Is it dead?

L. called me at work on Monday of this week out of breath and stressed. “I killed a beast!” she spat. “A giant spider I found in Caleb’s room near his closet.” The corpse still available for viewing when I arrived at the apartment, I can confirm it was a beast. “It was this long!” she said, holding first and thumb apart some two inches. “Big enough to roast,” I replied in jest. What three pieces were left after scraping it from the carpet—L. had beaten it to death with a mop—went legs-and-fangs into the loo. My gosh what a monster! Not only, but in its death-dash, the creature had run behind a bookshelf, a shelf that L moved under adrenaline two feet from the wall while it was still full of books. Don’t mess with mommy!

Since then, “The Beast” has occupied quite a good deal of our minds. Both L and I are double-vigilant, our eyes sweep constantly across corners, walls and windows, ceilings and doors. L talks about it the way men tell hunting stories over tribal fires. It haunts us like a ghost. We expect to see it fleeing akimbo across the carper floor every time we go into that room. Perhaps the tips of its legs caress our feet in the dark. I woke up this morning smashing a giant, black tarantula in my dreams, a brass lampstand coming down down on its rubbery, twisted back. (And people wonder why I’m arachnophobic.) What are you, you filth? Not an insect. Not a lizard or mammal or bird. An eating thing, a creeping thing, sucking at marrow-joints in the dark. A shadow; chaos; dissolution; absolute death; the disfigured shape; demonic madness; deep black water; a void; the alien; sadism; blindness; the horrible.