Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ I’ll see you in the morning. The lights are on a timer. They come on at 7:00 sharp.” The man turned off the lights and closed the door. Jim heard the sharp sound of a bolt clicking into place on the other side. He was locked in.

Overkill, he thought, because it was impossible for him to untie the ropes that bound him to the bed. And why would he want to? He felt pretty good right where he was. But there was a small part of him still resisting the drug, a part that remembered Donna and the danger she was in, a part that tried to fasten onto something the man in black had said, something that didn’t seem right, and then he drifted off, to sleep, and to dream.

But his dreams were not the drug induced dreams of well being and pleasure his captors counted on, instead they were dreams of concentration camps and terror. Even in sleep, he fought the drug, and in his tortured dreams he struggled with the problem. What did the man say that wasn’t right? He said something. A clue. He gave a clue. It was something for Jim to hang his mind on as he fought the drug and when the lights went on he was already awake and he knew what it was.

His name. The man knew his name.

And with the lights on he was able to study the room. As promised the clock said 7:00. His time was running out. He looked up at the clear bag and noticed it was still dripping the drug into his arm.

Movement. He spied movement, and he fastened his eyes on the far corner where the wall at the foot of the bed met the wall to his left. And on the ceiling, a blob of black. A blob of black that moved. It couldn’t be, but it was-a black widow.

It bounced up and down on its eight legs, a small black marble bouncing on the ceiling. Odd, he thought, black widows were native to the United States. What was one doing here, on a ceiling, indoors, in a warm room? They liked to be on the edge of things-in the dark, but near the light-in the dry, but near the damp. They were seldom seen and they seldom bothered anyone, but he had been bitten in the past and he couldn’t forget it as he watched the spider settle into the corner.

He had to piss like a race horse now, he wasn’t going to be able to hold it much longer.

“ Can anybody hear me?” he shouted. Nobody answered, nobody came. He shouted again and from the way the walls seemed to absorb the sound, he gathered the room was soundproofed. Since all the rooms in the front of the house had windows that opened onto the small ravine opposite, he figured that the room he was in, was built into the side of the hill. He could shout forever, nobody would hear.

He would hold it as long as possible, but if somebody didn’t come soon, he was going to piss himself. If the intention was to degrade him, it would fail, he had been degraded before, this was nothing.

More movement and he turned his head as something slid up the wall toward the spider. A small green gecko looking for lunch. The gecko stopped inches from the black spider and made a tiny sound, a kind of chattering laughter. The spider backed away.

The gecko moved forward an inch-and stopped. The spider backed an equal inch away-and stopped. The gecko moved up the corner toward the ceiling, but the spider held her ground. The gecko issued another chattering challenge, but its laughter had no affect on the spider, she still held her ground. The gecko inched closer and the spider jumped forward, attacking, but the gecko was a blur as it backed down the wall, the widow’s poison fangs missed by inches.

The gecko darted back, chattering and goading. It made no sense. The spider was no match for the reptile. It should have been over in an instant. Instead the gecko darted up the wall and on to the ceiling, coming close to the spider, then backing off. Jim didn’t understand, but the fight above captivated him and, as it drew closer, he found himself silently rooting for the spider.

When they reached the center of the ceiling, the spider backed up to the copper-colored light fixture, looking like she was going to make a final stand, and the gecko stopped, still chattering and snapping at it. The spider, with her back against the fixture, raised her front two legs and bared her deadly fangs, daring the gecko to come closer. The gecko remained only a sliver out of reach, like it was uncertain about its quarry, like it knew a head on rush could be fatal.

They stood facing each other, two lone soldiers locked in a fight to the death, each waiting for the other to make the mistake that would cost it its life. Jim wondered if the giant gecko with the shark’s teeth was hovering over Donna like the one above was hovering over the spider. Were they to be devoured like the black lady with her back against the light fixture? Was their fight as hopeless as hers? But the spider hadn’t given up yet, one second she was standing, back protected, fangs bared, facing her enemy, the next she was scooting around the light fixture, faster than Jim thought possible. The gecko took the bait and cautiously inched after her, but the spider had gone all the way around the fixture.

She came at the gecko’s back, front legs raised, but at the last instant the gecko darted across the ceiling. One second she was a breath away from victory, the next the gecko was five feet away. The spider moved back around the light fixture, like she thought she could hide from the monster that had been nipping at her legs, but the gecko was having none of it. It rushed the spider, then backed off, always dancing a whisker away from the deadly fangs, forcing her away from the fixture and back on her journey across the ceiling above. Jim watched fascinated and then he figured it out. The reptile was herding the spider the way a sheep dog herds sheep.

And he knew why the gecko didn’t go in for the kill. It had no intention of finishing off the spider. It was herding the spider toward him. That’s why the black widow was here, half a world away from home, it was brought here by his captors, to terrorize him. That meant they had been expecting him and he had fallen into their trap.

He pulled at his bonds, but only succeeded in digging the ropes into his wrists. Fortunately he didn’t feel the pain, thanks to the drugs dripping into his arm. He tore his eyes away from the scene on the ceiling and looked at the plastic bag hanging on the chrome stand. No help there. He ran his eyes along the plastic tube to his arm. No help there either, but maybe he could pull out the needle.

He bent his wrist and tried to remove the tape, but he couldn’t bend it enough. He twisted his hand around and pinched the plastic tube with his thumb and forefinger. At least he could stop the flow of the mind numbing drugs, but how long could he keep the tube pinched off? Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes? And what good would it do? The gecko would have the spider directly overhead before then.

He studied the plastic tube for a second time, his eyes following along its clear surface to where it buried itself into the tape covering his wrist. The needle was inserted into his wrist downward, facing toward his open palm. If he could work it out, he could use it to cut through the rope binding his hand. If he tugged on the tube, maybe he could pull it out, if the tape would give, and if the tube held fast to the needle. Four big ifs.

He pulled on the plastic tube with thumb and forefinger and winced. Even with the pain killing drugs flowing through his body, he felt the needle dig into his wrist. He grit his teeth and gently tugged on the tube a second time as the gecko moved the spider still closer. A stabbing pain shot from his wrist along his forearm. Each time he pulled up on the tube, the tape across his wrist forced the needle downward into it. The pain was excruciating.

He relaxed the pressure and watched the battle on the ceiling. The spider wasn’t submitting to the gecko’s wishes willingly. The gecko, chattering and snapping, would herd the spider two or three inches toward the space above where he lay, but the spider would move an inch or two aside, forcing the gecko to move around her and try and move her back on course. Sort of a three steps forward, two steps backward kind of situation and all the while the hands on the clock were ticking away. Time was running out for Donna.