SOURCE: "The Spectre Spiders" (Ghost Gleams, 1921) by W. J. Wintle

DESCRIPTION: "...Ephraim had woke up without apparent cause, but with a vague sense of danger; and was just in time to see a round black body, covered with a dense coat of hair, climb up the foot of his bed and make its way cautiously toward his face. It was a gigantic spider; and its eight gleaming eyes blazed with lambent green light like a cluster of sinister opals." ("The Spectre Spiders" by W. J. Wintle)

NOTES: Mistaken for a monkey and a cat, the spectre spiders are creatures of shadow, disregarded as optical illusions. But when the lights go out they swarm in the darkness around their intended victim. Insubstantial a bullet from a gun can not stop them. They kill Ephraim's dog by draining it of blood and eventually Ephraim himself.

HISTORY: Wintle chooses a greedy Jewish money lender as his victim. His racism is offensive but not surprising since the story was probably inspired by Sax Rohmer's phantom beetles from Brood of the Witch-Queen (1914). Rohmer was also an anti-Semitist.