Ghaar-tic

Hey, could you go to and give the attic a bit of a clean? It's been a while.

The Good Lady asked innocently whilst vacuuming anything that could possibly be vacuumed. Which, when I was hungover, seemed to be rather a lot.

I looked at her to see if she was joking.

Huh?

She switched off the vacuum cleaner, it's incessant howl trailing off like the emptying whine of an over inflated sheep's bladder.

The attic, it could do with a clean?

I gazed at her in hungover horror. Had she forgotten the last time? The thing in the attic...

The Thing that should not be?

It was sometime in January, frost lay heavy on everything like the dried sperms of a giant Wizard.

I climbed the attic stairs armed only with a small brush and dustpan. It was dark up there, the wan twilight of a Scottish winter's afternoon barely piercing the murk through the small window.

I flicked on the overhead light and it's energy saving micro-wattage grudgingly spilled forth less light than a miser's candle.

_{^{Miser's candle as in a stingy person's actual wax candle and not to be mistaken for the short length of hose jammed full of cheap soap commonly used as a sex toy by Bulgarian men.}}

I scurried about. Half heartedly scoofing the odd bit of dust and oose into the dustpan. I was almost finished and it had only taken five minutes. I gave myself an enthusiastic high five and prepared to leave.

It was then, I noticed the shadow by the small window.

Perhaps I had always noticed it but now I couldn't ignore it.

I found myself approaching it, a cold sweat packing on my the back of my neck. What was wrong with me, it was just a shadow, wasn't it?

I slowly reached out and gave it a flick with my little brush...

The shadow melted and spread out like ink on tissue paper. Impossibly fast it started to separate into what looked like threads.

I was transfixed by it, rooted to the spot. Individual details started to become clear. It had been a spiders nest and what looked like a thousand baby spiders were scuttling like evil monsters in all directions.

'No.... No!!!!!' I skidded backwards on my handsome but terribly frightened arse along the carpet to the narrow stairwell downward.

As I did, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the shadow that remained had started to move...

Mummy Spider

Impossibly huge she screamed toward me. I ran, babbling nonsense phrases and squealing like young dog in a ball pool.

Daddy-Bear, are you alright?

The Good Lady was looking at me with some concern.

I gave myself a shake and looked straight at her, my eyes red and haunted.

Nope. Not going up there. Send one of the children instead.