A Good Night’s Torment

Schmidt awoke, his pyjamas clammy with sweat, his pillow damp beneath him. He glanced at the alarm clock. It was only ten o’clock.

Dazed, he got up to fetch a glass of water. The water bored him with its bland flavour of rusty pipes and limescale-choked filters. He was just about to climb back into bed when he felt a faint pressure in his chest.

His father had died of a heart attack, and Schmidt knew, pressure in the chest was always a warning sign. He checked whether his arm felt strange, and the longer he searched his body for symptoms, the more his left arm seemed to ache.

An unmistakable sign.

Death was standing outside the door. All Schmidt had to do was let him in.

Nonsense, he told himself. He was much too young to die. But he did not want to embarrass himself in front of the doctors either, so he checked the internet. After a brief search, the verdict was clear: he was already standing with one foot in the afterlife.

The internet was remarkably efficient when it came to catastrophes. Within seconds, Schmidt had read about heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, strokes, rare tropical diseases and one particularly alarming condition caused by “excessive awareness of bodily sensations”. The symptoms overlapped so generously that practically any living person could qualify for immediate hospitalisation.

He clicked on a medical forum. One contributor recommended calling an ambulance. Another advised drinking water. A third insisted that all symptoms were caused by a vitamin deficiency, while a fourth blamed electromagnetic radiation from household appliances. Schmidt’s bedside lamp suddenly appeared deeply suspicious.

He took his pulse. It seemed irregular. He took it again. This time it seemed too regular. He wondered whether a pulse could be both irregular and too regular at once, and decided that the answer was probably yes.

He searched for “signs that death is imminent”.

The search engine offered him funeral insurance.

If he narrowed his eyes, he could even see the light.

Or was it the headlamps of the petrol station opposite?

Now he was uncertain. Perhaps the pressure in his chest was merely pressure, not pain. And his arm might simply be aching because he had slept on it for four hours. He had been called a hypochondriac more than once, and one of the three hospitals in town had banned him from A&E.

So he climbed back into bed.

If he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right.

He closed his eyes—and saw the light again.

His body grew as light as a feather. He felt himself rising weightlessly, slipping out of his body and drifting towards the radiant glow. Voices surrounded him: the voices of relatives who had been dead for years. His grandmother was among them, a gentle woman he had adored as a child.

He floated upwards in a warm, blissful haze, following their beckoning calls. Somewhere in the distance, a soft and soothing brass melody began to play.

Trumpets, perhaps.

Or trombones.

Then he remembered that he had left the Church.

He awoke with a start. His pyjamas were even sweatier, and his pillow wetter than before. The alarm clock showed one in the morning.

In a sudden panic, Schmidt remembered that he had renounced both God and church tax—chiefly the church tax, if he was honest. But it was too late for honesty now.

He searched the internet for the number of the nearest church and dialled it with trembling fingers. The phone rang.

“Yes, hello?” answered a sleepy voice. “Who is this?”

“It’s me, Mr Schmidt,” said Mr Schmidt. “I left the Church, and now I have to die. It’s a matter of life and—”

“Death?” interrupted the vicar. “You sound remarkably dead to me. Is this urgent?”

“I believe so.”

“Have you looked at the time? God is currently busy.”

Schmidt glanced at the clock. He had, in fact, looked at it several times.

“Oh,” he said.

There was a long silence.

“Should I call back later?” Schmidt asked.

“That would probably be best. God tends to be more available during office hours from your location.”

Schmidt apologised and hung up. He made a note in his calendar:

*Sort out ecclesiastical affairs.*

Then he lay down again.

This time, sleep came quickly.

For a while, the room remained quiet. Outside, a car hissed along the wet road, and somewhere in the building a pipe gave a hollow metallic knock. Schmidt’s breathing became slower. His hands relaxed. The alarm clock continued its patient red counting.

In the darkness, a tiny shape emerged from beneath the wardrobe.

It paused beside the bed, raised two delicate front legs and appeared to consult an invisible schedule. Then it vanished beneath the mattress.

Schmidt slept on, unaware that the night shift was already preparing its grandest production.

When Schmidt awoke, he could not move.

Something was crawling across his chest.

The spider was the size of a dinner plate. Its countless eyes were as disturbing as its even more numerous hairs. Schmidt strained with every ounce of strength he possessed, but nothing obeyed him—not his arms, not his legs, not even his trembling fingers.

Only his eyes could move.

The spider seemed to grin.

Slowly, it crept closer.

Its two enormous fangs flexed and stretched, as though preparing for some particularly unpleasant exercise. They had to be venomous fangs. Why else would millions of years of evolution have made them so extravagantly large?

The spider crawled along his chest.

Slowly.

Painfully slowly.

Schmidt tried to summon a scream, but his throat produced only a dry, embarrassed wheeze. The spider continued its stately progress, apparently in no hurry whatsoever. It seemed less like an animal hunting its prey than an actor making a dramatic entrance.

It reached his throat and paused, apparently determined to savour the suspense. One of its hairy legs brushed against his chin.

Schmidt’s eyes bulged.

The spider tilted its head.

For one dreadful moment, he had the distinct impression that it was enjoying his fear.

Then it drew its head back. Its eight eyes closed in gleeful anticipation.

Schmidt tried to scream.

The spider struck—

He awoke with a strangled gasp.

His pyjamas were no longer damp; they were practically made of sweat. His pillow had almost dissolved beneath him. The alarm clock showed five in the morning.

Schmidt lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling. He waited for the spider to return, for the walls to open, or for some elderly relative to appear at the foot of the bed and ask him why he had ignored the Church.

Nothing happened.

At last, he dared to move one finger.

It worked.

He moved another.

That worked too.

He sat up, inspected the bedclothes and found nothing more sinister than a thread, a crumb and one small, suspicious-looking fluff of dust. He brushed all three onto the floor.

Schmidt was utterly exhausted. He dragged himself out of bed, shuffled into the shower and turned on the water. The icy spray brought him briskly back to life.

He stood beneath it for several minutes, allowing the cold water to strip away the last sticky remnants of sleep, panic and religious uncertainty. By the time he reached for the soap, he had almost convinced himself that the night had been perfectly normal.

Then he remembered the spider.

He examined the ceiling.

Nothing.

He examined the corners.

Nothing.

He examined the drain.

Nothing—but the drain looked capable of keeping secrets.

Schmidt brushed his teeth and got ready for work. He packed his lunch, checked that he had his keys and wallet, and looked once more at the bed. It sat there innocently, with the bland, smug appearance of furniture that had never done anything wrong.

Starting two hours early wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

At last, the morning light began to seep through the curtains. It was a pale, joyless light, the sort that made every room look as though it had recently received bad news. Schmidt stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. His face was grey, his eyes were red, and his hair stood up in several rebellious directions.

He looked like a man who had survived something.

Unfortunately, he had not.

He had merely completed the first stage of his working day.

The recently promoted 36th-degree under-devil and former Wehrmacht soldier, Schmidt, made his rounds through the dungeons with his Vaseline-lubricated trident. Ever since the old Nazi had died of a spider bite in Tunisia in 1943—after all, the bite had eventually caused heart failure, while the local medic had added a thoroughly comprehensive curse—he had been one of Hell’s most reliable specialists in personal torment.

His punishment was to know no peaceful sleep for a long, long time.