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was wide awake again. The stillness was incredible. The house was holding its breath. She sat up, certain that something had jarred her from sleep. A noise.
    There. Perhaps from Daniel’s room, perhaps from the hall. Perhaps trailing from the hall into Daniel’s room . . .
    Suddenly Paula was certain she’d heard a door shut. And—footsteps? But where were they going? Where had they been?
    Those sounds were clear in the swollen darkness. But after a moment came less certain ones—rising and falling, always soft, as deceptive as the rush of blood in her ears. She was hearing things. No. Paula shook her head. She did not imagine things. Straining her ears, the sounds resolved themselves.
    Voices. From Daniel’s room.
    They stopped.
    Paula waited; heard nothing. A slight dragging sound that might have been the night passing through her mind. A dull footstep. And then, quite distinctly, three words, in the old man’s voice:
    “I need you!”
    And creaking.
    Paula was out of bed in an instant, hurrying quietly across the floor. She didn’t trust that old man, not for a minute, not alone with Daniel. She found the door, jerked on the knob—
    It was locked.
    Paula remembered the sound that had awakened her; it returned very clearly now that she could place it. It had clicked, metallically. A lock engaging.
    She pounded once on the door. Again, louder, tugging at the knob.
    And still not a sound from the other room.
    “Daniel, Daniel! ” Paula began to sob, wishing that there would be another sound, Daniel’s voice.
    The door. Quieting, she returned her attention to it. The lock didn’t seem terribly strong, it was old. For a minute she considered throwing herself against the door, but it opened the wrong way. Chanting Daniel’s name, she wrenched at the knob, pulling it back with all her strength. It seemed to give a little. Paula glanced back into the room, hoping for something useful. Her hand mirror glimmered on the table, reflecting moonlight. It was heavy, had a sturdy handle.
    In a moment she was cracking the doorframe with it, chipping away the splintered wood, ripping and tearing. There was a grinding, and she yanked on the doorknob and the door crashed open, stunning her. She stood for just a second, considering the darkened hall beyond, then moved forward, into it, the mirror dropping from her fingers.
    No sound from Daniel’s room. None at all. Not through all her screaming and pounding and thundering . . nothing.
    “Daniel?” she called softly. She stopped outside his door, listening. Everything was grey and dim, shrouded in shadows. “Daniel?”
    Before she could reason with herself, she had turned the knob, had found it unlocked, had opened the door and entered.
    Entered.
    “Daniel?”
    On the bed, something grey, tangled in blankets, two shapes. God help her, she was going forward, approaching the bed.
    “Please, Daniel, are you all right?” The words came as a whimper.
    She was at the bedside, eyes squinted with fear, so that all she could see was the two of them, vaguely, Daniel and his father pressed close together as if . . as if kissing, or making love, his father on top.
    Down in the gloom, a huge spider, almost filling the bed.
    Her eyes closed.
    “Daniel—”
    Her hand went forward, to touch. Gingerly.
    “Please—”
    And there, on top, was the back of the old man’s head, his hair coarse around her fingers. She moved her hand down, consciously, forcing it to touch his ear, and pass around it, still down. Over a rough cheek, withered skin. Skin that abruptly smoothed; skin that continued, unbroken . . .
    Unbroken . . .
    Straight to another cheek, another ear, and the back of Daniel’s head.

    * * *

    “Tissue” copyright 1980 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in New Terrors #1 (1980), edited by Ramsey Campbell.

RATTLEGROUND
    Crawling down the fire-scarred steel corridors of the enemy's lair, he says to himself, So,evil dogs . . . I see you quake in dread at the mere thought of my