A voice in the darkness, distant and unimportant.  The cadence suggested question, but the words themselves just wouldn’t resolve.  I pulled the pillow up over my head and returned to sleep.  Whatever it was could surely wait.

Again – and this time more insistent.  A hand, on my shoulder, shaking me awake.  Guess that meant a reply was in order.

“Unh,” I said, but that didn’t seem to do the trick, because the shaking continued.  I tossed off the pillow and opened one eye.  More darkness, punctuated only by the pale glow of the alarm clock, which read just shy of four AM.

“Good,” Kelly said.  “You’re up.”

I sighed, and rolled over to face her, rubbing sleep from my eyes as I did.  “Yeah, but why?”

“You mean you don’t hear that?”

“Hear what?”
“The scratching.”

Jesus.  It’d been like this every night since we moved into this place.  Did you hear that?  Did you hear that? Last week, it was a tapping at the windows that turned out to be the clock in the foyer.  The week before, she swore she heard someone coming up the stairs, and was convinced it was a burglar.  I told her we weren’t in Brookline anymore – I mean, what the hell would a burglar be doing all the way out here?  We were five miles from the nearest town.  Besides, I told her, a house this old is bound to settle as the temperature drops; no point getting in a tizzy over the occasional creak.

Of course, all she heard was the bit about the tizzy; next thing I knew, I was sleeping on the couch.  Sometimes, you just can’t win.

“No,” I replied, “I don’t hear any damn scratching.  You know why?  Because there isn’t any.”

But as I said it, I realized it wasn’t true.  I did hear something – a subtle scrape-and-drag, coming from just behind the wall.

I cocked my head and listened.  “You see?” she said, triumphant.  “Scratching.”

“Honey, that’s nothing – a tree branch in the wind.  Go back to sleep.”

“A tree branch?”  She sat up in bed, her swollen belly gleaming in the alarm clock’s light, and pounded a fist against the wall.  The scratching ceased.  “That’s not a tree branch, Jon – that’s a mouse.”

“We live in a farm house now, Kelly – farm houses have mice!  I told you we should get a cat.”

“And I told you that cats carry germs, so unless you want some freaky mutant baby, a cat is off the table.  Or do you just not care about our baby’s safety?”

“For Christ’s sake, Kelly, don’t give me that.  You’re the one who wanted to raise the baby in the city, surrounded by weirdoes and perverts.  And all I think about is what’s best for the baby.  That’s why we bought this place, remember?  To give our little Spenser a better life.”

“Lily,” she corrected.  “And right this second, I’m having trouble seeing how moving three hours from the nearest decent restaurant into a run-down farmhouse full of mice qualifies as a better life.”

“It’s one mouse, tops – and anyways, there’s not much I can do about it now.  Just go back to sleep; I’ll take care of it in the morning.”

She folded her arms across her breasts and shivered in the chill night air.  “Like I’ll be able to sleep knowing that thing is crawling around inside our walls.”

“Oh come on – it’s just a teeny, tiny, little mouse.  I’m sure he’s more afraid of you than you are of him.  And come tomorrow, he’ll be gone – I’ll make sure of it.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay.”  She settled back into the bed and snuggled close.  “And Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?”

***

“Hey, what do you think of this one?”

I was at the local Agway, eyeing the one dusty Havahart trap they had tucked away on the top shelf.  An old-timer in an insulated flannel and a pair of denim overalls sat reading an Uncle Henry’s behind the register.  When I called to him, he cast a glance my way.

“Won’t work,” he said.

“I read online they’re pretty good.”

“Won’t work.”

“You sure?  I mean, I’ve only got one mouse.”

He sighed.  “Ain’t no such thing as just one mouse.  But if all you mean to do is catch one mouse, I s’pose that one’ll work just fine.  Problem is, once you catch it, you’ve gotta take it outside and let it go.”

“How hard could that be?”

“Not very,” he allowed.  “But this time of year, with the leaves gone past and the first hard frost just a couple weeks away, the instinct for a mouse to nest is as powerful as it comes.  They’re like people that way – just looking for a safe place to hunker down and raise their young.  My guess is, that mouse’ll be back inside before you are.  You really want to get rid of your mouse problem, I’d recommend a dozen a them spring-loaded jobs – spread some peanut butter on ‘em, and put ‘em everyplace you can think.”

“It’s just one mouse,” I insisted.

“Suit yourself.”

So I suited myself.  I grabbed the Havahart from the shelf, certain our little pest problem would be handled by morning.  The old man rang me up without another word – but as I left, I’m pretty sure I saw him smile and shake his head.

***

At home, I slathered the trap with peanut butter and grabbed a flashlight, bringing both up to the bedroom and setting them down beside the small square door that afforded access to the eaves.  I confess, I was kind of skeeved to have to open it.  We’d bought this place at auction a few months back, shortly after the owner’d died.  Sure, we got it for a song, but we didn’t get to inspect it first, which means I had no idea what icky shit might be lurking out of sight.  Not that I would’ve ever admitted this to Kelly, but the thought of sticking my head in the eaves – even for a second while I set the trap – made me kind of queasy.

Turned out, I needn’t have worried.  The eave was dank and musty, but immaculate.  No bugs, no droppings – nothing at all except a dusty old hat box, stowed away and likely long forgotten.  I popped the top and looked inside.  Pictures, old and yellowed, mostly of the guy who’d owned the place – I recognized him from his obit in the local paper.

I picked up one of him, my age or so and smiling, with a group of children sitting at his feet.  Sunday School, 1959 read the back in tight, masculine script.  Beneath it was another labeled Church Picnic, ’78, in which he – older, but no less spry – was hopping giddily along in a sack-race with a tow-headed boy of eight or nine.  I smiled, and put the pictures back, securing the lid on the hat box once more.   Then I set the trap and closed the door, secure in my belief that this would all be over by morning.

***

Come morning, though, the trap was empty.  No mouse, and no peanut butter either.  The wily bugger must’ve licked it off without triggering the cage door.  A fluke, I thought, and tried again.

The next morning, I woke to find the same result.  Some site online said to try chocolate, so I picked up a couple fun-sized Hershey’s bars and softened them in the microwave until they stuck fast to the trigger.  Once they cooled, I tried my best to yank them off, and every time, the trap door closed.  Satisfied, I placed the trap once more and waited, sleeping fitfully that night as I strained to hear that tell-tale clink that meant the trap had worked.

But that clink never came – and the next morning, the chocolate bars were gone.

When I showed up at the Agway, the old man didn’t look surprised.  But when I brought a pack of glue traps (“Safe!  Humane!  Nontoxic for Man and Mouse!”) to the counter, he shook his head.

“Ain’t you learned your lesson yet?”

“Of course I have!  The last one didn’t work, so I’m trying something else.”

“No you’re not.  You’re trying the same damn thing all over again, and it’s gonna have the same result.  Tell me, son, you like mice?”

“No.”

“Got any mouse friends?”

“No.”

“Then what you got against killin’ ‘em?”

“Just doesn’t seem necessary, is all.”

“Typical.”

“Typical?  Typical of what?”

“Of folks like you.”

“Nice,” I said.  “Real nice.  You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Maybe not.  But if I had to guess, I’d say you’ve been summerin’ up here since you were a kid, maybe drove up a time or two to see the leaves change with the missus.  Always said one day, you’d raise a family here.  The people here are friendlier than the folks back in the city, and life up here is simpler.  Only friendlier don’t mean better, and simpler don’t mean easier.  Sure, our summers are agreeable enough, but when autumn rolls around, folks like you have either got to learn to hunker down or leave.  Some take to it just fine.  Some don’t.  Don’t know which kind you are, yet – and my guess is, neither do you.  But you’d do well to figure it out before the winter comes.”

“Oh, give me a break – all we’re talking about’s a fucking mouse!”

“Could be you’re right – but if that’s the case, why’re you pussyfootin’ around?”

I glared at him a moment, my face burning with embarrassment.  Then I bought two four-packs of spring traps.  That fucking mouse was going down.

***

Not that night, though, or the one after that.  Both nights, I tossed and turned, waiting for the traps to spring.  And both nights, those damned traps sprung.  But when I shined my light into the eaves to claim my victory over the little bastard, nada.  Just a bunch of empty traps and no damn peanut butter.

That mouse was good – I’d give him that.  He’d eaten half a jar of peanut butter in a little under a week, and I had nothing to show for it besides a twitchy disposition and some bags under my eyes.  I suppose that’s what I deserved, trying to dole out what I figured was a proportional response.  But a week with no damn sleep, and you lose all sense of proportion.  A week with no damn sleep, and you’ll do anything to break the streak.

At four to a pack, the old-school spring traps work out to less than a buck apiece.  I picked up fifty bucks’ worth just to be safe, smearing each of them with peanut butter and laying them in a solid grid inside the eave door.  Kelly was pretty sure at that point that I’d lost my mind, but I didn’t care.  This place is my home, I thought, not that fucking mouse’s, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to take it back.

That night, I didn’t even try to go to sleep – I just sat up in bed as Kelly slumbered beside me, and waited for the clackety clack of spring-loaded death to rain down upon my furry little friend.

I didn’t have to wait long.  Just after midnight, there was a horrible racket as fifty-odd traps sprang at once.

Jesus, I thought, how many mice do we fucking have?

When the traps went off, Kelly freaked, waking up a foot above the bed and screaming bloody murder.  It didn’t take much convincing to get her to go downstairs.  I shut the door behind her and snatched the flashlight from the nightstand.  Then I raced over to the eave door, yanking it open and shining my light inside.

There were no mice.  Hell, there were practically no traps – just three or four, overturned by the force of their closing.  The rest of them were gone.

I shined my flashlight leftward, toward the spot fifteen feet away where the eave terminated against the rear wall of the house.

Nothing.

I looked right, where the eave extended ten feet, and then jagged around a corner.

Nothing there, either.

For a moment, I considered crawling in and peeking around the corner, but the eave was dark, and the air inside it bitterly cold, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  So instead I shut the eave door and leaned against it, a damn-fool city boy shivering in his boxers, from the cold and the darkness both.

***

“So you’re sure this stuff will work?”

“Yup,” said the old-timer.  “Strongest poison money can buy – and to them, it tastes like candy.  Put a couple pellets out for ‘em; I guarantee you they’ll eat it.  And when they do, they’ll die.”

A couple pellets?  Fuck that – I used the whole damn box.  Kelly was horrified (“What about the baby?”), but I assured her it was fine.  I mean, better this stuff in the eaves than a bunch of filthy creatures in our house, right?

I swear when midnight rolled around, I heard them feeding.  But this time, I didn’t try to look.  I didn’t need to.  I was sure they’d get what was coming to them soon enough.

For a couple nights, the scratching continued.  Then sometime on the third night, it just stopped.  I got to feeling pretty good – the man of the house, protecting his family.

I just knew I was going to be a kick-ass dad.

But the next day, the smell started.  Just a hint at first, an earthy unpleasantness like garbage left too long.  Kelly was pissed, of course, but I told her that it’d pass.

It didn’t.

Instead, it only worsened, a fetid, oily stink that wafted out from beneath the eave door and permeated the entire second floor.  Soon Kelly was sleeping downstairs on the pull-out, and when I tried to join her, she refused.

“I told you not to kill that thing,” she said.  “No way you and I are sharing a bed until you climb your ass in there and undo what you’ve done.”

At first, of course, I balked.  But as the stench began to descend the stairs, I realized I had no choice.

I bought a mask and gloves and kneepads and some heavy-duty bags, and, my trusty flashlight held before me, I crawled into the eaves.  The air in there was thick with decay – it set my eyes watering, and acrid bile rose in my throat.  But aside of that stupid fucking hat box, the eave looked to be empty.  Which meant like it or not, I was going to have to crawl around that corner.

Roofing nails tugged at my clothes as I crawled further into the eave, my flashlight scuffing along the dusty slats before me.  As I rounded the dreaded corner, the stench worsened – and I noticed something else, as well.  The eave was no longer empty and immaculate.  Instead, it was strewn about with odds and ends and random bits of trash.  A bottle cap.  A candy tin.  A crumpled scrap of magazine.  The missing traps were there as well, licked clean and heaped against the sloping outer wall.

I pressed on, and my hand came down on something soft.  I recoiled, but it was just a dirt-smudged blanket, balled up and cast aside.

That’s when I spotted it.  Just an outline, at first, but still, my stomach dropped.  I panned my flashlight over it, unwilling to believe, but as the light confirmed my fears – the lanky hair, the sallow skin, the split and bloodied fingers – my mask filled with vomit.

Though in the coming weeks they’d unearth a dozen more just like it from beneath our new backyard, it’s the one in the eaves I’d always carry with me.  After all, that one I was responsible for.  That one I had killed.

That was the one that haunted me – that filthy, bloated corpse of an emaciated child.

_

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Chris F. Holm’s fiction has appeared in a number of publications, including Demolition, The Back Alley, EQMM, Spinetingler, and Beat to a Pulp.  He’s been a Derringer Award finalist and a Spinetingler Award winner, and he’s also written two novels: DEAD HARVEST and THE ANGELS’ SHARE.  You can visit his website atwww.chrisfholm.com.