ARACHNOPHILIA

Anson Arnold comes to Glen Hartwell, then corpses start being found in cocoons in trees

Straight after dinner, Monique Woodcraft left her motel looking for some excitement. In her early twenties, she had been quite a beauty. Not quite one hundred and seventy centimetres tall, with a trim but curvy figure, with long raven hair, which she had kept brushed to a high sheen, and olive coloured eyes with just a hint of Eastern mystique, she had been much sought out at discos and parties. Now, at thirty-five, she was far less sought after.

At first, it seemed as though she would strike out that night. She had wandered through the seedy back streets of Glen Hartwell for hours, going from disco to disco, looking for action. All to no avail.

By a quarter to midnight, she considered calling it a night when she found herself standing outside the doorway of the Purple Sin Discotheque. It was a newish place that had opened barely a year before. It was in a small side street, and she had almost missed it.

This seemed like as good a chance as any to check it out, so Monique stumbled inside, then groped her way across to the bar to sit while allowing his eyes to adjust to the lighting.

The large, square room which made up the disco was lit by three low-wattage, multifaceted strobe lights, which radiated their meagre silvery light into first one spot then another, as they slowly revolved.

Out on the murderously highly polished dance floor, a dozen or so couples were shaking about without rhythm or style.

No Patrick Swayzes here tonight, thought Monique.

Over at the bandstand, a D.J., MC Chisel, shouted garbled inanities into the mike. No one was paying him the slightest attention, so he gave up and reluctantly put an album on.

"Champagne," Monique ordered when the waiter finally came over to her.

"Not allowed to call it that anymore," said the barman. "Even though Australia makes the best champagne in the world. The wine police have told us it is strictly verboten for us to call it Champagne. We now must call it sparkling wine."

"Then a glass of sparkling wine," she said, handing over a note.

Then she spun around on the stool to check out the local hunks.

The disco was positively crawling with good-looking blokes. But for one reason or another, she failed to connect with any of them. Either they already had dates, were just getting ready to leave (Alone! as one bloke pointedly told her, when she offered to leave with him), were too drunk to bother with, or were simply not interested in her. A couple of real doofuses showed some interest, but she wasn’t that desperate ... yet!

“I just don’t understand it,” she said to herself. “It’s not as though I show my age,” she consoled herself. “I might be thirty-five, but I don’t look a day over twenty-eight.”

“Man, look at Methuselah's Granny over there, she must be a hundred and two,” said a teenage girl, as though reading Monique's thoughts. “Wonder what she’s doing here?”

“Probably come to harass her granddaughter,” suggested her date, mimicking a goose-step. “Must be past her curfew.”

After another thirty minutes, the ravenette had almost decided to cut her losses and leave, when in walked the most desirable man she had ever seen:

He was tall and muscular, without being muscle-bound, with a veritable ocean of yellow-blond hair, which shone brilliantly in the moonlight as he stood in the doorway. His handsome, rugged face was mysteriously intense, and his eyes were of a darker shade of blue than any she had ever seen before. Eyes that shone in the dark, like the eyes of a cat.

Monique manoeuvred across the room, determined to make the first approach. But she failed. Two half-naked barely-legals just beat her to him. However, he casually brushed them aside with one arm and glided effortlessly across the last few steps to reach her.

Looping his arm through hers, he led her out onto the dance floor, introducing himself as Anson Arnold.

"That's an exotic and beautiful name," muttered Monique as he whirled her around like a spinning top.

His tread was smooth and flowing, like the movement of a great cat, yet at the same time, each step was carefully measured, like the tread of a jungle creature wary of making any false move which might prove fatal.

They danced (or more correctly, cuddled out on the dance floor) for forty minutes, amid the watchful eyes of the other couples: The women jealous of her good luck; the men of the man’s rugged good looks.

“Do you come here often?” she asked, having finally summoned up the courage to try the cliché.

“No, this is my first time,” Anson answered. Then after a few seconds, “How about we split this joint and make tracks for my pad? We can have a few quiet drinks ... Or whatever.”

“Sure, why not?” replied Monique, thinking, Whatever would be nice! She hadn't been whatevered in nearly six months!


Arriving at the Dorset Hotel in Duchess Lane, LePage, in the Victorian countryside, Anson reached into a pocket of his pale blue suit to take out a large key, with a tag saying 'Front Door'. The doors were always locked at midnight exactly, and the Dorset Hotel's rules were that no one could enter or leave after that time until breakfast at 7:00 AM. However, Anson had slipped the owner, George Mulberry, fifty dollars to borrow the key, without the knowledge of his wife, Annette, the hotel's boss.

Creeping into the reception area, Monique goggled at the garish blue, white, and yellow colour scheme.

Seeing her horrified look, Anson explained, "George Mulberry is a fanatical supporter of the West Coast Eagles in the AFL. These are their team colours."

"Hopefully, the bedrooms aren't like this?"

"No," assured Anson, "the hotel boss, George's wife Annette, laid down the law on that. The bedrooms are painted in quiet pastel shades.

Arm in arm, they crept across to the reception desk, where Anson dropped the front door key. Then, together they crept up the floral-carpeted stairs to the first floor, where Anson's room was situated.

Looking both ways before stepping into the corridor, Anson seemed to glide across the red, floral carpeted floor to room 112. He opened the door in a trice, and in seconds, Anson and Monique were inside the bedroom.

Inside the paisley-coloured bedroom, Anson walked across to a surprisingly well-stocked mini-bar and asked, "Have a drink?"

"Sherry, if you've got it."

"Ah, ah!" teased Anson. "You mustn't say sherry anymore. The wine police in Europe have declared it strictly Verboten to refer to sherry as sherry, unless it's made in Europe. Australian sherry is now called apera. Short for aperitif."

Laughing, Monique said, "Then a glass of apera, if you have it."

"Anything the lady desires," said Anson, emphasising the word 'desires'. He carefully poured a generous helping for Monique, then a small amount for himself. He didn't like alcoholic beverages, but found them useful to melt away a woman's inhibitions. He guessed correctly, though, that Monique had few if any inhibitions to start with.

They sipped their drinks while gazing into each other’s eyes, then danced very slowly and very closely in the middle of the room, to the music of Niels van Gogh turned down very low, so their fellow guests could not overhear. With Anson, Monique found it was like dancing on air.

After another quick drink, Anson led the raven-haired woman across to sit upon his blue-covered bed. Then, taking her by the shoulders, he gently pushed the woman over onto her back, without resistance from Monique Woodcraft.

Seemingly in seconds, they were naked, and Monique was welcoming Anson's manhood inside her, moaning a little in surprise at his great girth, but offering no protest as he mounted her.

For what seemed like hours, Anson rode the love-starved ravenette, flooding her vagina repeatedly with his seed. Until, exhausted, Monique fell asleep on Anson's bed covers.

In an instant, the blond man began to change, his bones cracking and breaking, until he had transformed from a human being into an insectile horror from a 1950s sci-fi horror film. Leaning over the sleeping beauty, Anson squealed in insect-like pleasure as he began covering her from head to toe in slimy white fluid which his feelers pulled from strange funnel-like 'spinnerets' on his abdomen.


It was the morning of February 7th, 2025. Terri Scott, a beautiful thirty-something blonde and top-cop of the BeauLarkin to Willamby area of the Victorian countryside, was having a wonderful day. After nearly a year engaged to Colin Klein, her English-born fiancée, she was standing at the altar at St. Margaret's church in Blackland Street, Glen Hartwell. Father Thomas Montague, a tall, thickset sixty-something priest, was just getting ready to pronounce them 'Man and Wife' (a traditionalist, the father would never stoop to saying Husband and Wife), when instead he said:

"I now pronounce you ... Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

The screaming awakened both Terri and her fiancé.

"Was that you, babe?" asked a bleary-eyed Colin Klein as he sat up in the King-single bed they shared. At forty-nine, Colin had been employed as a London crime reporter for thirty years before retiring. He now worked for the Glen Hartwell Police Department as a constable.

As another scream rang out, Terri and Colin raced out into the yellow carpeted corridor, without taking time to put on dressing gowns. In the corridor, they looked around for the screamer. Then another scream rang out from the next bedroom, and they realised that it was Sheila Bennett, Terri's second in charge.

"Sheils, are you all right?" called Terri, trying the doorknob. However, the bedroom door was locked.

"Here, let me," said Deidre Morton, the owner of the boarding house, a short, plump, sixty-something brunette. Taking a passkey from a dressing gown pocket, she unlocked the door to Sheila's room.

Racing inside, they found the tall, athletic Goth chick, standing on her bed, pointing in obvious terror at something on the yellow, floral rug in the centre of the room.

Stare as they might, at first, they couldn't see what was causing the orange-and-black haired woman's terror. Finally, Colin noticed a small black speck in the epicentre of the rug. Walking across, he picked up the spider, which was much smaller than his little finger.

"Sheils, surely this isn't what scared you?" demanded Colin.

"It's a spider," said the Goth chick, as though that explained everything.

"Sheils, you've tackled a giant flying dragon, a metallic monster that lived within acid rain, and dino-birds which could chase down a racing car," said Terri. [See my stories, 'The Questing Beast', 'Black Rain's Gonna Fall', and "The Night Callers'.] "How could you possibly be terrified of a tiny little spider?"

"It's not just spiders ... I hate all arachnids."

"But it's tiny," said Colin, holding the spider out toward the Goth chick.

"Don't give it to me!" wailed Sheila. Backing away, she fell onto her backside and bounced up and down on the mattress, almost falling onto the bedroom floor. "It's all those legs that freak me out. I don't mind insects with six legs, or worms and grubs with none, but eight legs is just plain freaky."

"Sheils, I didn't think you were afraid of anything," said Terri in amazement.

"Eight legs!" said Sheila, as though that explained everything.

"I'll put it outside," said Colin, walking across toward the bedroom window.

"No, give it to Venice," said Sheila, pointing toward the potted Venus Flytrap that sat on a small table beside the window. "She'll love it, and that'll teach the little monster to terrify me."

"Sheils, you have a carnivorous plant that you hand-feed without any concern, yet a tiny spider terrifies you?" said Colin.

"Eight legs!" repeated Sheila.

With a sigh, the redheaded policeman walked across to give the spider to the Venus Flytrap, whose clam-shaped petals snapped closed fast enough to almost get a finger. Counting the fingers on his hand, Colin said:

"Well, back to bed, everyone."

As they started out into the corridor, the alarm clocks started shrilling in all of the bedrooms.

"Or, we could get dressed and go down to brekkie," said Sheila, relieved at any excuse to escape her bedroom.


After breakfast, Terri, Colin, and Sheila drove around to the police station in Mitchell Street, Glen Hartwell. Inside, they found Paul Bell, a tall, thin, dark-haired sergeant pushing sixty, but looking forty-five, and Suzette Cummings, a short, lithe eighteen-year-old trainee with long raven-coloured hair.

As they entered the front room of the station, Sheila whispered, "Say nothing about spiders."

"Say nothing about what?" asked Suzette, looking up from the huge blackwood desk just inside the door.

"Never mind!" said Sheila emphatically.

An hour or so later, they were having coffee, or tea in Colin's case, enjoying raspberry tartlets that Deidre Morton had made for them.

"Gee, Mrs. M. knows how to look after you," said Suzette, before putting another small tartlet into her mouth.

"Well, I am her favourite, so she won't let me starve," boasted Sheila.

"You wouldn't be her favourite if she knew you kept sneaking mice into her house to feed to your Venus Flytrap," warned Colin Klein.

"She hasn't caught me yet," said Sheila. "Besides, it's only once a fortnight, and I last gave Venice a mousy two days ago. So, I've got twelve more days of grace, till the next time she might catch me."

They were still talking about white mice, Venus Flytraps, and raspberry tartlets when the phone rang. Having just placed another tartlet into her mouth, Suzette had to hurriedly eat it to talk on the phone.

"Hello?" She talked for a couple of minutes, then hung up and said, "That was Jessie Baker. He says they've found something weird in the forest outside LePage."

"Just when we're eating," complained Sheila. She grabbed the last two raspberry tartlets and stuffed them into her mouth before all of the cops, except Paul Bell, headed outside.

"You don't mind manning the phone, do you, Paul?" asked Suzette. "I need to get some field experience before going to Melbourne later this year for my exams."

"No sweat, I've seen enough weird things in the forest around here to last me the rest of my life."

Forty-seven minutes later, Terri and the others were standing in the forest outside neighbouring LePage township, along with Jessie Baker, a huge, muscular man with rusty red hair. The five officers were staring up in amazement at the large, cocoon-like, silky-white object a few metres up an old-growth red-gum tree.

"So what do you think it is?" asked Jessie.

"Looks like a giant cocoon," said Suzette, "do you think it could contain a gigantic caterpillar, waiting to transform into a gigantic moth?"

"Hey, that's possible," enthused Sheila. "That's what happened in the 1950s sci-fi-horror film Mothra. Mothra started out as a gigantic caterpillar, then formed a cocoon around itself and changed from Grubra to Mothra, transforming into a gigantic multi-coloured moth."

"Sheils, you watch way, way, way, way too much science fiction and horror," said Terri.

"You need to get a life and get out more," said Jessie Baker.

"How dare you! I've got a life, I go out with Derek once or twice a week."

"Where do you go?" demanded Colin.

"Once a week, we go to the Spectra Theatre Complex in Abel Tasman Drive, G.H. They show a different classic sci-fi-horror film every week. This week it's 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' with Grant Williams. A real classic!"

"You really do need to get a life, Sheils," said Suzette.

To change the subject, Sheila said, "So how are we gonna check out what's inside the cocoon?"

"I've got a hunting knife we can cut it open with," volunteered Jessie, "but I'm too heavy for you lot to lift up there."

"Likewise," said Sheila, "so I guess it has to be you, Suzette."

"But I'm too chicken. What if Mothra really is in there?" said the ravenette. Then to Terri, "What about you, Chief, surely you don't send in teenage girls where you're afraid to go?"

"Okay," said Terri, "give me the knife then, carefully, lift me up."

A minute or so later, Terri was standing on Jessie's shoulders, with Colin, Sheila, and Suzette doing their best to steady her.

"Here goes everything," said Terri.

Lifting the hunting knife, the blonde carefully sliced down the entire length of the cocoon ... shrieking and falling backwards off Jessie's shoulders, when the headless corpse of a naked woman fell out of the cocoon, almost falling onto Sheila and the others.

"Jesus!" cried Sheila, also falling over onto her backside as she leapt away.

Looking down at the corpse, which had lost its head and neck, both breasts, and much of the buttocks, Colin said dryly, "I don't think that is going to turn into a multi-coloured moth."

Half an hour later, the area was swarming with press and medical staff. Sheila had taken numerous crime scene photos, so the cops stood back and let Tilly, Jesus, and Elvis do their stuff.

Trying their best to ignore the local press, Terri and co watched on as the three medics examined the headless corpse.

"So, what's the verdict?" asked Terri after nearly thirty minutes.

"Looks like she's been killed and partly eaten by some kind of animal?" said Tilly Lombstrom. Second in charge at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, Tilly was an attractive fifty-something brunette.

"But by what, we can't say yet," said Jesus Costello (chief surgeon and administrator of the hospital).

"How do you explain the cocoon?" asked Terri Scott.

"Ruling out aliens," teased Elvis Green, the local coroner and lifelong Elvis Presley fan, "we can only say some as yet unknown animal placed it in the cocoon."

"But why?" asked Suzette, trying her best not to throw up.

"Possibly, so it could come back later and eat the rest," said Tilly.

"Oh, God!" said Suzette.

She was careful to turn and step away from the corpse and cocoon before projectile vomiting.

"Oh Jesus!" blasphemed one of the journalists, soaked in vomit.

An hour later, the corpse and cocoon had been transported to the morgue in the basement of the Glen Hartwell Hospital.

"I'm so sorry," apologised Suzette as they climbed into Terri's blue Lexus.

"No sweat," said Sheila, "you managed to soak two or three of the jackals of the press, so that makes up for losing your tartlets."

At the morgue, Terri and the other cops sat around watching as Tilly, Jesus, and Elvis worked upon the headless corpse.

When they had finished, Tilly said, "Some of the cuts are very strange. Almost as though they've been made by giant pincers."

"So she was killed by a gigantic lobster?" asked Colin.

"Or a gigantic spider," said Jesus, not noticing Sheila blanch. "Spiders can make cocoons with their webs."

"How big is the largest known spider?" asked Terri.

"Hang on, Chief," said Suzette. She took out her mobile, got onto the internet and Googled the question before answering, "The largest living spider is the Goliath bird-eating tarantula (Theraphosa blondi). It can grow to twenty-eight centimetres in leg span and can weigh up to one hundred and seventy-five grams."

"That's disturbingly large for a spider," said Colin, "but nowhere near large enough to have killed this poor woman and eaten large chunks of her."

"Let alone cocooning the remains," added Tilly.


Morgana and Morton Tilsbury were enjoying a summer picnic, along with their six-year-old daughter, Meryl, in the countryside, just outside Glen Hartwell township.

After laying down a large beach blanket in the Collingwood Magpies black and white stripes, they laid out a picnic lunch, while young Meryl, a brunette like her mother, ran around chasing grasshoppers and other bugs.

"Come on, Em.," called Morgana, a tall, shapely thirty-something, "time for lunch."

"Don't want lunch, wanna play," insisted the little girl.

"We can play Frisbee after you've eaten," offered Morton, a tall, heavily built man of forty-seven.

The little girl considered for a moment. Then, deciding that was a good offer, she raced across to sit on the blanket between her parents.

"Hokay," she said, sitting. Taking the hard-boiled egg proffered by Morgana, the little girl bit into it, realising that she actually was quite hungry.

"I knew she was a little Austria," teased Morton.

"What's dat?" asked the puzzled little girl.

"Austria-Hungary," explained her mother, with a laugh. "One of Grandpa Milton's corny jokes ... that your corny dad has taken to saying."

"How dare you, babe," said Morton, pretending to be offended. Then to Meryl, "My jokes aren't corny, are they, Honey?"

"Well ..." said Meryl, not wanting to commit herself.

"You can take that as a yes," said Morgana, with a laugh.

"All of the women in my life are against me," said Morton, reaching for one of the three small bowls of potato salad.

"Ah, no, we're not!" said Morgana with a laugh. She picked up her own bowl of potato salad and started eating.

"Ooh, I wuv tatter salad," said little Meryl, starting in on her bowl.

Afterwards, they ate ham and tasty cheese sandwiches, with mayonnaise in the case of Morton and Meryl, but not Morgana, who preferred mustard pickles.

After eating, they cleared the dishes into a wicker basket, then Morton held up a bright red Frisbee and asked, "Who wants to play Frisbee?"

"Me!" shouted Meryl, jumping to her feet.

"Me, too," agreed Morgana, not quite as agile as her young daughter.

Holding up the Frisbee, Morton said, "All right, go long, as the Yanks say."

"What are the Yanks?" asked a puzzled little girl.

"The Americans," explained her mother, "like your Uncle Percival, and Aunty Patricia who visited before Christmas."

"Da ones with funny voices?"

"That's them," agreed Morton. "Now go long."

When the little girl stood her ground, Morgana explained, "That means go a long way from your father, so he can throw you the Frisbee."

Turning, the girl ran a few metres away from her parents to await the arrival of the red, plastic disc.

Reaching up, she missed the Frisbee, which sailed over her head. Running after it, Meryl picked up the disc from the carpet of pine needles and dried gum leaves which blanketed the forest floor.


In the forest, not far away, Anson Arnold watched the Tilsburys at play. At first in human guise, then his shape began to contort and change, his bones began to crack as he transformed from a man into a gigantic bird-eating spider. Huge and yellow, with eight two-metre-long legs with scythe-like cutters at the end of each limb.

He ventured as close to the clearing as he dared, while staying hidden behind the sweet-smelling pine and gum trees.


When little Meryl threw the Frisbee, it only went halfway back to her father.

"Oh," said Meryl.

"That's okay, Honey," said her mother, "we can't all be big, strong, mucho men like your Daddy." She raced across to pick up the red disc and threw it gently straight to the little girl, who happily caught it this time. "Now relay it to me, then I'll pass it to Daddy."

Happy again, Meryl tossed the Frisbee to Morgana, who deliberately threw it over Morton's head, forcing him to race after it.

"Oh, it's gonna be like that, is it, woman?" said Morton with a laugh.

Picking up the Frisbee, he threw it so hard it sailed straight over the head of Morgana, then passed little Meryl, straight into the forest.

"I'll get it," shouted Meryl in excitement, running straight into the forest.

She almost ran straight into the giant yellow spider, at first not realising what it was. When at last she did, Meryl opened her mouth to scream, only to be coated in sticking webbing, as the spider pulled strands of webbing from the funnel-like 'spinnerets' on his abdomen.

"Throw us the Frisbee, Honey," called Morgana, as the spider hung the cocooned remains of Meryl Tilsbury up in a red-gum tree.

"Honey?" called Morton, starting to worry.

"Mort, what could have happened to her?" asked a terrified-sounding Morgana.

"Nothing," said Morton, only hoping it was true. His two 'girls' were his whole life. Feeling as worried as Morgana looked, he said, "You know what she's like, she's probably got distracted by a pretty butterfly or something."

Only hoping it was true, Morton raced into the forest to look for the first love of his life.


In the forest, the bright yellow spider waited, just out of sight, hidden between two pine trees, which had grown together, until their trunks had become one.

Morton stopped as he saw the small cocoon hanging in the gum tree. Although it was the right size for his daughter, it never occurred to the middle-aged man that Meryl could be dead within the silken object.

"What the Hell is that?" Morton said aloud. "It's bloody big for a cocoon! What kind of a moth or butterfly could come out of that?" He knew there were butterflies with wingspans of nearly thirty centimetres (a foot in the old scale), but this seemed far too big even for those.

He was still puzzling over the cocoon when the man-sized yellow spider came out from cover and slowly crept up behind him. It had almost reached Morton when it stepped on a twig, catching his attention.

"What?" said Morton, turning to stare in terror at the gigantic arachnid standing before him.

Unlike his daughter, Morton managed to get two screams out before the creature covered him from head to foot in webbing.

"Morton!" cried Morgana from the clearing.

Ignoring the brunette, the spider carefully lifted the cocooned body of Morton Tilsbury up and stuck it to a branch of the gum tree, beside young Meryl.

"Morton!" shrieked Morgana Tilsbury, running, panicked into the forest.

In her haste, she ran straight into the giant spider and rebounded, falling onto her backside upon the pine needles and gum leaves.

Looking up and seeing the yellow monster, Morgana began to scream and scream again, as it covered her in spider silk, then deposited her upon the tree, next to the remains of her husband and daughter.

Then, opening the smaller cocoon again, the spider began to devour the juicy remains of Meryl Tilsbury.


By late afternoon, Terri and co were back at the Glen Hartwell Hospital, where Tilly Lombstrom was able to confirm, "The cocoon is definitely made out of spider web."

"So just how big a spider are we looking for?" asked Terri, doing her best not to see Sheila blanching at the mention of the S-word.

Holding her arms open as wide as possible, Tilly said, "If you remember the old Salada ads. saying 'Man-sized, bite-sized', that pretty much sums it up. We're looking for a man-sized spider that definitely bites."

"Pardon me," said Sheila. Racing across to a metal dust bin, she started to throw up.


After tea, Terri, Colin, and the others were sitting in the lounge room in the Yellow House in Rochester Road, Merridale, looking bored silly.

"What's wrong?" asked Natasha Lipzing, a tall, frail old lady of seventy-one.

"I'm bored shirtless," said Sheila Bennett. "With the test cricket finished, there's still ages before the AFL footy starts."

"There are other things on TV besides sport," pointed out Leo Laxman, a tall, black Jamaican who worked as a nurse at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

"Don't blaspheme," cautioned Sheila. "If it ain't sport, it ain't worth watching."

"What about the T20 games?" asked Freddy Kingston. A recent retiree, Freddy was tall and stout, with a Larry Fine-style ruff of curly black hair on his otherwise bald head.

"The sloggity run?" said Sheila, contemptuously. "That's not cricket, it's baseball with a cricket bat, the damned Bloody Big Slog, or whatever it's called."

"I like it," insisted Tommy Turner, a short, fat, blond man.

"Yeah, but you've got no taste, mate," said Sheila.

"She's got you there," said Colin Klein, making everyone, except Tommy, laugh.


At 7:00 the next morning, they were sitting down to a breakfast of scrambled eggs with tasty cheese, plus pan-fried bacon, at the Yellow House, when the knocking came at the front door.

"Oh, no!" cried Sheila. "Why must they always come while we're eating?"

"They might not be here about work," said Terri, as Deidre Morton went to open the front door.

"Betcha fifty bucks it is," said Sheila.

"I don't gamble," insisted Terri Scott.

"Bark! Bark! Bark!" said Tommy Turner, flapping his elbows like wings.

"I am not chicken, I just don't gamble."

Before an argument could break out, Deidre returned, with Jessie Baker and Stanlee Dempsey in tow.

"Mornin' all," said Stanlee, a tall sixty-something raven-haired sergeant, doing the worst possible British Bobby accent.

Behind him, Jessie did a Benny Hill funny salute.

"What brings you two here from the asylum?" asked Sheila.

Suddenly serious, Stanlee said, "They've found new cocoons outside the Glen."

"Three early morning joggers," said Jessie.

"Damned early morning joggers," said Sheila. "Why can't they have the decency to go jogging later in the day?"

"Then you'd complain about us coming at lunch time," said Jessie.

"Besides, Glen Hartwell is going through a heatwave this summer," reminded Stanlee Dempsey. "So it'd be too hot in the afternoon to jog. How does that old song go? Burning, burning with a heatwave."

"Never heard of it," lied Sheila as she, Terri, and Colin got up to leave.

"Ah, you must have," insisted Jessie. "You know all those great old songs, Sheils."

"All right, it was Heatwave by Martha and the Vandellas," she admitted as they headed for the front door.

"I knew, she knew it," said Jessie with a smirk.

"Should we stop at Mitchell Street to collect Suzette?" asked Sheila as they climbed into Terri's Lexus.

"Not after she chundered last time," said Stanlee. "This one is much worse."

"It ate a young child and cocooned the parents," said Jessie.

"So, no Suzette," agreed Terri as they started off.

When they arrived at the death site, Tilly, Jesus, and Elvis were already there, along with three ambulances and their crews.

"So, any news?" asked Terri.

"The parents are Morton and Morgana Tilsbury," said Tilly.

"So presumably the child was Meryl Tilsbury," finished Jesus Costello.

"Couldn't you tell?" asked a puzzled Colin Klein.

"It completely devoured the flesh, organs, and a lot of the bones from the child," said Elvis, looking a little green under the gills.

"Poor little tyke, she was only six," said Sheila Bennett.

"All the more reason to get this bastard before it kills again," said Jessie Baker. Then to Terri, "So, Chief, how are we gonna get this bastard before it kills again?"

"Umm," said Terri, "maybe we could put out a false quarantine alert to scare everyone into staying indoors?"

"Haven't we done to death the false quarantine alerts over the last fifteen months or so?" asked Colin.

"Besides, in this kind of weather," said Sheila, "even if people stayed indoors, they'd keep their windows open to let air into the house ...."

"Thereby letting the giant creepy crawly in also," finished Stanlee Dempsey.

"Well, if any of you have a better idea?" demanded Terri.

"No, no, a false quarantine alert sounds great," said Sheila, while Colin, Stanlee, and Jessie nodded their agreement.


At the Dorset Hotel in Duchess Lane, LePage they had just started serving tea. George Mulberry, the proprietor, a tall muscular man, stood in the gaudy blue, white, and yellow reception area, while his wife shepherded guests, as she like to call them, into the dining room.

"Honey, you could always help out in the dining room?" suggested his beautiful forty-something, redheaded, full-busted wife, Annette.

"That's..." said George, wisely stopping before saying 'woman's work'. Instead he said, "An excellent idea, my chestalicious angel."

Lifting the flap of the counter, he exited the reception counter as a ting-ting indicate someone had come down in the elevator.

Looking around to the left of the reception area, they saw the silvery doors slide open to let out, Lizzie Enrich, a short, attractive twenty-one-year-old brunette, who was their maid-cum-waitress-cum-general dogsbody. Beside her came two chubby, elderly ladies, Helen and Horty Clarkson, as well as handsome Anson Arnold.

If only I could have got him alone in the lift, without the frumpy twins? thought Lizzie. We could have stopped the lift and had a quickie on the way down! She licked her lips, thinking, There's always later tonight! Then we can have a long, hard, slowie!

Glaring at Lizzie, whom she had had to tell off more than once for trying to corrupt the male guests, Annette said, "Chop, chop, Lizzie. Tea should already be underway."

"Then why aren't you in the dining room yet?" asked Lizzie, immediately regretting it.

"You cheeky, little cow," said Annette, racing after Lizzie, who screeched in terror and ran full pelt into the neighbouring dining room.

Unable to resist laughing, the Clarkson sisters grabbed Anson by one arm each and led him toward the dining room.

"Well, it got her moving, anyway," said George, making everyone laugh.

"I've never seen her move so fast," agreed Annette with a laugh, "when she wasn't chasing a man that is."

In the dining room, Anson looked around for a more suitable meal than the Clarkson sisters, even though they had sat at the table with him, giggling like schoolgirls on their first date.

Looking at the chubby spinsters, he thought, This probably is as close to a date as they've ever come! He looked around the dining room for a more attractive meal, but seeing the younger and better looking women all had companions, he decided, They might not be much to look at, but they'll make a hearty meal! With plenty of leftovers.

Tentatively he reached back to place a hand gently upon the prominent backside of each of the Clarkson sisters.

Although they jumped in surprise, and tittered, neither woman demanded he take his hand away.

Presentation isn't everything, thought Anson. They've got plenty of meat, and fat, on them and will make fine eating!


After dinner, Anson Arnold escorted the chubby Clarkson sisters out into the reception area of the hotel.

"How about watching a little TV?" Horty asked Anson naively.

"No, I want to go straight up to bed," said the blond man boldly.

"Oh, are you tired?" asked Helen.

"No," said Anson squeezing both women's bottom more firmly than before.

Giggling like short, fat schoolgirls, Horty and Helen allowed Anson to lead them across to the silver-doored elevator. Not realising that he was taking them too their doom.

Coming out of the dining room just in time before they stepped into the elevator, George Mulberry smirked, thinking, I guess he likes his women big!

Behind George, Lizzie sneered, thinking, How could such a hunk prefer two fatties like them, rather than a hottie like me?


Up in his bedroom, Anson hurriedly undressed, awing the Clarkson sisters by the size of his mighty manhood, then quickly undressed the two women, who offered no protests as he led them across to his bed to have rough, violet sex with them both. It wasn't love-making, merely raw animal rutting. But neither sister complained, although they were both exhausted, ready to pass out by the time that he had finished.

"That's all right, go to sleep and dream of a beautiful yellow spider," lulled Anson. Just before starting his transformation; bones cracking and reforming until instead of a man, a man-sized bird-eating spider lay on the King-single bed beside the two chubby sisters.

Fortunately both women were already asleep, so did not scream as he revealed his true form.

After killing both women, Anson greedily ate his fill of the fattiest parts of the two sisters, breasts, buttocks, stomachs, thighs, before starting to cocoon Helen within his silken web.

Hmmm, I'll only be able to carry them one at a time, thought the spider which had been Anson Arnold.

Picking up the cocoon containing Helen Clarkson, the yellow spider raced across to the opened bedroom window. He hurriedly scuttled down the outside wall to the pine needle and gum leaf blanketed forest floor, then raced out into the neighbouring forest with his delicious burden, careful to travel a full kilometre from the hotel, before appending the cocoon to the lower branch of an eerie grey-white ghost gum tree.


Down in the lounge room, they were watching 'Dancing With the Stars', and pretending to be entertained by it.

"Why are we watching this rubbish?" asked Lizzie Enrich.

"Because the Clarkson sisters insist on watching it," said Annette Mulberry.

"But they're not here. They're upstairs shagging with our handsome, but clearly short-sighted hunk of a guest, Anson Arnold."

"What!" cried Annette leaping to her feet, red-faced with anger. "I'll have none of that kind of behaviour in my hotel."

"Honey, they're three consenting adults," protested George.

"Yes, they were giggling like schoolgirls as he squeezed their bums," said Lizzie.

"The very idea!" said Annette, storming out into the reception area.

"Honey, they're not breaking any law!" persisted George, running after her.

"Only the law of good taste!" said Lizzie running after the Mulberries. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, the brunette was loving the trouble she had stirred up.

Not bothering with the elevator, Annette Mulberry raced up the stairs, then, without knocking, she used her pass key to enter room 112.

George Mulberry, with more weight to carry staggered up the stairs well behind his redheaded wife. He was just entering the red-carpeted corridor, when he heard Annette shriek once ... then fall silent.

"Honey!" cried George, struggling to catch his breath as he tried to run down the corridor.

Younger and fitter, Lizzie Enrich passed him in the corridor and ran over to the doorway to room 112. She looked past Annette Mulberry fainted on the floor, to Hortense Clarkson's half eaten remains.

Screaming more shrilly than Annette, Lizzie also fainted away.

Finally, still panting, George staggered across to the doorway, he looked over Lizzie and Annette's prone forms, and almost passed out himself.

"Jesus save us!" said George, crossing himself as most of the hotel guests came down the corridor after him.


Over at the Yellow House they had just eaten their tea of Rabbit au vin, a French stew made with rabbit, shallots, carrots, bacon, and mushrooms in red wine sauce.

"What did everybody think?" asked Deidre Morton, having tried them with a new dish.

"Delish," said Sheila.

"Excellent," agreed Natasha Lipzing.

"The red wine sauce was the making of it," said Tommy Turner.

"I knew you'd like that part," said Deidre, making everyone at the table laugh.

"For desert we have an Aussie standard, raspberry Pavlova."

"I thought Pavlova was invented in New Zealand?" puzzled Freddy Kingston.

"So they claim in NZ," admitted Sheila, "But when have Aussies ever believed anything the kiwis say?"

"A very scientific answer," said Leo Laxman with a laugh.

Deidre had just started to dish out Sheila's helping, when Terri's mobile rang.

"If that is Suzette, Jessie, or Stanlee interrupting our Pav., I'm telling them off!" cried Sheila.

Terri listened for a couple of minutes then disconnected.

"Was that Suzette, Jessie, or Stanlee interrupting our Pav.?" asked Colin.

"No, it was George Mulberry. They've found the half eaten body of Hortence Clarkson in room 112 of the Dorset Hotel," said Terri. "They think the monster may have take away the cocooned corpse of her sister Helen, to deposit up a gum tree somewhere."

"In which case, if we're quick, we might just catch the bugger this time," said Sheila, as the three cops leapt to their feet to race outside. For once not complaining about missing her dessert.

"Save some Pav. for us please , Mrs. M.," called Terri as they raced outside.

When they reached Duchess Lane, LePage, the found an ambulance and two police cars already there. Stanlee Dempsey, Jessie Baker, Paul Bell, and Drew Braidwood, a tall, lanky, blond-haired constable stood around outside the Dorset Hotel, all holding loaded shotguns.

Terri and co had stopped at the Mitchell Street Police Station to collect shotguns also.

Climbing from her Lexus, Terri instructed, "You four stay hidden outside till it returns. Sheils, Colin and I will go upstairs to await it's return."

"How do you know it'll return, Chief?" asked Drew.

"It left half of its dinner behind," said Sheila, before the three cops ran in through the front doorway and into the blue, white, and yellow-painted reception area.

Annette Mulberry and Lizzie Enrich had already been treated by Tilly, Elvis, and a gorgeous platinum blonde nurse, Topaz Moseley, but had refused to be taken to hospital, since they would have to be up early tomorrow to serve breakfast.

"Are you sure about this?" Tilly asked Annette, who along with Lizzie, was lying on lounge chairs cushions placed on the floor behind the reception desk.

"Of course," said Annette. "God help the poor guests if they had only George to serve them their meals."

"I'm not that hopeless," said George Mulberry.

"If you could just give us something to blank out of our memory what we saw in that room," said Lizzie.

"Sadly, the only drugs that can do that could turn you into vegetables."

"We'll risk it," said Lizzie.

Upstairs, Terri and co checked out the bloody remains of Hortense Clarkson.

"Yeech!" said Sheila. "I see now why Lizzie was prepared to risk being turned into a veggie."

Trying her best not to disturb any of the gory evidence, Terri tiptoed into the room and over to the opened window. Looking out, careful not to took the window sill, Terri shone her police torch for a moment. One of the four cops hidden in the bushes below, signalled back.

Returning to the corridor, Terri said, "Well, the blokes are all ready below."

"Now the burning question," said Colin, "is how the Hell long are we gonna have to wait for this monster to return?"

Terri shrugged, then said quietly to Sheila, "Are you going to be all right if confronted by spiderosaurus?"

Despite looking a little pale faced, Sheila nodded, and said, "The memory of what it did to poor little Meryl Tilsbury should give me the courage to slaughter the evil bastard!"

"Good," said Colin, patting her reassuringly on the left shoulder.


The round trip to the forest to deposit Helen Clarkson's cocooned body up a tree and back had taken the man-sized yellow spider almost an hour. When it returned to the Dorset Hotel, it sensed danger, even before seeing the three vehicles parked outside the hotel. It hesitated for a moment, indecisive, before deciding that it had to get back into the hotel.

Trying its best to avoid the explosive shotgun fire aimed at it, the giant arachnid scuttled across to the outside of the hotel, then hastily climbed the outside wall to re-enter through the window of room 112.


Hearing the shotgun fire below, it was all Terri, Colin, and Sheila could do to stay hidden outside in the red-carpeted corridor, as they heard the monster return to the room.

Finally, holding a finger to her mouth for silence, Terri Scott led the way as the three cops crept as silently as possible into the floral walled bedroom.

Inside the room, the yellow spider which had been Anson Arnold was in the process of cocooning the remains of Horty Clarkson, when its superior hearing detected the sound of movement behind it.

Spinning around to face the three police, the arachnid hissed at them almost snakelike and click-clicked its pincer-like chelicerae at the three people as it scuttled toward them.

"Open fire!" called Terri.

Terri and Colin unloaded their shotguns into the giant spider, while Sheila, despite her earlier assertion, stood wide-eyed frozen in terror, too scared to move, let alone fire.

As the two police unloaded their shotguns into the monster, horrid-smelling yellowy ichor gushed from the creatures body. However, it remained on its feet to contemptuously knock over Terri and Colin. Knocking her head hard, Terri passed out instantly, but Colin remained conscious long enough to call:

"Shoot, Sheila, shoot!" Before he passed out.

Despite the call, Sheila stayed frozen in terror, unable to move, let alone fire her shotgun, as the monster scuttled closer and closer, until it was only centimetres away from the Goth woman chick.

Sheila might have been the spider's next victim, if it weren't for the sound of running footsteps out in the corridor behind her.

Finally awakened from her frozen state, Sheila fired straight into the eight-eyed face of the gigantic bird-eating spider, making its head explode into a mess of foul-smelling yellow-white ichor, which coated the face and chest of Sheila, making the Goth chick finally pass out.

Running into the bedroom, Stanlee Dempsey found Colin, Terri, and Sheila all unconscious on the bedroom floor, with the headless spider also keeled out on the carpet.

"What the fuck happened here?" asked the puzzled policeman.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Jesus Costello, as he and Elvis Green carefully entered the room to check that the three cops were all okay.

After a moment, Elvis looked up and said, "They're all okay ... just unconscious."

"Then who the fuck killed that thing?" asked Stanlee pointing at the remains of the giant yellow spider.

"I repeat, your guess is as good as mine," said Jesus, standing back to allow paramedics to bring stretchers into the room for the three police officers.

"Well, I'm buggered if I know," said Stanlee, before going across to help the paramedics.

THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia