The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (44 page)

“
Then
beware. Desperation can make you put your trust in the wrong people.”

“
Like
you?”

“
I’m
willing to make a bet that I’m the only person who tells you
any truth, including yourself. People are never so easy to fool as
when you are giving them what they want.”

“
I
don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say,
trying to swallow down the sour taste in my mouth. “People keep
taking everything from me.”

“
Why
are you just standing there?” Kasem asks sharply.

Confused,
I spin around to Kasem, but he’s not looking at me. The boy who
always delivers rice paper notes stands at the bar, staring at the
floor as usual.

I
stand petrified. Suppressing my sudden urge to grab the boy and shake
him screaming
‘how
much did you just hear?
’
I force my hands to my side.

The
boy hands Kasem a rice paper note and ducks between two customers.

“
Probably
doesn’t speak English,” Kasem says, possibly to himself.

As
I turn to force myself to start taking orders again I remind myself
that, like Stephen said, Kasem wants to isolate me. He’s
obviously trying to get me to turn on Stephen, by accident or out of
mistrust. But the whole conversation sits badly with me; through the
half an hour remainder of the shift, the drive back to the bungalow
and the entire time I lie in bed awake I can’t lose the nervous
energy brewing in my lower abdomen. The whole evening Stephen keeps
his new-this week friendly distance from me. He keeps telling jokes
to Kasem that I don’t have the brainpower to follow. Clapping
Kasem on the back, laughing, you’d almost think they were
friends.

I’m
tense as I have been since my conversation with Kasem at the bar. Now
lying in bed, I keep worrying that Stephen will give me some note or
signal about his plans, providing Kasem with the proof he’s
looking for. Like every other night this week, when the lights go out
Stephen doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.

In
the moments before sleep these last nights, alone in my bed, I can
never stop my thoughts. They run away with me preaching nonsensical
half-formed ideas. Showing me horrific memories and images I
instantly forget. Digging my fingers into my pillow, I bite my lip
until all that I can concentrate on is the pain. I whisper count down
from fifty, and then start from a hundred when fifty isn’t
enough. As pathetic as it is, I keep wishing Stephen would climb onto
my bed and hold me, or even my sister... someone to guard me against
my own dark thoughts.

After
another count of a hundred I look around, I’m still in the
bungalow; but daylight streams through the curtains and I know I’m
dreaming.

“
Hey,”
rasps Stephen from my bed. He sits propped up against several
pillows, though his bruises don’t look much better than my last
dream. “Come sit with me.”

I
climb next to him, curling up. “How are you feeling?”

He
coughs. “Better.”

“
Liar,”
I say, into his shoulder. “We should check the back of your
head,” I say, “I want to see if any more demons have
turned into red dots.” What I really mean is that I want to
check if they are
all
red dots. I broke the deal. Any second now... any moment... the gates
of Hell will open.

“
Didn’t
you check before, when I was pretending to be asleep?” he
whispers.

“
Pretending
?”
I say, about to elbow him but catching myself and just shaking my
head. “I don’t think I checked in the right spot...I
couldn’t find the dots and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“
Can
we check later? I’m comfortable now.” He wraps his arm
around my shoulders.

“
I
just have this feeling...”

“
Still?”

“
Like
something went terribly wrong and I can’t figure it out.”

“
Don’t
you think that it would be safe to say that everything went terribly
wrong?” He says.

“
Yeah,
but, more than that... I feel like something is coming for me... for
us.” Then a sudden and totally consuming shock of terror shoots
through me.

My
arm sears. My eyes open. My dream vanishes.

The
terror remains.

Day
Thirty-Four

“
You
okay, friend?” Stephen asks.

Thinking
that Stephen asked me, I ask, “Hrrr?” around a mouth full
of spicy chicken curry.

“
Kasem,
are
you alright
?”
Stephen asks, articulating.

As
the Half-Moon Festival in the central jungle of Koh Phangan has
claimed all our club patrons, Pom gave Stephen and me the night off.
Since I have no desire to see the Half-Moon Festival and our hostel
restaurant is blessedly vacant of people I led the guys over and told
Kasem that he was buying me dinner.

Kasem,
as usual, sat in whatever corner was nearest but separate from
Stephen and me. As I turn to where I’d been ignoring his
presence I just catch sight of the boy who delivers Kasem rice paper
notes running out of the restaurant.

Kasem’s
dark bronze skin bleaches to the point where his web tattoos almost
disappear. He doesn’t seem to be breathing. Then, Kasem’s
breaths heave out of him, each a wheezy battle for exhalations. His
glasses slide down the bridge of his nose as he stares at a spot on
his arm.

Kasem’s
pale pallor then darkens to a sickly olive. As if the return of color
suddenly unhitched Kasem’s web tattoos, they roll down his
face, bunching at his neck like a collar of tangled web. I blink at
the difference in Kasem’s face. Except for the off coloring,
his face looks almost normal; the web tattoos sagging off looking to
have caught and clotted on his collar bone.

Shock
lights across Kasem’s usually unflappable features; shock and
terror as he stares down at a large spider tattoo busily working blue
strands into his web tattoos.

“
Kasem?”
I say as I approach him slowly on my knees, not sure what reaction to
expect. “Kasem, what’s going on?”

He
doesn’t answer, just stares down at his spider who has now
woven bright blue threads throughout his hand and continues working
the blue threads up his arm.

The
sound of Kasem’s sun glasses hitting on the floor must wake him
because he suddenly looks up from his stupor. He leans in to the
spider and commands it, “Stop! Weave out the blue threads,
listen to my command and obey.”

Spider
legs only weave faster, its little body moving so fast it looks like
blurs of black on the white and blue web. In minutes, Kasem’s
whole arm is woven with blue. Kasem yells at the spider, commands it,
shouts Thai words at it. He closes his eyes, straining until I think
he’ll pass out. He even smacks it, but the spider just works
faster.

Stephen
and I sit, watching, both of our gazes glued on Kasem’s spider.
I don’t think either of us have any idea what is going on or
what to do. As the spider feverishly works, the web keeps rolling in
on itself until it hangs, sagging below where his shirt covers. In
less than fifteen minutes, every bit of web tattoo that I can see is
woven with blue.

Kasem’s
slit pupils find my circular ones. “They’re going to be
coming for me now.” He says, “We need to go get your
‘sense-deprivation’ sunglasses. And Nathan, you’ll
need to bring your medical bag.” The only thing signifying that
he’s not as calm as he always seems to be is the slight raspy
sound in his voice. He throws down some baht on the nearest table
before trying to use it to stand. The table tips over and Kasem and
the money tumble onto the floor.

Stephen
and I simultaneously jump over to help Kasem to his feet. Kasem,
obviously unhappy at being strenuously lifted to his feet, steps away
from us only to fall forward, needing to catch himself on a banister.

After
righting himself, he trudges out of the restaurant. A dozen feet from
our bungalow Kasem collapses, throwing up a cloud of sand. He grunts
out, “Okay, Nathan, you can help me.”

Ten
minutes later, I sit on my bed beside Stephen. At Kasem’s
insistence I wear the stupid ‘sense-deprivation’
sunglasses and only stop myself from panicking from the senselessness
by leaning into Stephen’s hand with my elbow. As if he can
sense my anxiety his fingers squeeze twice.

A
pressure on my back lightly urges me to stand. Stephen’s hand
gently leads me across a short distance, he slows and I tentatively
test the floor with my foot, find that it’s the bungalow
stairs, and then descend. Again my time, senseless, is a confusing
trek over sand and cement. We ride in some type of vehicle; we
transfer to what I think rocks like a boat, and then travel more.
Stephen’s hand stays gently secured to my elbow; his presence
anchors me to reality when senselessness threatens to consume me.

We’re
almost there
,
I keep thinking,
I
remember this rocky terrain, we’re almost there.
But we’re not almost there, not even close. And then I feel
smooth flooring beneath my flip flops and we descend a long
staircase.

After
walking some distance more, we stop. Stephen’s hand releases
me, then I feel fingers on my cheeks, but they pull away. I keep
waiting but no one takes my sunglasses off; darkness seems natural,
too natural to me. Suddenly the image of my body becoming the
darkness, a human black hole, has me reaching for the glasses myself.

A
hand grabs mine before I can take the glasses off and gently but
firmly pulls my arm down to my side.

The
Spider must have ordered my glasses to stay on; he’s keeping me
senseless, helpless, and vulnerable, exercising his power over me.
Bastard
.

I’m
so angry my hands shake; but knowing that The Spider likes to
break
women, I don’t give him the satisfaction of fighting his
control.

My
head suddenly feels hot, too hot and the wish that I could be that
black hole, sucking in the entire web, the entire world into my
darkness- slides through my mind. Bile burns my throat as I gasp for
air. Something within me, that is not me, stirs.

Almost
falling forward, I grab for anything, anyone.

I
might be talking, I might be screaming, arms wrap around me and I
writhe. I force down whatever it is, whatever is in me, concentrating
all my will power; it gives a small pulse, then snaps shut.

And
then there’s light flooding in; I blink up at Stephen who holds
me in his arms, my glasses withdrawn.

“
Her
mind did not last long,” says a voice I instantly recognize
from the space beside us. I don’t look up at The Spider as he
continues, “Even my weakest women last longer than what... two
hours...three? This one would be very easy to break.”

I’m
too busy gasping in air to fully grasp the insinuation in his
statement. When I do, the idea that I might just be going crazy is
almost a comfort, or it would be if I could possibly consider it. I
know there was something in me, the void, the abyss, but sentient.
And I immediately know what it must be, the same void that filled me
last summer...

Within
me is a gateway to Hell and I can open it.

The
web beside us shifts, and when I examine it, I see the many large
black and red spiders clinging onto the web while it moves like a
canopy in a fierce wind.