Bird shrieks and fly off, so I look up. But then the ground shudder and that didn’t come from sky. Boom the ground go again and more birds take off from branches above. The posts are jerking up and down, stomping into the ground and causing the rumble. The boys don’t move. Above, the branches and leaves twist and turn and sway and break, even though there is no storm wind. The posts are still jerking and stomping, leaning left then right, and then just so, canopy sink down then rise back up, and something black, like hands, start to rip away the leaves. A shrieking rush through the air and hit my ears. The posts, already tall as trees, now reveal more, a lower leg as long as the leg, another just as long going up into the ceiling that threaten to drop again. I stand there looking at this confounding house when I see the house looking at me. Those joints are joints but those posts are not posts. The black fuzz is not fuzz. The shriek is not wind slipping through tight space. The black arms ripping away leaves are arms, swinging from the sides of black body with a black head with one giant horn at the back. He rip away the last branches to show all of himself, and below his belly sprout a huge, fat bulb like the end of a wasp. Spider. This can’t be, I know I say out loud. But here he is, the darkchild, the black spider boy, now both man and spider and ten times taller than the last time I see him. Not a face but a snout, with only the red eyes left over from a boy’s face. Three houses stacked on top of each other still wouldn’t be as tall as him.
He can’t remember me, I whisper over and over. He can’t remember me, he won’t remember me, he can’t remember me. He see me and shriek. I run but there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. He break free from the last branches and chase. I want to look back, I want to see the small trees and branches he is breaking apart. I head for the one patch of trees, hoping it would slow him down, but the crackling, breaking, shrieking, and stomping is coming up right behind me. Dagger, machete, and a stick, what in all the fucks I going to do with a dagger, machete, and a stick? He catching up to me, his shadow is upon me already. A post fall out of sky and jab the ground right in front of me. I run into it hard, and fall back on the ground. I scramble backward, under him. His body, the shell moving and locking, the legs scrambling like they each have their own mind. I try to run, hoping that a body this large take too long to turn, but he just turn his head and scramble backward after me. I come to a patch of trees hoping to hide under them, but he climb over and catch me on the other side. He kick out one of his legs, which hit me in the back, sweep me up in the air, and toss me off into some wild bush. Then just so, dust whip up—no, he is whipping up the dust and is not until it settle that I see that he spin around. A hand come out the dust and punch me down. Wind blowing the dust away. My wind not coming though I am begging and screaming for it. He lower himself and bend over until his head right over me. No face, just the eyes. Two long fangs where the mouth would be, and between them his feelers start to rattle. Then he lunge, his fangs snapping, and I swing the machete. He jump back quick. I run and don’t get far before something wet hit my back leg, wet and milky that run hard in a blink. He hit me with his web, and was reeling me back in. I know I am screaming, I know it. He pull me right back under him and as I get near he bend over again and I close my eyes and swing the machete. It chop something, which fall to the ground. He scream this time. I open my eyes to see hand on the ground. He waving his arms wild, but from the wound something sprouting already. I run while I watch him regrow. I can’t beat this spider, I have nothing. His pillar leg knock me down hard then pin one of my hands, crushing it into the dirt. I swing the machete but this time he slap it out of my hand. My legs go wet again, his web sticking me to the dirt. His face is right in front of mine now, his feelers rattling and his claws snapping. But his eyes look at me curious. I not his enemy, I am his food. One of his arms is pinning my free hand, two are on my face. One is growing back. His hand is stroking my face, poking against my eye, nose, and then shoving in my mouth, which kill the screaming. Each hand, three fingers covered in fuzz, he grab my mouth and pull it open wide, so wide that my lips stretch to tearing. His feelers separate and from a small hole a juice start to drip out. I try to flail, try to shift, try to bawl out, kick, shake, scream, twist, but nothing there is I can do. The first drop miss my mouth but hit my shoulder and it is like a flame burst on my skin. I know I am screaming no. I know he is trying to get this burning liquid down my mouth so he can turn my insides into juice and suck me out. All I see is the back of his hands now as he hold my mouth open.
Then he bawl out something, not a shriek but a scream. I smell it first, the harsh stink, hear it first, the crackle and whip, then see it only when the spider see it for himself, his back leg burning. He jump off me and try to rub it in the dust, and he is so huge that it look like a tent collapsing over me. The spider covered in fuzz and the fuzz catching like brushfire. He run, trip over his own legs as they burst into flame, roll, and tumble, trying to get to the stream but collapsing first.
I dash dirt on my shoulder to stop the burning. It stop the juice eating my flesh but not the pain.
“How long you see him there killing me?”
“I . . . I . . . I not supposed to mess in your mess. I not supposed to. I supposed to chronicle, no matter what come to pass. I . . .”
This really shake him. Not just what he see, but that he go against what man like him doing for hundred of years. Thanking him for what he did would just hammer down that he do it. I remember the boy, the one with the ring in his nose. The drummer is away from the tree and still drumming, in a trance like all the boys, with his eyes open but not seeing. None of them did even budge. I press the tip of the dagger to the boy’s throat and this boy, but not just he, but the other boys all around him and the drummer all crumble to ash.
“Decoy!” I shout and run to the canoe. The griot was standing by ready to push off. “They set a decoy,” I shout again. I know, he say. The sun was shimmering on the sea and blinding me. Soon come noon. I was waiting around throughout the night for signs and wonders when evil was coming at noon. And this griot. I shouting at the fool that now is not the time to write, but he still scratching on animal skin with a stick and, fuck the gods, blood. I ask whose blood but he don’t answer.