McGrave's Hotel by Steve Bryant Page B

comprehended at once that she had always been a spider, but her many capes in the Grand Lobby, her robe in the bedchamber, and her white gloves concealing a lack of human hands had obscured that bizarre condition. At least four of her legs had always been hidden from view. No wonder she walked so peculiarly.
    While anyone would rightly be frightened out of his socks at such a vision, James was doubly frightened, given his lifelong fear of spiders. Why did she have to be a spider?
    “My little man!” said Frau Grimm. “You have brought me my milk. And my honey. And my … snack. Did you come to discuss a secret?” Her smile was wider than ever.
    James couldn’t speak. What do you say to a giant spider? Especially one that a few hours ago bit off the head of its husband?
    “Do tell me your little sweetheart is nearby,” said Frau Grimm. “Right outside that door, perhaps? Would you like to invite her in? Or shall I? She had the most darling little hairclip. Like a spider.”
    “She’s not there,” James said. Quietly, he struggled against the web, but it refused to release its hold.
    “I shall call her, yes?” the spider lady said. “Oh, liebchen! ”
    To James’s surprise, it was not Fawn who entered the room at that moment, but the Beaumonts. They didn’t bother to open the door, but melted right through it, like water passing through a screen door.
    “Oh, Blaine, dear,” said Mrs. Beaumont. “Look, it’s the Bridal Suite. How divine. Remember our honeymoon?”
    “How could I forget it, Martha?” he replied. “You were the cat’s meow.”
    Apparently unsure as how to react to this ghostly intrusion, Frau Grimm crouched in the shadows of a corner. Her legs folded up into a conveniently small package.
    James meanwhile used the intrusion as cover to slip his free hand into his trousers pocket. He fetched his jackknife and flicked the large blade open with one agile thumb.
    “I say, Martha.” Mr. Beaumont added. “What, pray tell, is that? There in the corner. We shall have to complain to management about the size of the cockroaches.”
    James took this awkward moment, with the spider lady frozen in a corner, as the opportunity to bolt. He sliced through the webbing with two quick swipes of his knife and leaped toward the door. Frau Grimm was not quick enough to bar his escape, seemingly confused as she was by the two semitransparent lovebirds that had barged into her domain, talking of cockroaches .
    “Run!” James commanded. He snatched Fawn’s hand, and they began running full tilt toward the elevators.
    “James, what is it?” she said, keeping up as fast as she could.
    James pushed the Down button frantically, but the doors seemed to ignore his urgency. They didn’t budge.
    “Spider” was his one-word answer.
    They turned, looked back down the hallway, and gasped as the thing suddenly appeared.
    “Make that a big spider,” he said. “I hate spiders.”
    The spider with a lady’s head looked about, saw them, and charged immediately. It amazed James that anything so large and so terrifying could move so fast.
    “It’s coming!” Fawn shouted.
    As she spoke, the doors behind them finally crept open.
    They leaped backward into the elevator and quickly pressed L for Lobby, but this time the doors failed to close automatically. Frantically pressing the Close Door button didn’t help: the doors stood maddeningly wide open as the enormous spider seemed to pick up speed. Trapped in the exposed chamber, James and Fawn clung to each other and awaited the attack.
    Fortunately, seconds before the creature reached them, the doors condescended to close, followed by a terrific wham as Frau Grimm smacked into the closed portal. There was a brief vertical lurch, and the elevator at last began its slow descent. For the third time that night, James wished Mr. Clancy could do something about the contraption’s velocity.
    Above them, they could hear a horrendous wrenching of twisted metal.
    “Oh, bad