Pieces
Mark Tompkins
Published by Undead Literature at Smashwords
Copyright 2013 Mark Tompkins. All Rights Reserved
Edited by Josh “Major FITP” Parsons
Cover Art by DM Illustrations
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Mark Tompkins at [email protected].
Pieces
“Motherfricken, Shiite Muslim, Cork Soaking, Bastage, Son of a…Bunghole!” Austin Powell exclaimed after the hammer had slammed down on his thumb. He dropped it and squeezed the rapidly swelling digit with his other hand. A large, dark blood blister grew beneath his thumbnail and he cringed in pain. He knew it would take months for the nail to be normal again and he was hoping the pressure in the blister would find its own release. Cutting through his nail to pop the blister and relieve the pressure was not his idea of anything remotely fun.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…Owww.” He chanted as he sat down on the step above the one he was replacing. His feet pressed faint prints into the well-packed dirt floor and he tried to will the pain away. Its intensity made him lightheaded and he rocked back and forth until it subsided to the point he could continue his task.
The house’s previous owner neglected to do any preventative maintenance in the low traffic areas and Austin was trying to remedy that. Entering the cellar, he’d almost fallen through two rotted steps near the top of the staircase, and aside from the bottom step he was currently replacing, the rest seemed sturdy enough. He’d vowed to replace every board the first chance he had, eliminating their need for maintenance for many years.
He’d spent most of the morning ferrying the cellar’s contents into the shed beside the house. Due to the condition of the main steps, he’d used the horizontal wooden storm doors at the rear of the cellar where, for some reason he couldn’t imagine, the steps were in much better condition. He’d moved everything because he was having a cement floor poured in the cellar the next day. He envisioned shelving units and pegboard keeping things neat and organized.
He picked up the nail he’d been attempting to hammer when he hit his thumb, and positioned it back in the detent created from its sharp point. He heard rustling behind him and turned to see a large rat sitting on its haunches, staring at him, unafraid. Austin possessed a typical disgust for rats. He considered them disease carriers and the presence of one here, in his home, was unacceptable. The rat simply looked at him, its eyes still and attentive, as if waiting for food. Did the previous owner feed this thing? Why was it so bold and unafraid? There would be no rats in Austin’s house, period, end of story. He mentally added rat poison to his shopping list and threw his hammer at the small intruder. The hammer skipped off the floor near the black furred rat and it turned and skittered through a small hole in the baseboard. The rat stopped just inside the hole and turned around, peering at him with its shiny black eyes. It seemed to be memorizing his face, plotting revenge on him somewhere deep in its tiny brain. Austin threw the nail and the rat turned and fled, its hairless, pink tail thumping against the baseboard in its hasty retreat. The first place Austin would put the rat poison was that baseboard hole. He had found the entrance to its home, and resolved to kill it.
He retrieved his hammer and nail and finished installing the step with a flurry of noise, meaning to show the rat he meant business, and it should stay away.
He walked up the stairs, stretching over the two rotted steps He would make a trip to the local hardware store after he attended to his smashed thumb. The pain had already lessened substantially, but a low, deep throbbing had set in and didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. He ran it under cold water. Why? He couldn’t say. It seemed the right thing to do and he hoped it would shrink some of the swelling. He put a few ice cubes in a plastic bag and lay it over his sore thumb. He sat down at the small, round dining room table and pulled his smart phone out of his shirt pocket.
He had only recently relinquished his hold on the past and traded in his flip phone for a new smart phone. One of his favorite apps was the notepad. He was a “little yellow sticky” man to the core, and they were seen, en masse, throughout the house. Now he was slowly replacing them with the electronic version. He transcribed his mental list to electrons and when he was finished, checked on his thumb again. There was a black blister underneath the nail, but the ice had kept the swelling to a minimum and the pain was becoming manageable. He knew that it would be tender, so he vowed to be very careful with it for the next few days. Now, with his electronic shopping list, it was time to head to the hardware store.
His gaze drifted outside to the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Hill City, South Dakota is known more for its snowfall than its rainfall, but when it did rain, it could be what his father used to call ‘a real toad strangler’. It was mid-June; the peak of the rainy season, and Austin hoped it wouldn’t rain too hard until he had the chance to install some fresh seals around the cellar’s storm doors. He wanted to stop the spread of mildew and have the cement floor poured within the week. He saw by the trees that the wind was blowing from the east, so the storm might miss him, but just in case, he wanted to be back from the hardware store before the rain fell.
He opened the door of his Ford truck, knocked as much of the dirt off his feet as he could, and slid into the familiar cab. It was an old truck with the normal array of scratches and dents, but he still liked to try to keep it nice. Once a week, he ran it through the car wash and vacuumed the carpet. He had owned this truck for the last twenty years and considered it an old friend. It had been with him through both of his failed marriages and was the only thing in his life that had been truly faithful. Periodically, he contemplated trading it in for something with more of the modern perks. However, at age fifty-seven, he didn’t want the burden of another car note and he doubted he would find another one so dependable.
He backed out of the driveway, noticing his only neighbor, Jason Francois, spraying the cracks of his driveway for weeds. Jason, a retired military man like himself, kept his yard and home tidy. They had the typical “wave and say hello” acquaintance. Austin hoped to get to know him better, but was busy working on the house and hadn’t found the time to initiate anything more meaningful than quick bouts of renovations small talk. For now, though, he was off to the Hill City hardware store.
The little brass bell dinged hollowly when he entered the store, drawing looks from the counter.
“Morning, Hank,” Austin said.
“Morning, Austin. How’re the renovations coming?”
“Alright, I guess. I found some rotten stairs and I’m going to need a few boards to replace them. Can you have Alex throw a few two by twelve’s in the back of the truck for me?”
Hank nodded and yelled the instructions to the back room behind the counter where Alex, a strong young man in a flannel shirt, threw three long boards over his shoulder and exited out the back door.
Austin absently s
cratched at the two-day stubble on his chin.
“I’m having a cement floor poured in the cellar tomorrow and once that’s done, I think I’m going to put some of those heavy duty plastic shelving units up. You know, the ones that just go together, without any tools?”
Hank nodded again and pointed to the back of the store. “I know the ones. I got ’em on the back wall there.”
Austin turned and scanned the back wall of the store over the short aisles. Seeing them, he nodded, satisfied.
“Yep, that’s them. Those suckers may be plastic, but it’s thick and they sure can hold a lot of stuff. Besides, I’m not putting anything too heavy on them, I’ve already got some metal ones in the shed I can put the heavy stuff on.”
Austin pulled a cart from the line and meandered off down the aisle. He remembered a woman in Louisiana telling him they were “buggies” not “carts”, and he smiled. Before that, he had no idea shopping carts possessed other monikers. Whatever they’re called, he always got the one with the screwed up wheel that pulled hard to the right and was a bitch to push. He looked at his list and the first thing he noticed was the last item added, rat poison. That rat’s eyes, black as pitch, floated into his mind and he shuddered.
“Hank, you got any really good rat poison?”
“Oh yeah! Get the bright green box on the bottom shelf. It’ll kill anything. You don’t have any pets do you?”
“Nope,” Austin replied. “I never really wanted the responsibility of taking care of them.”
“Okay, then that’s the one you want.”
He grabbed the metal mesh, sheet rock mud, putty knife, and bag of fertilizer he needed on his checklist and stacked it all on the checkout counter. He spotted a one-pound bag of Hershey’s Kisses hanging on a peg, and threw them in at the last minute.
“Good choice,” Hank remarked. “Those are the ones with the air bubbles inside. They taste great, but if you ask me, they’re just taking out some of the chocolate and charging the same amount of money.”
“Well, I won’t know until I try them, so I guess I’ll see for myself. I may also use them to sweeten the deal for my nasty roommate. They might make the poison more attractive. Thanks for all the help, Hank.”
“No problem. You be sure and let me know how that rat problem turns out.”
“Roger that, I sure will,” Austin said over his shoulder as he wheeled his purchases to the truck, correcting the bad wheeled cart the whole way.
He drove home, pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. He sat there, looking at the house, pleased he had been able to buy it. Located at the end of Thunderhead Falls Road, it was a modest, single level log home with a cellar, giving him more room than he would ever need. During a weeklong vacation to the Black Hills, he and his ex-wife stayed at Audrey’s Bed and Breakfast. His time here planted a seed that continued to grow, eventually leading him back to the area after his divorce. He liked the solitude and the beauty of the area, and knew he had at last found home. A big black rat scurried from the trees and ran behind his shed, interrupting his thoughts. Damn rats. I gotta kill them all. I bet that’s the same big boy I saw in the cellar earlier. I’ve got something special for you!
Austin unloaded the truck. He tossed a bag of fertilizer on a metal shelf in the shed and noticed the same rat was sitting in the corner, staring at him. He had no doubt, its fat body meant it ate well, which Austin hoped would prove useful soon. If this rodent will eat anything, then poisoned food was exactly what he would find in the cellar tonight. Austin smiled and walked to the door.
He turned around. “You come on down to the cellar tonight, I’ve got something special for your ugly little butt.”
The rat’s ears moved slightly, registering the sound, but he was otherwise motionless. Austin closed the door and went to the house, humming the theme from the A-Team. He went down to the cellar, placed a few pieces of chocolate and the rat poison in a paper bowl, and slid it into the rat’s hole. Then he ripped off a small piece of mesh, stapled it over the hole, covered the screen with sheetrock mud, and left it to dry.
He went outside and climbed up in a tree between the shed and the house; he wanted to see how the rat was getting into the cellar. After a few minutes, he saw it squeeze out of an opening in the old door of the shed. The opening was extremely small and he couldn’t figure out how the rat’s head fit through it. It’s more resourceful than I thought. I’ll have to remember that. It moved quickly through the grass, stopping underneath the kitchen window. It reared up on its hind legs, whiskers twitching, sniffing the air for danger. Sensing none, it disappeared into the wall.
Austin climbed out of the tree, his body complaining from the exertion, and went to investigate. Below the kitchen window, he discovered a small hole chewed through the wood near the foundation. Once again, he couldn’t imagine the rat fitting through such a small orifice. He went to the shed and after rooting around, found a can of expanding foam. He didn’t know if it would keep the rat out for good, but it was worth a shot. He returned to the wall near the kitchen window, shook the can vigorously, stuck the tip into the gap and depressed the trigger. Liquid foam squirted into the small hole and quickly expanded, filling the hole and forming a six-inch ball outside of it. It would take the rat a lot of chewing to get through that.
The rain skirted the neighborhood, but the clouds formed an amazing foreground for the sunset that evening. Bizarre formations morphed into unnamable shapes backlit by bright hues of reds, purples and yellows. The tall pine and spruce trees became black spears stabbing into the steadily darkening skies and the first curious stars came out to gaze upon the Earth. Austin watched all of this from his back porch, feet propped on the railing with a warm cup of coffee in hand. When night fully settled upon the land, he went in to check on his rat hole repairs.
He flicked the light on and walked down the cellar stairs, carefully avoiding the wayward steps. When he reached the bottom, he saw the rat sitting on its haunches by the wall, looking at him. Behind it, Austin saw the tattered remnants of the screen and sheetrock mud on the floor. However, it had not touched the plate of food, it sniffed at it, and then looked back at Austin as if telling him he knew the plate was loaded with death.
Austin faked like he was going to run towards the rat, trying to scare it back into the hole, but it didn’t budge. It just sat there, looking.
What an arrogant little prick. Ok…if that’s the way you want it.
This time, Austin really did run at it, he was planning to step on it and crush the life out of it that little piece of crap. Just before he got to the rat though, it bolted past him and Austin had to stick his hands out to stop himself from slamming into the wall. He turned, trying to follow the rat, thinking it was going to the other side of the cellar. To his dismay, it started jumping up the stairs leading into the house. Austin gave chase.
“No, no, no… you little asshole! Don’t you dare go up there!”
He rounded the bannister and bounded up the stairs, trying to step on the rat’s tail and halt its climb. It continued onto the top step, always just ahead of his stomping foot, and ran into the kitchen.
“No!” Austin yelled. “Get out of my house!”
He rushed through the door and into the kitchen, watching as the rat rounded the corner into the living room. Austin tried to turn the corner and planted his foot on the small area rug. The rug abruptly slid across the wood floor and his foot slipped out from underneath him. He fell on his back and careened across the polished wooden floor. As he slid, his right foot made contact with the desk on the far side of the room. It rammed against the desk leg and twisted his ankle in a direction it should never bend. Pain shot up his leg and he thought he heard a sharp snap.
His mission to kill the rat was suddenly forgotten, lost in the presence of pain and confusion. He lay on his back, breathing slowly, trying to bring his heart rate back under control. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to look. The rat was crouched at t
he corner of his couch and he swore its black eyes were glaring at him. The rat boldly scurried forward until it was within a foot’s distance from his hand.
Austin intentionally hadn’t reacted to it. It disgusted him to no end, but he was planning to smash the wretched thing with whatever he could get his hands on. He slowly looked around, trying to find something to bludgeon it with but… there was nothing. The rat continued staring at him, whiskers twitching, its mouth periodically moving, as if it was chewing something. He tensed his arm, ready to make his move. He quickly raised the arm and slammed his hand down where the rat was, hoping to break its back in one swift blow.
The rat was quick and moved even before Austin’s hand started its downward motion, but Austin was already committed to the movement and his reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop it before it smacked painfully on the floor. As he began to register the pain, the rat darted forward and bit a small piece of flesh from his nose. Blood began to flow from the wound while Austin tried to comprehend the last few moments. The rat ran to the door, stopped and looked back at Austin, staring at him with those beady black eyes. Then it ran in two circles and disappeared down the stairs.
Austin untangled himself from the desk and stood up, gingerly putting weight on his foot to test it. It was sore, but not broken, he could tell that much. A sprain, he would heal quickly if he took it easy for a week or so. He walked to the cellar door and closed it, content to let the rat have its momentary victory; he was too tired to fight anymore tonight anyways.
That night, he dreamed of rats...hundreds of rats. He was trapped in a house with them all and couldn’t get out. The rats had finally corralled him into the living room, cutting off all other avenues of escape. They were perched on his couch, table, shelves… anything they could get on, and now they were all just staring at him. That seemed to be the worst thing, they weren’t moving in to get him, they were just staring. Well, technically it wasn’t all they did, many had urinated and defecated while staring. The smell had become overpowering in moments. Rat piss dripped off the table and formed puddles on the floor. The piss somehow flowed towards him, so he climbed onto a desk chair, standing on it to get his feet off the floor. The smell of ammonia coming from the expanding puddle stung his eyes and made it difficult to breathe…
Pieces Page 1