The Howl

The Howl- This is my testimony of that night. The night I first heard the howl. My wife has what you call arachnophobia—the psychological term for the fear of spiders. Although, to her, it isn’t simply a fear of spiders. It’s a fear of wolf spiders. They said it’s an advanced level—beyond terror—as if fear itself had been imprinted upon her by her ancestors through the ruthless march of a millennium of madness. And she—she was the present daughter of this affliction. Like progressing backwards from a fear of domestic cats to a fear of man-eating mountain lions. That’s where she was at. She’ll tell you why wolf spiders, if you dare to ask. Although her eyes will tell you all you need to know. They don’t wait in webs like many arachnids. They hunt. They prowl. They stalk in the shadows while the rest of the house sleeps. They are patient, and very adept at ambushing whatever they’re after. I knew all this, and I teased her anyway. I suppose that’s the kind of husband I was. On quiet nights, when we were nestled in bed and sleep was upon us, I’d lower my voice and whisper, “Listen. Can you hear it? That’s their howl.” “Stop it,” she’d say, already pulling the blanket to her chin. “Better cover up tighter.” “I mean it.” She never laughed. But she always tucked the blanket in a little tighter, and I always smirked in the dark. The night it happened was eerily silent. The moon hung low and full outside the window, casting a pale square of light across the bed. We lay side by side, not talking. I had worked outside all day and was extremely tired—the kind of tired that prey must feel after being chased all day. I was nearly gone, drifting along that hazy edge between waking and dreaming, where somnolent thoughts come and go like lazy clouds. Then I felt it. Fingers. Light ones, tickling along my lower legs, tapping and creeping up my shins as though they were walking. I didn’t open my eyes. I only smiled, heavy-headed with sleep. “Why… are you tickling me?” The fingers stopped. No answer came. Only silence. The fan thrumming in the darkness. And the strange, careful stillness of someone holding her breath. Something in that silence reached across my skin and clawed at me. I shot upright! In the moonlight, I could see the blanket covering my legs. And I could see it moving. A slow ripple. A small bump gliding toward my knees. My trembling hand caught the edge of the blanket. I peeled it back! It was a black amorphous shape! A dark, alien thing—something so grotesque that my mind struggled to recognize its form! It was at once both repulsive and mesmerizing. Mesmerizing only in the way people stare mindlessly at a gruesome accident. It just sat there on my leg! A black mass with terrifying dimensions! It felt like the weight of a black hole was on me! And I couldn’t move. Just then, a cloud passed from the moon, and its body—if you could call it a body—came more fully into view. Silvery, spiked legs reared high into the air. Its dark, glistening eyes caught the moonlight and held it. And somehow, I knew my fear was its delight. It wasn’t running. It wasn’t afraid. It was waiting for me to move. From the pillow beside me came a whisper, thin and cracked, from a woman who had neither moved nor dared to breathe. “I wasn’t …tickling you,” she said. “My hands are up here.” And outside, somewhere far off in the cold and the moonlight, I swear I heard something howl! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brandonfreywald.substack.com/subscribe