Spiders In Your Mind I

Most people have a size limit when it comes to spiders. Some people freak at tiny money spiders. Me – after much effort – I can now pick up spiders about the size of a small coin. As long as they’re not fat. Or black. Or run too fast. If a Giant house spider ran up my arm, I would probably leap out of a second-floor window before I realised I had done it. ‘Spiders in Your Mind’ is a collection of five new short stories that are a lot like our little arachnid friends. You might be able to let them walk on you, but not many of you will be able to let them near your face. If they get inside your head, I make no guarantee you will ever get them out.

‘Buried Alive’: Eddy’s friends have buried him alive. Perhaps even more strangely, he willingly helped them to dig his own grave. But, as every long minute passes, he grows more certain that he is not alone down here, in the cold, autumn earth.

‘Spiders in Your Mind’: The folds of the bedroom curtains and the area behind the bed’s headboard are the territory of a Giant house spider. He is a large male, as big as a child’s hand. At this size, his leg span is wider even than that of females of his own species and he has little to fear in the darkness of the bedroom. Nevertheless, something disturbs him about the smaller spider crawling towards him, and he scurries away from confrontation, leaving the intruder to continue on her way towards the man and woman sleeping below.

‘Matryoshka’: Frank Digby has been imprisoned for the most terrible of crimes. Frank’s captors tell him he is innocent, but Frank knows he can never be released. How can he be? His prison is one with many doors, but the doors are of Frank’s own unique design: they can be opened just once, by Frank alone, and only from the outside. Now he is inside, there is no way out.

‘The Kids from Snape’: On the school bus, on his way to his first day at Witcham High, Mark has no friends and sits alone on one of the many empty seats near the front of the bus. The kids at the back of the bus laugh and joke. That is until the bus stops in Snape, where three boys and a girl, dressed alike in long black coats, get on. They look at no one but Mark and take seats near to him, away from all the other kids. After Snape, there is no more laughter.

‘Unpaid Debt’: Do you believe in Heaven? Hell? Whether you do or you don’t, what if someone, somewhere is watching you, keeping score?