Terror at Rocky Rest
by
Rod C. Davis
©
The inside was dark, and that overgrown arachnid could be hiding in most any nook or cranny. It was the most aggressive spider that I had ever come across. My heart was pounding in my chest, and the thudding in my ears was drowning out all other sound. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Russ Denzle. Most people would consider me to be a very fortunate man. I have a great wife that I met while in high school, and a millionaire's family … a son and a daughter. All my friends were convinced that I led a charmed life, and that was because everything always seemed to go my way. This past April the job opportunity of a lifetime fell right into my lap … the exact position that I had been looking for. Best of all, it was in a four-season vacation town that was our dream community, Shilton, Maine.
Shilton is a small laid back community in Maine's Northwest Mountains, a little more than an hour's drive from the Quebec border. It was a far cry from the hustle and bustle that we endured for most of our lives in Brooklyn, NY. The local electrical generating plant hired me as their chief computer guru, and I agreed to begin work on the first Monday in June. At the beginning of May my wife and I drove to Shilton to look for our new home, and as usual the gods were on our side. The third home that we looked at had stone pillars on each side of the driveway entrance, and the pillar on the left sported a sign that said Rocky Rest. The entrance was grand, and the house turned out to be exactly what we wanted.
The oversized split-foyer ranch was set back from the road about a quarter of a mile into the woods, and two of the five acres had been cleared. A large metal pole barn stood 500 feet behind the house, and there was a small corral off to the right. At first sight I knew that this was the home for us, and that is probably why I failed to see the obvious. There were two things that should have bothered Edie and me right from the start. The house had been for sale for over a year, even though it was priced below market. And number two … it was vacant. That in and of itself wasn't a red flag, but the fact that all the windows in the house were wide open when we went in for our first look, should have been.
* * *
The movers were supposed to be at our home by 9:00 AM, and we arrived at 7:00. Edie wanted to cover her carpets with plastic, and line the kitchen cabinets and drawers with some fancy paper. Danielle and Brian went to check out the barn, while Edie and I walked hand-in hand to unlock the front door. The moment that I pulled it open, everything went rapidly downhill. Both of us felt an invisible presence rush past us, and it was instantly followed by an overwhelming nauseous odor. Whatever went past us felt evil, and I could feel Edie's hand begin to vibrate.
I started to tell her everything was OK, but stopped short when I saw that her face was as pale as death.
The children came back from the barn to tell us that they wanted a horse, and unfortunately it was just in time to see their mother retching on the lawn. Before the nauseous odor had made Edie sick to her stomach, we made a pact not to tell the children about what we had felt. The last thing that we wanted to do was to put fear into them for no reason at all.
When the children saw their mother on her hands and knees,
they asked, "Mom! What's wrong?"
Edie was still catching her breath and couldn't talk, so I answered for her. "There's a pretty bad smell in the house and your mother had a reaction to it, but she'll be fine. I'm gonna open all the windows and get rid of it. "
That seemed to satisfy them and the horse question didn't come up again. I watched them as they disappeared around the corner of the house, and I marveled at the joy and laughter that I heard in their voices.
Little did I know that their happiness was about to come to an abrupt end.
Edie was still on her hands and knees as I said, "You wait here while I go open the windows."
I soaked my handkerchief with some water and held it over my nose as I walked into the house. The smell was so powerful that my makeshift mask didn't make much of a difference. As I worked my way through our new home, opening each window as far as it would go, I wondered where in the heck such a strong rotten egg stink could have come from. I thought to myself, "It was fine yesterday," and that is when it hit me between the eyes that all the windows were wide open when we got there. I began to wonder what the realtor knew that we didn't.
When I walked into Danielle's room I noticed a very large arachnid on the floor against the far wall. It looked just like one of those huge rubber Halloween spiders. After I opened the windows I bent down to pick it up. My fingers were only inches away when it spun around to face me. My heart jumped into my throat! We stared at each other for a couple of moments, and then it began to move in my direction. My senses started to reel and my bladder almost let loose. I backed up a few steps, and as I did I began to wonder why I was so afraid of this thing. Then I said out loud, "I'll just step on that bugger, and that'll be the end of that!"
The moment that I moved toward that over grown monstrosity, I got the unsettling feeling that it was glaring at me. I wiped it right out of my mind. It had to be a figment of my imagination. I boldly took another step, and when I did, it scrunched its body closer to the floor. I hesitated momentarily as a thought flashed into my mind, "That's very strange behavior for a spider. It should have run away." But I brushed that aside also. I was firmly convinced that its life was over. I was halfway through the final step that would send it to oblivion when it leaped up on my pant leg. I've never encountered an aggressive spider before, and panic shot through my entire nervous system. I took a swipe at it with the back of my right hand, and when I felt the impact I expected to see it fly across the floor. But it didn't. It hung fast to my pant leg.
I stood there looking at it in disbelief. I was just getting ready to take another swing at the beast when it started running up my pant leg. A scream exploded from my chest as I frantically beat at the front of me, trying to do anything I could to knock it off. The next thing I knew it was on my stomach, and it was quickly making its way toward my face. Unadulterated terror surged through my body and I threw myself on the floor, hoping to crush it as I did.
I heard Edie yelling from outside, "Russ! Are you OK? What's wrong?"
I didn't answer her. I didn't want to make a noise, and I couldn't figure out why. But there was something else. I was too terrified to move. I felt secure as long as I had that freaky spider trapped under me. Then I heard Edie yell to the children, "Don't you DARE go in that house."
That statement motivated me to do something that I should have from the moment that I hit the floor … get up, look at the squished mess, clean it up and be done with it. But as quick as the courage came, it left. My mind started doing the "What Ifs." What if the spider was still alive? What if I didn't disable it? What if it was just snuggled under me? What if it was simply waiting for its chance to get at my neck and face?
I decided that getting up onto my hands and knees was not an option. I slowly rolled up from my right to my left, and as I did I craned my neck as much as I could to get a clear view of my chest and stomach area. My heart was pounding, and it seemed to get worse the further my side lifted off the floor. I could hear it thudding in my ears by the time I was up three inches. Then things changed when I hit four inches. I began to get a little lightheaded, and I started to wonder if I going to faint. I forced myself up another inch, and I still couldn't see the spider. I heard myself yell, "Where in the hell IS that thing!"
By the time I had rolled completely up and onto my left side, it was obvious that the spider was nowhere around me. No black and brown smudge was on the floor, and there wasn't any goop on my shirt. Where could it have gone? I could feel my body begin to settle down somewhat, and rationality was just starting to take over when panic raged though my body once again! "Damn! It's got to be on my back!"
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the mirror on Danielle's closet door. I spun to my right as I looked over my left shoulder. I wanted to check my backside in the mirror, and I did it so fast that I pulled the muscles in my neck. My eyes were wide with fear, fully expecting to see the spider perched on my collar, glaring back at me with the same look that I had sensed before. There was no creepy crawler though, and relief eased its way back into my body. I could feel my muscles begin to relax again. As a precaution I decided to make a complete revolution to see if it was hidden someplace else on my clothing, but no, it wasn't. Then my imagination kicked into overdrive. I wondered, "Could it have walked around my body to keep out of sight as I rotated?" I did a pirouette as fast as I could, hoping to catch a glimpse of it as it scurried to stay hidden. But this time I was convinced that it was gone … but where?
I had to find it! What if it decided to attack Danielle while she slept? Acting much more bravely than I felt, I looked in every nook and cranny, even in the dark closet. I slammed my fists at every dark shadow in there, and fear kept a firm grip on my frazzled nerves. By the time that I had finished, sweat was streaming from every square inch of my body. The spider was definitely gone. It was like it had disappeared into thin air.
All of a sudden, like sound was being gradually fed into the room, I heard Edie's voice. It was very faint at first, but after a few seconds I could clearly hear her yelling my name. I yelled back, "Edie! Everything's fine! My hand slipped when I was opening a window and I jammed my finger. That's why I screamed!"
* * *
There was a good cross breeze and within 30 minutes that awful odor seemed to fade away. I was very thankful that it did. The Allied movers arrived ahead of time, and Edie would have been beside herself if any one of them had gotten even a whiff of it. They were very efficient and gone by 5:00 PM. The furniture was in place, but there was still an impressive pile of boxes in the garage that would take several days to unpack. Danielle and Brian wanted to fish the brook that meandered along the back edge of our property, and that gave Edie and me a chance to discuss things. While the kids never noticed that none of my fingers were swollen, Edie didn't miss a trick.
She was obviously stressed after I told her about my encounter with the arachnid, and nothing I said would calm her down. God was in our corner though, and the worst of our debate was over the hurdles by the time the children came back with a half a dozen brookies each. The conversation lightened up considerably as we talked about the different recipes Edie could use when cooking them for breakfast. Unfortunately the good times did not last for very long.
I had just finished checking all the outside doors to make sure they were locked, and was in the process of closing our bedroom door when I felt a chill. A frown formed on my face because I couldn't fathom why I was cold. Suddenly wonder became surprise when I saw my breath billowing out in front of me. Edie was sitting up in bed reading a Good Housekeeping magazine, and when our eyes locked, fear took over every expression on her face. In a flash she was lying flat on her back, just like someone had grabbed her ankles and yanked her feet toward the bottom of the bed. What happened next made my blood run cold.
Edie started doing sit-ups. Only they weren't like any sit-ups I'd ever seen before. It looked like someone had lashed a board to front and back of her torso, and her legs had the same appearance. The sit-ups that she was doing made it appear as though she was hinged at the waist. They started out slow, one every three or four seconds. But after about a minute the intervals shrunk to less than a second. A new fear began to course through my body. I was terrified that something horrible was going to happen to my wife. I wanted to run over to the bed to help her, but my feet wouldn't move. It was like they were glued to the floor. I even tried lifting them out of my shoes, but that didn't work either. I couldn't move!
When I took my eyes off of my feet to look at Edie, it appeared that her face was bright red. I blinked a couple of times to clear my vision, and when I looked again, it seemed to be purple. Then I saw her mouth open, and terror electrified every nerve in my body. She needed my help and I couldn't do a thing about it. Tears of frustration were streaming from my eyes. I could see that she was struggling to get a breath of air, and when her eyes began to bulge out of their sockets, I yelled out, "My God in heaven, please help us!"
The second I blurted out that short prayer, it felt like my feet moved a little. That sensation could have been my imagination, but something had changed. My mind was screaming out that I found a way to overcome this situation. I began to pray, saying one prayer after another, always asking for God's intervention. With each prayer my feet moved more and more, until I finally broke free of whatever had been holding me in place. I ran over to Edie and grabbed her right shoulder. The second that I did, an invisible force ripped my hand away, and it felt like my arm was going to come right out of its socket.
The pain was excruciating, and when I forced myself to put my hand back on her shoulder, I heard a voice saying a short prayer, but the voice wasn't mine. I heard the prayer again, and I didn't understand one word of it, yet I knew it was a prayer. Suddenly it sounded like there were two voices chanting the same brief prayer, and then it became many voices. In what seemed like just a few seconds, I felt a calm melt into my body. I never felt my body relieve stress like this before. Instead of feeling like all my muscles were relaxing from the inside out, this seemed like it eased its way into me from front to back.
The feeling left me almost euphoric.
Edie had stopped doing her sit-ups, and I had no recollection of when that happened. I looked at the clock on my nightstand, and thirty minutes had passed by since I entered the room. Thirty minutes! That was a mystery to me. I couldn't begin to understand how that much time went by, especially since my mind told me that everything had happened in less than five.
It's been two years since we moved to Rocky Rest, and we've never been bothered by unfriendly spirits again. But from time to time, everyone in the family has heard the low chant of that unknown prayer.
