“Lay off,” Mort says, and then there are footsteps moving toward her.

“I can’t see you…” but her voice trails off when the wispy thing brushes her face again. It isn’t her hair. Some of it clings stubbornly to her fingers.

“Stay where you are,” Mort says, Mort or her father. “Stand still, and I’ll find you.”

Hurry up, and she wishes that much had come out loud enough for someone to hear, but she’s too busy swiping at the sticky wisps to try again.

“I can’t see her, Keith. I can’t see her anywhere.”

Hurry.

“Dumb pussy bitch,” Keith says. “Fuck her, Mort.”

Stand still. Stand still and wait for him to find you. You’re freaking yourself out, that’s all.

It’s just a fucking dream.

The footsteps seem to pass her by, dissolving back into the murk, each one a little farther away than the last.

And then the scurry of tiny legs, delicate across her upper lip, the bridge of her nose. And she gasps, loud drowning noise, and sucks some of the clinging stuff into her mouth, her nostrils.

“Daria?!” and her dad sounds frightened, almost as much as she is. “Daria, where are you?”

She slaps at her face so hard it draws down violet stars, and there are others, all at once, moving rapidly up and down her arms, her bare legs, impatient as minute fingers drumming busily to themselves. One wriggles its way past the collar of her T-shirt, skitters along her spine, another over an eyelid. A hundred, a thousand legs dancing softly, crazily, and the webs like a living curtain all around her.

And finally she can scream, opens her mouth so wide and the sound tears itself out of her, sonic Velcro rip, leaving her throat raw and her ears ringing. When she tries to run, her feet tangle and she lands hard, the breath driven from surprised lungs in a loud whoosh, cutting off the second scream halfway through.

They are all over her then. Everywhere.

Strong hands on her shoulders, and she can smell Mort, his omnipresent reek of pot smoke and sweat, before her father drags her out through the hole in the wall, back into the day, the blinding sun and the sky like a china plate. And then he sees the spiders, long-legged, yellow-brown hurrying things, and he screams, too.

Daria woke up, jerked violent from sleep, and lay very still, wrapped in dingy white sheets faintly damp from sweat and the steam hissing from the radiator across the room. An amber swatch of sunlight on the wall above her bed told her it was late, the last dregs of the afternoon, before she checked her wristwatch. She sat up slowly and leaned back against the plaster wall where a headboard should’ve been, wiped salty moisture from her face with both hands and stared at her unsteady palms and waited for the white noise, the dreamshock, to pass, sluggish decompression bleeding her back into the world.

Niki Ky was still asleep on the floor beside the bed, curled into the old wool afghan and the Peanuts sheets washed so many times that Linus’ blue blanket had gone gray. She only added to the disorientation, something else inexplicable, and Daria let her eyes wander the apartment, taking in safe familiarity, cataloging ratty furniture and the posters thumbtacked to the walls.

She’d never made a habit of bringing home strays; there were far too many of them on the streets, too many ways of charity going sour, no good deed unpunished, after all, and she was having trouble remembering what had been any different about Niki Ky.

Daria reached for her cigarettes, the half-empty pack lying on the foldout card table she used for a nightstand. Her lighter was nowhere in sight, lost in the clutter of spare change and gum wrappers, snatches of song lyrics scribbled on fast-food napkins and scraps of notebook paper, weeks of accumulated pocket trash. She finally settled for a book of matches, one left behind the black cardboard cover stamped with the Fidgety Bean’s gold logo, and when she struck it, the air smelled instantly of brimstone. She inhaled deeply; the Marlboro tasted good and helped to clear her head a little.

Clear away the cobwebs and…

She rubbed at the tender spot between her eyebrows, rough one-thumb excuse for a massage. Her sinuses ached, dull pressure and just enough pain to notice, as if the memories were a cancer swelling there behind her eyes. And if she rubbed hard enough, she might effect a remission.

Across the room, something bumped hard against the front door and she jumped, adrenaline jolt upright, a half-instant later recognized the probing scritch of a key.

“Motherfuck,” she muttered, pushed sweatstiff crimson bangs from her face and pulled another hit off the cigarette.

The dead bolt clicked and the door opened and Claude shut it softly behind him, his cat-careful movement, so determined not to wake her that he hadn’t noticed she was already awake.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m up,” smoky cloud of words, and he smiled, held out a white deli bag for her to see.

“Then you can have breakfast with me,” he said. “I got chocolate croissants…” and then he noticed Niki on the floor, only the spiky black top of her head and one leg showing from under her wad of covers.

“Well, she’s definitely an improvement over Keith, but you shouldn’t have made her sleep on the floor.”

Daria transferred the cigarette to her lips and gave him the finger with both hands.

Niki mumbled something in her sleep and pulled the afghan completely over her head; both legs stuck out now, patient corpse feet waiting for their yellow toe tag. Claude just smiled that much wider and turned to the cramped kitchenette, one wall crammed with its gas stove and ancient Frigidaire, cracked and pitted Formica and rust-stained sink. He set the croissants on the countertop and opened the fridge door, took out the big Ball mason jar of coffee beans.

“She just needed a place to crash, that’s all,” Daria said around the Marlboro’s filter. “And you’re a pervert.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” he purred and dumped three heaping scoops of the beans into their cheap little Regal grinder, held the button down with his thumb and the machine whirred its gritty racket. The noise of the grinder alone was enough to help some, drawing her further out of her head, away from the dream that was already beginning to blur and fade around the edges.

“Marry me,” she said. “Please?”

“Darlin’, you know I’m strictly mistress material,” and he opened the grinder, poured the fresh and fragrant grounds into the drip basket of the Proctor Silex Morning-Maker. It had recently replaced Daria’s battered old Mr. Coffee, one of Claude’s mysterious and welcomed windfalls. Soon, the apartment would fill with the pun-gence of fine Colombian dark roast; Daria, good Pavlovian pup, felt a gentle flush of saliva, cleansing away the sticky taste of her uneasy sleep.

Niki moaned softly, sat up, and blinked her dark eyes.

“What time is it?” she asked, groggy, slightest rasp, and she squinted into the dazzling shaft coming in through the apartment’s only window, wide and smudgy sash looking west. There were no curtains, no blinds, and the dirty glass did little to mute the fiery November sunset.

Daria glanced at the digital clock radio on the card table. “Almost four,” she said. “Three fifty-seven.”

“Shit. I gotta see about my car.”

Claude was taking mismatched mugs down from the cabinet above the sink. He turned around and waved with his free hand.

“Hi.”

Niki blinked again. “Hi,” she replied.

“ Niki Ky,” Daria said, “this is my roommate, Jobless Claude. He’s a pervert and a layabout and an angel of mercy. Jobless Claude, this here’s Niki Ky. She’s on her way to find Jesus in Cullman County.”

“Hi, Claude,” Niki said.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked; he’d turned his back to them again and was busy wiping at the inside of one of the mugs with a gingham dish towel.