INVASION FROM INFERNO

HUGH B. CAVE

Time for some pulp thrills. Hugh Barnett Cave (1910–2014) had the distinction of having been one of the original authors published in Christine Campbell Thompson’s Not at Night series, with stories in Keep on the Light, Terror By Night, and The “Not at Night” Omnibus.

Born in Chester, England, he emigrated with his family to America when he was five. From the late 1920s onward Cave’s stories began appearing in such legendary pulp magazines as Weird Tales, Strange Tales, Ghost Stories, Black Book Detective Magazine, Spicy Mystery Stories, and the infamous “weird menace” or “shudder pulps,” Horror Stories and Terror Tales.

After leaving the horror field in the early 1940s for almost three decades, a volume of the author’s best horror tales, Murgunstrumm and Others, was published by Karl Edward Wagner in 1977. Cave subsequently returned to the genre with new stories and a string of modern horror novels: Legion of the Dead, The Nebulon Horror, The Evil, Shades of Evil, Disciples of Dread, The Lower Deep, Lucifer’s Eye, Isle of the Whisperers, The Dawning, The Evil Returns, and The Restless Dead. His short stories were also collected in a number of volumes, including The Corpse Maker, Death Stalks the Night, The Dagger of Tsiang, Long Live the Dead: Tales from Black Mask, Come Into My Parlor, The Door Below, and Bottled in Blonde. Milt Thomas’s biography, Cave of a Thousand Tales: The Life & Times of Hugh B. Cave, was published by Arkham House a week after the author’s death.

During his lifetime, Cave received Life Achievement Awards from the Horror Writers Association, the International Horror Guild, and the World Fantasy Convention. He was also presented with the Special Convention Award at the 1997 World Fantasy gathering in London, where he was a Special Guest of Honor.

“I long ago lost most of my pulp stories in a fire,” he lamented. “A few years back, a friend urged me to try finding copies of them, and helped me in many ways to do so.

“As these stories arrived in the mail, my wife Peggy and I read them aloud to each other at bedtime and rated them from 1 to 10. I have her comment attached to my file-copy of the story: ‘Invasion from Inferno’ is one of the best shudder stories you’ve written. It’s exciting, different, and full of surprises. Definitely a 10!”

I: THE SPIDER WOMAN

THE LITTLE GIRL’S mouth opened and her brown eyes filled with terror. On her knees beside the berry bush, she leaned backward with a convulsive jerk and upset her pail of picked berries.

“Spiders!” she screamed. “Spiders! Oh-h-h-h, help, help!”

She was alone in the forest clearing, and the shadows of gathering dusk had crept in upon her without her knowing it. Screaming wildly, she staggered to her feet and looked frantically for the road. Weak from fright, she ran toward it.

“HERS WAS A HORRIBLE SORT OF BEAUTY.”

She had been told not to go into the woods. She had been told about the spiders, and how they might devour her. And now …

Now the clearing seemed to be wriggling after her like some huge, hungry monster. The woods were alive with crawling things. The child’s shrieks had no effect whatever on the living wave of red horror that pursued her. She tripped, fell flat on her face. The undulating wave caught up to her and slithered over her. Her last scream was like a siren wail wandering out over the purple countryside.

Andy Gale heard the screams and slammed his foot down on the brake-pedal. The car stopped with a spine-jarring jerk and he flung himself out of it, stood staring, doubting his senses. Then he rushed forward.

A wall of trees and heavy underbrush blinded him to the horror until he was in the midst of it. He could have whirled then and raced back to the road, could have fled before the things attacked him. But he saw the child lying there and heard her ghastly sobs.

A sea of red death rolled over her. Hundreds of tiny red horrors were fighting among themselves for possession of her body.

Gale stumbled forward and ground the hideous creatures under his feet, staining the earth red with their mangled bodies. He beat at them with his hands, then tore off his coat and swung it as he advanced. Horror iced his blood and swelled in his brain, but he fought his way to the girl’s side and pulled her to her feet.

“God!” he groaned.

The spiders were like a thick red blanket enveloping her. They were in her hair. They covered her little arms and legs and were under her dress, swarming over her flesh. They were feeding!

He wiped them off with frantic sweeps of his hands, as the little girl clung to him and cried her heart out. He kicked them aside as they rushed forward to climb her trembling body. Lifting her in his arms, he staggered back toward the road.

Twice he had to stop, because the awful things leaped upon him from every scraping bush. They attacked his eyes, and he fell to his knees, clawing at his face with his free hand. It was impossible to fight so many of them. For everyone he killed, there were hundreds more rushing to attack!

On fire with pain, he reached the car and dropped his limp burden on the seat, flung himself behind the wheel. The machine roared ahead. The little girl had stopped moaning.

Half a mile down the road, Gale braked the car and bent over the child. Some of the things were still crawling on her dress and in her hair. He plucked them off and killed them, and killed others that were wriggling over the upholstery.

They were tiny, eight-legged creatures with crab-like legs. Prickly, spine-like clusters of hair grew out of their potato-bug bodies. “Red spider” was the common name for them. Hideous little things, non-poisonous, but capable of breeding with frightful rapidity, they were notorious in the farm-belt for the depredations they committed.

The little girl had regained consciousness and dazedly watched him as he worked over her. Suffering from shock, she moaned timidly:

“Who—who are you? Do—do you live—near here?”

“I’m Andy Gale,” he said. “I’m on my way to visit Nicklus Brukner.”

The little girl nodded weakly. Like a person coming out of ether, she seemed to be struggling to orient herself, and the pain of her wounds would not let her. She badly needed medical attention, but first Gale had to make sure no more of those voracious little red devils were feeding on her.

“Nicklus Brukner,” she whispered, “lives in the next house. At the foot of the hill. Why—why are you going there?”

“I’m going there,” Gale said, “to marry Miss Reid, the schoolteacher. She’s my sweetheart.”

His casual words, instead of soothing her, produced an effect startlingly opposite! The child cringed as if he had struck her. Her small body trembling violently, she gazed at him with terrified eyes.

“You—you’re the Spider Woman’s sweetheart?” she sobbed. “Then you’re as wicked as she is! Let me go! Oh, please let me go! I’m afraid!” Amazement put a scowl on Gale’s face as he leaned toward her. The Spider Woman’s sweetheart? In God’s name what was the child talking about? In her terror, she struck at him, and the exertion was too much for her. She slumped down in the seat …

With the unconscious girl in his arms, Andy Gale climbed the weather-worn steps of Nicklus Brukner’s enormous house and rang the bell. It was an old, rambling house, flanked by acres of drought-seared farmland. It looked mean and dismal. He wondered how Arachne had stood it all these months.

Even while teaching school she must have hated to board here. And since the end of the school term she had been patiently waiting here for him to get his vacation and take her away. The door opened and a thick-set, bearded man glared out at him.

“What you want?”

“I’m a friend of Miss Reid’s,” Gale said quickly. “This child is hurt.”

The man, Gale knew, was Nicklus Brukner. Arachne had described him in her letters as being an ugly, morose individual with a violent temper, and the description seemed to fit. Hunching closer, Brukner peered into the child’s face.

“Bring her in!”

Gale trailed him into a musty, shadow-ridden parlor and placed the girl on a divan. He knew how she must be suffering, for he himself was on fire from the bites of the spiders. Non-poisonous the tiny spiders might be, but their bites were like the stings of wasps, driving agony through tortured flesh.

He started to explain what had happened, but Brukner had turned and was shouting harshly: “Fada! Fada! Come here quickly!”

Over the threshold came the girl who had promised to become Andy Gale’s wife.

“Arachne!” He strode forward, took her in his arms. For a moment the child on the divan was forgotten, and he thought only of the months he had waited, of Arachne’s wonderful letter saying she would marry him.

But she was trembling now. Her lips, whispering his name, were pale, and her wide eyes refused to look into his. Something was wrong.

“What is it, Arachne? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Of course, Andy.” And suddenly she saw the girl on the divan. “Why, it’s little Hope Wiggin! She’s hurt!”

“She was attacked by spiders,” Gale muttered.

As if conjured up by his mention of the word, a strange, deformed creature came limping into the room. Involuntarily Gale fell back a step. This, he knew, was Fada, the crippled daughter of Nicklus Brukner.

The lame girl stopped short and rudely stared at him. He stared back. Horror and pity welled up inside him as he gazed at her thin, twisted legs, her humped body, her amazingly beautiful, sensuous face. How could any living thing be such a combination of ugliness and rare beauty?

“Spiders?” Fada said stiffly, limping to the divan. “Spiders, did you say? Let me look at her!”

Evidently she was accustomed to having her own way. Nicklus Brukner and Arachne stepped back to make room. No one spoke as the crippled girl went to her knees and pawed at the little girl’s frail body.

A scowl twisted Andy’s face. He remembered what the child had said to him in the car. You—you’re the Spider Woman’s Sweetheart! Evidently in her agony she had been confused, had really been thinking of the deformed Fada. Fada, kneeling there beside the divan, did resemble a spider. Her thin limbs and malshaped back created a frightening illusion.

Gale suddenly wanted to lurch forward and drag her away, but she was already laboriously rising to her feet. Staring straight at Arachne, the crippled girl said in a low, threatening voice: “The youngster is dead. The pain and shock have killed her. For this, my dear, the farmers will tear you into small, bloody bits, as you deserve! Spider Woman!”

Andy Gale gazed mutely at the girl he loved. For an instant he doubted that he had really heard those ghastly words hissing from Fada’s lips. But he had heard them, and so had the others.

Arachne’s face was as gray as the room’s high ceiling. She fell back, pressing a hand to her breast. The crippled girl slowly advanced, then stopped and glared at Nicklus Brukner. “Take the child home,” she snapped, “and tell the people what has happened!”

Brukner gathered the lifeless body in his arms and strode from the room. “Nothing can save you now,” the crippled girl snarled at Arachne. “Not even your handsome lover!”

“Damn you, shut up!” Gale said angrily.

Fada’s dark eyes threw hate at him as he thrust himself forward and put his hands on Arachne’s shoulders. He could feel that hate eating into him, a tangible, chilling force that was somehow foul and unclean.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Arachne huskily.

The crippled girl threw a harsh, bitter laugh after them but made no attempt to interfere. Slamming the door, Gale led Arachne out to the front porch where the air seemed cooler, cleaner. There he forced her gently into a chair. “Now tell me what this is all about,” he said.

She shuddered. Almost inaudibly she replied: “They’re calling me the Spider Woman, Andy. They blame me for what’s happened.”

“Well, what has happened?”

“Flood River Valley is overrun with red spiders, whole armies of them. The horrible things have destroyed the crops and attacked livestock. The damage they’ve done is frightful. Now—now they are attacking human beings.”

Gale stood still and stared at her. “And the people blame you?” he said, unbelievingly. “Why?”

“Red spiders are not native to this region, Andy. The farmers say I brought them here. My name—you know what my name means, and how I’ve always hated it.”

Yes, he knew what her name meant. To him it was the loveliest name on Earth. Greek legend told of a maiden named Arachne who, in a contest of spinning and weaving, won a victory over the goddess Athena. To punish the maiden for daring to defeat a goddess, Athena had transformed her into a spider and ordered her to spin webs throughout eternity.

The scientific name Arachnida, as applied to the spider and all its kin, owed its origin to that ancient fable. But surely that was no reason for calling Arachne Reid a spider woman!

He suddenly wanted to laugh, but the death of little Hope Wiggin had destroyed all the laughter within him. “Is it just because of your name that—” he began dully.

“No, Andy. We had a sort of insect zoo at the schoolhouse. For weeks the children brought all kinds of insects, and we kept them alive and studied them. There were fifty or more spiders, including a few red ones. When school closed, I turned them all loose, and now the people are saying that I—I—”

Gale nodded, scowling. There was something darkly sinister here, something ugly and mysterious. The significance of Arachne’s name and the fact that she had liberated a few spiders were mere scratches on the surface. Below the surface, a hateful sort of hell was brewing. Fada, the crippled girl, perhaps knew more about it than anyone else.

“So they claim you started the plague by turning loose a handful of spiders,” he said grimly. “Ignorant, superstitious fools, that’s what they are, and I’d like a chance to tell them so!”

Trembling with rage, Gale gripped the rotted porch railing so fiercely that his strong hands threatened to pulverize it.

“Well, we’re getting out of here,” he snorted. “They can think what they like.”

“No, Andy. I can’t go yet.”

He stared at her. Something tightened inside him.

“But you said in your letter—” he whispered.

“I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry, Andy. Please don’t be angry.”

“You mean—you’ve changed your mind? You don’t love me?”

Her trembling lips told of the torment in her heart as she returned his stare of stunned amazement.

“I love you, Andy,” she said steadily, “but I can’t marry you. Not yet. Please don’t ask me to explain. I can’t go away with you. I’ve got to stay here.”

“But you can’t stay here!” he said hoarsely. “You mustn’t! You heard what Fada said.”

She didn’t answer immediately. Staring out into the darkness, she shuddered, then lowered her face into her hands, as if the thought of what might happen to her were more than she could bear. Gale stumbled forward and knelt beside her, put his arms around her.

“You’ve got to go away with me!” he pleaded. “Even if you no longer love me or want to marry me, you’ve got to let me take you away from here.”

He wanted her to say, “I do love you, Andy.” If only she would whisper those few simple words, the iron bands around his heart would relax and he could breathe again. Instead, she raised her head and looked at him with dead, dull eyes. “No. I can’t leave,” she said. “I’ve got to stay.”

Half an hour later, they came.

They were a rough, ugly lot, the farmers of Flood River Valley. Led by a great hulk of a man who carried a lantern in one hand and a shotgun in the other, they stormed along the road and marched into Nicklus Brukner’s yard. Gale and Arachne were on the porch when they arrived.

One look at that angry, muttering mob convinced Gale that the danger threatening Arachne was appallingly real.

“Get inside!” he whispered. “Hurry!” And as she closed the door behind her, he advanced to the steps and stood there, gazing down into a sea of sinister faces.

“What do you want?”

Suddenly the door behind him opened again, and Fada, the crippled girl, was beside him.

“You know what they want,” she laid shrilly. “They’ve come for the Spider Woman, and they can have her! They’re welcome to her!”

With one sweep of his arm, Gale thrust her aside.

“What do you want?” he demanded again.

“We want the Spider Woman!”

“Why? What has she done?”

One of them strode up the steps and looked Gale over. That man never knew how close he came to getting a fist in the mouth as he thrust his head forward and poked a gnarled forefinger into Gale’s stomach.

“Who might you be?” he snarled.

“Never mind who I am. I’m here to protect Miss Reid.”

“You’re here to protect her, are ye? Well, we aim to run her out of Flood River Valley! She’s workin’ with the Devil, she is. With her gone, the spiders’ll leave too, and we’ll be able to live in peace again. Where is she?”

“She’s in the house!” Fada screamed. “Go in and drag her out, Clem!”

The fellow she called Clem put a hand on Andy Gale’s chest.

“One side, you!” he ordered. “We aim to get the Spider Woman!”

He never knew what struck him. Gale’s fist, backed by a seething volcano of rage, exploded in the fellow’s sneering mouth and sent him sprawling. He fell in a gurgling heap at the foot of the steps. The others surged forward, filling the night with the din of their voices.

At that moment, as Gale faced annihilation, two things happened simultaneously. Arachne Reid appeared suddenly at Gale’s side, with the obvious intention of giving herself up to protect him from harm; and, from the rear of the mob, a commanding voice rang out like a tocsin, halting the farmers in their tracks.

Gale stared in amazement as a tall, broad-shouldered man strode forward, opening a lane with his voice. All other voices had died until there was a weird silence. The man climbed to the porch and calmly faced the mob.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.

They told him. He turned to look at Arachne, and there was something in that look, something in the flush of color that climbed suddenly into Arachne’s face, that thrust a knife-point into Andy Gale’s heart. He knew at that moment why Arachne had refused to go away with him.

The broad-shouldered man gazed down at the crowd.

“You’re wrong,” he said sternly. “Miss Reid had nothing to do with the death of that little girl. Go home, all of you!”

To Gale it looked like a daring bluff, because he was close enough to see signs of turmoil in the fellow’s face. Would it work? Would those sullen, superstitious farmers obey the command?

They did. None of them, not even the man Clem, had nerve enough to advance. With a mutter of sound the mob broke up. The handsome young man turned and took both of Arachne’s hands in his, and said fervently: “Thank God!”

Pale and trembling, Arachne beckoned to Gale. “This is John Slayton, Andy. He came here a few days ago to interest the farmers in a cooperative packing plant.”

Gale took the man’s hand.

“You seem to have quite a hold over them, Mr. Slayton,” he said dully.

“No. But I’ve talked with most of them, and they evidently trust me.”

Someone else trusted him, too. Gale could see it in her eyes—in Arachne’s eyes. Mumbling excuses, he turned and walked back into the house, his own eyes glazed with torment, his feet heavy. Five minutes later, Fada found him sitting on an old piano bench in the parlor.

“Your sweetheart and Mr. Slayton, they are still talking together,” the crippled girl murmured cruelly. “You’re no fool. I guess you can see they’re in love.”

Gale raised his head and stared without answering. She moved closer.

“Are you thinking of going away?”

“Yes.”

“You mustn’t. There is something dishonest about John Slayton. Why would any man come to this drought-stricken area to talk to the farmers about a packing plant? The farmers are desperate. They have no crops. The red spiders have ruined everything. If you go away now, like a beaten dog, there’s no telling what may happen. Arachne should be protected.”

The words bored deep into Andy’s brain. He saw the wisdom behind them. Strange, that this deformed creature should one minute wish to turn Arachne over to a mob of mad beasts, and then suddenly, with an amazing change of heart, seek to protect her. But so many things here were strange and bewildering.

“You must not go away,” Fada whispered. “You must stay! There is a vacant bedroom upstairs, next to mine …”

II: NIGHT CALLS

A SPIDER CRAWLED over the patchwork quilt and dropped onto Andy Gale’s twitching face. Without waking, he stirred restlessly and uttered mumbling sounds of torment.

He was dreaming, and there were spiders in the dream—hideous red armies of them, stalking him.

The red spider on his face crept across his mouth and bit him. He waked with a convulsive jerk and sat up in bed. A clock on the antique bureau said 2:00 a.m., and the room was weirdly aglow with moonlight.

The door, which he had carefully closed before retiring, was creaking as someone inched it open. Gale turned to stare at it. The sledging of his own heart startled him. Then he stifled a grunt of amazement as his unexpected visitor came limping into view.

“You are awake—darling?”

The moonlight was kind to Fada as she stood there. It lessened the horror of her shriveled limbs and deformed back, and glorified the amazing beauty of her face. Hers was a frightening sort of beauty, unearthly and savagely sensual. Gale swung his feet clear of the bedclothes and scowled at her.

“What do you want?” His scowl deepened, and he pushed himself erect. There was something unholy about this woman.

“You—you think I should not have come here to talk to you a little while—when I’m lonely?” she asked. Her red lips ceased smiling and writhed back to reveal a curled tongue and white, gleaming teeth. “Am I—so ugly as that?”

“It isn’t that, Fada. It’s just that I—Arachne … I’m sorry.”

“You are sorry?” Her bitter laugh chilled his blood. “Yes, you are sorry for me! All men are. I am hideous. It hurts you to look at me!” Her snarling outburst smothered Gale’s feeble word, of protest. “And I thought you were different!”

A look of helplessness was in Gale’s tired face. “You’d better go now,” he said dully.

“Yes, I’d better go now.” Bitterly she mocked the tone of his voice. “But some day you’ll look at me without that loathing in your eyes, Andrew Gale! Some day you’ll go on your knees to me, and beg me—”

He shuddered. Never before in the eyes of a human being had he seen hate smoldering so fiercely. In a daze he stood by the bed and watched her as she limped to the door. She did not look back. The door creaked shut behind her.

Sleep was impossible then. With an unlit cigarette clamped in his teeth, he paced the floor. The hate from Fada’s warped soul hung like a foul miasma in the room, stifling him. Outside, the moon was high and full, spilling a cold, blue light through the windows.

Suddenly there were voices.

Rigid at an open window, Gale stared down into the yard. The white fence, newly painted, gleamed like a row of giant teeth against the grayness of the road. A man and a woman stood near the gate.

A thick, strangling mass gathered in Gale’s throat as he watched. The words of the crippled girl whispered again in his brain. You’re no fool. I guess you can see they’re in love.

Yes, he could see. How long Arachne and John Slayton had been out there, he had no way of knowing; but evidently they had been there some time. Slayton’s hands were on Arachne’s shoulders. He was holding her close to him.

Their conversation reached Gale only as a low murmuring in which words were indistinguishable. They separated. Slayton, tall and straight, strode down the road toward the village. Arachne, without even a glance at the windows of Gale’s room, glided swiftly toward the rear door.

With a dull, glazed look in his half-shut eyes, Gale sprawled on the bed …

At breakfast the next morning a red spider, crawling over the table, died under the descending fist of Nicklus Brukner.

“Damned spiders!” Brukner grumbled. “They’ve ruined every farm in the valley!”

His crippled daughter leered at him. “Why should you worry? You hold mortgages on nearly every acre of land within thirty miles. If the farmers can’t pay what they owe you, you can take their land.”

“And what do I want with their land? It’s money I need! Money to buy food!”

Nicklus Brukner looked tired. Shadows of exhaustion darkened the pouches under his eyes. His hands trembled as he poured coffee.

“You worked in the laboratory all night, Nicklus?” Arachne asked him.

“Yes, all night again. There’ll be no rest now. I’ve got to find a poison that will kill those hellish things; if I don’t, they’ll keep right on breeding and there will be millions of them. They’ll drive us out of our homes and take possession of the whole valley!”

“But why do you work alone? Why don’t you get help?”

“Because I daren’t trust anyone—that’s why!”

“Perhaps John Slayton would help,” Arachne suggested softly.

“Slayton? Him I trust least of all! Him and his cooperative packing plant! He’s here for no good reason!”

Andy Gale glanced at Arachne and saw a dull red flush ascending from her throat. Across from her, Fada leaned forward, elbows denting the tablecloth.

“Whatever John Slayton is,” the crippled girl said viciously, “you are, too.” With her knife she pointed at Arachne. “Don’t deny it! You’re in love with him! Last night I saw you in his arms!”

Arachne’s flush faded. Her face went white for an instant, and seemed to be made of wax. She stared straight at Fada, then turned, looked at Gale. Andy Gale thought he saw a mute, frantic appeal in her eyes, as if she were begging him not to believe Fada.

Then, pushing back her chair, she thrust herself up from the table and left the room. There was silence for a moment. Fada shattered it by uttering a harsh, brutal laugh.

“Spider woman!” she snarled. “That’s what she is—a spider woman!”

No longer hungry, Gale excused himself. Nicklus Brukner went right on eating, as if nothing had occurred. Half an hour later, while Gale was reading a newspaper in the parlor, the doorbell rang. Fada limped down the hall to answer it. Gale lowered his paper and listened.

“You’re not goin’ to cause trouble in this house, Clem Degnan!” Fada was saying. “I don’t care how you feel about him hittin’ you.”

The “Clem” part of that name was familiar, and Gale guessed the fellow’s mission. Striding into the hall, he pushed Fada aside and confronted the caller.

“You’re looking for me?”

Clem Degnan glared at him. A large purple bruise disfigured the man’s face. “I come here,” Degnan said, “to settle a score with you. No one ever struck Clem Degnan yet without payin’ for it!”

“And I say,” declared Fada, “that I won’t have any disturbance here!”

Gale’s mouth wore a grim smile. The prospect of a good fight was a relief. It would keep him from thinking of other things which, unfortunately, could not be settled so easily.

“We’ll go outside,” he said to Degnan.

They went outside. It was a good fight. When it was over, Gale wiped a trickle of blood from bruised knuckles and smiled down at his beaten opponent who swayed groggily on hands and knees.

Degnan did not smile back. Staggering erect, he backed away, his battered face livid with rage.

“I’ll get you for this!” he promised. “I’ll get even, Gale! Don’t think you’re done with me!”

Snarling, he went away. And when Gale reentered the house, Fada was waiting in the parlor.

“I’m glad you did it,” she whispered. “I hate that man.”

“Do you? Who is he?”

“Oh—just one of the valley farmers.” Suddenly she saw the blood on his knuckles. “You’re hurt!”

She painted his hand with iodine while he sat on the piano bench. It took her a long time, and her heady perfume crept through him like a drug as she bent over him.

“Are you angry with me for what I did last night?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“Then—you don’t hate me? You might even—in time—learn to love me?”

He was slow in answering. His first impulse was to tell her bluntly that he loved someone else; but after all, there was something uniquely attractive about this girl, despite her deformity. She was like a creature of some other world, ugly when judged by the standards of this world, but savagely beautiful in her own right.

Such thoughts frightened him. He shook them loose and pushed himself erect. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I think I’ll take a walk.”

Later he reached a decision. He would face Arachne and demand that she tell him the truth about John Slayton. If she loved Slayton, that would be the end, and he would go back to his job in the city.

Returning to the house, he found Fada asleep in the parlor. Nicklus Brukner was nowhere around. In the kitchen a door was open, and a sound of footsteps in the cellar led Gale down a flight of steep, dark stairs. Someone—Brukner, probably—was in the little laboratory at the end of the cellar.

A sudden desire to see the inside of that laboratory sent Gale forward on the balls of his feet. It was dark here. If he were quiet, he could remain hidden and watch Brukner at work. The laboratory door was open.

Silently approaching the aperture, he reached a vantage point and stood motionless. His eyes widened. His brows drew into a frown.

For it was not Nicklus Brukner who stood there at the wooden work-bench. It was Arachne.

Four earthenware crocks stood on the bench. From one of them, Arachne was ladling a dark, oily liquid into a bottle. Even at a distance, Gale’s nostrils quivered in protest as the strangling odor of the liquid attacked him.

It was a small, dirty room, and the dangling lamp bulb threw a pale glow over the array of paraphernalia that loomed there. Two huge vats of well water stood on the floor. Crude shelves supported bottles of vari-colored liquids. A three-burner gasoline stove occupied half the bench space.

Arachne had finished her task. Replacing the crock, she thrust a stopper into the pint bottle of oily liquid and, with a soiled rag, wiped away the few drops she had spilled on the bench. Gale stepped back as she hurried from the room.

Without seeing him, she ascended the stairs to the kitchen.

Gale followed. Hearing a door click shut, he knew she had gone out into the yard; and from a kitchen window he watched her. With a furtive backward glance at the house, she hurried along a path that skirted the lower section of Brukner’s farm. The nearby woods swallowed her.

Hating himself for his suspicions, Gale went after her.

It was weirdly quiet in the woods, even though at times the girl ahead of him disturbed the silence by walking through brush or stepping on dead limbs. The hush was somehow menacing, like the frightening stillness before a storm. And there were crawling things everywhere.

Spiders! A dozen times he had to leave the path and circle around, because the little red spiders had taken possession. They dropped down on him from low-hanging branches, wriggled over his hands and face and neck. He thought of little Hope Wiggin, and shuddered.

Then, as the winding path led him into a weed-grown clearing, he caught sight of Arachne again.

A house had stood here once. Its foundation loomed among the weeds, and Arachne was hiding the bottle of oily liquid beneath the rusted hulk of an old wheelbarrow. Rising, she looked around before retracing her steps.

This time, Gale resisted the temptation to follow her. In all probability, he told himself, she would go straight back to Brukner’s house.

He waited half an hour, angrily brushing away the spiders that discovered and attacked him. What, he wondered, would be the fate of Flood River Valley if these nonpoisonous red spiders should suddenly become poisonous, or grow to the size of tarantulas? The fantastic thought chilled him.

Then suddenly he was not alone. From the far side of the clearing emerged the tall, athletic figure of John Slayton.

Gale stiffened, forgot the spiders for a moment and watched Slayton’s movements. The man walked straight to the place where the bottle was hidden. Thrusting the bottle into his coat pocket, he turned and strode back the way he had come.

III: ATTACK IN THE HIDEAWAY

AN HOUR LATER, in his own room at the Brukner farmhouse, Andy Gale finished packing. He had resolved to go away quietly, without saying goodbye. The heaviness in his heart did not alter that resolve as he swung his suitcase off the bed and opened the door.

Fada, limping along the hall, stopped him by whispering his name.

“You are—going?”

“This time, yes.”

“And if I prove to you,” Fada said softly, “that your Arachne is in love with a man who is wicked, and that she is in grave danger—what then?”

Gale lowered his suitcase to the floor and stared at her. The hope that surged through him was like a swift, hot pain. “You have proof that John Slayton is not what she thinks he is?” he demanded.

“Come with me.”

She led him downstairs and out of the house. Without a word of explanation, but with a strange twist to her face, she limped along the hot, dusty road that led to the village.

“Where are you taking me?” he demanded.

“You’ll see.”

It was not far. At the top of the bill, near the berry patch where little Hope Wiggin had been attacked by the red spiders, she pointed and said: “There!”

“Why, that’s a schoolhouse!”

“The schoolhouse where your sweetheart taught the children of this district. But the school term is over now, and what better place could John Slayton find for the brewing of his evil schemes?”

She led him forward again, this time along a path that terminated in the school yard. It was quiet here, almost too quiet, and the squat little building with its boarded windows exuded an air of desolation. The road was at least a hundred yards distant, hidden by trees and brush. A perfect hideout indeed! And who would be likely to come here snooping?

Cautioning Gale to make no noise, Fada paced stealthily to the rear door and opened it. The empty building amplified her footbeats as she entered. In a moment she was on the threshold again, beckoning.

“You’ll find proof enough in here!” she said bitterly, as Gale crossed the sill. “Look for yourself, and be quick about it. If Slayton finds us here—”

She was pointing to a five-gallon milk can that stood near the door. It was the only thing in the room that seemed the least unusual. The rest of the room was bare. Desks and benches were stacked against the walls. A pot-bellied wood stove loomed in one corner.

Gale paced forward, frowning. It was dark here. The boarded windows admitted no light, and Fada had cautiously closed the door. The little room seemed more like some dark, heathen temple than like a schoolhouse. The wailing importunities of a black-robed temple priest would have been more appropriate here than would the shrill voices of school children.

He bent over the milk can and wondered what evil thing it contained.

Fada, moving up behind him, whispered fearfully: “Listen! You can hear them crawling in there! Ugh!”

He could hear something crawling inside the can. When he tapped the metal with his foot, the hollow reverberation was accompanied by a sudden slithering sound, as if hundreds of imprisoned insects had been disturbed from sleep and were frantically seeking to escape.

Was the can full of spiders? Red spiders?

Gale gripped the top of the milk can and turned it. Uneasiness had conquered his curiosity, and he acutely wanted to get the job over and get out of this gloomy place. The darkness was stifling him. The air had a musty, unpleasant odor that made breathing difficult.

Suddenly, with a hoarse cry, he put both hands to his throat and could not breathe at all.

The thing had happened with uncanny quickness. His attention had been focused on the task of opening the can. Fada, slipping a wire noose from under her dress, had attacked without warning!

The noose bit deep into Andy Gale’s neck as he staggered back. It strangled him. He slid to his knees, gasping and choking, and fought frantically to tear the thing loose.

But Fada’s hands were at the back of his neck, twisting the wire tighter. Despite her deformity, she was agile as a cat, and those bony wrists possessed amazing strength. He could not reach her with his hands. She kept behind him, forced him backward.

When he ceased struggling at last, she stood over him and uttered a low, gurgling laugh of triumph.

“You were a fool,” she said, “to trust me. You should have known better, darling.”

Gale did not lose consciousness, but hovered on the brink of oblivion for at least five minutes, his face purple, his body laden with sickness. There was nothing gentle about her treatment of him. Loosening the noose only enough to let him breathe, she gripped his arms and dragged him across the floor, propped him in a sitting position against the wood stove.

There, with rope enough to hold a dozen men, she bound him. And the last coil of rope went around his mouth, holding in place a wad of unclean cloth that gagged him.

“You won’t escape, darling,” she told him. “In the first place, I lied to you about John Slayton. This is my little hideout, not his. It was I who brought the milk can here.”

He stared, trying to analyze the odd look in her eyes as she gloated over him. It was not a look of hate, but rather one of anticipation. He wondered if she were insane.

“You won’t escape,” she said again. “I won’t be gone that long.” Then, turning, she limped to the door and was gone.

Gale worked feverishly for half an hour to free himself. At the end of that half hour, his wrists and ankles were bleeding and his lame body was drenched with sweat. But, by rubbing a double section of rope against the stove’s iron door, he had worn the strands almost to the breaking point. He had one foot free when he heard the tell-tale limp of Fada’s returning footsteps.

A groan welled into his throat and he ceased struggling, stared dully at the door. He heard voices then and realized that Fada was not alone. The door opened. Arachne Reid stepped over the threshold. Fada was behind her.

At that moment the sweat on Gale’s body turned ice cold, and he tried mightily to shout a warning. Arachne stared at him and uttered a muffled cry of horror. The warning yell went no further than the gag in Gale’s mouth, and died there. To Arachne it must have sounded like a moan of pain.

She rushed forward. “You were right!” she sobbed to Fada. “Oh, why did I doubt you? Help me!”

On her knees, she clawed at Gale’s bonds. And he, powerless to intervene, saw the whole ghastly routine as Fada leaped to the attack.

The wire noose encircled Arachne’s slender throat. It bit into soft, tender flesh and yanked her over backward. Arachne screamed, but the noose smothered the scream and drew blood. And then, while Gale raged like a madman at his bonds and Arachne writhed in agony on the floor, Fada knelt beside the stricken girl and calmly twisted the noose until the job was finished.

Arachne lay unconscious. Rising, Fada limped to the far wall and seized a heavy wooden bench. Piled-up chairs fell with a crash as the bench shuddered out from under them, but with the same unholy fixation of purpose Fada dragged the bench across the room, upended it, and bound Arachne to it.

Deliberately she tore the front of Arachne’s dress, exposing the soft, creamy flesh of molded breasts. Then, limping over to Gale, she removed his gag, inspected his bonds and reinforced the frayed sections. And then, rolling the five-gallon milk can from the corner, she set it upright near the stove and said softly: “Now, darling, we begin!”

Gale’s eyes bulged in their sockets as the girl came closer. Her hands were outstretched, and he shrank from the touch of them. In her eyes glowed an unholy menace, a flame of dark, evil desire.

She flung herself upon him, forced her twisted body against his. Her lips fastened on his mouth; her hands pawed at him.

“You are mine!” she whispered. “Mine! You’re going to marry me!”

“You’re mad!” Gale gasped.

“Mad? What if I am? You’re going to marry me and love me! If you refuse—” She backed away, leering at him. “If you refuse,” she said, “Arachne dies horribly, and you die with her.”

Mad or not, the crippled girl evidently knew exactly what she meant to do. There was no hesitation, no indecision. Bending over the milk can, she tugged the top loose and held it just above the opening; held it there until a hideous, hairy thing crawled over the lip of the aperture and escaped. Before others could follow, she thrust the top back again.

The hairy, eight-legged horror dropped to the floor and became motionless. A dew of cold sweat formed on Gale’s face as he watched it. He had been wrong! The crawling things imprisoned in the can were not red spiders; they were another variety of a far more terrible breed.

Tarantulas!

“Kill it!” he gasped. “Step on it, you fool! Those things are deadly poisonous!”

Retreating to a safe distance, Fada gazed at the tarantula and began chuckling. “Of course they’re poisonous,” she said, nodding. “And this is only one of them. There are half a hundred more in the can. Now—will you promise to make me your wife?”

The tarantula had apparently oriented itself to its new surroundings. It turned, crept sluggishly toward Gale’s bound legs. A swelling mass of terror threatened to explode in the man’s heaving chest, and he strove frantically to twist himself out of the way.

The crippled girl limped forward. Her foot came down on the huge spider, crushing it. The smile still lingered on her lips as she halted beside Arachne Reid and gently caressed the unconscious girl’s bare shoulder.

“You saw what the little red spiders did to Hope Wiggin,” she murmured. “Think of what these things would do to this poor girl. It would be horrible, wouldn’t it?” And she turned, calmly awaiting Gale’s answer.

“You can’t do it!” he groaned. “You can’t!”

“Oh, but I can. And I will unless you promise to marry me.”

She was enjoying herself. Every word she spoke was tainted with sadistic triumph, and she tasted each syllable before uttering it. She was mad; but she knew what she wanted, and knew she could not fail. Patiently she awaited Gale’s decision.

His heart filled with revulsion, he stared at her, stared past her at the limp, lovely figure of Arachne. God, how different were the two! And he loved Arachne, had loved, worshipped her for years. He had come to Flood River Valley to make her his wife, after an eternity of waiting.

And now …

“Don’t forget,” Fada whispered, “that you will die, too. If you refuse me, I shall release the spiders, all of them, and go away from here, locking the door after me. The tarantulas will destroy both of you.”

Gale shuddered. Already he could feel the hideous things crawling over him; could see them climbing Arachne’s legs to reach the alabaster flesh of her uncovered breasts. His gaze strayed to the milk can, and a cold, constricting wave of terror crept through him, thinning his blood, forcing an icy dew through his pores.

“Well?” Fada demanded.

“You can’t do it!”

“Can’t I?” Again she pulled the milk can top, this time gripping the handle of the container and tipping it so that the great spiders could escape more easily. “Can’t I?” she murmured. “You’ll see!”

“No, no! Wait!”

“Wait? What for?”

“Give me time!” he groaned.

She replaced the lid and shrugged her shoulders. Evidently she was in no hurry. She could wait. She was sure of herself.

His eyes glazed with torment, Gale stared again at Arachne. Silently he prayed for courage enough to do what had to be done. Arachne did not love him; she loved John Slayton. Of that he was positive.

By sacrificing himself—by dooming himself to a hell-union with a woman who was both mad and deformed—he could give Arachne to the man she loved. Otherwise, both he and she would die horribly.

“Well?” Fada said again.

“I—I’ll marry you,” he groaned.

“You swear it?”

“Yes, I swear it.”

“Good!” she whispered.

Suddenly she was like a child delighted with a new toy. Limping forward, she draped her arms about his neck and embraced him, kissed his mouth, his eyes, his bloodless cheeks. “You’ll learn to love me,” she said, gleefully. “We’ll be so happy together!”

The transformation was amazing. No longer a leering, maddened woman, she clung to him in a frenzy of childish delight and then made haste to unbind him. Apparently it had not occurred to her that he might refuse to keep his promise. Her warped mind had not wandered that far from its original fixation.

He shook himself loose and strode forward to free Arachne. Fada went with him, hugging him. Even when he placed Arachne’s limp body on the floor and worked over it, Fada continued her idiotic chuckling and kept annoying him with kisses.

“Get some water,” he ordered. “Help me.”

She brought water, and he bathed Arachne’s face. Before long, the eyes in that white face were open, staring up at him.

“What—what happened, Andy?” Arachne asked weakly.

“Nothing,” he said dully. “Nothing—much. Fada lost her head and attacked you.”

Arachne gazed, bewildered, at the milk can. “What’s that for?”

“That,” he muttered, “is full of Fada’s pets. Spiders.” Suddenly he turned, gripped the arms of the crippled girl and glared at her. “Fada! Where did those spiders come from?”

“Why, from my father’s laboratory.”

“You’re lying! There were no spiders in that laboratory! I looked!”

She snuggled close to him. “You didn’t look in the right room,” she said simply. “There are two rooms, you know. If you’d looked in the little one, you’d have seen ever so many boxes and containers, all filled with different kinds of spiders. My father has some black widow spiders, and tarantulas, and some wolf spiders—oh, all kinds. He breeds them.”

Gale stood still, staring at her. The significance of her words beat like a sledge-hammer into his brain. For a moment his tongue refused to form words.

“How long have you known this?” he suddenly flung out.

“Oh, a long time,” she admitted. “He never told me about the room, but I found it for myself and went there often.”

“Then your father is responsible for the plague of red spiders! He turned them loose to destroy the farms!”

It was hellishly clear, all of it. Nicklus Brukner had released a plague of death and destruction upon Flood River Valley in order to bankrupt the farmers. He held mortgages on most of the valley farms. He had lied in declaring that he didn’t want the land. He did want it; and this was his way of getting it!

Not content with the havoc already wrought by his crawling red armies, he was now experimenting with all the poisonous great spiders themselves, breeding them, assembling new hordes!

Andy Gale seized the woman he had sworn to marry, and dragged her close to him.

“Listen to me, Fada,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to take me to that room. Do you understand? I want to see what it looks like.”

“You want to see the spiders?”

“Yes!”

“And does she want to come, too?” Fada frowned, indicating Arachne.

“Yes,” Arachne said almost inaudibly.

“Well—all right. Come on. Only don’t forget you are to be my husband, not hers!”

IV: POISON BREW

THE FARMHOUSE OF Nicklus Brukner loomed gray and gaunt at the foot of the hill, and seemed deserted as Andy Gale pushed open the gate. Red spiders, crawling like ants over the front steps and the veranda, had apparently taken possession.

“Nicklus,” Arachne said fearfully, “must be in his laboratory.”

The crippled girl pulled Gale back as he put a foot on the steps. Clinging to his arm, she steered him around the house to the rear door. He opened the door and entered, stared across the kitchen and saw that the door at the head of the cellar stairs was open. Arachne and Fada followed him as he paced forward. In the strange silence that seemed to have taken possession here, it was impossible to muffle the thud of his feet as he advanced.

He wondered dully what he would do after discovering Brukner’s secret laboratory. Go to the state troopers? As for his promise to marry Brukner’s mad daughter, he had not dared think about it. It was too horrible.

“Show me,” he muttered, pausing at the foot of the stairs, “where the spiders are!”

Fada led the way. Oblivious to any possible danger, she hurried to the far end of the cellar and entered the room where Arachne, not long ago, had stolen a pint of Brukner’s poison. And with a sudden low cry she stepped back, colliding with Gale as he entered behind her.

On the floor in front of the work-bench lay a sprawled, contorted shape—Nicklus Brukner!

Gale strode forward, stared down at the man. There was nothing much left to stare at. An earthenware crock lay shattered on the floor, and the oily liquid had eaten away Brukner’s hair and clothes and most of his flesh. The liquid, gurgling and bubbling even now with an uncanny life of its own, was still feeding on the man’s remains.

“Dead,” Gale mumbled, shuddering. “Yes—dead. He must have upset the crock while working here and—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Arachne said dully, horror in her staring eyes.

“What?”

“The liquid in that crock wouldn’t have killed him. It wasn’t even a strong poison—certainly not strong enough to—to eat into him like that.” Her face was chalk-white as she whispered the words. Twin smears of rouge stood out like bloodstains on her waxy-white cheeks.

“You see,” she said, “I—know. I took some of that liquid to John Slayton, and he tested it.”

Gale glanced at Fada. Apparently the crippled girl had not realized that the dead man was her father. Rather stupidly she was staring at the corpse, and the expression on her face was bewilderment, not horror.

“Where are the spiders?” Gale demanded. “We might as well see this thing through to the finish!”

Fada limped to the opposite end of the room and pushed aside a crudely built cabinet. A door loomed behind it.

“It may be locked,” she said. “If it is, we can’t get in. I have no key.”

The door creaked open when she turned the knob.

It was dark in there—dark as the interior of a vault. Leading the way, Gale fumbled for matches and struck one against the wall. The sputtering flare showed him a room only half the size of the chamber where Brukner lay dead.

Boxes and wooden barrels, some of them carelessly covered with ill-fitting boards, occupied two-thirds of the floor space. A pool of blood gleamed red and wet at Gale’s feet.

He turned slowly, his gaze stiffly following the rivulet of blood which had formed the pool. The match expired in his fingers as he lurched forward. Striking another, he went to his knees beside the inert figure of John Slayton. Arachne saw, and uttered a shrill scream of horror.

“John! Oh, God! Darling!”

Gale closed his eyes and moved aside. He had no desire to do any staring as Arachne gathered that bloody shape in her arms. Her pitiful sobs tore through Andy Gale, hurting him almost as much as the assailant’s knife must have hurt Slayton. Even Fada seemed to realize the intensity of Arachne’s anguish, and stayed at a distance.

“Andy!” Arachne cried suddenly. “He’s not dead! He’s breathing!”

Gale swayed forward again, saw that she was right. Slayton’s blood-smeared body was twitching; some strange force inside him was fighting its way back, through a mist of dark agony, to consciousness. Gale pushed the hysterical girl aside and lifted the man to a sitting position.

“We’ve got to get him out of here,” he muttered. The answer to that came not from Arachne but from the doorway, in a guttural voice that was vaguely familiar.

“You ain’t goin’ out of here, mister! You’re stayin’—for keeps.”

Andy Gale whirled. The menacing muzzle of a small-bore rifle jerked to a level with his chest and stopped him. He took a faltering backward step and stood rigid.

Arachne stifled a scream. Fada, stupidly staring, said nothing.

The man in the doorway was Clem Degnan, his battered face still swollen and discolored from the beating Andy had given him.

“This,” Degnan said, slowly advancing, “is a real pleasure. I told you I’d get even.”

Gale stood quite still, blood ebbing slowly from his taut face. If he leaped, that gnarled finger would tighten on the trigger; and at that range the bullet would shred his chest to pulp.

“What do you want, Degnan?” he asked, almost inaudibly.

“You.”

“Then let the women go.”

“Let ’em go?” Degnan’s wide mouth curled in a leer. “Let ’em run to the state troopers and tell what they found in this room of mine? I ain’t that big a fool!”

It was a chance to stall for time. Gale seized it rapaciously. “Your room? You’re crazy! This is Brukner’s laboratory.”

“It ain’t Brukner’s laboratory, and Brukner never had the faintest idea of what was goin’ on in here, mister. It’s my laboratory, this is. It was me that brought the first load of red spiders here and turned ’em loose to ruin the crops; and it’s me that’s breedin’ more and bigger spiders to make sure the farmers clear out of Flood River Valley and turn their land over to Brukner. I want that land—see? Soon as it’s mine, I’ll get rid of the spiders in short order, and the land’ll make me rich.”

With an effort, Gale pretended to be unafraid. The man behind that menacing rifle was of low mentality—not low enough to be classed as a moron, but still not blessed with any great intelligence. Unless he suddenly became enraged, there was a feeble chance of talking him out of his obvious intent to murder his three prisoners in cold blood.

“How do you figure you’ll get the land?” Andy scowled.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get it.”

“But if the farmers can’t pay their debts, the land will belong to Brukner, won’t it?”

“Brukner’s dead. I killed him.”

“You shot him?”

“No, I killed him the same way I’m fixin’ to kill you.” Degnan took a step forward. “It ain’t lawful to shoot people Gale. They’d put me in jail for doin’ that. So I made it look like Brukner died accidental—and that’s how they’ll think you died—you and Fada and Miss Reid. You see that tank there?”

He pointed, and Gale’s gaze wandered to a large metal tank in a corner of the room. A length of black hose lay curled on the floor beside it.

“That,” Degnan said, grinning, “is full of poison. I worked in a chemical plant before I come here and married—before I come here to be a farmer. I learned plenty about poisons, and that stuff was all mixed up, ready for use, even before I brought the spiders here. I wouldn’t be fool enough to turn an army of spiders loose unless I knew how to destroy ’em. Not me! That stuff is real powerful—as you’re about to find out!”

A series of slow backward steps carried Degnan to the tank. Helpless to stop him, Andy Gale clenched both hands and stood stricken. A thick, viscous volcano of fear erupted inside him.

“You can’t do it, Degnan! My God, you can’t kill helpless women!”

“It’ll be an accident,” Degnan declared, grinning again.

Stooping, he seized the black hose and slid his hand along to the gleaming nozzle. There was a gleam of unholy triumph in his narrowed eyes as he straightened. He was remembering the beating he had received.

“Go on—crawl,” he said, glaring at Gale. “Get down on your knees and beg for your life. See what good it does you!”

Gale stayed erect, fists clenched and body swaying slightly on stiff legs. The room was slowly turning. He didn’t want to die. Even though he had sworn to marry a mad woman, he didn’t want … to … die. God!

Through the mist, Arachne moved to his side. Strangely calm, she put her head on his shoulder.

“I love you Andy,” she said dully. “I know you don’t believe it, and there isn’t time to explain now; but I do love you. Hold me. I—I’m terribly afraid.”

He took her in his arms. Clem Degnan leered at them and put down the rifle. He didn’t need the rifle anymore; his right hand gripped the gleaming nozzle of the hose.

Fada, the mad one, neither moved nor spoke, but stared straight at Gale.

“Well,” Degnan said shrugging, “here goes!”

A hissing sound filled the room as he turned the nozzle, The black hose writhed on the floor, uncoiling like a sleek snake. Oily liquid dripped from the lip of the nozzle but failed to spew forth under pressure.

Degnan, his back to the wall, did not see what had happened; did not know that John Slayton, conscious from the beginning, had wriggled slowly forward like a great human slug and seized a section of hose in his hands, squeezing it to prevent the flow of liquid.

Degnan, snarling, thought something was wrong with the nozzle. Frantically he twisted it, trying to make it work.

Andy Gale flung Arachne aside and hurtled forward.

There was a prayer in Gale’s heart as he lunged. Death had been horribly close, and the nearness of it had twisted something in his brain, made a mumbling madman of him. He struck with the force of a battering ram. Both he and Degnan fell over John Slayton’s sprawled body and crashed into the wall—but Degnan still clung to the hose.

John Slayton’s hands lost their grip. The hissing sound became a shrill, whining voice of horror, and the nozzle vomited forth a dark stream of liquid.

Gale writhed away from that hellish torrent as it fumed toward him. He seized Degnan’s wrist, twisted with all his strength. A bone snapped, and Degnan shrieked in agony. The serpent of horror seethed wildly about the room, soaking walls and floor and ceiling. Once—just once—it leaped into the startled, bewildered face of Fada, the mad woman.

Fada sank to her knees, moaning. With both hands she clawed at her eyes. Arachne, stumbling forward to help her, fell back when Gale bellowed a warning.

The hose, unchecked by human hands, writhed and slithered on the floor while Gale fought a life-and-death battle with the pain-crazed Clem Degnan. He had defeated Degnan before; defeated him easily. But the man was no longer human!

Hooked fingers tore at Andy Gale’s eyes. An upthrust knee sought for his groin. Like a jungle beast gone amuck, Degnan fought with insane fury.

A blinding fist hurled Gale against the wall and stunned him. Blood trickled from his nose, bubbled at the corners of his mouth. He fought for breath, but the room seemed empty of air, and the stifling stench of the poison brew strangled him as it burned through his lungs.

Dazed, he saw Degnan reach with both hands for the death hose; saw the man’s twitching fingers wrap themselves around the nozzle. Terror gave Andy Gale the needed strength for one last lunge.

He hurled himself at Degnan’s bent body, buried an elbow in the man’s twisted face. Degnan sprawled sideward, off-balance, and the weight of Gale’s body slammed him to the floor.

Gale’s right hand shot out and down, seizing the hose. The seething stream of liquid described a ghastly semicircle, spraying the ceiling, and then, at close range, centered its full fury on Degnan’s face.

When Degnan’s mouth opened to scream, Gale rammed the nozzle into it, breaking teeth. The hose writhed. Degnan’s death shriek was smothered under a roaring rush of oily liquid.

For one hideous moment the man squirmed as if endowed with some strange, inhuman form of life. Then the life subsided. Horribly bloated, he rolled over, pawed feebly at his rigid face, and died.

Shutting off that ghastly river of death, Andy Gale staggered erect.

Fada, the mad one, was dead. By some blessed miracle, Arachne was still on her feet, still unhurt, and stumbled forward to put her arms around Gale as he swayed and would have fallen. John Slayton was able to stand when they helped him.

“Dead, is he?” Slayton muttered, staring at Degnan. “Dead? Well, he deserved it. His was a fiendish plan—to ruin the farmers and murder Nicklus Brukner, so he could take over all the land. A clever monster if ever there was one!”

“But how would he take over the land?” Gale demanded, scowling.

“This man was Fada’s husband. Only this morning I talked with the minister who married them. Degnan never lived here, because he and Brukner hated each other. But he knew that with Brukner dead, everything would belong to Fada—and to him.”

Arachne, clinging to Gale, looked at the acid-eaten body of the crippled girl and shuddered. Andy stared, too.

“Lord, she must have been mad,” he whispered, “wanting me when she already had a husband! Just—just a child, playing with toys.”

“I’m through here now,” Slayton said. “I can take a sample of Degnan’s poison brew to Headquarters and have enough of the stuff made to clean the spiders out of Flood River Valley. Degnan knew what he was doing when he imported his horde of red spiders. The things breed so rapidly it’s almost impossible to control them.”

“Did you say—Headquarters?”

Slayton and Arachne exchanged glances and then, with a shrug, Slayton nodded.

“I pledged Arachne to secrecy because this job looked mean and dirty,” he said simply. “Now that it’s over I don’t mind telling you I’m an inspector in the Government Quarantine Service. And”—he smiled—“I’m also your future brother-in-law, old man.” He thrust out his hand. “Mighty glad to know you, Gale. We met under strange circumstances, but I knew all along that my sister would pick the right sort of man—and you’re certainly that.”

“You,” Gale choked, “are Arachne’s brother?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. My name’s John Reid, not John Slayton.”

Tears gleamed in Andy Gale’s eyes. Trembling, he turned to Arachne and knew that he had been wrong, dead wrong, in all his suspicions.

“I’ll clean up this mess,” John Reid said gently. “You two had better get started on your wedding trip.”