“Study?” He nearly spat the word. “That,” he said, pointing in the direction of Madeleine’s dark house, “brought it here. The rats, the animals. I don’t know how or why it got as far as it did, but mark my words, that shithole brought it into the neighborhood.”
“I agree with you.”
“You do?”
She nodded. “I heard enough at the meeting to know that your neighbor actually altered the ecosystem here. Look, maybe we can help each other. I’m going to work tomorrow to see who I can talk to about studying this situation. Maybe they will want to trap the cat. If we determine that the house was involved—and I’m sure we would—then the National Zoo telling Arlington County it has a pest problem might lend some weight.”
Ben looked off to the side and took a deep breath. It seemed like taking the long way around when a shortcut seemed obvious, but she had already done more than any county official since Manny. He looked over her shoulder toward Madeleine’s.
“Fine. No one in Arlington is doing jack shit anyway. You’re the only person who seems to have a plan and you’ve been here for all of an hour. But I want to be involved. I’m the one who has to deal with the consequences of living next door to that,” he said, waving his hand. “I want to stay in the loop.”
“Deal.”
They exchanged numbers and she promised to let him know what the zoo responded with. On her way out of the yard, she looked at Madeleine’s house and stopped in her tracks.
“Did you see that? Up in the window? Are you sure no one is in there?”
“Rats. They ruffle the shades. Welcome to my world.”
“No, I think it was a cat.”
“The rats can get pretty big.”
She looked at him and smirked. “I think I know a cat when I see one.”
“Fair enough.”
“So how did she die?”
“Heart attack. She was in the hospital for a few weeks. Brain dead. Terrible. While she was in, Animal Control came and took her pets. Her legitimate pets, that is. Must be a straggler.”
“We can’t leave it in there.”
“Sure we can.”
She looked horrified.
“Do you know how many half-eaten rats I’ve found on my lawn? Probably gifts from that same pest. That house and everything associated with it has caused this neighborhood nothing but grief. I’m not inclined to do shit.”
Lindsay glanced at the sole of her shoe. “I think I stepped in some of your righteous indignation.”
“You want to talk bugs, it’s probably covered in fleas…”
“If you want to be anywhere near Operation Humane Cougar Capture, you will help me liberate that cat. Consider it practice.” She started toward Madeleine’s gate.
“Hold on.”
She stopped.
“There is no way you are trespassing in that house, loaded with rats and God knows what else, at night, to find a cat. I will tackle you if you even try, I swear.”
“And they say chivalry is dead.”
Ben sighed. “I’ll do it. Tomorrow. When I get home from work.”
“Before work.”
He stared at her for a moment. She stared back, with a slight smile indicating she was clearly pleased with herself.
“Fine, but it’s probably better off in there. There’s a pet-eating cougar on the loose, maybe you’ve heard.”
Chapter 6
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Neighborhood meeting nights always put Hazel Bennett behind, but she could not afford to miss them. Lord knows what would happen to the neighborhood if she was not around to keep everyone in check. Tonight had been livelier than she had been prepared for, though, and certainly the most bizarre meeting since the Roux woman was still alive and causing trouble. As she filled the kettle at her sink and peered through her kitchen window to the high fence that surrounded the dark house and bordered her yard, she thought the Roux woman was still causing trouble even from the grave.
She looked to the left of the high fence, at the McKelvie boy’s house. She would not miss his oafish greyhound and its barking, but wild animals on the loose in the neighborhood would not stand. And she and McKelvie had always been in lockstep when it came to Roux and her rats. The rats were clearly still a problem, and drawing even bigger problems.
She hated the rats. Everyone hated the rats, but she hated the rats. They were nature’s perfect filth machines. It’s not just that they were pestilence embodied, it was their efficiency, something she could admire in any other species but loathed in these creatures. They could flatten their bodies to fit into impossible spaces. With their strong teeth, they could chew through any barrier. They even survived on the waste of other animals. And the Roux woman had practically shielded them. Hazel had put down rat poison stations, but the woman kept feeding the pigeons (rats with wings, really) despite Hazel’s insistence that she not. The rats loved the food, and it was loaded with vitamin K, which actually counteracted the poison. They were damn near indestructible.
And breeding? Forget rabbits (which were also a problem, but only with her garden in the spring and they were not a priority now); rats should replace them for that particular euphemism. Even with Roux dead and not feeding the birds anymore, and the neighbors using traps and poison stations to keep them at bay, as long as they had the safe haven of that dump, they would never be fully eradicated.
It was near eleven, but she was too wound up from the meeting. The dishes were clean, countertops wiped down, and coffeemaker filled and set to auto, so she opened her mystery novel and waited for the kettle. It was the fifth in a series about an antiques dealer in a town with a shockingly high mortality rate, and she had gotten a few pages deeper when the kettle whined. She went into the kitchen and removed it from the burner. The high whistle abated, and in its place another whine came from outside.
Cozy.
Her cat was calling from outside. Was it possible he had darted out without her noticing when she returned home after the meeting? Cozy was purely a house cat, not equipped for life outdoors on a good day, let alone in a neighborhood plagued by rats and God knows what else now. She bolted through the door leading to the backyard. She called his name. The meowing continued closer to the fence. McKelvie’s new high-wattage motion sensor lights flashed on. It bathed the yard in a glow like that of a sports stadium. It was practically day over the fence, lighting up the adjacent section of her own backyard. In another situation she would have cursed him for it, but tonight it was useful. She saw no trace of Cozy in her immaculate backyard. She kept no trees or shrubs, but there was the thicket in the corner, on McKelvie’s side. She walked deep into her yard and called, “Kitty kitty kitty.” The meowing stopped.
It was quiet again.
She scanned the yard. McKelvie’s lights shut off, leaving her yard illuminated only by her own porch light, feeble by comparison. She shuddered at the thought of her cat somehow getting over the high fence, trapping himself in Roux’s jungle, when she heard the meowing start again.Behind her, back inside. She marched toward the house.
She closed and locked the door and called for him again. He was not in any of his dozing or hiding spots on the main floor, so she climbed the stairs to her bedroom and nearly slipped in a puddle.
“What in God’s name?”
She went to the hall closet for paper towels, daubed one into the puddle, and held it to her nose. Cat urine. She cleaned up the mess. When the floor was spotless again, she set out to reprimand the cat.
“Cozy! What’s gotten into you?”
She got down on her hands and knees by the bed and lifted the duvet. A shaft of light caught two wide, glowing eyes. Cozy gave a loud and plaintive cry.
“Are you not feeling well, Cozy?”
Another cry, more urgent.
“Why did you go outside?”
A hiss.
“Fine, Mr. Cranky Pants. You can stay under there all night with no treat if you want to be naughty.”
Hazel wa
shed her hands and went back to her tea. She thought about returning to her book, but she was too frazzled now; she simply would not concentrate on it. Finally, she turned on the television and watched a celebrity dancing program she had recorded. “Stars,” she said to no one, and snorted. At best, she was thinking, she could name two of the contestants, when a foul smell overcame her. And she heard the scratching.
She turned and saw the mound of rats. Hundreds of them, just standing there, watching her in a tight mass. Her first thought was not fear, but revulsion. Indignation even. Her home had always been a bastion of order and cleanliness, and it had been invaded by the enemy.
She recoiled and tried to flee, but she spilled herself from her chair. She turned back to see the tangle of rats move as one across the floor. As they reached her, they reared up. Impossibly, from the floor, she realized she was looking up at them. They nearly reached the ceiling. Worse, she noticed there was no daylight, no space, between them. They were pressed together.
No, not pressed, she thought, fused.
One twisted, gnarled body, thousands of tiny heads protruding. The mass crested over her, swaying like a cobra for a moment, hundreds of black eyes looking down on her, before it crashed over her in a wave and thousands of razor-sharp teeth found purchase at once.
Chapter 7
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Ben stood on Madeleine’s front step in the early morning, clutching a flashlight and staring at the green door. He had already set a can of tuna fish on the sidewalk to help lure the cat out of the house, and carried another in his pocket. He did not expect to find the door unlocked, but figured it would be worth the extra moment to check rather than climb into a window unnecessarily. To his astonishment, the doorknob turned. Then again, he thought, what idiot would break into this dump? This idiot, he thought ruefully. He took a last look over his shoulder at the new morning light coming over his neighbors’ sleepy houses, cursed Lindsay, and stepped inside.
The smell of urine was overwhelming. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, then cursed Lindsay and Madeleine. His eyes watered and he began coughing and then his coughs turned to gags. He pulled his sweatshirt over his nose and mouth and tried to steady his breathing. The shades were drawn and the house was almost entirely dark, but he could hear a tiny stampede in the darkness and caught glimpses of small shapes darting on the outskirts of the shaft of light through the open front door. Rats, he thought. As he caught his breath, he cursed them too and added himself to the list for not bringing traps or bait stations. Or the marines.
He turned on his flashlight. Sweeping ahead of him, its beam revealed trash scattered on the floor, shredded newspapers, and rat droppings. Amid the filth, toward the kitchen, two eyes glowed back at him. For a moment, Ben thought it was a gigantic, brazen rat, but when he trained his beam at it, he realized it was the cat. A gray Maine coon. It was underfed and patches of hair were missing. What hair it did have was matted and probably infested with fleas. It sat there unfazed in the trash, not retreating, but not coming any closer either. Ben reached into his pocket and opened the can of tuna. He set it down gingerly.
“There’s plenty more where this came from if you come outside right now. Seriously, do I even need to sell you on this?”
It turned around and walked toward the kitchen, deeper into the house.
“Come on!”
He did not want to penetrate any farther into this place. The stench was like a physical thing and he fought to suppress a rising panic. The fact that it was exactly the same structure as his own house just next door brought him no comfort. The familiar setting, overlaid with trash and feces, made it all the more nightmarish to him. It was like standing in his own front room, but after the apocalypse. But he had made a promise, and though he did not like cats, he did not like the idea of any animal alone in the dark, surrounded by rats. He followed it toward the kitchen. Then he heard a faint, rhythmic thumping, lessening in volume, a sound he had heard a thousand times, but heavier, in his own house. The cat was padding down the steps into the basement.
He followed the cat as far as the landing of the basement, across from the galley kitchen. Behind him, weak light came in through a kitchen window, revealing the silhouettes of full garbage bags and still more trash outside of them. Ahead of him, the landing, framed by a rectangle of utter black. Intermittent skittering drifted up from below. He did not even want to shine his light into it.
He chuckled. “Not on your fucking life, cat.”
Behind him, something hissed. The bags shifted and something large lunged toward him. He dodged by instinct, forgetting himself, and his foot found nothing but air. He tumbled after it into the maw.
Chapter 8
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Ben threw his arm out to the spot where the handrail would be in his own house. He found it. For a split second, he thought the fact that Madeleine’s house was a dark mirror to his own saved his life, until his momentum swung him into the wall, hard, and the railing pulled free and he fell again.
He toppled sideways, sliding on his shoulder and landing at the foot of the staircase in a heap, bruised and battered, but unbroken. He shook his head. His flashlight had come to rest on the other end of the landing, pointing its beam to the center of the basement, where it illuminated what looked like a fire pit. He kicked himself over to the flashlight and grabbed it. The sound of wood creaking caused him to look up. In the weak light at the top of the staircase, a witch appeared. He shook his head, but the figure was still there, still the same. Crouching, the figure’s true size and detail were hidden beneath a cape. A brimmed hat with a peak. An honest-to-God witch, he thought.
Before shining the light in front of him, he grabbed the handrail, now at his feet. It was more than ten feet long and unwieldy but it put something between the two of them. After fumbling with the makeshift staff, he tightened his grip on it, found his balance, and swung his flashlight up the stairs while holding his weapon. The witch stopped.
It was definitely a woman, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The light revealed that her cloak was more of a poncho, red and black with pictures of birds. Beads, embroidery, and fringe. And the hat she wore was more of a helmet, carved of wood. It was painted to match the poncho, and it had the face of a bird on it. Over its brim were wooden rings in a conical shape; beneath it spilled graying black hair. For a moment, the beads and fringe and sequins began to reveal themselves to him, until she held up her arm to block the beam and her butcher knife reflected the light back at him dully.
“Get that light out of my damn face,” she said.
“No!” he yelled. Is that the best you can do? he thought. “Put the knife down!”
“I think not.”
At second glance, he saw it wasn’t a butcher knife but a dagger. Double-edged with a wooden handle carved in the shape of a bird’s head. A solitary gem was inlaid for the bird’s eye. In his beam, it seemed to glare at him, angry. In the darkness, he heard the skittering, then a thump. He flashed his light wildly into the basement. Rats darted from his beam. He had hoped his cursory sweep would eliminate the possibility that there were more people down here, but the piles of junk could have hidden anything. He quickly swung the light back up to the top of the stairs.
“You’re jumpy, boy.”
“Lady, so help me God, I am not going to die in this fucking pit. Put the knife down.”
“I’ll whistle for my dog.” The brim of her helmetlike hat hid her eyes, but he saw her smile. The smile, with no eyes, no context, made his blood run cold. Without the eyes, her smile was a secret. I know something you don’t know.
His quick glance around the basement revealed that it was identical to his own, structurally at least. There were a couple of windows, but they were small and their lowest edges were four feet off the ground. He would never get through them quickly enough to avoid a knife in his back. The only way out was up. Past her. Or through her. He tightened his grip on the railing.
He had never
been more terrified, not even face-to-face with the cougar. At least then he was out in the open. Then he could have screamed and someone might hear. But this, he thought. This was a dungeon. Though it was just after dawn, it was still entirely dark in the basement save for some faint light coming through a transom window across the room. And it occurred to him that he had flushed the meds that might have kept him calm. There was no more of an outside-looking-in feeling, the clinical distance they afforded. He was in this situation, fully present, unbearably so, for the first time in months. His panic threatened to overwhelm him until he felt a familiar rush. His old friend tapping him on the shoulder. Anger.
He wedged the end of the railing against a stair a few steps below her feet, then swung the full weight of his body to the left. The railing bent around a support column a third of the way up its length. It did not give.
He heard the woman back a step.
“What are you doing?”
He swung the full weight of his body around the fulcrum of the support, grunting. The basement came alive with sounds. The squealing and skittering of rats fleeing. When it did not give, he tried again, yelling. He heard it splinter, then cranked on it madly until the long spear of a railing gave way to panic, adrenaline, and rage. Now it was halved, a more manageable length. He brandished it like a club, and with his other hand, pointed the flashlight at her.
“Lady, I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. I’m leaving and if you try to stop me I will break this over your head and leave you to the rats.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“Trespassing? Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m her mother.”
“Bullshit,” he said, but he dropped his club an inch. “I heard her mother died in a crash or something.”
“Her father too, but I raised her. I’m her mother. We’re blood now.”
“So why are you dressed like you’re in a cult?”
The Beast of Barcroft Page 5
