The Spider's Lair Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  THE FIRST CHAPTER

  THE SECOND CHAPTER

  THE THIRD CHAPTER

  THE FOURTH CHAPTER

  THE FIFTH CHAPTER

  THE SIXTH CHAPTER

  THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

  THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

  THE NINTH CHAPTER

  THE TENTH CHAPTER

  THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

  THE TWELFTH CHAPTER

  THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER

  THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER

  THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER

  THE TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER

  THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  I love thee for thy venom

  And thy stony-hearted gaze.

  How do I love thee? Let me count thine eyes.

  All eight of them, to match your legs

  That no one can disguise.

  How do I love thee? Let me count thy fangs.

  Oh dear! It seems I’m bitten,

  You must have hunger pangs.

  How do I love thee? Let me end my rhyme,

  Your venom’s started working

  And I’m running out of time.

  How do I love thee? Let me drift away…

  To dream again of spiders,

  ’Tis a fitting final day!

  “Gadsbodkins! Look out!” The carriage trundled quickly through the rain-beaten street, the horse’s breath puffing out in rhythmic clouds as the whip struck its flank. Atop the carriage, an old man cried out as the townsfolk scattered in terror.

  “I’m terribly sorry! I do beg your pardon! Please, do mind out of the way! My most sincere apologies! Coming through!” he shouted as the carriage ploughed through the town.

  An old lady cradling a baby leaped out of the way into a deep puddle on the side of the road. “Mucky rotten goat! You near squished me granddaughter!” she bellowed. She checked on the baby and plucked a sodden doll out of the puddle.

  “A thousand pardons, madam!” called the old man, as the carriage sped out of town.

  “Shove it up yer nostrils!” cried the old woman after him. She shook her head and handed the baby its doll. “See, Arabella? That’s the problem with folk these days – they ain’t got no respect. Which is why you should always kick first, shout abuse later.”

  “Kick!” squeaked the baby.

  “Awww, your first word,” cooed the old lady.

  The carriage made its way up the hill through the driving rain. The old man peered into the darkness. Ahead loomed a dark, forbidding shape – the castle.

  “There it is!” he cried. “We made it!”

  He leaped down from the carriage and hurried to the castle’s Great Door. He hammered on it with both hands, crying, “Erasmus! Erasmus! It is I! Open this door, I beg of you! In fact, I politely insist!”

  The pause that followed was longer than you would have expected, from even the most unapproachable of castles. Then, at last, a cry rang out from inside.

  “No visitors!”

  “Please be so kind as to let me in! It is I!” the old man replied.

  “I?” said the voice.

  “Me!”

  “Me?”

  “Not you, me!”

  “You? You who?”

  “Yoo hoo to you, too! Gadsbodkins, it is Edmund! Let me in!” the man insisted.

  The silence that followed was finally broken by the voice behind the door. “What do you want?”

  “I am in dire need of your help! Now please be a good fellow and kindly open this door or by my frozen undergarments, I shall be forced to knock again!”

  “Help? I don’t help!” hissed the voice, as if trying to divine the meaning of the word. “I’m a mad professor! There’s nothing mad about helping!”

  “What I ask of you is most assuredly mad!

  Madder than mad! Madder than a dog with ten legs!” insisted the old man. “Now I beg you, in the name of all that is good and holy, do please open this door!”

  Another pause followed, as the old man shivered in the rain. Finally, he heard the CLUNK and KRONG of the Great Door and it swung open. A spindly lizard of a man in a white coat took a single step into the moonlight, wringing his hands madly.

  “I actually made a ten-legged dog last week,” he sneered. “Now what do you want? Out with it! I am at a crucial point in my mad experiment – you have ten seconds before I close this door in your face. AhaHA!”

  “I need only five,” replied the old man, disappearing behind his carriage. He re-emerged moments later, stumbling back through the rain and carrying something in both arms. It was wrapped in a blanket and was almost as large as the old man himself.

  “What do you have there?” hissed Professor Erasmus. The old man held out his arms. It took the professor a moment to realize he was carrying a dead body.

  “I wish for the impossible,” replied the old man. “I wish for you to bring the dead back to life.”

  The professor’s eyes grew wide. The old man shivered silently in the rain. Finally, a jagged, maniacal grin spread across the professor’s face.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so before? Come on in … I’ll put the kettle on! AhahaHA! A-hAAHAAA!”

  Stitch Head made his way through the ruined, blackened corridors of Castle Grotteskew. A bitter wind whistled through the windows and snow fell through holes in the ceiling. Stitch Head wrapped his tiny, mismatched arms round him to keep warm.

  “Stitch Head…”

  All at once, a dozen hideous, unnatural creatures emerged from the shadows, each more impossibly freakish than the last. Before long, Stitch Head found himself surrounded by a terrifying assortment of monstrosities. A slithering serpent with a human head … a giant eyeball with tentacle feet … a part-dog, part-cat, part-bat … a steam-powered skull … it was the stuff of nightmares.

  “Stitch Head!” cried the skull, puffing across Stitch Head’s path. “A thousand thanks for that extra dose of Lunacy Lotion. I feel a hundred per cent less demented!”

  “No problem, Godfrey,” said Stitch Head.

  “Stitch Head! That Blood Succor tonic completely cured my vampirism!” said the dog-cat-bat. “I owe you one!”

  “You’re welcome, Bertram,” replied Stitch Head.

  “Your Savagery Salve worked a treat, Stitch Head,” hissed the man-serpent. “I haven’t savaged anyone in ages!”

  “Glad I could help, Quentin,” Stitch Head said.

  So it was, through corridor after corridor, that Stitch Head found himself confronted by grateful creations.

  “Thank you so much for the eyedrops – I can finally see where I’m squirming!”

  “Thanks for finding my phantom limb – I knew I’d left it around here somewhere…”

  “Great work unblocking my toilet!”

  Indeed, despite the creations’ near-impossible monstrousness and stomach-wrenching ugliness, each one was more pleasant than the last. Stitch Head simply nodded humbly and carried on through the castle.

  At last he arrived at the charred remains of a thick door, all but hanging from its hinges. He pushed it open and stepped into the fire-blackened shadow of a once great hall. Inside, a dozen or so creations were busily carrying out repairs. In one corner, a massive, many-tentacled octo-monster patched up holes in the wall. In another, a colossal lizard-beast chewed up and swallowed mounds of rubble in its great jaws.

  “Uh, excuse me,” said Stitch Head, as a wheel-footed wolf-woman rolled past him at speed. “Have you seen the—?”

  “Look out BELOW!”

  Stitch Head looked up to see a huge chunk of wood tumble towards him. He leaped out of the way as the timber CRRASSH!-ed to the floor inches from where he’d been standing.

  “Not AGAIN! Did I SQUASH anyone THIS time?” said a familiar voice. Stitch Head got to his feet and looked up. His best friend, the Creature, clung precariously to a scorched timber frame – all that was left of the roof.

  “STITCH Head!” hollered the Creature, clambering down from the ceiling. The Creature was one of Professor Erasmus’s most impressive creations – a huge, hulking monstrosity with a breathtakingly terrifying combination of unpleasant elements, including a tail and a spare arm.

  “So what do you THINK?” it asked. “Pretty IMPRESSIVE work, eh? The EAST WING will be back to its GRIM, DEPRESSING self in NO time…”

  “You’re doing a great job, Creature,” replied Stitch Head. “Near-death experiences aside…”

  “I KNOW! I think I’ve found my CALLING – I LOVE being a BUILDING FOREMAN! The pressure, the responsibility, the YELLING…”

  The Creature began striding around the room, shouting things like, “YOU there! More FLICKER in the lamp! More CREAK in that DOOR!”

  “Actually, I don’t think you have to yell…” began Stitch Head.

  “It’s GREAT! I’m TELLING you, Stitch Head, you should BURN down the castle more OFTEN…”

  “It was an accident,” sighed Stitch Head, blushing a slightly darker shade of ash-grey than normal. “Actually, it’d be nice if everyone stopped going on about—”

  “No one holds it AGAINST you – it’s not EVERY day you get POSSESSED by an evil GHOST and try to DESTROY everything,” boo
med the Creature. “Anyway, the CREATIONS are all DELIGHTED to FINALLY have something to DO around here! Between that and all the HELP you’re DISHING out, you COULDN’T be more POPULAR! It’s like you’re KING of THE CASTLE!”

  “I don’t know about that…” said Stitch Head, blushing again. It still felt strange to be out of the shadows. He had spent most of his almost-life locked away in a small room in the castle. Part of him missed that peace and quiet.

  “At THIS rate,” continued the Creature, leaning down to Stitch Head and whispering in his ear, “you MIGHT even get a CELEBRITY VIP INVITE to the castle Christmas PARTY!”

  “Wait, aren’t you organizing the castle Christmas party?” asked Stitch Head.

  “YEP! It’s going to be GREAT! Haven’t had MY invitation yet, though … fingers CROSSED!”

  “Do I get an invite?” said a voice.

  Stitch Head and the Creature turned to see Arabella leaning against one of the many statues of Professor Erasmus that littered the castle. Arabella Guff was a girl from Grubbers Nubbin. She was fierce, fearless and the only human Stitch Head had ever met (except for Professor Erasmus) who wasn’t terrified of the castle and its inhabitants.

  “ARABELLA!” the Creature cried. “We haven’t seen you in AGES! Where have you BEEN? We’ve MISSED you!”

  “Been busy, ain’t I?” replied Arabella. She ruffled her already untidy hair and rubbed one of her boots on the back of her leg. Her pet monkey-bat, Pox (half-monkey, half-bat, entirely savage) fluttered excitedly down on to her shoulder and started gnawing at her ear. “So, what’s new, Stitch Head?” Arabella continued. “Burned down any castles lately?”

  “It was an accident…” sighed Stitch Head. “Anyway,” he continued, keen to change the subject, “how’s your nan, Arabella? Is – is she any better?”

  “That’s the thing…” said Arabella. She tugged at her black dress, and then kicked the professor’s statue. “Nan went and died on me.”

  “Your grandmother … died?” said Stitch Head.

  “Oh, ARABELLA!” The Creature stomped over to Arabella, picked her up in all three arms and gave her an enormous hug.

  “Oi! No cuddles! Don’t make me kick your nose off,” Arabella growled. The Creature nervously placed her back on the floor. “Anyhow, dying’s just one of them things … except maybe for you lot. See, Nan was really old and sickly. And she did get a bit annoying towards the end … all that ranting and raving … I don’t even think she knew her own name, let alone mine. Then there was the smell … how come old people always smell like cabbages and dead flowers?”

  “Well, uh, I’m sure she’s gone to a better place,” said Stitch Head.

  “Definitely,” nodded Arabella. “The graveyard’s nearly as scary as Castle Grotteskew. I love it there.”

  “That’s not exactly what I—Never mind,” said Stitch Head. A moment later, Arabella kicked the professor’s statue so hard it tumbled to the ground with a KR-RACK!

  “Uh, are you sure you’re going to be OK?” asked Stitch Head gently.

  Arabella scuffed the ground with her foot. “Thing is, without Nan, I ain’t got no one to look after me … not that I need looking after, mind!”

  “Of course not,” replied Stitch Head, hoping Arabella wouldn’t kick anything else.

  “But since I’ve got no family left, it’s the orphanage for me,” Arabella continued. “They’re coming for me tomorrow … so I’m here to say goodbye.”

  “What’s an AWFULAGE?” the Creature asked. “It sounds AWFUL.”

  “An orphanage is where children go when – when they have nowhere to go,” said Stitch Head quietly.

  “A prison for children, that’s what an orphanage is – they work you like dogs and feed you nothing but dried worms,” sighed Arabella. “Still, no bother. Ain’t nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Arabella, I’m sorry…” began Stitch Head. Arabella was the bravest creature he’d ever met – creation or otherwise – but losing her family, home and friends all at once? It was too much to bear.

  “CAN’T someone from GRUBBERS NUBBIN look AFTER you?” cried the Creature.

  “Yeah, right,” Arabella snorted. “They’ll be glad to see the back of me, on account of all the shouting and kicking I do.”

  Stitch Head scratched the back of his head and took a long, deep breath.

  “But … but what if you’re not there when they come for you?” he asked. “What if you just disappeared in the middle of the night, never to be seen again? How would the orphanage know where to find you?”

  “How d’you mean?” Arabella asked.

  “I mean, you could come and live with us,” Stitch Head replied. “Live here, in the castle.”

  “What? With all the monsters and creatures and mad things?” said Arabella. Her face suddenly lit up. “You mean it?”

  “Of course!” replied Stitch Head. “We can be your family.”

  “I – I dunno what to say,” said Arabella, quickly wiping a tear from her eye.

  “Say YES!” boomed the Creature happily. “Plus, you ARE kind of a HANDFUL – we’d be doing the AWFULAGE a FAVOUR, taking you OFF their HANDS…”

  “Shut your nostrils, boil-brain! I’ll kick you in the tail!” she barked.

  “It’s settled, then!” said Stitch Head. “When can you move in?”

  “Ain’t no time like the present! I’ll just need to get a few things from home – my spare kicking boots, my punching bag, my dolly…”

  “YOU have a DOLLY?” snorted the Creature.

  “Yeah, what of it?” snarled Arabella, clenching her fists. “That dolly was given to me by my old nan on the day she took me in! It means more to me than the boots on my feet! You got a problem with my dolly, you got a problem with me! Well, do you?”

  “No problem!” said Stitch Head quickly. “The Creature just really likes dolls, too, right Creature?”

  “They’re GREAT!” squeaked the Creature, adding, “PLEASE don’t KICK me,” for good measure.

  “Right, then, I’d best be off,” said Arabella. “Dawn’s not for ages – them orphanage folk’ll have to get up pretty early to catch me. I’ll be down and back before they roll into town!”

  “We’ll be waiting,” Stitch Head grinned.

  With that, Arabella raced down the corridor towards the Great Door. “Save me a nice room! Preferably one that ain’t too burned!”

  “It was a—Never mind,” sighed Stitch Head.

  Arabella couldn’t help but smile as she made her way back through the snow to Grubbers Nubbin. She had always felt more comfortable in the company of monsters and creations than people, anyway. This was the beginning of a new life, and there was nothing the folk from the orphanage could do about it.

  She hurried into her house and set about packing a bag to take to Castle Grotteskew. She put the bag on to her bed, and then reached under her pillow and pulled out her doll. It was surprisingly kempt (considering Arabella was anything but) and smartly dressed in a frilly blue dress and bonnet. She picked up her bag and took a deep breath.

  “Bye, Grubbers Nubbin,” she said. “And bye, Nan … you crusty old goat.”

  Arabella walked out of the house into the snow. The streets of Grubbers Nubbin were deserted and the lamplights extinguished. Arabella made her way down the street, combing her doll’s hair and ruffling her own.

  She was almost on the outskirts of town when she heard a noise. She turned back to see a horse and carriage trundle-crunching through the snow towards her. She slowed to a stop and watched the carriage do the same – directly outside her house. A hunched figure carrying a walking stick climbed stiffly out of the carriage. He hobbled through the snow to the door and rapped on it with his stick.

  “What’s all this?” she whispered to herself. She looked at the carriage. In the moonlight, she could just make out the words emblazoned in white upon its side:

  “Can’t be…” she said, looking up at the moon. “It ain’t time yet … they’ve come early!” Then, because she was a Guff through and through (and although she would immediately regret it), she shouted at the top of her voice, “Oi, you cheating, grotty, rot-brained slug! You’ve come early!”