Cluster

Warning - Not for the faint-hearted.

The pitter-patter of water on to the shower curtain made me jump, I was already dry and dressed, but the shower was having a last fling, draining the water from its head and scaring the life out of me. It had done the exact same thing the day before and I’d jumped out of my skin then too.  But today was different, today, it didn’t stop, the water kept flowing like someone had turned the shower back on. I sighed dramatically; I was in a bad mood and this little inconvenience felt like the last straw.  I was going to have to go all the way in to the bathroom and turn the shower off. I checked my tie in the mirror first, then opened the bathroom door. I froze to the spot, unable to move even if I'd wanted to. I shivered; it wasn’t like someone had walked over my grave but that a herd of elephants had stampeded across it. I blinked hoping that it was just my mind playing tricks on me but I should be so lucky. It hadn’t been water hitting the shower curtain but there was a flood. The shower curtain was no longer had a yellowish hue, it now appeared black and looked alive. It was covered with spiders, hundred and hundreds of spiders crawling all over the bath, the shower curtain, the taps, I had no idea where they had come from but they were there, crackling and pitter-pattering like water on a shower curtain.  

My skin began to itch as I brushed imaginary spiders off my body.  I could feel them in my hair, under my collar, between my toes. I shivered again more elephants on my grave. I wanted to close the door and run, but somehow I was hypnotised by the scurrying movement of the cluster of arachnids. There seemed to be more and more of them, a black seething mass of movement and mayhem. Up until then the spiders had been confined to the tub and the curtain but now they were beginning to spill onto the floor; that was my signal to slam the bathroom door. I grabbed my bags and left the hotel room, still scratching imaginary spiders off me ever few seconds.