the bustle and the noise and the bright lights. They would visit late-night shops, hit the cinema, and probably get some fast food on the return journey. But tonight he wasn’t in the mood.
“Tell him not to be farting in the car again,” Sis said.
“Joey, don’t be farting in the car again,” Dad said with a grin that buoyed Joey somewhat. Dad was laid back and cool, and Joey hoped to be like him one day - sans the bald pate, of course.
Mum and Dad stopped as a noise rose into the sky from somewhere far away, but never far enough. A sound that was rather like a dial-up modem in fast forward, with an animal taint to it. One short burst that echoed once and was gone.
“Can we hurry this up,” Sis said, climbing into the car. Joey climbed in after her and immediately they argued over the diving line between her half of the back seat and his. Outside the car, Mum and dad heard none of it. They glared at each other, still remembering that noise.
There was an unspoken question: What shall we do?
Mum looked up and down there street. The few streetlamps cast an orange glow bright enough to disclose the gardens and houses, all quiet. In some windows burned lights, and in all the curtains were closed.
In the garden of number 47 a child sat in an empty paddling pool, driving toys around his feet. His mother came hurriedly out the front door, looked away to the right, towards the centre of town, then scooped up her boy and vanished inside. She didn’t lock the door. Bordon didn’t know burglary; the evil here, if it chose you, couldn’t be stopped by a simple lock.
“Let’s get out of here for tonight,” Dad said.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Sis said, seeing the look on their faces as they climbed quickly, silently into the car.
“Nothing,” said Mum. She smiled. Dad cracked one of his infamous Doctor Doctor jokes. The mood lightened. They had gotten good at hiding their fears.
For in Bordon the evil thing had a voice that children could not hear. Unto only the parents did any warning come. Not that it gave them a chance to do anything other than scoop up their babies and take them inside.
But to whose time it was to meet the Crawler, that was really no chance at all.
Despite his seeming good humour, dad broke the speed limit before they even hit the end of their street.
10
The Head had the look of one who knew his guest’s deepest secrets. Lem found it hard to swallow and his knees were rubbery.
“Where’s Joey?” he said, but there was no curiosity in his eyes. They burned with something like disappointment instead - but why?
They were in That Room again, only it reeked of body odour, and the Headmaster was perspiring. He held his chalk stick in his gnarled hands.
“Sick,” Lem said. “Stomach troubles. He said I should takes notes from this meeting.”
The head laughed without changing his stony expression, which unnerved Lem. “Notes. That’s good. I like that one, yes.”
Silence. They stared at each other. Lem held the old man’s gaze and found that the longer he did, the less weight those eyes pressed upon him. The nerves diffused out of his body. He stood tall.
“What happened to Liam Gabriel?” he said. “Has he been expelled?”
Now the Head jerked in his chair as he laughed. He wagged his stick at Lem. “Very good, boy. But you don’t believe expulsion is the answer, do you? Maybe at first, back when this happened -“ he held up something small and square, and Lem saw it was a cassette “- but no more, no. Now you suspect something deeper, darker.” His eyes seemed to light up the room. “You don’t just suspect, you fear. And your fear harks back to everything bad you’ve ever heard about this town, doesn’t it? I almost welcome seeing that in you, boy. Do you know what those fears mean?”
Lem shook his head.
“I think you do. You are growing up, boy. Becoming a man before your time. Slowly to learn a truth the adults in this town have long shared, yet kept secret. It is why you fear and respect me so, because you think I control that truth, and thus can protect you from danger. This is true, Lem, so true.”
The head slotted the cassette into a small player sitting by his chair. The quality was bad, but the voices unmistakable. Lem and Joey conversing to an orchestra of rustling branches. It was a recording of their time in the tree just an hour before.
“The treetops are a haven for the weak. I so like to listen. The trees sometimes sway my hand.”
During the playing of the cassette, the Headmaster had moved his chair closer to the table and the model; as he spoke now he reached across the town and placed something on it. Then he rolled back until his chair nudged the wall and he sat below the Board.
“Oh yes, they sway my hand, especially when I learn of treachery!” He spat the last word, then turned to the board, and with his chalk stick he went ballistic. Like a symphony conductor fed twenty thousand volts, The head stabbed and swiped at the board as if defacing it, although he seemed calm, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Lem caught some of the noises coming from the Headmaster’s throat:
“…she would know him…they play down by…so he would be the kind to…bastards…four and…little weak BOYS AND GIRLS!”
And there the Head stopped as they became aware of a scraping sound, a clacking from somewhere beneath - no, inside - the table. Lem looked on with wonder, but the Head’s face bore only pleasure, like that of a man recognising a friend’s footsteps coming to the door.
“I will not abide treachery, for it is weakness.”
As they watched, something poked out one of the model wells scattered all around the town. Something like a stick, which became a pair of sticks, which then bent to create a pair of hairy hooks that hauled a fat body out of the well. Lem loosed a moan: he hated spiders. Especially big ones.
“Meet Sally,” the Head said. The fat tarantula sat there, its abdomen swelling and deflating with each breath it took. Lem could see its eyes moving and felt instantly ill with disgust. “Actually, you need not fear, my boy, because you will not meet her. She likes only the weak, that smell they give off. Here, watch how she hunts.”
The tarantula scuttled along the table, dodging obstacles, obviously headed somewhere specific.
Lem’s eyes jumped the gun and raced ahead. Over Groody Field, along the overgrown Owen Track that ran alongside the river, and finally to a street he knew well. At least, he had come to know it well since he’d met Joey, for that was where his friend lived.
That house there, he guessed. The one with something placed on the roof. He squinted for a better look; each rapid footstep of the tarantula’s beat in his ears like a funeral drum played in fast forward.
Atop the plastic room of the house lay a small bundle of hair tied with string. Blonde and curly, just like Joey’s.
“You killed the boy!” he spluttered.
The Head laughed. “No, you two did. Exposed him. Ha. Do you
know that his mother sent him to the play park that night? She didn’t want it to happen in her own house.”
Lem’s mind was racing; he could hardly fashion a coherent thought. His mouth worked, but nothing came out except: “Joey.”
“Yes, Joey. Joey, Joey. He was never your friend anyway, not really. And he showed that in his weakness.”
Lem stepped forward and raised his hand, as if to strike at the tarantula. His fear was gone; there was room for it not, not with his head so full of questions his mouth couldn’t voice.
The Headmaster began laughing so voraciously that Lem froze in mid-step. He even took a step back and lowered his hand. Sally scuttled on, now racing alongside Farm River.
“You poisoned…spider bite…?”
The Head spoke instantly like a man answering a quiz question. “Did you know that the name tarantula comes from the word ‘tarantism,’ which is a malady characterised by a desire to dance and feelings of melancholy? Do you wish to see Joey dance?”
Lem stepped forward, fist raised high again, but once more the Headmaster’s laughter forced him to halt.
“Sally cannot possibly harm Joey, or anyone else for that matter.” He paused, watching Lem as the boy once again retreated. And this