Work Text:
[TAPE CLICKS ON]
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Caroline Park, regarding a spider infestation in her flat. Original statement given September 3rd, 2010. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
Before I start, I just want to make this abundantly clear: I am not afraid of spiders. I have never been afraid of spiders. We were never friends, and, (scoff) well, especially not now, not after what happened, but I still can’t say that I am at all afraid of them. Not like I am of bugs, at least.
I despise bugs. I’m a bit of a clean freak, you see, and there’s just something about bugs that makes my skin crawl and makes me want to go home and take a shower hot enough to get rid of the dirty prickly feeling of tiny legs on my skin. (shudders) Disgusting little creatures, they are.
“Oh, but Caroline, why don’t you hate spiders then?” you might ask. Well, see, spiders and I, we have a bit of an understanding, or at least I thought we had an understanding. Basically, as long as they don’t bother me and stay in their little corners, spinning their little webs and catching all the nasty insects that find their way into my house, then they get to live with me rent-free and I don’t tear apart their webs when I do come across them. I think the fact that they’re not strictly bugs, per-se, but arachnids, also helps? The distinction is important enough to me, at least, that I can coexist peacefully with them. Although, I think I might need to call an exterminator now…
Sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll get to the point, I promise.
So, basically, spiders are like free pest control. They eat the bugs that bother me, and I don’t bother them. We’ve had this arrangement for… basically as long as I could remember? Insects have always terrified me from childhood, especially the flying buzzing ones that have a tendency to sting. I do have an early memory of my mum telling me that no, spiders were not like other insects, they actually eat other insects and don’t tend to bother humans all that much. That memory is very closely followed by an incredibly vivid memory of attempting to lure a spider into my brother’s ant farm. It’s funny, my brother Andrew and I ended up with basically opposite temperaments: he hates spiders but loves his insects, and I despise insects while tolerating spiders.
Speaking of my brother, he’s actually the one that referred me to you after I told him what happened. I’ve never really been one for all that paranormal spooky stuff like him, but I figured I might as well try you guys, seeing as no one else seems to have any clear answers on what the hell happened.
And I’m rambling again. Sorry about that.
The first time I noticed anything weird happening was just after I’d moved into my new flat. I’d just gotten accepted at a job in a new location, so I had to move into a new place to avoid needing a several-hour-long commute to work every day. The move itself went pretty smoothly, and I was lucky enough that Andrew and my boyfriend Jordan helped me with most of it. My flat is on the third floor of a five-story building, just high up enough that the car noises outside didn’t bother me as much without feeling vertigo every time I looked out the window.
Upon moving in, I had immediately zeroed in on the spiderweb taking up a corner of the living room, and the spider nestled on it. It was a habit for every new place I go to, to always find the nearest spiderwebs in order to be able to avoid them in the future. This particular web was in an upper corner, out of the way and not bothering me, so I just sort of nodded at the spider, kind of in a “what’s up” sort of way, just acknowledging its existence. Dorky, I know.
At the time, I had brushed it off as just seeing or misinterpreting things, but now, I swear to you that that spider nodded back . Bobbed its little head at me and everything. I have no idea how I even saw it, given how tiny the thing was, but it did, and I saw it .
As I said, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it and just continued to unpack. Over the next couple of weeks, though, I noticed that the number of spiderwebs around my flat was slowly increasing. They all stayed to their out-of-the-way corners, so it wasn’t even me that noticed this at first, but Jordan, my boyfriend, who’s a severe arachnophobe. He’d admitted that he’d been feeling really jumpy in my flat lately, and that at one point, he’d even almost broken the toilet when the spider that lives above the sink landed on his head.
I, of course, didn’t really believe him at the time, thinking that his phobia was just causing him to exaggerate. We had a huge fight about it, which ended with him pointing to the spiderweb that spanned almost the entire top part of the entryway and screaming, “Does that look normal to you?!” To which I replied that yes, it was normal, and it had been there since I moved here. He got really mad then, insisting that no, it hadn’t been there when I moved, but eventually gave up and just left my flat in defeat.
In the weeks after that fight, I started getting mosquito bites, horrid, itchy things. Every morning I’d wake up to fresh bites, most of them in the most uncomfortable of places, and cursing the hell out of every single mosquito in existence became a habit as I made my morning coffee. None of the sprays or repellents I got seemed to work, which was maddening, but as far as bugs go, mosquitos were pretty low on my list of worries. Eventually, treating new bites just became another part of my routine as I prayed to God I didn’t contract malaria or something from one of those nasty blood-suckers.
And then, just as suddenly, they all disappeared. I stopped waking up with new mosquito bites, and as I checked the ceiling and crevices for wherever those little buggers liked to hide to squash them, I noticed that every single spiderweb in my house had one or two webbed up bundles in them. I somehow just knew that every single one had a mosquito inside of it, ready to be liquified and eaten by the spiders that caught them. The spiders themselves were all off on the sides of their webs, and I swear they were all looking at me, as if presenting their catches to me and saying, “ Look what I caught. Aren’t you grateful? ”
It was then that I had the fleeting thought of cleaning up a few of the webs, because maybe Jordan had been right and there were way too many than should be normal. That thought didn’t last, though, as I noticed that I was going to be late for work.
A week or so after that, there was an infestation in my building. Of what, I couldn't tell you, but it was definitely something that flew or made noise, because just the next morning after getting that email from my landlord, every single web in my flat boasted several large, bulbous, buzzing bundles, with their spiders each perched on top of one, legs twitching and eyes gleaming, ready to sink their fangs into it after ensuring I knew exactly what they’ve done for me.
I started to spend the least amount of time possible in my flat, to avoid having to face the spiders living in it. Every time I’d make eye contact with one and see a fresh catch in its web, still writhing as the spider’s poison worked its way through its tiny body, I felt an uncomfortable kinship with the damned insect, like I was the prey and the spider was waiting for me to get caught in its web next.
It was when my downstairs neighbor’s dog went missing that I was forced to admit to myself that whatever kind of fuckery was going on with the spiders in my flat was definitely of the supernatural variety. The dog was some kind of rat terrier-mix named Coco, and it was the meanest thing that ever existed. Hated everything , and I was no exception - every time I had the misfortune of leaving my flat for work at the same time as Coco’s owner was taking the little bastard out for a walk, it tried to attack me. Once it even managed to sink its teeth into my arm before it got pulled off, and my neighbor thankfully was a decent person about it and paid me back in hospital expenses. I still have a scar on my arm in the shape of little sharp teeth.
Well, two weeks ago, I woke up and headed back to my flat after spending the weekend at my brother’s, and it didn’t take me long to notice the large, dog-sized wad of web above my bathroom mirror. Based on the smell, Coco must’ve been missing for days .
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to just leave, get out of there, but I had to do something . I had to at least try . So I reached for the bleach and bug repellent under my kitchen sink, ready to cleanse my flat of spiders.
It took me at least seven tries to grab the bleach without it slipping out of my hands. I dropped it three more times as I carried it to the bathroom. My feet physically would not allow me to cross the threshold into the room.
I took that as the sign it was as I called in sick to work, packed another several days’ worth of stuff, and rented a hotel room. I had considered just going back to Andrew’s, but I’d already surprised him that weekend with my impromptu visit, and I hadn’t wanted to be any more of a bother.
I tried to call Jordan; it had been weeks since our fight, so I assumed he’d be fine with me staying with him for a few days while I got an exterminator to clear out the spiders in my flat. He didn’t answer; all of my calls just went straight to voicemail. None of my texts got any replies, either.
I did get a text from one of our mutual friends while trying and failing to get ahold of him. It was short, and it read: “ I’m so sorry. ” Then a link to a Facebook post from an account I didn’t recognize, but that didn’t matter, because when I clicked on the post, I was suddenly looking at a picture of my boyfriend, very obviously drunk, kissing some girl I didn’t know. The post was made two days after our fight.
I don’t really remember much after that except for the rage. How dare he. How dare he think he could just manipulate me like this, like I was some kind of idiot . How dare he just throw me away and move on without even so much as a parting word over what? A couple of spiders? Was he serious ?
Somehow, I ended up standing outside his house. I must’ve taken the Tube, I don’t know how else I would’ve gotten there without a car. I think I was planning to confront him, yell at him, properly break up with him, something , but my mind blanked even as my feet moved on their own and my arm reached up to ring the doorbell.
No one answered, but I moved to unlock the door anyway with my own copy of his key. I felt sick as I turned the handle, somehow already knowing exactly what I’d find inside.
The half-done, gently swaying web cocoon attached to the ceiling that held my long-dead boyfriend left very little to the imagination, and I could only watch in mute horror as the spiders swarmed his body, encasing it in web and slowly, wrapping him up until I could no longer see him from behind white spider silk. I watched, tears falling silently down my cheeks, and something warm spread its way through my veins. Like alcohol. Or venom. Vindication.
Every single spider in that room turned to look at me, and I knew they knew what I felt.
As soon as my legs felt steady enough to walk, I booked it to my brother’s home. I told Andrew almost everything; I couldn't bring myself to tell him about Jordan. His dead, bloated body slowly being consumed by strand after strand of web, and the sick satisfaction I felt as I watched. I didn’t tell him about the part of me that felt like he deserved it.
All I told Andrew was the text I’d gotten from my friend, and that Jordan wasn’t answering my calls. That I couldn't go back to my flat because of the spiders, and that I had nowhere else to go. Andrew directed me to you, so now here I am, writing my statement.
You know, now that I’ve written it all down, I’m not so sure that I want to get rid of the spiders. After all, they were just protecting me, ridding my life of pests. If not for them, I might’ve never known that Jordan was a cheating, lying scumbag. I suppose… they can stay, for now.
Still, it is nice to tell someone who would believe me. So… thanks for listening, I guess.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
(sigh) I, um… I found this statement while looking, or, well, Looking for anything to do with Annabelle. I know she said to not go to Hill Top Road again, but, (scoff) she never said anything about looking into her or the Web in general, so…
Either way, this statement was obviously… not what I was looking for. It is Web, that much is clear, but… um. Yes, well.
I don’t like Web statements. They always leave me feeling stiff, on edge— and of course, mistaking every single light touch against my skin for spiders crawling over me and being startled every time my hair falls into my eyes. (disgusted, sarcastic even) Lovely.
Er… not much followup was done for this one that I can see, but it seems like Caroline did confirm on a call a few years ago that she was, in fact, still living in the same flat, and that the spiders were, um… no longer a problem. I’m… not particularly keen on finding out whether or not that’s still the case.
[FAINT RISE IN STATIC]
ARCHIVIST
Oh. I… guess she still is. (exasperated sigh) Thanks for that, I suppose.
[STATIC RECEDES]
ARCHIVIST
You know, sometimes, it feels like I’m being mocked? It’s unclear how sentient the Eye really is, but the way it feeds me information, it… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling petty and vindictive.
Hm.
[THERE IS A SOFT THUDDING NOISE, AS THE ARCHIVIST PRESUMABLY LAYS HIS HEAD DOWN ON HIS DESK, FOLLOWED BY THE CREAKING GROAN OF A MAN IN DESPERATE NEED OF A HUG, OR THERAPY, OR JUST FIVE MINUTES OF NOT NEEDING TO WORRY ABOUT HIS DECISIONS HAVING WORLD-ENDING CONSEQUENCES.]
God, I need a nap. (sigh) End recording.
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