by Lukens, Mark
“Next aisle over,” the man said. He turned away from his task of rearranging spray paint cans. “But you don’t want to use poison,” he told Kevin.
“I don’t?”
“No. The rat will eat the poison, die in your ceiling or walls, and then stink the place up.” The older man’s expression said: didn’t you ever think of that? And then he thrust his hand out at Kevin. “The name’s Stan.”
Kevin nodded. “Uh … I’m Kevin, and this is my wife Bridgette.”
Stan took Bridgette’s hand and shook it delicately.
“Well,” Kevin said, trying to get all of them back on track, “someone at work told me there’s a type of poison that sends the rats looking for water.”
“What? Coagulants? Yeah, those cause their insides to swell up and explode. But you don’t want the rat finding your toilet and exploding there, do you?”
Suddenly, poisons didn’t sound so humane to Kevin.
“Besides, we don’t sell those anymore,” Stan said. Kevin could imagine pets or kids getting into the poison and then crawling to the toilets to explode. He pushed the image from his mind.
“No,” Stan continued in his cheerful but I-am-really-much-smarter-than-you voice. “You want the good old-fashioned rattraps.”
Stan walked briskly back to the front of the sore and showed them a pegboard full of packages of rattraps. Kevin picked up a bag that had twenty traps in it. The traps looked just like the ones he’d seen in the cartoons as a kid. He had imagined that some intricate piece of machinery had replaced it by now, but it seemed nobody had ever gotten around to building a better mousetrap.
“So these will get rid of the mouse?” Kevin asked.
“Mouse?” Stan asked. “You sure it’s not a rat?”
“He believes it’s a cute little mouse,” Bridgette said and rolled her eyes.
“If it is a mouse,” Stan said, “then that big ole trap will splatter it all over the place. You’d better have a garbage bag underneath it.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Kevin said.
“Actually, we haven’t even seen the thing yet,” Bridgette said. “We’ve just heard it scratching and chewing on something in the ceiling.”
“It’s a rat,” Stan said. “Probably a Norwegian gray rat.”
They followed Stan to the cash register and Kevin hoped the rat class was over with now.
• • •
Bridgette made Kevin set up the traps that night: one in the kitchen and one in the little closet that housed the heater. Stan the Hardware Man told them to use Gummy Bears as bait because it would stick better than cheese or meat. Or peanut butter works great, he’d told them. Stan was a fountain of rodent knowledge.
But Kevin gave in to his cartoon upbringing and loaded the traps with pieces of cheese. What rat could resist cheese? He even pushed the bits of cheese down onto the traps.
Bridgette munched on some of the Gummy Bears while she watched him prepare the rattraps. “You should use these Gummy Bears,” she told him. But she seemed happy enough that the traps were being set.
They watched TV for an hour and Kevin tried to snuggle up to her. He was her hero after all and he deserved a reward, didn’t he? But she was too tired and she had a headache from lack of sleep because of the non-stop scratching noises in the ceiling.
Kevin could see that he wasn’t going to get any lovin’ until this rat was dead. And he was beginning to hate this rat a little now. All part of Bridgette’s plan, he was sure.
• • •
Bridgette woke Kevin up at five o’clock in the morning. The rat was still going at it up in the ceiling. She pushed him out of bed, ordering him to check the traps.
The traps were still set on their break-neck position, but the cheese was gone. Kevin smiled. This was one clever little rat.
Bridgette snuck up behind him. “Shoulda used the Gummy Bears.”
“I guess Stan knows what he’s talking—”
Bridgette’s scream interrupted his sentence. “What the hell’s that?” she squealed and pointed down at the garbage bag underneath the rattrap. There was a milky white substance spread all over it.
Kevin crouched down to take a closer look. But not too close. He definitely wasn’t going to touch it.
“It’s in here, too,” Bridgette yelled from the kitchen.
Kevin rushed into the kitchen and saw that she was pointing at the kitchen counters.
“What is it, piss?” she asked.
“I don’t think it’s piss,” Kevin said as he stared at the splash of milky fluid all over the countertop.
They tried wiping it off the counter, but it had hardened to a glue-like substance. They had to chip it away with a butter knife and paint scraper.
“Never thought I’d be cleaning rat semen off of my counters,” Bridgette mumbled under her breath.
Our dream house, Kevin almost said, but decided against it.
Kevin was really starting to hate the rat now. It had all been cute for a while, but this on their counter was an offense to them. And this was war now. The little furry bastard was dead.
• • •
The next time Kevin checked the traps, the Gummy Bears were gone.
“I guess Stan the Hardware Man doesn’t know everything,” Kevin said and smirked.
Kevin set three more traps with Gummy Bears pushed down into a spot of peanut butter. That ought to do it.
But when he checked later, the entire rattraps were gone.
“What do you mean, gone?” Bridgette asked him, following him to the little heater closet.
“The traps are just gone,” he told her. “They’re not there anymore.”
“And you think the rat took them?” she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“I didn’t say that. I just said they’re gone. And I didn’t take them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I want this thing dead just as badly as you do now.”
She just nodded.
Kevin set three more traps: one with cheese, one with Gummy Bears, and one with peanut butter.
“What is this, an experiment?” Bridgette asked from behind him.
“I just want to see if these traps get taken.”
“You don’t really believe they’re taking the traps, do you?”
“What other explanation is there?”
• • •
When they checked the traps a few hours later, they were gone.
“What the hell kind of rat is this?” Bridgette asked.
“I don’t know,” Kevin answered as he shook his head in disbelief. “We seem to have one smart rat here.”
Kevin got three more traps ready. It seemed futile to set them again, but what choice did he have? He set the traps down on the garbage bags that were smeared with even more of the white, milky liquid that had dried to cement.
How can they secrete that much stuff? Kevin wondered. He had decided that there had to be more than just one rat. Quite a few, he guessed.
“Maybe we should try poison,” Bridgette said from behind him.
Kevin nodded, but didn’t answer.
Bridgette went to the kitchen and screamed for Kevin.
Kevin ran to the kitchen and found Bridgette standing in front of the open cabinets. Boxes and bags of food had been ripped open, the food spilled out onto the shelves.
“Holy shit,” Kevin whispered.
He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and chugged half of it down. He offered the can to Bridgette but she declined. She didn’t drink beer anymore. She didn’t do a lot of things anymore.
“This is really strange,” Kevin said after a few more swallows of his beer. “These are some smart rats.”
“How many do you think there are?” she asked and shivered.
“I don’t know. More than we thought.”
“Maybe we should call an exterminator,” Bridgette said, glancing back at the damaged food in the cabinets. “I mean, this is starting to get a little out of hand.”
“Extermina
tors are expensive.”
“My mother could help …”
“I get my check next Friday. If we haven’t killed them by then, then we’ll call somebody.” Kevin sighed. He wasn’t even sure if they would have enough money left over for an exterminator. But asking Bridgette’s mom for more help was the last thing he wanted to do.
• • •
The next night Kevin didn’t even bother to set more traps. He sat in the living room with his feet up on the couch, watching TV with the lights on until twelve o’clock. Bridgette came out from the bedroom in her skimpy nightgown, but she didn’t look like she was in a romantic mood; she looked angry.
“I know,” he snapped at her. “I hear it.” He looked up at the ceiling where the crunching sound came from. It had been pretty much non-stop today. What the hell were they chewing on up there?
Bridgette sat down beside Kevin on the couch (and she put her feet up too). “I know you don’t want help from my mother, but I think we really need to. We need a professional in here.”
Kevin just nodded. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. He looked at her. “Call your mom tomorrow.”
Bridgette smiled and gave him a kiss. “Come on, you need to get to bed. You’ve got to get up early and make those donuts.”
Kevin clicked off the TV and followed Bridgette to their bedroom. Bridgette walked around the foot of the bed and snuggled in under her covers. Kevin turned off the lamp next to the bed and pulled his side of the covers back and slipped into bed.
And then he jumped back out of bed with a scream as snapping sounds echoed in the darkness. He felt things smacking against his bare legs.
“Shit!” Kevin yelled and pulled the chain down on the lamp so hard he nearly knocked it over. He ripped the covers back from the bed and stared down at the rattraps all over the sheets.
Bridgette sat up in bed, staring down at the traps.
“What the hell are those doing there?” Kevin roared.
“I didn’t—”
“That’s not funny, Bridgette,” he stormed. “That’s not funny at all! That’s a sick joke.”
“I didn’t put them there!” she yelled at him.
Kevin looked down at his legs, checking them for injury. He didn’t see any cuts, and he figured the traps must’ve bounced off his skin.
He looked at her. “Then how did they get there?”
“You’re mouse must’ve collected them and left them under the covers for you.”
“Yeah, real funny,” he said as he stared at her. “Taking the traps and hiding them is one thing, but this is too much.”
“How can you possibly think I would do this?”
“Just your way of pointing out my failure.”
Bridgette was about to say something but a loud, scurrying noise in the bedroom ceiling right above them cut off her words. They both stared up at the ceiling, their eyes following the ceiling like they could see the rats running back and forth.
“Oh we’re getting some poison right now!” Kevin shouted up at the ceiling. “I’ve had enough of this shit.” His eyes followed the scurrying up in the ceiling—it was the loudest they’d heard so far. He could hear the rat running from their bedroom ceiling to the living room ceiling, and then he heard the sound of it in the living room wall, scurrying down the heater, its claws clicking loudly on the metal.
How is a rat scurrying down a piece of sheet metal? Kevin wondered and a knot of fear squeezed his stomach like a fist.
They both heard something running across the living room floor, its claws clicking. It sounded big, and it sounded fast.
“Kevin?”
Kevin sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled his bare feet up onto the bed. He stared at their bedroom door and the hall beyond that. And then he saw the thing racing from the living room, down the hall to their bedroom.
It stopped in their doorway and stared at them.
Bridgette let out a short, sharp scream of terror and grabbed on to Kevin, but her scream did not scare this thing off.
The thing looked like a gigantic centipede—about the size of a ferret. It raised half of its segmented body up, its antennae wiggling above its head where a pair of sideways pincers gnashed. There seemed to be dozens of little legs shooting out from the segments of its brownish/tan body, and each leg ended in a thorn-like barb. There was some kind of stinger at the posterior end, and the stinger dripped the thick white substance they had seen on their countertops.
Bridgette screamed again and clutched Kevin’s arms, digging her fingers into his skin.
The thing wasn’t moving towards them, but it wasn’t backing away, either. It remained in front of the doorway, almost like it was guarding it.
Okay, Kevin told himself, he had to think of what to do.
“What’s it doing?” Bridgette squealed.
“I think it’s waiting,” Kevin answered.
“Waiting for what?”
“For us to make a move.”
“We have to kill it,” Bridgette whispered in his ear.
The thing dropped back down onto all of its legs, its pincer-claw mouth working constantly.
“We need to get out of here,” Kevin whispered like the creature could hear them and understand his words. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the thing. If he lost sight of it and the thing darted off into the shadows …
Kevin moved down to the end of the bed and jumped down to the floor. He felt vulnerable with bare feet and didn’t want to think about how that thing could probably shred the flesh off of his feet and calves in a few seconds. He could imagine the thing launching itself at his legs and clutching on to them, the barbs at the end of its legs sinking easily into his flesh.
He ran across the wood floor and ripped the curtains back so hard, he tore the curtain rod off and nearly screamed in horror as the curtain draped down on top of him. He threw it off of him and lifted up on the window. But the window was stuck. He saw that a line of the milky substance from the creature was beaded along the bottom of the window. It was glued shut.
“Shit!”
He heard the centipede creature’s little legs and claws ticking across the wood floor at an insane rate of speed.
“Kevin!!”
Kevin didn’t even try to see where the creature was, he jumped from the window to the bed like an Olympic broad jumper. And in one quick movement, he grabbed Bridgette’s upper arm and lifted her up off the bed as he took two steps across their springy mattress and landed on the floor with a thud.
“Get to the kitchen!” he yelled at her. “We’ll go out the kitchen door!”
They ran down the hall, their naked feet slapping on the floorboards as they ran. They raced across the kitchen floor and got to the door. Kevin was there first, he pulled on the door but it was stuck. He saw the line of milky substance all around the edges and bottom of the door.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
They heard the creature’s legs clicking down the hallway floor.
“The countertop!” Bridgette yelled.
They jumped up on top of the counter and stove. Kevin saw another bead of milky stuff around the kitchen window over the sink. He tried it anyway, but it wouldn’t budge. Maybe he could smash the window out.
The centipede creature stopped in the middle of the linoleum floor. It was very still for a moment, just waiting, just watching them from two dark spots on the side of its head that must’ve been eyes. Half of its body was raised up, its clawed legs wriggling in the air; it looked oddly like a dog sitting up and begging. Its antennae swished back and forth like it was writing letters in the air, and then it emitted high squeaking noises.
“Do something,” Bridgette said, trying to cower back into the counter more, hiding underneath the upper cabinets.
Kevin opened the upper cabinet he was in front of and grabbed the first bag of food he found—a bag of marshmallows. He threw a handful of marshmallows down at the creature. It devoured the marshmallows in a few qui
ck gulps. Kevin threw the rest of the bag down and watched as the creature dropped down to its legs and shredded the plastic bag apart in seconds.
Kevin found a box of stale croutons and he threw those at the creature. And then half a box of cereal.
It seemed to be distracted for a moment by the food.
Maybe they had a chance to get away. But where? Which door or window wasn’t sealed with that milky shit that turned to superglue?
The creature shredded both boxes of food and gobbled down the croutons and cereal.
“I can’t believe how much it’s eating,” Kevin said.
The creature sat up and begged again, secreting the milky white substance from its stinger-like tail. It screeched out squeaks and clicks from its pincers.
“What are we going to do when we run out of food for it?” Bridgette asked.
Before Kevin could answer, he heard a rumbling noise in the ceiling above him. It sounded like thousands and thousands of those tiny claws skittering across the wood rafters. Then he heard a cacophony of clicks down the sheet metal of the heater in the little closet in the living room.
“Oh God,” Kevin said as he felt the breath leave his body. “It’s calling more of them.”
DECEMBER
THE VENDING MACHINE
Here’s an odd Christmas tale to finish this collection. Nine year old Sammy Johnson finds a very strange vending machine in the laundry room of their apartment complex during his Christmas break that he soon believes can grant his wishes. But he must be very careful what he wishes for.
It was a typical Florida Christmas, hot one day and then cold the next. Good for variety, but not so good for the immune system. The day Sammy went down to the laundry room from their upstairs apartment, the weather had decided to turn cold suddenly. A tricky wind blew through the recently planted oak trees that lined the sidewalk in front of their building; some of the trees weren’t much taller than Sammy who was nine years old and a little short and thin for his age. The breeze stung Sammy’s pale face and he snuggled a little more into his thrift store coat that was two sizes too big for him. His mother told him he would grow into it.
Yeah, Sammy thought. When I’m in high school.
