“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to Fly.
“‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that you ever did spy.”
Mary Howitt, The Spider and the Fly
“What do you mean, not human?” Jake looked out the window, half expecting an inhuman face to appear. “What did it look like?”
“A lizard man,” Glen said.
“A lizard man?” The cardigan man repeated from the bottom step.. “I have always wanted to see one of those. I’m a tad jealous, Glen.”
Glen took mild offense at this quip and turned to the man to address him, but he was looking once more up the stairwell. He held his satchel close to him, which Glen found odd.
“There’s nothing up there,” he told the man. “The story is here. In the living room.”
“Are you sure about that?” The man kept his gaze fixed on the stairs.
“His eyes were the color of mustard. The pupils were black slits.” Glen stared out the window, reliving the image of the creature he saw fifteen years earlier. “His snout was short. Green scales covered his body.”
“How do you know it was a lizard man?” asked Liz. “Did it have balls? Did you look? ”I’m just saying it could’ve been a lizard woman. Women can be monsters, too, ya know.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Spencer mumbled, prompting a slap to the back of the head from Denise.
“I fear your tale isn’t frightening anyone,” the man said.
At that moment, outside, Carrie screamed.
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