Itsy Bitsy Spider (Emma Frost #1)

Itsy Bitsy

Spider

Emma Frost #1

Willow
Rose

Copyright
Willow Rose 2013

Published
by Jan Sigetty Boeje

All
rights reserved.

No part
of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission from the author.

This is
a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or
dead is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work.
Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

Cover design by
Jan Sigetty Boeje

http://sigetty.wix.com/coverart

Special thanks
to my editor Jean Pacillo

http://www.ebookeditingpro.com

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Willow Rose:

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The
Itsy Bitsy Spider crawled up the water spout.

Down
came the rain, and washed the spider out.

Out
came the sun, and dried up all the rain,

And
the Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the spout again.

 -
Nursery Rhyme

At
first she thought
it was an accident. That the door to
the bunker had shut by accident. Then she tried to open it on her own, but
couldn't. It was either too heavy or must have locked when it shut. She knocked
carefully.

"Hello?"

The quiet coming from outside the iron door was
gruesome. Astrid swallowed hard and knocked once again, this time harder.

"Hello?"

But nothing. Nothing but the horrendous sound of
her own breathing.
Someone will open it.
Once they realize it has shut, they'll come.
Astrid took the ten
steps from the door down into the bunker. She felt tired and her feet were
swollen. She sighed and sat down on a bench, waiting, staring at the door
anticipating it swinging open at any moment now. It was actually two doors
separated by a small hallway between them. Even if she hammered they wouldn't
be able to hear her. All she had to do was wait. Someone would eventually come
for her.

Wouldn't they? Of course they
would. He would come. He who told her he loved her?

Astrid knew she wasn't among the smartest of the
young kids on the island. Her mother always told her that. But she had good
hands and she wasn't a half bad cook. If she stuck to what she knew, she might
be lucky enough to one day have a man, her mother had always said. Now she had
found one. And he wanted more than just her cooking. He wanted her. He loved
her, he said. Then he made love to her in the dunes by the beach.

He was nice to her and she wanted him to meet
her mother, but he kept telling her
, not
now, not today.
Astrid never thought of asking when, she waited
patiently for him to find the time in his busy schedule. She never wondered why
he never took her places, why he insisted they only meet at night or why he
never spoke to her except for the dirty words he whispered in her ears, that
Astrid was educated enough to know wasn't something they would say in church.

No, Astrid never thought there could be anything
wrong with her relationship to this boy who once said he loved her, and who
showed his love for her in the dunes again and again, night after night during
that endless summer in 1977. Instead she started looking forward to their life
together, preparing herself to one day become the mother she had always dreamt
of.

"You'll get nothing but dummies like
yourself," her mother had said. "There should be a law that demanded
that people like you were sterilized so you wouldn't pass your stupidity on to
your kids. Stupid girl," she said and slapped Astrid across the face.

Yes, Astrid was very well aware that she wasn't
the smartest among people, but she had a good heart to her. That much she knew.
One day she would become a great mother to a child that would have the father's
intellect and that child was going to go on into the world and do great things.

"That'll show them," she said
sniffling while staring at the closed iron door up the stairs.

"He'll come for me, won't he?" she
asked and her voice echoed into the small room behind her lit only by a light
bulb hanging from under the ceiling.
Of
course he will. Of course.

Astrid drew in a deep sigh. She looked around and
spotted the big flashlight on a shelf in the corner among blankets, water
bottles and canned food. She pulled it out and held it in her hand. Then she
sat down again, waiting for someone to come and get her.
Not just someone. Him, the boy of your dreams, the
love of your life. Not just anyone.

Astrid sighed and calmed herself down. She
always did this, mother would say, she always made herself uneasy or even
anxious for no reason at all.

The man was
looking
in the windows of the French doors leading
into the kitchen. It was dark inside the mansion by the ocean. A small light
under the door revealed that there was someone in the other room next to the
kitchen. Just as he had hoped.

The man lifted his gloved hand and smashed it
through the small window, then stuck his hand through and unlocked the door. He
opened it without making any sound at all. Smoothly he slid through the door
and into the woman's kitchen. Carefully he closed the door behind him, while
stepping on the broken glass underneath his heavy boots.

The man turned and looked at the perfect
kitchen. Knives were hanging on the wall. He grabbed one and looked at it in
the moonlight coming from outside. Then he sighed with a deep feeling of
satisfaction while putting it back. He reached into his own sports bag and
found his own set of knives rolled up in their bag. Like a professional chef he
unfolded the bag and rolled the knives out on the table.

What a beautiful sight to the man's eyes. Clean
blades, sharpened to perfection. Almost a pity he had to mess them up. Cutting
through meat and bones always made them dull. The man picked one out and put
the rest back in his bag. Then he approached the door leading to the living
room where he could tell the TV was on.

The man had studied the woman's daily routine
for weeks now and knew she always dozed off to her favorite show,
The Sopranos
, before she went to the
bathroom at exactly ten-thirty. She was as precise as a clock. She would go
into the kitchen and grab a glass of water that she would bring to put next to
her bed for the night. She had a hard time sleeping lately and that made her
thirsty.

The man walked out of the kitchen door and into
the hallway while he could hear the theme song for
The Sopranos
, and then the TV was shut off.

The man sat down on a chair in the corner of the
guest bedroom and waited, listened to the woman performing her routines, like
he had done many times before, but this time was different. This was the big
finish,
le grand finale
, as they
said in French.

The man glanced at his reflection in the mirror
on the dresser. He touched his pale skin and followed one of the veins with his
finger. Then he smiled at himself. He had been looking forward to this moment
for all of his life. Prepared for it, dreamt about it, arranged it into
details, waiting for the right time and to be in the right place.

And the best of it? He was just starting out.

The old Mrs.
Heinrichsen
let out a small shriek. The spider in her
bathroom sink had startled her. They always did. She shook her head and turned
on the tap. The spider tried to fight the river of water, clinging on to the
slippery side as the water was threatening to flush it down the drain. Mrs.
Heinrichsen watched its struggle with great joy and turned the tap to speed up
the water. She grinned and sang while watching the spider fight for its life.

"The Itsy Bitsy Spider
crawled up the water spout.

Down came the rain, and washed
the spider out.

Out came the sun, and dried up
all the rain,

And the Itsy Bitsy Spider went
up the spout again."

Finally the spider gave up, lost the fight and
disappeared with the water into the drain. She liked these small displays of
power over nature, well she had always enjoyed them over humans as well, but
the last many years the respect for her and her status on the small island had
diminished. No one seemed to care who she was and had been anymore.

There was a time when it wasn't only spiders
that had struggled to stay alive by her mercy. Oh how she missed those days.
How she missed seeing the fear and terror in people's eyes as she strolled down
the street in her new car, showing off her newest fur brought in from Paris or
a jumpsuit from Milan. Those were the days, those were the times she had
cherished, and would remember as her golden years.

But these days no one cared anymore. No one
respected her in the manner they had done back then. To them she was just an
old lady. Someone whose time was ticking down. Someone who was close to the
finish line of life. The youngsters of today didn't have any respect for status
or title anymore. It was all just the same baloney to them. They didn't care
about her position; hell most of them hardly knew her name anymore.

Mrs. Heinrichsen finished brushing her teeth and
walked back towards the bedroom. The old wooden floors of her villa creaked
underneath her weight even if she could hardly make it past ninety pounds
anymore. She was still a strong woman and expected to live at least twenty
years more.

"Gotta make it past the one hundred,"
she always said. "Get the letter from the queen before you go."

It was her goal, and Mrs. Heinrichsen always
reached her goals. Something she had tried to teach her son but in vain. Today
they didn't care abut setting goals and reaching them, about doing what it took
to make it, no matter the cost. Working to accomplish something. Nowadays it
was all about how to get out of working and getting the state to pay for
everything. She saw them down by the harbor, down by the boats leading to the
mainland. The people who could just as well be working, hanging out, drinking
their beers, with their dogs and dirty clothes. Mrs. Heinrichsen knew they got
paid from the state to live that kind of life. Destitute was the nice word for
them. People who couldn't take care of themselves, so the state had to.
Freeloaders, Mrs. Heinrichsen would call them. They were nothing but people who
didn't want to work in her book. And lately with all those newcomers, all those
brown people who had almost invaded the country, even their small island. They
were all being paid huge amounts from the state to get all their relatives up
here, and it was about to destroy the small paradise, destroy Denmark with all
their demands, under the pretense that they just wanted to be
equal
. How those dirty faces could ever
get the thought that they were equal to the proud hardworking Danish people,
she never understood. It was an atrocity. The beautiful country had been
invaded by these ... these foreigners and Mrs. Heinrichsen certainly didn't
like what they were turning this country in to.

Mrs. Heinrichsen entered her bedroom and sat on
her bed with a sigh. It had become increasingly more and more difficult for her
to sleep while lying down with her breathing troubles, and she wasn't looking
forward to yet another night sitting up and sleeping. The nights had become
long and painful to her lately and even if she did take a small nightcap it
never quite helped her through the entire night.

"Oh, John. You bastard," she said and
looked at the empty side of the bed where he used to sleep. "I bet you're
up there somewhere enjoying seeing me suffer through these nights, aren't
you?"

The silence from the room was answer enough.
Mrs. Heinrichsen sighed once again, then leaned back on her stack of pillows
and embraced herself for the night. Barely had she closed her eyes before she
heard a sound. Mrs. Heinrichsen sighed annoyed and got out of the bed again
with much discomfort.

"If it's that neighbor's dog again, I'm
sure I'm gonna ..."

She never made it further than that. As she
fought to get out of the bed and up onto her legs, she watched the door to her
bedroom open quietly. Then she gasped.

A face appeared in the darkness.

"Hello, Agnes," the man said.