David Wong - This Book is Full of Spiders

I glanced up at the TV and saw a reporter standing in front of a street barricade. Closed-captioning mentioned something about cops having to break up an angry crowd trying to get in to see loved ones at the hospital. The cowboy gave me his membership card and I punched in the number. His account came up as:

NAME: James DuPree

OVERDUE: ø

ACCT STATUS: A

COMMENTS: THIS MAN HAS WORN THE SAME TROUSERS SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER.

Many memos had circulated at Wally’s about abusing the customer comment box on the computer. We have John to thank for that. He worked here a few years ago, after I begged the manager to let him on. John was fired a few months later, but not before he managed to add something to the “Comment” field for pretty much every single customer he served:

NAME: Carl Gass

COMMENTS: If he doesn’t have late charges, and you tell him that he does, he LOSES HIS FUCKING MIND.

NAME: Lisa Franks

COMMENTS: Had sex with her on 11/15.

NAME: Kara Bullock

COMMENTS: Thinks I have an English accent. Don’t forget.

NAME: Chet Beirach

COMMENTS: Always smells like fish. I think he fishes for a living. He’s sensitive about it so don’t bring it up.

NAME: Rob Arnold

COMMENTS: It’s the white Patrick Ewing!

NAME: Cheryl Mackey

COMMENTS: Had sex with her on 7/16.

I gave the cowboy his change, glancing over his shoulder at the TV every chance I could get. They were back to old footage from the hospital, the camera showing close-ups of bullet holes in walls and shell casings on the floor. The cowboy turned to follow my gaze, saw the TV. “That’s some scary shit, ain’t it?”

I said, “Yeah.”

“Whole world’s comin’ to an end, that’s what I think.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Nigger in the White House.”

“Yeah.”

The cowboy left. He stuffed his wallet into his back pocket and I imagined it shooting back out again, squeezed by the sheer pressure of the fabric. I grabbed a DVD and went back to peeling off stickers.

I had gotten written up six weeks ago because more DVDs were stolen on my watch than either of the other two managers. Not sure what I was supposed to be doing to stop it, other than running out and tackling the kids who tried to walk out with the goods. The problem, I decided, was the magnetic antitheft tags that would activate the door alarm were in the DVD cases, not on the discs, so it only took the thieves minutes to figure out they just had to pop the disc out of the case and stuff it in their pocket, leaving the case and the theft tag behind. Yes, this town has people who are actually too poor to afford a computer and Internet connection to just pirate the movies that way.

So I wrote up this angry e-mail to the head office, saying the antitheft system was idiotic and that if they were serious about people not stealing discs, then they should put the antitheft tags on the discs themselves. They agreed, and I and two other employees spent about twelve hours sticking these stiff little stickers to all of the new releases in the store. The plan worked beautifully. That is, until last Thursday, when a customer brought in a disc that had been scratched to hell because the theft sticker came unstuck inside his DVD player. It jammed the little tray when it tried to eject the disc and he had to pry it out. Two days later, a customer brought in a broken DVD player. When his disc got stuck thanks to the sticker, he wound up breaking the disc tray on the machine trying to free it.

I wasn’t at the store that day, I was on one of my many “sick” days. But when I came back I was greeted by twenty-seven e-mails from managers and regional managers and other people I had never heard from before, telling me that every antitheft sticker had to be removed from every DVD by November 5th.

I bring this up in case you were wondering why in the holy hell I felt the need to come in to work in the middle of what appeared to be some kind of monster infestation. The answer is that if I took one more sick day I would be fired, and if I didn’t get these stickers off by the deadline I would be fired, and even if I could talk my way out of one firing I sure as hell couldn’t talk my way out of both. And if I was fired, soon after society would decide I wasn’t earning my electricity and water and my house and my food. And they’d be right. If you think that’s a bad reason to come to work in the middle of all this, then I’m guessing you’re still living with Mom and Dad.

I glanced up at the TV and saw something new. Security camera footage, from inside the hospital. In color, but in a frame rate that made the people appear to blink down the hallway, teleporting five feet at a time. There was a shot of a woman running in terror. They cut back to the studio and some older guy in a suit, an expert of some kind they had brought in. Then they cut back to the security video and I froze.

I heard the DVD I was holding fall to the counter.

Did I just see that?

They played it again. The first frame was Franky, in the hall of the hospital, holding a nurse around the throat. The frames rolled forward. A security guard came into frame, hand out, trying to talk Franky down. Next frame, same players, limbs in different positions. Looked to be about one frame per second. The next frame was what got me.

At the top of the screen appeared a man in black. And I mean all black, head to toe. A solid black shape. Next frame—one second later—he was gone.

I stared. They cut back to the anchor. The closed-captioning lagged behind but I didn’t think I saw any mention of the mysterious figure in the hall.

My cell phone screamed. I picked up.

“Yeah.”

John said, “Dave? Can you get to a television?”

“We got one on here. I saw it.”

“The thing in the hall?”

“Yeah. Man in black.”

“Shadow man.”

“Whatever.”

“Man, this isn’t a joke anymore.”

“It wasn’t a joke before, John. A bunch of people died.”

“You know what I mean. You better sleep with your crossbow tonight.”

“I don’t have the crossbow. The cops confiscated it, remember?”

“Okay, then I should come over. I’ll bring my lighter. We’ll sleep in shifts.”

“No. Wait, bring your what?”

“Come on man, how do you know Franky won’t show up there?”

“He’s surely dead by now.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

“I’m busy, John.”

“Sure. I’ll try to come up with a plan.”

“Whatever.”

“Watch the shadows.”

“Hey, John, don’t do anything stupid—”

I was talking to a dead phone.

DISCLAIMER: The following sequence of events was relayed by John to the author after the fact, and no attempt was made to corroborate this version of events through witness interviews. While there is no evidence directly contradicting any of this account, much of it seems highly unlikely.

Johnwound up needing five hours to find Franky Burgess.