Rats in the Walls © by Bob Bearden 1998
All Rights Reserved
Webpage by Jilli / Fate
RATS IN THE WALLS
By: Bob Bearden aka Thon_
Matty Alridge set her items on the counter and stood impatiently while Mr. Newman finished dealing with a phone customer. Absently, she looked around the checkout area as she waited. A tabloid caught her eye. "Space Aliens Took My Baby" screamed the headline, with a fuzzy photograph of some amateur attempt at creating an alien face. She wondered how people could be so stupid. Mr. Newman hung up the phone and began checking her purchases.
"Mrs. Alridge, you must really be having rat problems." The clerk said as he totaled and bagged the half dozen rat traps and box of poison.
She counted out her money without looking up. "They are annoying, that is all. Not a problem, Mr. Newman."
"Yes, m'am. I just recall you buying traps and some poison not long ago." He handed her the bag.
"I misplaced the traps," Matty took the bag, looked the man in the eye. "Not that I see that is your business. Good day, Mr. Newman."
Matty left the store, immediately feeling the cold fingers of the winter breeze tugging at her coat and teasing her thin brown hair. She hated the winter. Hated everything about it, the cold, the snow, the loud and annoying children. The only good thing about the winter was the death of her sorry excuse for a husband, William the Useless. A slight smile touched her hard face at that.
As Matty walked onto the porch of her old brownstone, she noted the food in the cats dish was still untouched. Well, let him starve, then, she decided. Over a week since Jenkins had been at the door, begging to be let inside. He was a useless cat, anyway, she reminded herself as she took up the dish, tossing the dry food onto the snowy ground. His only redeeming feature was William had not liked him because Jenkins tended to "do his business" in his study. Now there was no William, no study, and as far as Matty was concerned, no more need of Jenkins, either.
In the kitchen, as the woman set the cat dish in the sink, she reflected that Jenkins would still be needed if he could kill the rats. But as the winter set in, and the rats became evident, the useless cat had failed to catch even one. Oh, he had made a small effort, following the sounds as the rats moved in the walls, but he refused to pursue the noise under the counters.
"Too damn spoiled to put any effort into catching the rats," Matty said to the empty kitchen as she took the traps out of the bag, set them on the counter, took out the poison. She opened the side panel on the box of rat poison and set it under the sink. Before closing the cabinet door she said into the dark recess, "Now, you bastards, eat this box, too.
" The traps she baited and set; under the counter, behind the refrigerator, beneath the stairs, in the hall closet, and the last two upstairs. One she put in her closet, the other under her bed. As she knelt to slide the rat trap under the bed she felt uneasy, wondering again what had happened to the trap she had put there before. It had snapped in the night, but in the morning there was no sign of trap or rat. It must have only caught his tail, she reasoned, and he dragged it away with him. She didn't even let herself wonder about the other two traps that had also disappeared.
Then she waited for the night. That was when they started moving about. In the walls she could hear them, sometimes in the closets or under the kitchen counters, but always in the walls. Matty went to her parlor, turned up the heater, and sat in her favorite chair. Her parlor. It had been "his" study, and she had hated it. The stupid deer heads on the wall, the books he seldom read but thought he needed to keep, the whole atmosphere that she had dispised. After the funeral, she cleared out all the junk and set up the room to suit her tastes. It had been as she wanted for so long. Her house, her silence. Until the damn rats.
A knock at the door startled her. Wondering who would be calling on her, she went to the door. Matty could not keep the displeasure from showing on her face at the man standing on the porch.
"Why Detective Esler, how pleasant to see you," her voice dripped sarcasm for the benefit of the short, middle-aged man as well as the younger man behind him. He gave her a slight smile.
"Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Alridge, but I wonder if we might come in a moment?"
Tempted to ask if they possessed a warrant, the woman restrained herself and smiled her best winter smile; cold. Without a word, she motioned the men to enter the foyer. Detective Esler flipped his cigarette into the yard, which drew a disapproving look from the woman.
In the parlor, as they took seats, the detectives looked around the room. It had still been "his" study on their last visit two weeks ago. They made no comment on the changes, but their curious looks were comment enough.
"Mrs. Alridge, I will get to the point. " Detective Esler took out a small notebook and consulted it. Just as taught in the academy, Matty thought derisively. "We do not doubt that your husband, William Alridge, died as a result of falling down the stairs..."
"But you wonder if I pushed him?" Matty supplied coldly.
Esler looked at her and narrowed his brown eyes. " No, we don't believe pushing would have been necessary. The autopsy report shows that he was already poisoned. The fall merely made for a quicker, and I'm sure, less painful death."
"Poisoned?" Matty said as she sat straighter in her chair. She looked from one detective to the other, and was suddenly very conscience of the rat poison she had just purchased.
"Yes m'am," answered the younger detective, who Matty recalled was named Willis. Like the jeep, she had thought on first hearing his name.
"I...I don't know what to say! How could he have been poisoned?" the woman swallowed. She took a deep breath and regained her composure. "I didn't poison my husband Detective Esler. He deserved it, but I would never have done such a thing."
"Deserved it? Why?" Esler asked.
Matty regretted saying it, but went on with it, now that it was said. "He was a cruel, selfish man. He made my life miserable for years." She looked down at her hands, and when she looked up, she had on her 'poor widow' face. "But not miserable enough for me to poison him. It is still possible to love someone who mistreats you, detective."
The men exchanged glances in that way that cops always had, as if verifying that both were taking mental notes.
"May we look around, Mrs. Alridge?" the older detective asked. Again Matty considered asking for a warrant, but decided that would only increase their suspicions. She nodded.
Matty regretted her acquiesce immediately, as the detectives went to the kitchen first, opening cabinets and drawers. She knew they were looking for poison. Just as she knew they would find it under the sink. She felt stupid for buying more poison.
"You have a rat problem?" the younger man asked as he looked beneath the sink.
"Just recently. Since the snows, "she responded in a quiet voice. She was prepared to explain the obvious, that the poison was for the rats, when he closed the cabinet door without another comment. She was puzzled. She doubted the older detective would have overlooked the bright yellow box of poison, but maybe Willis was not as sharp.
The two looked in the bathroom upstairs, the closets, and lastly they went down into the basement. Matty followed. The basement had been William's domain. His pool table dominated the room. His gun rack on the wall held his two shot guns. Already she had run an add to sell table and guns. The policemen looked around the room and opened the adjoining bathroom.
"Damn!," Willis said as he opened the bathroom door.
"What?" Esler asked as he turned from the gun rack. He crossed over to the bathroom. Matty smelled the sickly oder of decay from where she stood.
"I take it this is your cat, m'am," Esler inquired, his voice tense.
Matty looked in the bathroom, holding her hand over her nose and mouth. It was Jenkins, days dead to judge by the swollen condition of the cat and the smell. The body was badly mangled, chewed upon it appeared.
"Looks like rats have gnawed on it," Willis said as he nudged the cat with his shoe.
Detective Esler took a small yellow box from behind the toilet, holding it with only thumb and forefinger, and read the label. He looked at the woman; an accusing look that she could not miss. "Rat poison. Do you use a lot of rat poison, Mrs. Alridge?"
"No," was all Matty could say. She was too confused with the entire thing. How had Jenkins gotten shut up in the bathroom? She looked at Willis. "Rat's killed my cat?"
"Maybe, "the younger detective said. "But he looks like he chewed his tongue. Like he was poisoned. I wouldn't think a cat would eat rat poison, though."
Detective Esler took an evidence bag from his coat pocket. "We will need to take this box and the cat, m'am," he told her. The woman nodded numbly.
After the detectives left, Matty fixed herself a simple dinner, her mind trying to reason out what had happened with Jenkins. He had went into the basement, probably after rats, and managed to close himself in the bathroom, she considered. Maybe after a couple of days he had gotten so hungry that he ate the poison. But the poison troubled her more than her dead cat. Matty had not left the box of poison in the bathroom, she was certain of that. And she knew it made her suspect in William's death, pointed right at her. To Hell with them, she thought angrily, let them prove she killed the bastard.
But something else bothered her. Why had Willis neglected to mention the rat poison under the sink, if they were so sure William had been poisoned? She got up from the table and looked under the sink, knowing the box of poison must have stood out to the detective. The rat trap sat in plain view, unsprung, but the yellow box of poison was not there. Matty knelt and looked further back under the shelf. The box was gone. Maybe Willis took it. She had been watching intently as he looked inside the counter, waiting for him to mention it, but his back was to her. It was possible he took it without her knowing. It was even possible it was the same box they "found" in the bathroom, she realized. The bastards were probably as sneaky as William had been. But that made no sense, she thought. They could not have known Jenkins was dead in the basement, so finding the rat poison in the kitchen would have been good enough. And the box in the bathroom had been almost empty. So how had it got there?
Later, as she settled in to watch some television, she heard the rats, scratching and scurrying in the walls. They started in the kitchen, as always. The rustling sound made her skin crawl. Matty went into the kitchen, flicked on the light. The noise instantly stopped, as if they could see the light inside the walls, but only for a moment. Then they were back at it. Inside the walls, behind the sink counter. Moving and gnawing. Not one or two rats, but what sounded like dozens. She felt her fear rise. She had always feared rats, ever since being bitten on the toe by one as a child. Her family had been poor, their apartment a condemable dump, and rats and roaches ruled the nights. William used to tease her about it, telling her someday a rat was going to drag her off by her toe.
The snap of the trap inside the sink cabinet caused Matty to jump. The sharp sound was followed by a brief bumping and thrashing, then silence. Even the noise in the walls ceased. With a satisfied smile that was part grimace, Matty opened the counter door to see her small victory over at least one of the rodents. She saw instead the empty trap, flipped upside down. But no rat. She slammed the door, fearing it was wounded but alive and might run out at her feet. But there was no sound within the cabinet. Not a bit.
She took a spatula from the dish drainer and, gripping her fear as tightly as she did its handle, she opened the cabinet. Matty tapped around the cabinet door, but there was no reaction. She raked the trap out onto the floor, then quickly shut the door. The piece of luncheon meat was still fastened to the trigger of the trap. Matty reset it. With trembling hand, she opened the cabinet and slid the rat trap inside. Then she cleared her dinner dishes, took her cup of tea, and retreated from the kitchen.
No sooner had she taken her seat in the parlor than the noises in the kitchen walls returned. Matty increased the volume on the television to drown out the sounds. She sipped her tea, which was now only luke warm and tried to concentrate on the show, to ignore the rat sounds. Not only was her tea no longer hot, it didn't taste right. Much too bitter. She tried to identify the bitter flavor with another sip. And dropped the cup. It shattered on the hardwood floor.
"Rat poison?" the woman held her hand to her mouth, her fingers fluttering with fear. Was that the taste? Did it taste like the poison had smelled when she opened the box? Matty hurried upstairs to the bathroom to be sick. She made it to the top of the stairs before the bile came up her throat. There, on the hall carpet, where William had stood before his fall, the woman vomited. Her chest ached with the pain of it, and she had to hold onto the base of the banister to keep from falling down the stairs.
When the sickness passed, Matty sat on the top step, holding her stomach and crying bitterly. She looked down the stairs and could see again in her mind William sprawled at the bottom. The satisfaction of that image stopped her tears.
"Is this your doing, William?" she asked the mental image. "You knew I feared rats. You cruel bastard, have you sent the rats to keep up my torment? Are you trying to drive me crazy? You're dead, you bastard; dead, dead, dead!"
Matty rose and went for a towel, wet it, cleaned the spot on the carpet. She returned to the parlor and picked up the broken cup. It was her mother's china, once a set of eight cups and saucers with their delicate blue pattern. William had broken two of the cups, always making light of it, saying they were too fragile for real use. Matty had stored away the remainder of the set, to save it from him. With him gone, she had taken them out again. And now another was lost to her. How she hated him, she reminded herself, as she gathered the pieces of her mother's wedding gift in her hand and went to the kitchen.
She dropped the broken china in the trash can. The noise in the walls had not ceased. In anger, she snatched up the spatula and rapped it repeatedly on the wall above the sink. The scurrying increased as if the rats were excited by the additional noise. Matty threw the spatula in the sink and fled the kitchen in tears.
Back in the parlor, she dropped weakly into her chair. She switched off the television, took her book from the coffee table, and opened it to her handkerchief marker. Desperately she began reading aloud, determined to shut out the sounds of the rats. The book had been a favorite all her life, yet at first she was not even aware of what she read, mouthing the words aloud. However, as she read, the familiar words and the tale they told seemed to draw her within, and she heard the noise in the kitchen only faintly. For almost half an hour she was able to immerse herself in the book, comforted by her old friend. Then she heard the sharp sound.
Matty looked up from the book. Heard the sound again, the sharp snap that she knew had to be one of the rat traps. She rose and went into the foyer. It had not come from the kitchen. She looked in the hall closet, timidly. The trap there sat unsprung on the floor. The snap came again and she turned to the space under the stairs, then realized it was coming from the far end of the hall. From behind the basement door. Trembling, her heart in her throat, Matty forced herself to the basement door. She eased it open but she could not bring herself to switch on the light, much less go down the stairs. She had set no traps down there. She never went down there, except today with the detectives. Again the sharp sound and her blood turned to ice. She had heard that sound before, from beyond that door. It was the annoying sound of William playing pool. Her legs trembled. Matty slammed the door shut, locked the bolt latch. Now truly afraid, the woman went to the stairs, leaning upon the bottom banister for support, trying to think, to reason this out. She knew William was dead. She didn't believe in ghosts. There was some other explanation. Had to be. As if to hinder her reasoning, the scarping and scurrying sounds increased in the kitchen. Matty climbed the stairs on unstable legs.
In her room, the woman tried to focus her thoughts. The rats were real, she decided, but just rats. The snow had driven them inside, or stirred them up, or something. The noise in the basement was not pool balls striking each other. Couldn't be. In the morning, in the daytime, she would see what was causing the noise. She was just tired and over-wrought. She put on her gown and climbed into bed. After turning off the bed-side lamp she pulled the cover up to her chin. Then she had only to wait for sleep, however long it might be in arriving.
Snap! Matty sat upright in the bed at the sound of the trap going off beneath her. A brief rattle of the trap was followed by silence. She wanted to turn on the light, to see if there was a dead rat in the trap under her bed. Wanted to, but feared to look. She feared seeing another empty trap; or no trap. The woman lay back and pulled the covers tight around her, staring into the darkness. Praying that the dawn would hurry, she resolved on something she had considered when the rats first arrived. She would sell the house, William's house, and move to a new house or an apartment. Somewhere without rodents and without the thought of her husband. In the morning she would start looking for another place. First thing in the morning.
Her heart all but stopped as she heard the sound of small feet moving across the floor of the room. They were in her room, not in the walls, but on the floor. She could hear dozens of faint sounds which she knew were rats.
"Oh my God," she whispered in her terror. She felt a slight tug on the bed spread, and in her mind she could see rats climbing up the spread to the bed. Matty jerked violently on the cover, shaking it where it hung off the sides of the bed. She reached for the lamp, but at that moment she felt the brush of a hairy body across her foot. Under the covers!
Screaming in horror, Matty kicked at the rat under the covers. Kicked at the rats! For now she felt more of the vicious rodents swarming over her feet and legs, and sharp, cruel teeth biting her bare legs. She kicked and screamed, trying to get out from under the covers, out of the bed itself. Dozens of rats bit and gnawed at her legs, despite her thrashing and kicking. The terrified woman fought with all her strength to get out of the bed, rolling to the side in her frenzy, rolling off onto the floor. She landed hard on the floor, the breath knocked out of her. Her legs were still tangled in the covers. The pain in her legs was unbearable; dozens, hundreds of tiny, sharp bites being inflicted on her.
Matty struggled free of the covers, gasping to catch her breath. With her hands she struck at the rats that clung to her legs, that held on with their tiny claws and tore at her flesh with their razor-like teeth. She stumbled across the room, kicking at the rodents that swarmed after her, that strove to drag her down to the floor. At the door she held to the frame and hit the light switch. The sight that greeted her was mind numbing in its madness.
Her room was aswarm with rats, hundreds of them. Their brown bodies moved like a living carpet, converging on the woman. From the bed covers to where she stood was a slick trail of blood, her blood. She looked down. Her nightgown was red with blood and her bare legs and feet streaming blood from a hundred tiny wounds. She pulled a rat from her leg and for an instant looked into its evil yellow eyes. With a shudder she hurled it across the room, to shatter the dresser mirror.
Staggering out of the room, the rats right behind her, Matty made for the stairs. Like a flood of dirty brown water the tide of rats reached her legs and the tiny claws dug into her flesh. Teeth tore at her skin. She struck at her legs, trying to drive off the rats, but they hung on tenaciously. She screamed in pain and horror as they ripped at her legs and feet, bit her hands as she tried to pull them off . A rat larger than the others came up the front of her gown and slashed at her throat. Desperately she struck at it, but its claws gripped the fabric of her gown, refusing to be dislodged, and she staggered back from its attack. At the head of the stairs her bloody feet stumbled on the rats, slipped in her own blood, and Matty went down. She grabbed at the banister as she fell, missed it, and tumbled down the steps. With her hands she tried to stop herself, felt the bones in her wrists shatter, then hurtled downward. Each jarring impact of body on hard wood was met with the sharp snap of breaking bone as Matty and the mass of rats went down the staircase in a fatal decent.
With a bone-jarring thud she landed at the bottom, stunned, staring up at the ceiling. Someone leaned over her and she stared straight into the smiling face of William. Matty tried to speak, to curse him one final time, but no sound came as she felt a numb spread rapidly over her, followed by a dimming of the sight in her eyes. And in that final moment she could still hear the rats moving all around her, settling in for the feast.
Detectives Esler and Willis stood by as the woman's body was covered by the para-medics and wheeled out the door. The assistant coroner came over to them, closing his note book.
"What can I say, Esler? She fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Just like her husband."
"Nothing at all strange?" Esler asked as he took out a cigarette, lit it, flipped the match out the open door.
"Other than both of them dying the same way in the same spot, no." the assistant coroner answered. "It appears she got out of bed... took the bed spread with her. Probably wrapped around her. At the head of the stairs, I would guess it tangled around her legs and she fell."
"And the broken mirror?" Willis asked.
"She had cuts on her feet, detective, but not on her hands. The glass in her feet came from the glass on the bedroom floor. My guess on that is she threw a shoe at the mirror; there's one laying on the dresser. That's not my field. I imagine you'll find pieces of glass on the shoe, though. Why? I don't know. That's not my field, either."
"You will do an autopsy, though?" Esler stated more than asked.
"Sure. Especially since we found rat poison in the husband's system. She probably did try to poison him, might have even helped him down the stairs, but I don't expect she tried to poison herself." The assistant coroner shook his head, "No, I think in her case it was just an accident. Nobody in the house but her. And maybe a rat or two."
"Rats?" Esler asked.
The assistant coroner shrugged, "Yea. Heard 'em when I was in the kitchen. Moving around inside the walls. I guess she had a rat problem."