Short Story: The Birthday Box (part 1)

Short Story: The Birthday Box (part 1)

It was now just one week before Lydia Charlesworth’s seventh birthday. Her parents, James and Victoria Charlesworth, were already getting excited about the big day for their daughter. They were planning a party for Lydia, and many of her friends from primary school would be invited to the house. After the morning spent with her mum and dad and her grandparents, there was a celebration arranged for the children. Lydia’s parents were planning to serve juices for the kids and prepare birthday foods (including jelly and ice cream). Also, they were planning to set up a bouncy castle and paddling pool in the back garden.

Lydia’s father James worked as a museum curator. He earned a generous salary for his position, as he worked with valuable and rare antiquities, and Lydia’s mother didn’t have to work for a living. She was home on that particular morning, a week before her daughter’s birthday, when there was a loud knock at the front door.

It was the postman with a special delivery parcel. He had brought a large rectangular-shaped package wrapped with brown paper, with their address written on it. Victoria signed for it and took the parcel inside. Their address was marked clearly, in typed print, on the label, and it was addressed to ‘Mr James Charlesworth Esq’.

Victoria tore open the brown paper wrapping. Underneath that layer, she found a plain cardboard box. On top of the box there was a piece of paper, attached by sticky tape. It was a typed note, with James’ name on it. She carefully tore it away from the box, before opening the note up and reading the following:

Dear James,

I do hope you accept this gift, a present for your daughter on her very special 7th birthday.

My client wishes to keep his identity discreet, and therefore it shall not be revealed, but this gift is a reflection of your services rendered.

Many happy returns to your daughter.

That was it. There was no clue as to the identity of whoever had sent the present. Victoria frowned, bemused. ‘My client wishes to keep his identity discreet’- how odd, she thought. It was a bit of a mystery. She picked up the parcel and found that it did not feel that heavy. She took it upstairs to her husband’s study. She would ask him about it when he arrived back home from work.

In the meantime, she went to pick Lydia up from school. The little girl was already excited about her birthday and looking forward to having her friends round for the party. She sat in the back seat of the car and talked about the games they would play, like ‘Pass the Parcel’ and ‘Musical Chairs’. She was a very pretty child, having inherited her blonde hair and blue eyes from her mother, rather than the dark looks of her father.

When James got home from work, his wife showed him the mysterious box in his study. He was as mystified by it as his wife was. “I can’t think who it would be,” he told her. “A client would have mentioned something to me at work. I don’t think I even mentioned Lydia’s birthday to anyone. How strange.”

“Do you think…it’s alright?” Victoria asked, biting her lip. “I mean…maybe we should open it and see what it is? We can always wrap it up again. I think we should check it out.”

“You want to?” James glanced at her, his eyes made smaller by his bi-focal glasses. “It would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it?”

“James, I want you to open it,” his wife said firmly. It was not just the fact that the sender was anonymous. There was something sinister about the mystery, something that instinctively made her feel wary. She didn’t want her daughter opening this mystery box without her or James having checked it first.

James picked up the box and held it up to his ear. He heard nothing. “You think it’s a bomb?” he asked, laughing.

“Don’t joke about things like that,” Victoria said, admonishing him. “Open it.”

James shook the parcel hard, wondering if he might break what was inside, if it was something delicate. Nothing made a sharp cracking noise, but he did hear something else. He frowned. It had been almost…a scuttling noise. Like something was alive and moving in there. Would someone have put a kitten or a puppy in a box? There were no holes for breathing.

He wondered if he had imagined it, but decided it was probably best to open the thing. The lid was taped shut, and he picked up a pair of scissors to slice through the tape. Once he had done that, the two sides of the lid were slightly ajar. Cautiously he opened the lid…

But he was not cautious enough to stop the thing inside leaping out at him. He cried out and staggered back from the box, waving his arms frantically. Victoria Charlesworth stared in horror and disbelief at the creature climbing up her husband’s chest, and screamed. It was a huge spider, the largest she had ever seen. It was a yellow-gold colour, with eight furred legs and a large body. It was at her husband’s neck in a second and she saw its horrible sharp fangs that dripped poison. It sank those fangs into him, piercing his jugular. That was the moment when she shook off her paralysis.

She grabbed the nearest object to her- the laptop on her husband’s desk- and pulled the wires out before swinging it at the spider, brushing it off her husband’s chest. When the laptop made contact with a meaty thud, she realised how heavy the creature was. The spider dropped on to the floor, landing perfectly on its eight legs, where it immediately scuttled for the door. Aware she was still screaming, Victoria jumped toward the creature and tried to stamp on it. It avoided her foot and instead stopped at the doorway where it reared up and hissed toward her. It was a gigantic spider – nearly forty centimetres high when it reared up on its hind legs- and it was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. She had never even seen a tarantula or another species of exotic spider that was supposed to be that big.

“Mummy, mummy, what’s wrong?” Oh god, it was her daughter’s voice, Victoria thought with a feeling of panic. Lydia was on the stairs. Suddenly Victoria remembered who the contents of the box had been intended for. Someone wanted my daughter to open that parcel, she thought with a sense of disbelief and horror. It was for services rendered by my husband.

“Lydia, get out of the house! Quickly! Get out and run outside into the garden! Go!” Victoria screamed.

The giant spider was moving again on its hideous legs and Victoria ran after it, watching it scuttle out of her husband’s study and across the landing. It wasn’t just big, it was very fast. Victoria grabbed one of her shoes that had been placed on the landing next to its twin and threw it toward the spider, which it managed to swerve and avoid, just as it had got out of the way of her foot. It ran through an open doorway into the bedroom that she shared with her husband. Triumphantly, she slammed the door shut, trapping it inside.

“Mummy?” Her daughter had reached the top of the stairs. She had ignored her mother’s request to get out of the house. “What’s happening, mummy?” Lydia was plainly alarmed by the terrified expression on her mother’s face, and she began to cry.

“Nothing! Nothing is wrong sweetie,” Victoria said, going straight to her daughter and hugging her. “Please go back downstairs.” She needed to check on James and see what his condition was like after suffering that spider bite.

“Why were you screaming mummy? What happened?” Lydia was asking, as her mother returned to the study.

“Go downstairs, Lydia!” Victoria said sharply. “Now!” Detecting that tone in her mother’s voice which meant there would be severe trouble if she disobeyed, Lydia complied with her mother’s request.

When she saw James again, Victoria was deeply alarmed by his appearance. He was still slumped on the floor, and she could plainly see two red spots in his neck where the disgusting thing had bitten him. Black circles had formed around his eyes already and he looked deathly pale. He looked at her with glazed, feverish eyes.

“What …was…that?” he gasped.

“Hold on!” she cried out. She ran to the phone extension on his desk and dialled 999. She immediately asked for an ambulance, giving their address and saying that her husband had been bitten by an exotic spider. Under the circumstances, she was able to keep relatively calm and keep her composure. She was aware that she was in shock and close to hysteria.

She then went downstairs to comfort her daughter, who was scared and wondering what was going on. She told Lydia that daddy was very sick, and that he would have to go to the hospital. She did not mention the spider. Their dog, a Yorkshire terrier named Jack, came up and licked Lydia’s hand, sensing the distress of his owners. After a few minutes to think while she waited for the ambulance, Victoria made two more phone calls. She called her mother- Lydia’s grandmother – and requested her to ask Lydia’s grandfather to bring his car and take Lydia to stay with them. The second phone call she made from her husband’s study, after going upstairs to check on him again and telling Lydia to stay where she was. His condition had not deteriorated that much, but his eyes were closed and he was breathing very slowly. Deeply worried, Victoria made her second phone call, and this one was to the police. She told them what had happened, describing the details of the box, the message and what had been inside. She shuddered as she remembered what it had been like, and thinking of it trapped in their bedroom. The police officer on the telephone told her that he would bring Pest Control or the RSPCA to come and remove it.

Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance came to take James to hospital. Victoria held his hand as he was carried to the ambulance. She told him that she would come to the hospital after she had sorted everything out at the house, but he had already lost consciousness. The paramedic, a kind experienced man in his fifties, assured her that they’d seen cases like this before and that everything would be fine with her husband.

Ten minutes after that, Lydia’s grandparents came to take the distressed little girl to stay with them. Victoria was just relieved that she could get her daughter away from the house. She did not want to risk anything else happening to her. Where were the animal people to deal with that bloody spider?

Victoria’s parents were full of questions, but she didn’t know where to start. In the end, she lied and said that James was bitten by something nasty that had come accidently with an artefact at work, and he’d started to feel ill. Her parents expressed their concern. Victoria attempted to comfort her daughter, who was sobbing in the back seat, and told her that she would come to see her and let her know how daddy was doing soon.

Half an hour after Lydia had been driven away by her grandparents, a police officer and an animal expert arrived. The animal specialist was from the RSPCA apparently. He was wearing white work clothes and carrying equipment in a case. He told her his name was Jeff. He asked Victoria where the spider was and she told him she’d shut it in their bedroom. She showed him where their bedroom was, and he prepared to investigate in there, bringing his equipment with him. Jack the terrier was barking, alarmed at the unfamiliar strangers in the house. Meanwhile, the police officer told her his name was PC Andy Green. He was interested in the parcel that James had received and so she took him to her husband’s study.

“We’ll get this to forensics and we might be able to find something,” the policeman told her, writing in his notebook. “We’ll also check with the post office and see where that recorded delivery for your address came from.”

The animal expert, Jeff, had been moving around in the bedroom she’d shut the spider in. She had been able to hear the sound of cupboards opening and closing and his heavy footsteps walking across the floor. As she and PC Green came out on the landing together, he emerged from the room. He had something in a glass tank, placed at the bottom. It was a yellow-gold colour.

Victoria felt disgust and panic welling in her stomach and she stepped back in fright. Jeff saw her reaction and immediately said: “Don’t worry. It’s dead. It had probably been stuck in that box for days.”

Victoria edged slowly to the tank, trembling as she did so. PC Green had got there before her. “Looks quite dead to me as well,” he said. Gaining in confidence, Victoria looked down inside the tank. At the bottom there was a yellow-gold spider. It was clearly not moving. But…she looked closely and intently examined the size of it. She clearly remembered the size of the thing that had been on her husband’s chest and which she had chased out of the room. It had been huge, nearly forty centimetres long. This spider was reasonably big, bigger than a normal house spider, but it was not big enough. This was not the same spider. But how could that be?

“This isn’t the spider,” Victoria said, feeling agitated. “The…thing that came out of that box was bigger than this.”

PC Green stared at her. “So…there were two spiders?” he asked slowly.

“No, I don’t know…I just know this isn’t the spider that bit my husband. This one is too small.”

“I’ll go back in there and look again,” Jeff said. He put the tank down and went back into the room. Victoria bent down and stared at the dead spider in the tank again. It was the same colour as the spider she’d seen earlier but…it just seemed smaller. But she couldn’t have shut two spiders in her bedroom at the same time, could she? Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her. She hoped that the two men did not think that she was paranoid.

PC Green was watching her closely, and he seemed to read her mind. “You know…what happened was obviously very shocking for you and her husband, but sometimes maybe your memory has exaggerated what you saw. The spider looks smaller now, but maybe at the time it just seemed like it was bigger.”

“Maybe,” Victoria murmured. Minutes later, Jeff came back to them and confirmed what they had both been considering to be the case. “The room is empty, as far as I can tell. I can’t find anything else, certainly not a big spider. I moved that wardrobe, combed underneath the bed, moved the desk of drawers out. I checked all the places that they normally hide. I only found that creature in that tank there and you said there was only one spider.”

Victoria accepted his words, although she did wander into her bedroom and have a cautious look around herself. She saw nothing out of the ordinary and so assumed she must have been hysterical and over-estimated the size of the spider that had attacked James. She followed the two men back downstairs, where PC Green offered to give her a lift to the hospital. Jeff said he would take the dead spider back to the RSPCA offices where they would get the species of spider identified, as he didn’t recognise it.

When she arrived at the hospital, she received news that she was dreading: her husband had slipped into a coma, but the doctors were doing everything they could to revive him. The doctor on duty wanted to know what type of spider had bitten James, but she told him the RSPCA had collected it and they didn’t know yet.

Victoria decided to stay at the hospital for now. She phoned her parents and spoke to her daughter, who kept asking about Daddy and whether he would be well again for her birthday. Victoria asked her mother to bring Lydia back the next morning, so she could get her ready for school. She rang James’ parents and left a message on their answer phone, as they were currently in the Seychelles. She was not looking forward to the conversation with them and attempting to explain what had happened. Whenever something went wrong they were always quick to blame her, even when it was something that was nothing to do with her.

At 11.30pm there was finally good news. James was out of his coma, and he was sleeping and breathing normally according to the nurse. His fever had dropped and he was back to his normal temperature. This was common, said the nurse, and James would probably be 100% again in a few days. Victoria went to see him, feeling utterly relieved. She sat with him for a little while, watching him as he quietly slept in his hospital bed, his eyelids fluttering as he dreamed. Finally, tiredness crept up on her and she decided to go home and get some rest before tomorrow, and feed Jack who would be hungry. She’d take Lydia to school tomorrow and then return to the hospital. Before she left the room, she sent a text to her parents, to let them know that James was going to be alright.

She took a taxi from the hospital back to their house. It was almost 1am when she arrived home. To her surprise Jack did not come running and barking to greet her excitedly, when she opened the door. She had left him inside, and normally he always did that when they arrived back from somewhere, particularly if he’d missed a meal.

She looked for him, and eventually she found him on the landing. He was lying on his back, making sad whimpering noises. She sat beside him, wondering what was wrong. Then she looked at his belly. There were two red spots there on his chest, and there was blood trickling out on to the floor. The two spots looked alarmingly like fang bites.

With a dawning sense of horror, Victoria realised that he had been fine when she had left, and that these were fresh wounds on her dog. There was still a spider in the house.

Some sixth sense or awareness at that moment, made her look above her, and up at the ceiling.

James slept a strange, deep, unnatural sleep. It was the deepest sleep he had experienced in a long time. Nevertheless, within that sleep he dreamed. They were vivid dreams, filled with bizarre and exotic images.

He was in a vast, dark, underground chamber. He was surrounded by other people, dressed in dark cloaks. They were bowing and praying to something, a strange construct…all around them he could see things. It was like a cavern of stone and rock…he could hear people chanting something…the chanting was strange and the words were unrecognisable. He heard a word that was reverently said, a name repeated endlessly. Arachne, Arachne…

Around him he could see webs, glittering against crevices in the rock. At the front of the cavern, he saw what the worshippers or followers here were praying to. He saw a statue, a design of a half-woman, half-creature. The visage of the woman was terrible. Her mouth was wide open in a vicious snarl, and she possessed sharp fangs. She had eight limbs.

His mind recalled a memory, a recent one…a silver artefact that the museum had received from distant lands. It had been an ugly evil-looking statuette of a spider-woman or a spider-goddess. It had been taken from an archaeology expedition in the Middle East, James remembered. Days after the museum had received this artefact, something else had happened. He’d had a letter from a Mr Aziz, demanding return of the statuette. James had refused. Then Mr Aziz had arrived in person. He’d demanded that the statuette be returned, saying that it was connected to a person of great power and that James should not insist on keeping it. The man had seemed insane and somewhat scary in his manner, and James had ensured that he was escorted from the premises…the statuette took its place in their Middle Eastern collection…

The statue of the woman in the cavern was the same, but black, and more terrible. Did it seem like her eyes glowed? And what were the things scuttling and crawling around where he stood? He looked down to see, and saw that it was a multitude of spiders around his feet, covering the floor, his shoes and creeping up his leg…hundreds and hundreds of spiders…her children…

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