Aftershock & Others (19 page)

Toby sobbed with relief. God, that had been close! He glanced back from the street and saw the trapdoor spider backing into its home, pulling the lid down over itself, moving fast, almost as if it was afraid. Toby started to yell at it but the words clogged in his throat. A brown shape was moving across his front lawn, big and fast.

Toby heard himself cry, “
No!
” The wolf spider from last night! It wasn’t supposed to be out in the day. It was a night hunter. The only thing that could bring it out in the day was…

Hunger.

He saw it jump on the lid to the trapdoor spider’s lair and try to force its way in, but the cover was down to stay. Then it turned toward Toby and started after him.

Toby yelped with terror and drove his feet against the pedals. He was already pedaling for all he was worth down the middle of the empty street, but fear added new strength to his legs. The bike leaped ahead.

But not far enough ahead. A glance back showed the wolf spider gaining, its eight legs a blur of speed as they carried it closer. It poisonous falces were extended, reaching hungrily for him.

Toby groaned with fear. He put his head down and forced every ounce of strength into his pumping legs. When he chanced another quick look over his shoulder, the wolf spider was farther behind.

“Yes!” he whispered, for he had breath enough only for a whisper.

And then he noticed that the wolf spider had slowed to a stop.

I beat him!

But when he faced front again he saw why the wolf had stopped—a huge funnel web spanned the street just ahead of him. Toby cried out and hit the brakes, turned the wheel, swerved, slid, but it was too late. He slammed into the silky net and was engulfed in the sticky strands.

Terror engulfed him as well. He panicked, feeling as if he was going to cry or throw up, or both. But he managed to get a grip, get back in control. He could get out of this. It was just a spider web. All he had to do was break free of these threads. But the silky strands were thick as twine, and sticky as Krazy Glue. He couldn’t break them, couldn’t pull them off his skin, and the more he struggled, the more entangled he became.

He quickly exhausted himself and hung there limp and sweaty, sobbing for breath. He had to get
free!
What about Mom? Who’d help her? Worry for her spurred him to more frantic squirming that only made the silk further tighten its hold. He began shouting for help. Someone had to hear him and help him out of this web.

And then a shadow fell over him. He looked up. Something was coming but it wasn’t help. The owner of the web was gliding down from the dark end of the funnel high up in the tree, and oh, God, she was big. And shiny black. Her abdomen was huge, almost too big for her eight long spindly legs to carry. Her eyes, blacker spots set in the black of her head, were fixed on him. She leapt the last six feet and grasped him with her forelegs.

Toby screamed and shut his eyes, waiting for the poisonous falces to pierce him.

Please let it be quick!

But instead of pain he felt his body being lifted and turned, and turned again, and again. He was getting dizzy. He opened his eyes and saw that the spider was rolling him over and over with her spindly legs, like a lumberjack on a log, all the while spinning yards and yards of web from the tip of her abdomen, wrapping his body in a cocoon, but leaving his head free. He struggled against the bonds but it was useless—he might as well have been wrapped in steel.

And then she was dragging him upward, higher into the web, into the funnel. He passed the shriveled-up corpses of squirrels and birds, and even another spider much like herself, but smaller. Her mate? Near the top of the funnel she spun more web and attached him to the wall, then moved off, leaving him hanging like a side of beef.

What was she doing? Wasn’t she going to kill him? Or was she saving him for later? His mind raced.
Yes. Save me for later.
As long as he was alive there was hope. Her web was across a street…good chance a kill team would come along and clear it…kill her, free him. Yes. He still had a chance…

Movement to his right caught his eye. About a foot away, something else was hanging from the web wall, also wrapped in a thick coat of silk. Smaller than Toby—maybe the size of a full grocery bag. Whatever was inside was struggling to get out. Probably some poor dog or raccoon that got caught earlier.

“Don’t worry, fella,” Toby said. “When the kill team gets me out, I’ll see you get free too.”

The struggle within the smaller cocoon became more frantic.

It must have heard my voice, he thought.

And then Toby saw a little break appear in the surface of the cocoon. Whatever was inside was chewing through! How was that possible? This stuff was tough as—

And then Toby saw what was breaking through.

A spider. A fist-sized miniature of the one that had hung him here emerged. And then another, and another, until the little cocoon was engulfed in a squirming mass of baby spiders.

Toby gagged. That wasn’t a cocoon. That was an egg mass. And they were hatching. He screamed, and that was the wrong thing because they immediately began swarming toward him, hundreds of them, thousands, flowing across the web wall, crawling up his body, burrowing into his cocoon, racing toward his face.

Toby screamed as he had never screamed in his life—

And woke up.

He blinked. He was paralyzed with fear, but as his eyes adjusted to the dawn light seeping through the window, he recognized his bedroom and began to relax.

A dream…but
what
a dream! The worst nightmare of his life! He was weak with relief. He wanted to cry, he wanted to—

“Toby!” His mother’s voice—she sounded scared. “Toby, are you all right?”

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Thank God! I’ve been calling you for so long! A spider got into the house! I opened the door to the garage and it was there!”

The back door! Oh, no! I
didn’t
latch it!

“It jumped on me and I fainted. But it didn’t kill me. It wrapped me up in web and then it left. Come get me free!”

Toby went to leap out of bed but couldn’t move. He looked down and saw that he wasn’t under his blanket—he and his bed were webbed with a thick layer of sticky silk. He struggled but after a few seconds he knew that he was trapped.

“Hurry up, Toby!” his mother cried. “There’s something else in here with me all wrapped up in web. And it’s moving. I’m scared, Toby. Please get me out!”

Panicked, Toby scanned the room. He found the egg mass attached to his bedpost, a few inches from his head, wriggling, squirming with internal life, a many-legged
horde
of internal life.

We’re going to end up like the Hansens!

“Oh, Mom!” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I’m so
sorry!
”

And then the first wolf spider hatchling broke free of the egg mass and dropped onto his pillow.

Toby screamed as he had never screamed in his life.

But this time he wasn’t dreaming.

Implant
was published in En gland in February; the U.S. edition wouldn’t appear until October. I barely noticed. I was spending a lot of time in the air—flying back and forth from New Jersey to L.A. and Vegas for meetings and electronic shows—or in conference rooms with companies like TWI, Digital Pictures, Trilobyte, Microsoft, Quartet, Scholastic Productions, Digital Domain, Sony, IMAX, Propaganda Code, Paramount Interactive, Prodigy, Polygram Interactive, AND Interactive, Dreamworks Interactive, Virgin Interactive, and so on.

Somehow I was managing to write the second contracted medical thriller,
Deep as the Marrow,
between stops while holding up my ends of
FTL,
the
Mirage
novel, and the
Mirage
game. (Bless the laptop.)

In early February Matt and I were on the Burbank set of
Bombmeister.
Jeffrey Jones was the star, with John Lafia directing. We saw a lot of the shoot and even made it to a backlot where they blew up a miniature of the toymaker’s mansion.

After the shoot we were given VHS copies of the raw footage…and that’s all there is of
Bombmeister.
The first two films had done so poorly that Sony (a major backer) pulled the financial plug and Interfilm was no more. All the
Bombmeister
footage is stored away, waiting for some enterprising company to cut and program it into an edge-of-the-seat interactive DVD thriller.

Maybe someday. Until then, it’s vaporware. (Remember that word. You’ll hear it again…and again…)

In the spring I handed in
Deep as the Marrow.
This was my third medical thriller and already I was growing restless with the genre. Too formulaic. In fact, when you look at
Marrow,
it’s not a true medical thriller. Sure, the protagonist is a doctor and medical problems figure into the plot, but at its heart it’s a political thriller. The maguffin is not a disease but the president’s decision to legalize drugs—
that’s
what sets the plot in motion.

Matt and I finished the first draft of the
Mirage
novel and put it aside while we finished the design and scenario for the game. Having worked through the story in a long narrative helped immensely. By April we’d finished the scenario and TWEP accepted it. Now to start the interactions.

The buzzword at Time Warner in those days was “synergy.” To that end, Matt and I had several meetings with Janet Brillig of Atlantic Records to pick out music for the
Mirage
CD-ROM. We heard a lot of brand-new acts like Jill Sobule, Jewel, and Sugar Ray.

By the fall we had most of the interactions scripted. We’d been handing them in as they were completed, all meeting with enthusiastic responses. But then in October, Time Warner Electronic Publishing halted development on
Mirage
: too ambitious, too expensive, they’d never make a profit, blah-blah-blah. Soon after that the company imploded.

No someday for
Mirage.
It’s permanent vaporware. And without a publisher, the
DNA Wars
game was dead too.

Matt and I were starting to wonder if we were Jonah. Two companies in a row now—kaput.

At least we still had a book publisher. The novel and interactive contracts were separate. We polished the novel, handed it in to Betsy Mitchell, and took the interactive
Mirage
elsewhere.

About this time, Steven Spruill and I decided to write a novel together. We’d discussed a story about a professional assassin during the long drives to and from NECon each year. I had an urge for some action writing, so I kicked it off. Our working title was
Jake,
after our antihero Jake Nacht. Eventually we retitled it
Nightkill.

Looking back, I can see that Jake was another Repairman Jack surrogate. Even the name was similar. My subconscious was becoming less subtle and more insistent.

On my last L.A. trip of the year I had lunch at Farmer’s Market with two film producers named Barry Rosenbush and Bill Borden. I’d met them before. They very much wanted to bring Repairman Jack to the screen. They made an option offer on
The Tomb.
No one else was knocking on the door (it was the only Repairman Jack novel at the time) so I accepted.

I had no idea that more than a decade in development hell lay ahead.

In the fall of 1994 I got a call from Janet Berliner asking me if I’d like to do a magic-related story for a David Copperfield anthology. His name would be on the cover but she’d be doing all the editing. I’d been kicking around an idea about a magic word—the
right
word. Whenever you used it to answer a question, the listener always heard the right answer, the best answer for you.

Powerful stuff. What a hook. Who wouldn’t want to know that word?

The story was the easy part. But the word…showing you some neologism you could pronounce would take you out of the story. But what if you couldn’t pronounce it? What if it appeared in the text as gibberish?

I instructed the typesetter to use a double overprint of DAVID / COPPE / RFIEL for the word. It worked. The result was COPPE. Pure gibberish.

David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible
was released in the fall of 1995. We had a big signing at a Fifth Avenue Barnes and Noble, then a party at Manhattan’s Fashion Café. Janet and Matt and Ray Feist and other contributors were there, but we were relegated to the main-floor area while Copperfield and his supposed fiancée, Claudia Schiffer, kept to themselves on a raised, cordoned-off platform. We groundlings were allowed to look but not speak to or approach these ethereal beings. Freaking hilarious. I mean, what planet do these clowns hail from?

I love the story, though.

As promised, the first
installment of Dennis Nickleby’s
Three Months to Financial Independence
arrives exactly two weeks after I called the toll-free number provided by his infomercial. I toss out the accompanying catalogs and “Occupant” bulk mail, then tear at the edges of the cardboard mailer.

This is it. My new start. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and starting today my life will be very different. I’ll be organized, I’ll have specific goals and a plan to achieve them—I’ll have an
agenda
.

Never had an agenda before. And as long as this agenda doesn’t involve a job, that’s cool. Never been a nine-to-fiver. Tend to ad-lib as I go along. Prefer to think of myself as an
investor
. Now I’ll be an investor with an agenda. And Dennis Nickleby’s tapes are going to guide me.

Maybe they can help me with my personal life too. I’m sort of between girlfriends now. Seem to have trouble keeping them. Denice was the last. She walked out two weeks ago. Called me a couch potato—said I was a fat slob who doesn’t do anything but read and watch TV.

Not fair. And not true. All right, so I am a little overweight, but not as overweight as I look. Lots of guys in their mid thirties weigh more than I do. It’s just that at five-eight it shows more. At least I still have all my hair. And I’m not ugly or anything.

As for spending a lot of time on the couch—guilty. But I’m doing research. My folks left me some money and I’m always looking for a better place to put it to work. I’ve got a decent net worth, live in a nice high-rise in North Jersey where I can see the Manhattan skyline. I make a good income from my investments without ever leaving the house. But that doesn’t mean I’m not working at it.

Good as things are, I know I can do better. And the Nickleby course is going to take me to that next level. I can feel it. And I’m more than ready.

My hands shake as I pull the glossy vinyl video box from the wrapper. Grinning back at me is a young, darkly handsome man with piercing blue eyes and dazzling teeth. Dennis Nickleby. Thirty years old and already a multi-millionaire. Everything this guy touches turns to gold. But does he want to hoard his investing secrets? No way. He’s willing to share them with the little guy—guys like me with limited capital and unlimited dreams. What a
mensch
.

Hey, I’m no sucker. I’ve seen Tony Robbins and those become-a-real-estate-millionaire-with-no-money-down infomercials. I’m home a lot so I see
lots
of infomercials. Trust me, they roll off me like water off a duck. But Dennis Nickleby…he’s different. He looked out from that TV screen and I knew he was talking to me. To
me
. I knew what he was offering would change my life. The price was stiff—five hundred bucks—but well worth it if he delivered a mere tenth of what he was offering. Certainly a better investment than some of those do-nothing stocks in my account.

I whipped out my credit card, grabbed the phone, punched in his 800 number, and placed my order.

And now it’s here. I lift the lid of the box and—

“Shit!”

There’s supposed to be a videotape inside—lesson one. What do I find? An audiocassette. And it’s not even a new one. It’s some beat-up piece of junk.

I’m fuming. I’m so pissed I’m ready to dump this piece of garbage on the floor and grind it into the carpet. But I do not do this. I take three deep breaths, calm myself, then march to the phone. Very gently I punch in Mr. Nickleby’s 800 number—it’s on the back of the tape box—and get some perky little babe on the phone. I start yelling about consumer fraud, about calling the attorney general, about speaking to Dennis Nickleby himself. She asks why I’m so upset and I’m hardly into my explanation when she lets loose this high-pitched squeal.

“
You’re
the one! Ooh, goody! We’ve been hoping you’d call!”

“Hoping?”

“
Yes!
Mr. Nickleby was here
himself
. He was
so
upset. He learned that
some-
how the
wrong
kind of tape got into one of his
Three Months to Financial Independence
boxes. He instructed us that should we hear from
anyone
who got an
audio
cassette instead of a
video
cassette, we should tell them not to worry. A brand new
video
cassette of
Three Months to Financial Independence
would be
hand
delivered to them
immediately!
Now, what do you think of
that?
”

“I…I…” I’m flabbergasted. This man is on top of everything. Truly he knows how to run a business. “I think that’s incredible.”

“Just give us your name and address and we’ll get that replacement to you
immediately!
”

“It’s Michael Moulton.” I give her the address.

“Ooh! Hackensack. That’s not far from here!”

“Just over the GW Bridge.”

“
Well
, then! You should have your replacement
very
soon!”

“Good.”

Her terminal perkiness is beginning to get to me. I’m hurrying to hang up when she says, “Oh, and one more thing. Mr. Nickleby said to tell you
not
to do
anything
with the audiocassette. Just
close
it up in the box it came in and
wait
for the replacement tape. The messenger will take it in
exchange
for the videotape.”

“Fine. Good—”

“Remember that now—close the audiotape in the holder and wait. Okay?”

“Right. Cool. Good-
bye
.”

I hang up thinking, Whatever she’s taking, I want some.

Being a good boy, I snap the video box cover closed and am about to place it on the end table by the door when curiosity tickles me and I start to wonder what’s on this tape. Is it maybe from Dennis Nickleby’s private collection? A bootleg jazz or rock tape? Or better yet, some dictation that might give away one or two investment secrets not on the videotape?

I know right then there’s no way I’m not going to listen to this tape, so why delay? I pop it into my cassette deck and hit
PLAY
.

Nothing. I crank up the volume—some static, some hiss, and nothing else. I fast forward and still nothing. I’m about to hit
STOP
when I hear some high-pitched gibberish. I rewind a little and replay at regular speed.

Finally this voice comes on. Even with the volume way up I can barely hear it. I press my ear to the speaker. Whoever it is is whispering.

“The only word you need to know:
COPPE.”

And that’s it. I fast forward all the way to the end and nothing. I go back and listen to that one sentence again.
“The only word you need to know:
COPPE.”

Got to be a garble. Somebody erased the tape and the heads missed a spot.

Oh, well.

Disappointed, I rewind it, pop it out, and close it up in the video box.

So here I am,
not an hour later, fixing a sandwich and watching the stock quotes on CNBC when there’s a knock on my apartment door. I check through the peephole and almost choke.

Dennis Nickleby himself!

I fumble the door open and he steps inside.

“Mr. Nickleby!”

“Do you have it?”

He’s sweating and puffing like he sprinted the ten flights to my floor instead of taking the elevator. His eyes are darting everywhere so fast they seem to be moving in opposite directions—like a chameleon’s. Finally they come to rest on the end table.

“There! That’s it!”

He lunges for the video box, pops it open, snatches the cassette from inside.

“You didn’t listen to it, did you?”

Something in his eyes and voice tell me to play this one close to the vest. But I don’t want to lie to Dennis Nickleby.

“Should I have? I will if you want me to.”

“No-no,” he says quickly. “That won’t be necessary.” He hands me an identical video box. “Here’s the replacement. Terribly sorry for the mix-up.”

I laugh. “Yeah. Some mix-up. How’d that ever happen?”

“Someone playing games.” His eyes go subzero for an instant. “But no harm done.”

“You want to sit down? I was just making lunch—”

“Thank you, no. I’d love to but my schedule won’t permit it. Maybe some other time.” He extends his hand. “Once again, sorry for the inconvenience. Enjoy the tape.”

And then he’s out the door and gone. I stand there staring at the spot where he stood. Dennis Nickleby himself came by to replace the tape. Personally. Wow. And then it occurs to me: Check the new box.

I pop it open. Yes sir. There’s the
Three Months to Financial Independence
videotape. At last.

But what’s the story with that audio cassette? He seemed awful anxious to get it back. And what for? It was totally blank except for that one sentence—
The only word you need to know:
COPPE. What’s that all about?

I’d like to look it up in the dictionary, but who knows how to spell something so weird sounding. And besides, I don’t have a dictionary. Maybe I’ll try later at the local library—once I find out where the local library is. Right now I’ve got to transfer some money to my checking account so I can pay my Visa bill when the five-hundred-buck charge to Nickleby, Inc., shows up on this month’s statement.

I call Gary, my discount broker, to sell some stock. I’ve been in Castle Petrol for a while and it’s doing squat. Now’s as good a time as any to get out. I tell Gary to dump all 200 shares. Then it occurs to me that Gary’s a pretty smart guy. Even finished college.

“Hey, Gary. You ever hear of COPPE?”

“Can’t say as I have. But if it exists, I can find it for you. You interested?”

“Yeah. I’m very interested.”

“You got it.”

Yeah, well, I
don’t
get it. All right, maybe I do get it, but it’s not what I’m expecting, and not till two days later.

Meantime I stay busy with Dennis Nickleby’s videotape. Got to say, it’s kind of disappointing. Nothing I haven’t heard elsewhere. Strange…after seeing his infomercial, I was sure this was going to be just the thing for me.

Then I open an envelope from the brokerage. Inside I find the expected sell confirm for the two hundred shares of Castle Petrol at 10.25, but with it is a buy confirm for
two thousand
shares of something called Thai Cord, Inc.

What the hell is Thai Cord? Gary took the money from Castle Petrol and put it in a stock I’ve never heard of! I’m baffled. He’s never done anything like that. Must be a mistake. I call him.

“Hey, dude,” he says as soon as he comes on the line. “Who’s your source?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Thai Cord. It’s up to five this morning. Boy, you timed that one perfectly.”

“Five?” I swallow. I was ready to take his head off, now I learn I’ve made eight thousand in two days. “Gary…why did you put me into Thai Cord?”

“Why? Because you asked me to. You said you were very interested in it. I’d never heard of it, but I looked it up and bought it for you.” He sounds genuinely puzzled. “Wasn’t that why you called the other day? To sell Castle and buy Thai? Hey, whatever, man—you made a killing.”

“I know I made a killing, Gary, and no one’s gladder than me, but—”

“You want to stay with it?”

“I just want to get something straight: Yesterday I asked you if you’d ever heard of COPPE.”

“No way, pal. I know ParkerGen. NASDAQ—good high-tech, speculative stock. You said Thai Cord.”

I’m getting annoyed now. “COPPE, Gary. COPPE!”

“I can hear you, Mike. ParkerGen, ParkerGen. Are you all right?”

At this moment I’m not so sure. Suddenly I’m chilled, and there’s this crawly feeling on the nape of my neck. I say one thing—
The only word you need to know
—and Gary hears another.

“Mike? You still there?”

“Yeah. Still here.”

My mind’s racing. What the hell’s going on?

“What do you want me to do? Sell the Thai and buy ParkerGen? Is that it?”

I make a snap decision. Something weird’s going down and I want to check it out. And what the hell, it’s all found money.

“Yeah. Put it all into ParkerGen.”

“Okay. It’s running three and an eighth today. I’ll grab you three thousand.”

“Great.”

I get off the phone and start to pace my apartment. I’m wired. I’ve got this crazy idea cooking in my brain…

…
the only word you need to know:
COPPE.

What if…?

Nah. It’s too crazy. But if it’s true, there’s got to be a way to check it out.

And then I have it. The ponies. They’re running at the Meadowlands today. I’ll invest a few hours in research. If I hurry I can make the first race.

I know it’s completely nuts, but I’ve
got
to know…

I just make it.
I rush to the ten-dollar window and say, “COPPE in the first.”

The teller doesn’t even glance up; he takes my ten, punches a few buttons, and out pops my ticket. I grab it and look at it: I’ve bet on some nag named Yesterday’s Gone.

I don’t bother going to the grandstand. I stand under one of the monitors. I see the odds on Yesterday’s Gone are three to one. The trotters are lined up, ready to go.

“And they’re off!”

I watch with a couple of other guys in polo shirts and polyester pants who’re standing around. I’m not too terribly surprised when Yesterday’s Gone crosses the finish line first. I’ve now got thirty bucks where I had ten a few minutes ago, but I’ve also got that crawly feeling at the back of my neck again.

This has gone from crazy to creepy.

With the help of the Daily Double and the Trifecta, by the time I leave the track I’ve parlayed my original ten bucks into sixty-two hundred. I could have made more but I’m getting nervous. I don’t want to attract too much attention.

As I’m driving away I can barely keep from flooring the gas pedal. I’m wired—positively giddy. It’s like some sort of drug. I feel like king of the world. I’ve got to keep going. But how? Where?