This time it had barely touched the pinpoint before it stopped and scuttled backward. Scott kept staring at it fixedly, his body remaining in its tense crouch, the heavy pin wavering a little in his grip, but always pointed at the spider. He could still feel the hideous clambering weight of it across his legs, the flesh-ripping slash of its leg. He squinted to distinguish its black form from the shadows.

He didn't know how long he remained in that position. The transition was unnoticeable. Suddenly, magically, there were only the shadows.

A confused sound stirred in his throat. He stood up on palsied legs and looked around. Across the cellar the oil burner roared into life and, heart pounding jaggedly, he twisted around in a panic, thinking that the spider was going to leap on him from behind.

He kept circling there for a long time, the weight of the lance like pin dragging down his arms. Finally it dawned on him that the spider had gone away.

A great wave of relief and exhaustion broke over him. The pin seemed made of lead, and it fell from his hands and clattered down on the wooden bottom of the box. His legs gave way and he slipped down into a twisted heap, head fallen back against the pin that had saved his life.

For a while he lay there in limp, contended depletion. The spider was gone. He'd chased it away.

It was not too long, however, before the knowledge that the spider was still alive dampened all contentment. It might be waiting outside for him, ready to spring as soon as he came out. It might be back under the water heater again, waiting for him there.

He rolled over slowly on his stomach and pressed his face against his arms. What had he accomplished, after all? He was still virtually at the spider's mercy. He couldn't carry the pin every where he went, and in a day or so he might not be able to carry it at all.

And even if (he didn't believe it for a second) the spider would be too frightened to attack him again, there was still the food that would be gone in two days, still the increasing difficulties in getting to the water, still the constant altering of his clothes to be made, still the impossibility of escaping the cellar, still, worst of all, always there, constantly nagging, the dread of what was going to happen to him between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

He struggled to his feet and groped around until he found the hinged cover of the box. He pulled it over and lowered it into place, then sank back into the darkness. What if I smother? he thought. He didn't care.

He'd been running since it had all started. Running physically, from the man and the boys and the cat and the bird and the spider, and a far worse kind of flight, running mentally. Running from life, from his problems and his fears; retreating, backtracking, facing nothing, yielding, giving in, surrendering.