Hangman's Curse Read online

  He could hear a frantic, rustling sound just above his head, like hundreds of tiny, crackling fires—like thousands of tiny claws tick, tick, ticking inside the ceiling.

  All across the ceiling.

  Behind the walls.

  He got down from the desk, his eyes never leaving that corner of the room. He looked again at the tiny spider under the glass. “Mr. Marquardt, has Norman Bloom given you any money?”

  Marquardt couldn’t believe the question. “What?”

  “Has Norman Bloom given you any money recently?”

  The gym teacher was intrigued if not alarmed. “Yeah. Five dollars for a basket fee.”

  “Was it in paper dollar bills?”

  Marquardt was already digging in his hip pocket. “Yeah. I’ve got ’em right here.”

  “Put them on the desk, please.”

  Apparently Nate’s manner was serious enough to convince Marquardt to comply. He pulled out five one-dollar bills and tossed them on the desk.

  Then he stood back.

  The spider under the glass became frantic, clawing at the sides of the glass, climbing the sides, falling, climbing again.

  And it began to sound like there was a fire inside the ceiling.

  Marquardt was becoming a believer. His voice had lost its gruffness when he asked, “What’s going on? What is this?”

  “Better stand back,” was all Nate could say.

  Something began to emerge from the cracks between the ceiling panels and where the ceiling met the walls: tiny black creatures scurrying in frantic, erratic patterns like ants on an upside-down anthill, so many that they dirtied the ceiling panels from white to gray to a coarse, boiling black. They dropped from the ceiling on web lines like storm troopers and flowed down the walls like thin black lava. They reached the top of the desk and raced toward the dollar bills. Within moments, the five bills were covered, alive and twitching like strips of bacon in a frying pan.

  Nate and Marquardt were already backing toward the door.

  “The dollar bills,” said Nate. “The pheromone was on the dollar bills.”

  Sarah was frightened, truly frightened. “I’ve . . . I’ve never heard of this, this Kenyan thing.”

  “Oh, who has, other than bug nuts like me?” Algernon clicked on some more links with the mouse. “Come on, come on . . .” The Web sites flashed by, the menus, the lists of further links. “It’s here somewhere.” He found it. “Here’s an article about it. I never thought we’d be dealing with this . . . but then again, it’s just so unthinkable!”

  Sarah leaned down and studied the computer screen, scrolling down as she quickly scanned the fine print and technical details.

  Algernon recapped the article. “The American and Japanese navies both converged on the scene and decided there was nothing else they could do but set fire to the ship with all the dead men—and the spiders—on board, and then sink it with artillery fire. Now Kenya and several other tropical countries have import and export restrictions to keep it from happening again.” He stared at her. “Sarah? Sarah, what is it?”

  She’d scrolled down to an old news photograph of the ill-fated ship with what looked like navy ships floating nearby. The photograph was vague and fuzzy, but the prow of the ship was close enough, big enough to make out the ship’s name painted on its side.

  The ship was named the Abel Frye.

  Talk about the drug-sniffing dog was rippling up and down the halls. Some kids were running away, some were running to have a look. Mr. Maxwell just kept running in crazy circles as if being pulled by his nose.

  Elijah jerked his collar, commanded him to sit, and took out a small vial. He uncorked it and let Max sniff it—again. “Okay, boy, now this is what we want. Sniff for this, okay?” It was a sample of the female pheromone, and Elijah was hoping to get Max redirected.

  The commotion in the hall brought Officer Carrillo on the run, pounding around a corner with all his cop gear jangling on his belt. “All right, what’s going on here?” The moment he saw Elijah and Max he pulled up short, his hands on his hips. “Oh, brother, now what?”

  Max knew what to sniff for—and the first place he found it was on Officer Carrillo.

  “Hey! What gives here?”

  Elijah gave Max more leash and freedom to follow his nose. Max went to the wall again, sniffing the lockers, even jumping up and pawing them. A girl walked by. His nose went straight to her jacket and she jumped and squealed, “Hey!”

  Max kept going, finding more of the scent. And more. And more.

  “It’s everywhere!” Elijah whispered in horror.

  Nate and Marquardt got out of the office and slammed the door behind them. Marquardt took off his jacket to block the crack under the door.

  “No,” said Nate. “Your jacket probably has the scent on it.”

  “Towels,” said Marquardt, dashing for the showers. He returned with several towels and stuffed them under the door.

  Through the window in the door they could see the spiders spreading all over the office, crawling over the furniture, along the shelves, up the filing cabinet, along the floor. They came at the door, directly for the towels stuffed under it.

  Nate grimaced. “You handled those towels! Your hands have the scent on them!”

  The very next look through the window proved Nate’s point. The spiders were clustering on Marquardt’s hat, his street shoes, his clipboard, the drawer handles—anything Marquardt had touched.

  They were working their way into the towels under the door. The first few were coming through.

  The Holy Roller was rolling like a huge bus toward the school, with Algernon in the front passenger seat and Sarah at the wheel.

  “By now there could be thousands of females,” Algernon explained, his voice high-pitched with excitement. “They’ll be flooding the school, leaving their scent everywhere, anywhere they like to hide—warm, dark places: lockers, clothing, backpacks, hair. From there, it can spread from surface to surface, hand to hand, hand to object. The males will follow, of course— and it doesn’t take much to upset them.”

  Sarah had to concentrate on driving. She tossed her cell phone to Algernon. “Call Nate.” She told him the number.

  Nate grabbed his cell phone from his belt. “Sarah?”

  “Nate, we’ve found out what spider we’re dealing with and it’s most likely in the building!”

  Nate was just now pulling Marquardt out of the shower. The desperate gym teacher was trying to wash himself off, clothing and all. “There isn’t time. We’ll hose you off later.” He spoke to Sarah. “Where are you?”

  “Algernon and I are en route to the school right now. Nate, we may have to get everyone out of the school! We don’t know where the spiders will crop up next.”

  Nate and Marquardt were heading for the locker-room door, dancing and hopping around spiders that were scurrying under their feet. “I take it the spiders are deadly?”

  “Very deadly. And Algernon says there could be hundreds by now.”

  Nate looked over his shoulder and could see the locker-room floor darkening with the creatures. “Uh . . . copy that.”

  “Very deadly. And Algernon says there could be hundreds by now.”

  They burst through the door, into the hall. By now the halls were almost empty. The kids were settling into their homerooms for attendance and announcements.

  “Right there!” Marquardt yelled, pointing.

  Nate saw the fire alarm on the wall. He yanked it open and threw the switch. The fire alarms went off all over the building.

  “Where are the kids?” Sarah cried.

  Elijah came running down the hall, dragging Max by his leash, followed closely by Officer Carrillo. Max was fighting the leash every step of the way, obsessed with the pheromone scent coming from all directions.

  “I’ve got Elijah. He’s right here with Max.”

  “What’s happening here?” Carrillo demanded.

  The doors all along the hall burst open, and kids spil
led into the halls for what they thought was a fire drill.

  “Keep them out of this hall!” Nate told Carrillo.

  “Other way!” Carrillo hollered at the approaching throng. “Don’t use this hallway! Other way!”

  The crowd turned the other way.

  Marquardt joined Carrillo, directing traffic, blocking the hall. “Other way, other way, let’s move!”

  “Do you see Elisha?” Sarah asked over Nate’s cell phone.

  Nate bounded up a stairway as Elijah and Max followed. “I’m heading upstairs right now. Do you have her on the radio?”

  “Nate, she went inside the wall.”

  “She what?”

  “A friend of hers fell inside and she went down after him.”

  “What friend?”

  “Norman. You know, that boy from biology class.”

  Nate stopped dead in his tracks and Elijah almost ran into him.

  “Dad—?” Elijah just about asked.

  Nate took the last few steps in one bound and made it to the second floor. Elijah and Max followed.

  “Sarah, tell her to get out of there right now!” Nate shouted into the phone.

  “I told her, but I haven’t been able to raise her since then.”

  “Get us some help. Police, fire, emergency crews, the works.”

  “They’re already on their way.”

  “We’re upstairs, heading for that air vent.”

  “I’ll keep trying to raise her.”

  In the deep, cold darkness under the school, there was no light, no sight, and no sound—except for a strange hissing, rustling sound like sand blowing across the floor, the walls, everything.

  Elisha heard nothing. She didn’t stir.

  Nate could see the ladder up against the wall. He, Elijah, and Max had to weave between fire-drilling students to get there, and Max kept smelling more of the scent as kids rushed past him.

  Mr. Loman was standing at the top of the ladder, holding a flashlight and looking worried. “Thank goodness! Your daughter’s down there!”

  “Down where?” Nate demanded. “I need to know exactly where!”

  Mr. Loman only shook his head. “I don’t know where this thing goes. I, I called the police, the fire department . . .”

  Mr. Harrigan, the biology teacher, was at the base of the ladder, already studying the blueprints Elisha had left there. Nate came alongside. “What’ve you got?”

  “The vent used to drop through both floors into the basement,” Harrigan answered, leafing through the plans. “This cavity might still be there, the old furnace room.”

  “There has to be a way in there.” Nate spoke into his cell phone. “Sarah, Elisha, and Norman may have fallen into the old furnace room, a cavity under the gym. Where are you?”

  “We’re just pulling up in front of the building. There are fire trucks coming up the street.”

  “Tell the firefighters that the spiders are concentrated in the north end of the building, around the gym, around Blake Hornsby’s locker, and”—he hated to say it—“and under the building, maybe in the old furnace room. We’re going to—”

  “Good grief!” Mr. Loman exclaimed, backing hurriedly down the ladder. Spiders were coming out of the air vent. They began crawling down the wall, down the ladder.

  “Dad!” Elijah cried. “Look out!”

  Spiders were dropping out of the lockers below the air vent, only a few feet from where Nate and Mr. Harrigan were kneeling. Nate bolted from the floor. “Get back! Those things are poisonous!”

  Loman, Harrigan, and Nate backed away. There were kids in the hall. They saw the black creatures scurrying over the face of the lockers and went nuts, screaming, running the other way.

  “Don’t run!” Nate cautioned. “Leave quickly and quietly—” He almost ran into Ms. Wyrthen.

  “What is it, Mr. Springfield?” she asked. He didn’t have to tell her. She saw several spiders at her feet, gasped, stomped on them, and moved right along with the others as they hurried down the hall, herding frightened students ahead of them. “Clear the building, clear the building!” A girl was trying to get into her locker. Ms. Wyrthen turned her away. “No time, sweetheart.”

  “My makeup bag’s in there!”

  “Let’s take care of you first.”

  Ms. Wyrthen hurried ahead, arms spread, shepherding students toward a safe stairwell.

  Nate had his cell phone in one hand and the plans in the other. He shook a spider off one page, stomped it dead, then continued up the hall with the others, studying the school’s understructure. “Sarah?” he called into his phone.

  The Holy Roller lurched to a stop in front of the main entrance. Sarah and Algernon scrambled out as throngs of students filled the sidewalks and fire trucks roared to a halt at the curb. “We’re out front.”

  “Sarah,” came Nate’s voice over her cell phone. “Spiders are overrunning the place. We’re cut off. We can’t reach Elisha from here.”

  That was a blow. Sarah’s mind raced. “What about that passage under the building, the one that goes to the witches’ chamber?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. But Elijah may be the only one who can fit through that opening.”

  She heard Elijah’s voice in the background.

  “Hey, I’m ready!”

  Elisha’s eyes jerked open.

  She could see nothing. She was in the dark, on her side, feeling pain from her ribs, her shoulders, her limbs. Her head was throbbing and she vaguely remembered smacking it when she fell. She lifted a hand to her head, a simple, reflex move—

  Every inch of her protective suit crackled like millions of tiny fires, like static electricity flowing over her. She froze. The sound, the feeling, subsided, but only a little. Slowly, cautiously, she raised her hand to her forehead and found the headlamp still in place. Either it was broken or the on-off switch got bumped. As she groped for the switch, something small and gritty crunched under her gloved fingers and her fingertips became slippery. She found the switch, knowing it might not work.

  Click. It worked. A beam of light penetrated the darkness before her, but it was hard to see. Her face shield was dirty, soiled with dark blotches.

  The blotches were moving.

  Her breathing stopped. Dared she even draw a breath? She could smell them, hear them, see them on her face shield, only inches from her eyes. Some had gotten under her hood. Her chin tingled as they crawled over it. She moved her lips just enough to close them, and felt their little clawed legs shying away.

  She tried one careful, slow breath through her nose, then another. She was living one breath at a time.

  Oh, precious Lord, she prayed only in her mind, don’t let me die.

  12

  crawling

  minions

  Everybody out!” Marquardt hollered, waving his arms at any kids who even turned his direction. “Other way! Other way! Get out of this hall!”

  He kept moving up the hall, soaking wet from the half shower he had taken, yelling and scaring everyone, making sure that not one person was left in the north end of the building. It was working. They were clearing out. Hopefully he was staying ahead of the spiders.

  He felt a tiny sting on his left calf, like a mosquito bite. He reached down, swatted his calf, saw a spider cross the toe of his shoe and another go up inside his pant leg. He struck at them, swatted his pant leg, saw three more scurrying up his leg. He yelled, then cursed, then screamed.

  Out on the lawn, in the parking lot, on the ball field, on the front sidewalk, some kids were screaming, swatting, finding spiders in their clothing, their hair.

  “The fire extinguishers!” Algernon shouted to the fire chief. “The carbon dioxide will knock the insects out long enough to remove them.”

  Firemen fanned out among the crowds of students, dousing them in clouds of cold CO2. Screams went up with every white cloud of the stuff.

  Ms. Wyrthen found a bullhorn and called out instructions: “Do not panic. Teachers, get all t
he kids away from the building. Throw off all the backpacks, jackets, purses. Have every one of them check their clothing, hair, whatever, for spiders. That goes for everybody, on all sides of the building.”

  Then Algernon shouted above the uproar, “And if you can save any intact specimens, we’d appreciate it.” He asked a police officer, “Would you have an empty jar anywhere?”

  On the north side, Marquardt came running, then rolling out of the building, tumbling on the ground, swatting, groping, growling, tearing at his clothes.

  Marquardt came running, then rolling out of the building, tumbling on the ground, swatting, groping, growling, tearing at his clothes.

  WHOOOSHHH! Tom Gessner doused him with a fire extinguisher. Marquardt coughed and gasped, waving away the white cloud while Gessner brushed and swatted spiders off his body.

  “Mr. Marquardt,” he asked, “where are the Springfields?”

  Marquardt was losing his mind. “That Bloom kid! It’s Bloom! He’s trying to kill me!”

  “Bloom?”

  Officer Carrillo came running up. “Norman Bloom. He’s let loose a million spiders in the building.” He immediately hollered at a throng of students milling about. “Get away from the building! Move around to the front! To the front! Go, go, go!”

  Marquardt screamed, “Agotta medda blame for me, getcha man, onnit steady, help!”

  Gessner thought for a fraction of a moment. “Where’s Norman now?”

  “I dunno,” Carrillo answered, trying to hold Marquardt down. Marquardt was screaming, swatting at invisible monsters in the air over his head. “He and that Springfield girl are down under the building somewhere.”

  “The witches’ chamber,” Gessner thought aloud.

  Carrillo sat on Marquardt’s chest, trying to block Marquardt’s wild, swinging hands. “Help me hold Marquardt down, will you?”

  Gessner grabbed one flailing hand while Carrillo grabbed the other. Then he saw some firefighters coming around the building. “Medics! We need some medics over here!”

  The firefighters ran over to help, and Tom Gessner leaped to his feet and started running toward the front of the building.