‘A Weaver’s Web’ by Barry Charman

A Sticky Situation

Enter a nightmare of a party with ‘A Weaver’s Web’ by Barry Charman, and see where the night takes you. Discover the beginning of this story with this excerpt from Issue 44, Autumn 2024.

A Weaver’s Web

by Barry Charman

Deep within Lovelock Woods, down in the wild weird lands, there stood a mansion so dark even moonlight from three moons could barely pick it out.

It sat like a hunched creature. Intermittent lights escaped its heavily draped windows, while cries of revelry escaped into the pitch-black night, as if they were fleeing for their lives. Roads that led to the mansion were treacherous. Straying from the paths was lethal. But the parties were worth it. Usually. Deadsy’s gatherings were the stuff of legend, and he wouldn’t throw a party anywhere else.

Home was for the heartless.

Dullard Sixpence was hiding under the bed when he heard the first shot.

“Bullets,” he muttered sheepishly. “Bit allergic.”

Next to him, the woman he’d startled scowled. She was a spider-tamer, got all of the crawlies in check for creeping out of line, probably part of Bawd’s entourage.

He smiled awkwardly. “If you’ve not just come for the murder, I’d recommend the punch.”

A spider was running over the back of her hand. She paused it with a look, and frowned. “What’s in it?”

Sixpence pulled a face. “Indescribable. But the best things are.”

She nodded at her spiders, who appeared to be listening attentively. “A truth. Worse has been woven from less.”

He watched as the spiders waved their little legs.

“So …” He nodded at the door across from the bed, indicating the sounds that were peppering the mansion. “Sounds like a bit of a do.”

She sighed. “Bawd Deadsy is a terrible host if you don’t want to die.”

Find out what happens next, in Issue 44, Autumn 2024!

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Barry Charman is a writer living in North London. He has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including Ambit, Griffith Review, The Ghastling, and Popshot Quarterly. His poems have appeared most recently with The Literary Hatchet and The Linnet’s Wings. Doom Warnings, Barry’s self-published collection of strange and speculative short stories, will soon be available on Amazon. Visit him at barrycharman.blogspot.co.uk.