Part of the ‘Amazon Original’ Dark Corners collection of spooky short stories, Edgar Cantero’s superbly named There’s a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed is a gleefully funny and beautifully observed tale of night-time terror at a children’s sleepover. Young bookworm Noah finds his evening derailed when his friend Ian calmly announces (from the top bunk) that there’s a giant trapdoor spider currently in residence beneath Noah’s bed (it dug a hole, so that it can fit). Thus begins a chain of bizarre events as Noah, Ian, Sam and Rina desperately try to keep clear of the giant spider, the antimatter shadows and various other hazards in the darkness of Noah’s bedroom.
There are few things as wildly imaginative as a group of children in the dark, and Cantero taps into this idea perfectly with an inventive story packed full of snarky dialogue, well-placed Harry Potter references and thrilling near-misses. You can almost see the author’s grin as he puts the characters into increasingly madcap situations, and while you might spend some of the time wondering whether these weird night-time dangers are truly real or not, the children treat every tantalising glimpse of a new horror with such matter-of-fact acceptance that it all feels entirely believable. It’s at once utterly ridiculous and heart-racingly tense, with a delightful balance of humour and horror, and every page is a joy to read. As for whether there really is a giant trapdoor spider under Noah’s bed? Well, you’ll just have to read it to find out.
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