Forgotten Fears

by Bray, Michael

  I started to see the little people who live in the walls a few days ago.

  See? I told you it would sound crazy. Bear with me, though, and I’ll do my best to explain.

  It started just after my wife, Hilary, told me she wanted a divorce. In hindsight (which I’ve since discovered in a wonderful but frustratingly useless thing) I probably should have seen it coming. As a husband, I was lacking in a lot of areas, although none that I thought would lead to her dropping ‘the big D’ on me. Either way, I had no idea things had gotten so bad, and the news hit me like a cliché filled freight train. I went through the expected responses. Telling her things would change, telling her things would get better. She responded to this not with love and open arms and forgiveness as I’d hoped, but by instead informing me that not only did she not want any kind of promise of change from me, but she was already seeing someone else, a work colleague called Ted.

  I asked how it was that I’d never heard of Ted, and why she had never mentioned him before, then it dawned on me that a secret affair usually meant that the clueless husband is kept completely out of the loop. I asked her if it was serious and she said Ted had told her he loved her and wanted her to move in with him.

  Thanks, Ted. Thanks a lot.

  How did I respond to this earth shattering news I hear you ask? Was it with the British stiff upper lip that my birth parents possessed and had tried to drill into me when I was a nervous, spotty youth? Was it with grace and dignity, or a steely determination to deal with the situation and set about building a new life by myself?

  Not exactly.

  I went and had myself a nervous breakdown.

  You hear all this bullshit about how time heals, and if you love someone, let them go. But none of that means anything when all you can think about is your wife with her legs wrapped around another man’s waist and screaming his name whilst you gradually come apart at the seams. Let me tell you, it’s not a great place to be. Either out of stubbornness or some childish desire to do everything I could to piss her off, I started to do all the things she hated.

  I started smoking again, not because I missed the delicious flavour of those tar-packed cancer sticks, but because I knew Hilary hated it. She used to moan and whine about the smell and the damage that I was doing to my body. Despite her warnings, that first one tasted pretty sweet, and almost made me forget all about her fucking someone else whilst I was by myself polluting my body.

  Same story with the drinking. The six pack a night that I started with to help me get through to the next day soon became twelve, and in the interest of efficiency, those have now been replaced with a bottle of Vodka a day, or failing that, good old Jack Daniels. Hell, I would drink anything if it would help to take away the feeling of absolute worthlessness and self-pity for a couple of hours. It was during one of these self-depreciating binges that I first saw the wall people, or Scratchers, as I have since christened them.

  I was slouched on the sofa, eyes raw from lack of sleep, booze, or crying – take your pick – when I saw one of them scurry across the edge of the wall. I didn’t freak out as you might expect, instead, I sat there and stared, feeling like Gulliver in the Lilliput of my too expensive, too empty apartment.

  He was about six inches tall – action figure sized if you will – and wearing a tiny brown tunic. His tiny eyes glinted in the semi-gloom, and he was armed with what looked to be a converted nail file sword, one of Hilary’s no doubt that had been lost at some point in the past. He froze and stared at me, holding the tiny weapon defensively in my direction. I could only gawp back, the worthless drunk and the impossible tiny man engaged in a stare down. The Scratcher sniffed the air, then shoved the kitchen door open a crack and squeezed inside. I just sat there, listening to the tiny pitter-pat of his feet as he went. It was then, as I sat and really listened to the house, that I truly heard them.

  They were stealthy, moving behind the walls, a subtle scratching as they moved between plasterboard and insulation. The sound of them reminded me of the house I grew up in, the way the rats that used to make nests in our barn during winter months used to scurry around as they looked for food to scavenge on. I think that was when I truly started to feel afraid, because as I sat there and listened, it sounded like there was a hell of a lot of them.

  My response to this disturbing discovery was not to leap into action the way any self-motivated hero would, but to finish my freshly opened bottle of Mr. Daniels’s finest and bring on a glorious, booze-fuelled sleep. The next day, with a head that throbbed like a rotten tooth, I dragged myself off the sofa and walked to the kitchen, trying to convince myself that I wanted a glass of water when I knew it was the unopened bottle of Smirnoff that a was really looking for.

  Gleaming white tiles greeted me, the room edged with expensive, custom made fitted cupboards which I had never wanted but Gloria had insisted on. I wondered in the back of my mind what kind of cupboards Ted had in his house and how long it would take her to get her claws into him and take away his decision-making ability on such things. Probably not yet. They would still be too busy enjoying each other for mundane things like kitchen furniture.

  Anyway, I’m losing track.

  As soon as I opened the door I could hear them, that same subtle scratching sound as they went about their business. I don’t know how long I stood there and held my breath. It felt like hours, the average lung capacity of a human being, especially one who had just rediscovered his old smoking habits told me it was significantly less.

  With more effort than I expected it to take, I forced myself to walk across the room to the cupboard under the sink and kneel in front of it. Most of the noise seemed to be coming from there, and I grasped the handles with every intention of looking, but just couldn’t bring myself to open them. I don’t know if I was more afraid of seeing them, or of not seeing them. Either way, I didn’t think it bode well for my sanity. Eventually, I found the guts to do what I needed to and yanked the doors open, expecting to see a fully function micro- village like something from The Borrowers, but was greeted instead with the familiar landscape of spare mop heads, cleaning materials and old washcloths. I was about to close the doors when something caught my eye that looked out of place. I fished out one of the washcloths from the back of the cupboard and held it up to the light, half mesmerized, half afraid. Clothes had been cut out of the material, leaving only tiny templates for trousers and shirts behind. With my racing heart feeling like it was now beating in my throat, I checked the other rags and cloths that were in there, and almost all of them were the same. It looked as if my dish rags had clothed an entire tiny populace.

  Surely now he will react and do something proactive, I hear you say.

  Actually no. I closed the cupboard, opened the Smirnoff that I had tried to lie to myself I didn’t want, and drank until I passed out on the sofa. (I hadn’t been able to sleep in the bed since Hilary left. It still smelled of her perfume). When I woke up, I was aware of three things all in fairly quick succession. First, that my body felt as if it had been put through a mangle stamped on and then put through it again. Second, that I was struggling to cope with the amount of booze I was consuming, and that I ought to slow down a touch. The third thing I noticed was the note taped to my chest. It was written on a small scrap of paper, and the text looked to have been scrawled by a young child, or - dare I say it - a tiny hand. The writing was uneven and spiky, and in truth barely legible, but still, the message was clear enough despite the awful spelling.

  Firgit abot us.

  Or els.

  Ice replaced blood, and even the throbbing headache subsided for long enough for me to be afraid of that tiny scrap of paper. There was sinister simplicity to it. A way of wording that told me that these people- pardon my French – don’t fuck around. As I write this – covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrive – it dawns on me that I should have left there and then. The second I got that note, I should have packed a bag and got the hell out of dodge, but stubbornness ha
s always been a problem for me, and so I decided instead to do something stupid. Much like the dumb hero in a cheesy horror flick will confidently walk into the dark and tell his friends he’ll be right back when we the viewer know what’s waiting for him, I had my very own stupid idea. I decided to try and catch the little critters on video, partly to prove to myself that they weren’t a figment of my imagination (Believe me, the idea had dawned on me more than once) and second, to maybe get the bragging rights of discovering something never seen before, a new species of undiscovered creature that had taken residence in my walls. Hell, my booze addled brain thought that I might even earn a little bit of money and maybe, just maybe, use my new found fame to win my wife back from the arms of the mysterious Ted.

  I set up a couple of cameras. One in the corner of the living room, getting as much of the space in shot as possible, the second in the kitchen, facing the cupboards. The idea was to leave the cameras recording, stay awake all night and log everything that happened. I wanted to get everything, you see. Log it so that when the inevitable questions came from the newspapers and such I would be able to answer. I wanted to know how many there were, where they came from, what they did when they came out, and more importantly, what they wanted with me. But my grand plan was, as always, derailed by the demon booze, and although I promised myself I would stay sober to complete my important mission, I had passed out by ten o clock, three-quarters of a bottle of whisky for the worse with my notepad in hand and pen poised over paper. It was almost three in the morning when I jolted awake, spilling remainder of the precious liquid all over myself, and for a second, I didn’t know where I was. It was only when I reached over to turn on the lamp that I saw the notepad. Before I had nodded off, the page had been clean and empty, ready for me to log the night’s events. But now, there were words on the page, scrawled in that same spiky longhand, and with much the same abruptness as before.

  Last chans.

  Stoppe now.

  The word now was double underlined, and I glared into the gloom, looking for any signs of them watching me, but all was silent. Hell, even the scratching in the walls had stopped. The silence was total as I sat there staring at those four words and clutching the three-quarters empty vodka bottle hard enough to turn my knuckles white. The state of my sanity again came into scrutiny as I tried to decide if I was seeing things or if these little people really were coexisting in my home when I remembered the cameras. Lurching out of the chair, I went to the one in the corner first, desperate to check it. Surely whatever had written those words would have been captured on film, and I could, at least, answer the nagging doubt over my state of mind, or at least that would have been the plan. I snatched the camera off the tripod and found that it had been switched off. There was no sane reason for that to happen, but I thought perhaps the battery had died. I powered the camera up, noting that as I suspected, there was almost a three quarter charge remaining. Tossing the useless gadget on the sofa, I hurried to the kitchen, shoving the door open to see if the other device had suffered the same fate.

  If there had been any doubts about low batteries of technical gremlins with the first camcorder, there were none with the second. Its remains lay on the kitchen floor, shattered fragments of green circuit board and copper wire strewn around it. With hands that shook either from the booze or through fear, I picked up the remains of the camera. I could see the markings on the outside like somebody had hacked at the casing with a pair of scissors (or perhaps a nail file knife) and had done a damn good job of destroying the innards of it too. I thought my legs were going to give way, but they somehow carried me back to my beloved sofa, where I crashed down and lit a cigarette. I could hear the need for alcohol gnawing at my gut, and was equally aware that the small amount that I had left wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to talk to someone, to tell them what was happening. Hell, maybe I even wanted to ask for help. I know I shouldn’t have done it, especially as I was still half drunk, but I called Hilary. It was a mistake, and part of me knew it when I dialled her number, but my booze-ravaged mind didn’t care. I slurred at her, first telling her how afraid I was of the people in the walls, then turning angry and blaming her for leaving me and making me feel the way I did. Another voice came on the line then, crisp and authoritative. The elusive Ted. He told me never to call again, and that if I did, he would call the police. I tried to think of a witty retort, something sarcastic maybe about my adulterous wife, but he had already hung up the phone and left me there with a dial tone in my ear. It was then that I had the idea that would bring me full circle as to the reason why I’m sitting here and writing this now. I decided that if I couldn’t catch them on camera, then I would have to literally catch one and find out what they wanted. It seemed like a perfectly rational idea at the time.

  Good God how wrong I was.

  I picked up a dozen or so mousetraps (yes, and a couple more bottles of my beloved sour mash whisky before you ask) and set about putting my plan into action. The guy at the store tried to offer me those humane ones, telling me they were the better option. How could I tell him that my traps were for little people who live in the walls, and would be intelligent enough to escape? Of course, there was no way I could tell him that, so I plumped for some of the old school wooden ones with the metal snaps designed to kill.

  Jesus, I just realised that this was only the day before yesterday. It almost seems like another lifetime. Anyhow, I better hurry up and finish this. I can almost imagine that I can hear the police sirens coming closer.

  So, back to the mousetraps.

  I put them in all the places I would expect mousetraps to go. In the corners of the rooms, in the cupboards themselves and in the kitchen where I had heard most of the scratching. I wasn’t even sure it would work, but I was desperate enough to try. I set my traps and sat on the sofa, intending to wait and watch, but the liquid stuff was calling me and I started on the first bottle, promising that I would only drink half and save the rest for later. As always, my willpower deserted me, and I passed out after draining the entire bottle.

  I dreamed of strange things. I dreamed of Hillary and the faceless Ted laughing at me as swarms of tiny people streamed from the walls and climbed up me, forcing themselves into my mouth, forcing themselves down my throat and attacking me from the inside out, the pain agonizing as Hillary and her faceless new lover laughed and whooped and danced.

  I was woken by the snap of a mousetrap.

  Even though I was more than a little worse for wear because of the alcohol I had poured down my neck and the disturbing remnants of the nightmare, I staggered to the kitchen, pushing the swing door open, desperate to see what I had caught. The two of them froze as they looked at me. One of them was injured, its foot severed by the mousetrap. His colleague had him under the arms and was dragging him towards the open kitchen cupboard, leaving a tiny trail of blood behind from its wounded leg. Behind, I could see more of them, huddled in the darkness of the cupboard as they watched the rescue take place. Even in the gloom, I could see them glaring at me. I grabbed the first thing I could see - the coffee cup that Hilary bought me for my birthday - the one that said coffee addict, with a huge arrow pointing up towards the drinker. I threw it overarm, grunting with rage. The cup shattered against the cupboard door, showering the miniature people in shards of broken ceramic, which to them must have looked like immense boulders. They flinched but didn’t deviate, continuing to drag their wounded colleague towards the safety of the cupboard. Two more came out to help, these armed with weapons - the old kitchen scissors that had been lost some time before, the other with what looked to be the business end of a corkscrew. Their faces were painted with red war paint stripes, and as they dragged their wounded compatriot to safety, they paused to glare at me from across the room, their tiny faces twisted into hateful grimaces. With that, the cupboard door closed and I could hear the scratching in the walls as they moved around back there. Something happened then. Maybe it was rage, maybe it was fear. Probably, it was a combin
ation of the two. All I knew is that I wanted them out of the house, out of my damn walls. I jogged across to where I had last seen them, the tiny blood trail leading from mousetrap the only evidence that they were ever there, and yanked open the cupboard door, spilling pans and dishes all over the floor as I searched for them. All I could hear was that incessant scratching. It felt like they were mocking me, laughing at me, just like Hilary. Just like Ted. The hammer had been in the toolbox which I had scooped out of the cupboard onto the floor, spilling the contents. The business end was large and sturdy, the kind of weapon that could do serious damage, especially to action figure sized home invaders. I snatched it up, stumbled to the worktop and set it down, then with shaking hands, ripped open the top on the bottle of Jack Daniels that I had bought and gulped a third of it down in one, wincing as it burned my throat.

  Haha! Come on then Trenton, stop being such a pussy! Let’s find these little shits!

  My inner voice seemed to like the booze just as much as I did, and with another hefty swig of the good stuff for courage, I scooped up the hammer and swung it at the wall as hard as I could, screaming in both rage and defiance as I did it.

  Plasterboard exploded, wood shattered.

  Damn it felt good.

  I cackled and swung the hammer again, revelling in another explosion of wood and plaster dust. I pulled at the hole, ignoring the cuts to my hands as I peered into the cavity. I couldn’t see them in there, but could still hear them, louder now scurrying through the walls. By then, I wasn’t about to let them escape me. I took the hammer to the wall again, chasing those scratching sounds around the house. By the time I had finished, I could barely move my arm, and my hair and clothes were covered in plaster dust and flecks of wood. The house looked like a warzone.

  I didn’t see a single one of the little people.