by L. M. Boelz
***
Two days later, with the room finally finished, it was time for Carol to move out of her mother’s room and into her own room. She had not heard anything coming from inside the walls in her room for the last two days. This made Carol feel better, but not completely safe.
With her mother’s help, Carol and Peter started to carry everything into the room. With everything set up, it was time to bring in the mattress and box spring.
“Where’s the frame?” Peter asked.
“We didn’t have room to bring it, so I just figured we would get one later. I guess it slipped my mind,” Carol’s mother answered back to him, on her way out of the room, while tossing a set of sheets at them.
Later, in the living room, Peter said, in his most sinister voice, while patching the last of the holes, “By sealing these holes we’ll be able to trap the vile little creatures, and they will not be able to lay in wait, for you to turn out the light to get into bed, only to grab you by the ankle and drag you to their lair under your bed!”
Carol knew, of course, that was their favorite place to hide, but she did not let that scare her, because they had not yet raised her bed off the floor.
“Now that the house is nearly finished, and all the holes are patched, do you think whatever we keep hearing in the walls can get out?” Carol asked, looking over at him.
Peter contemplated about what to say, while pressing his ear against the wall. Carol decided to press her ear against the wall as well, to see if she could also hear anything else.
It had been a few weeks since Carol first heard the noises under the bathroom sink. Now there were no more than a few scratching noises, along with a few other sounds they did not recognize, which they guessed were the mice her mother had found in the kitchen.
“Do you suppose they will be able to get out now that the holes are patched? You know… the mice that live in there?” Carol inquired of Peter again, having not gotten an answer from him the first time. “I really didn’t want to trap them inside the wall to starve. Mice are such cute, fuzzy little things.”
He assured her that mice could always find a way to get out, and they would be fine. After all, while some of the holes were still open, they had thrown little bits of food in, to feed the mice. Her mother would have killed them both if she had ever caught them doing that.
“Well I guess that’s it for today, I will see you tomorrow in school,” Peter added, as he gathered his things to head for home.
School? Oh no, we will just have to see about this. Carol walked with Peter as far as the front door. After closing it, she scurried off to have a talk with her mother. There are only six weeks of school left. I will have to let Mom know that I believe my time would be better spent helping out here rather than going to a strange school for such a short time.
Carol found both her mother and an end to her debate about staying home instead of going to school, as she rounded the doorway into the kitchen.
“Well Little Lady, which one would you like in your lunch for school tomorrow; the peanut butter or the chocolate chip cookies? I know there are only six weeks left, but you cannot just stay home with me. Although I could use the help around here, you do need your education, so there will be no debate about it.”
How could she be so chipper about it?
Carol knew her mother was right. In the meantime, there was plenty of work still to be done cleaning up the house. Carol stood looking around the living room trying to decide where to start.
“I found another box in the garage, and put it in your room for you to unpack.”
Carol looked over at her mother who had disappeared back into the kitchen. How does she do that? Whenever I run out of something to do, she just appears out of nowhere.
After finishing with the box, Carol headed for the kitchen to set the table and get ready for dinner. They enjoyed a pleasant meal together, then, Carol and her mother headed out to have a seat on the front porch swing to watch the stars and talk for a little while before it was time for her to head off to bed.
With an elbow nudge and a tap on her leg, “Well little lady I think it's time. Just think of it as another adventure.”
“Alright mom, love you,” Carol moaned, as she reached over to give her mother a goodnight kiss.
Tonight, Carol could not help thinking about how good the bed was going to feel. Grabbing her dad’s coat, to use as her shield against the monsters that come out at night, Carol crawled into bed, curled up into a tight little ball, and drifted in and out of a restless sleep.
Waking to the sound of rustling paper and something moving around on her floor, Carol slowly sat up and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. With only a sliver of a moon, it did not really offer much light. Peering around her room, Carol stared intently in the direction of the rustling sounds, near her closet.
“I wonder if it could be that cat I had found, when we first moved in,” Carol whispered, not wanting to frighten it away. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” Carol needed to be quiet as she did not want to wake her mother in the next room.
With her hand held out at full arm’s length, Carol continued coaxing, what she hoped was the cat that they had found that first day. At first, whatever it was she was watching moving around in the dark, shrank back into the corner of her room. After holding her hand out and calling to it, it slowly started to make its way over to her.
“It’s okay, kitty. Come on,” Carol cooed at it. “Just a little closer; you can do it,” Carol continued encouraging it to come closer. Just as she was almost able to reach out and grab a hold of it, the headlights from a passing car glared into her room through the large window over her bed.
A mixture of “E-E-E-E-E-E!” and horrible hissing, crackling noises filled the room. Carol was not sure what she had almost grabbed a hold of in the dark.
The creature was covered with tufts of hair, similar to the cat they had seen, but she was sure this could not possibly be any cat that she had ever seen before. It seemed to have tiny little hands, with claw like fingers and long jagged teeth. Its eyes glowed red in the reflection of the headlights.
Although it seemed like hours, it was only a matter of seconds before Carol was grabbing one of her shoes to throw at it. With a second set of headlights lighting up her room, the hideous creature ran hissing and screeching into her closet, only seconds before her mother came stumbling into her room and turned on the light.
Carol was up, out of bed, and clinging to her before she could say a word.
“What is going on in here?” her mother inquired, with some alarm in her voice.
All Carol could do was point to the closet.
Finally calming her daughter down and putting her in her room, she went to her daughter’s room to have a look at whatever she thought was in her closet, since she was unable to get anything out of her.
Carol’s description resembled something out of one of her monster tales. Unfortunately, Carol was not really sure what she had seen or if she had dreamt the whole thing.
Kneeling down, Carol’s mother proceeded to pull everything out of the closet until she could see all the way to the back wall. “Well,” she remarked curtly, as she sat back to look at a small hole in the back of the closet. “I guess we missed one.” She picked up and stuffed one of Carol’s rags-dolls into the hole, then got up and closed the closet door.
Coming back to her room, she tucked Carol into bed and held onto her until the morning.
They were up at first light, patching the last hole in the house and calling the exterminator once again. This time she instructed him to bring stronger traps!