even looked up at the ceiling, in case the creature was able to scurry up walls, like a spider.
Next she looked in the kitchen. She opened the larder, and all the cupboards, and looked in the oven and the dishwasher. She didn’t see how it could possibly have climbed into any of the kitchen units, but she wanted to make sure for her own peace of mind.
She ended up by searching the bedroom. She knelt down, peered under the bed and slid out every drawer in the chest of drawers. Nothing. However it had managed to escape from the flat, the creature had disappeared. If it hadn’t been for poor Persephone’s remains lying on top of the shoes and boots, Jenny could almost have persuaded herself that she had imagined it.
She looked into every room one more time, just to make absolutely sure. There was no point in going downstairs and asking Bill to help her now. He would probably think she was going doolally. He might even think she had killed Persephone herself and was making up a story about a spider-like creature with a child’s face so that she wouldn’t be blamed for it.
She was even reluctant about calling Mick again now, but before she could decide what to do, her phone rang. She went into the living room and picked it up.
‘Jen? How’s it going? Have you got rid of that thing yet?’
‘It’s gone, Mick.’
‘Blimey, Jen, you sound terrible. Did Bill come up and help you?’
‘He didn’t have to. It’s gone, Mick. It’s disappeared. I don’t know how.’
‘Listen, I’ve finished all my meetings and I’m catching the first train back.’
Jenny was about to tell him about Persephone, but tears started to stream down her cheeks, and her throat tightened so much that she couldn’t speak.
‘Jen? Are you still there, Jen?’
She managed to croak out a yes, but that was all.
‘I’m on my way home now, Jen. Just hold on. You were supposed to be having lunch with Carol, weren’t you? Why don’t you call Carol to come over?’
Jenny managed another yes, but then she had to put down her phone. She sat on the couch, numb with shock, while the rain continued to trickle down the window and Mick’s tiny voice kept repeating, ‘Jen? Are you still there, Jen?’