A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  Great! He was collecting a regular menagerie up there!

  So much for the joys of a wooded lot. Gloria and he had chosen this semi-rural development because they liked the seclusion of an acre lot and the safety for the twins of living on a cul-de-sac. They both had grown up in New Jersey, and Toms River seemed like as good a place as any to raise kids. The house was expensive but they were a two-income family—she a teacher and he a CPA—so they went for it.

  So far, theirs was the only house completed in this section, although two new foundations had just started. It would be nice to have neighbors. Until recently, the only other building in sight had been a deserted stone church of unknown age and long-forgotten denomination a few hundred yards south of here. The belfry of that old building had concerned him for a while—bats, you know. Very high rabies rate. But he spoke to the workmen when they bulldozed it down last week to start another cul-de-sac, and they told him they hadn’t seen a single bat. Lots of animal droppings up there, but no bats.

  He wondered: Would a squirrel eat a couple of dead mice? He thought they only ate nuts and berries. Maybe this one was a carnivore. Didn’t matter. One way or another, something had to be done about that gable vent. He went to get the ladder.

  He had everything taken care of by the time Gloria and the girls got home from their respective schools.

  He’d tacked the gable vent back into place. He couldn’t see how that squirrel had pulled it free, but it wouldn’t get it out now. He also plugged up the upper and lower ends of the hose leader with an aerosol foam insulation he picked up at Home Depot. It occurred to him as he watched the mustard-colored gunk harden into a solid Styrofoam plug that he was cutting off the mouse exit as well as the mouse entryway. Hopefully they were all out for the day. When they came back they’d be locked out and would have to go somewhere else. And even more hopefully, the squirrel hadn’t left a friend in the attic behind the re-secured gable vent.

  Hank hardly slept at all that night. He kept listening for the snap of a trap, hoping he wouldn’t hear it, yet waiting for it. Hours passed. The last time he remembered seeing on the clock radio LED was 3:34. He must have fallen asleep after that.

  Dawn was just starting to bleach out the night when the snap came. He came wide awake with the sound. The clock said 5:10. But the noise didn’t end with that single snap. Whatever was up there began to thrash. He could hear the wooden base of the trap slapping against the attic flooring. Something bigger than a mouse, maybe a squirrel, was caught but still alive. He heard another snap and a squeal of pain. God, it was alive and hurt! His stomach turned.

  Gloria rolled over and sat up, a silhouette in the growing light. She was still nine-tenths asleep.

  Suddenly the attic went still.

  He patted her arm and told her to lie down and go back to sleep.

  She did. He couldn’t.

  He approached the attic door with dread. He did not want to go up there. What if it was still alive? What if it was weak and paralyzed but still breathing? He’d have to kill it. He didn’t know if he could do that. But he’d have to. It would be the only humane thing to do. How? Drown it? Smother it in a plastic bag? He began to sweat.

  This was crazy. He was wimping out over a rodent in his attic. Enough already! He flipped the attic light switch, slipped the bolt, and pulled on the cord. The door angled down on its hinges.

  But it didn’t come down alone. Something came with it, flying right at his face.

  He yelled like a fool in a funhouse and batted it away. Then he saw what it was: one of the mousetraps. At first glance it looked empty, but when he went to pick it up, he saw what was in it and almost tossed his cookies.

  A furry little forearm, no longer than the last two bones on his pinkie finger, was caught under the bow. It looked like it once might have been attached to a squirrel, but now it ended in a ragged bloody stump where it had been chewed off just below the shoulder.

  Where the hell was the rest of it?

  Visions of the squirrel chewing off its own arm swam around him until he remembered that auto-amputation only occurred with arresting traps, the kind that were chained down. Animals had been known to chew off a limb to escape those. The squirrel could have dragged the mousetrap with it.

  But it hadn’t.

  Hank stood at the halfway point on those steps a long while. He finally decided he had wasted enough time. He clenched his teeth, told himself it was dead, and poked his head up. He started and almost fell off the stairs when he turned his head and found the squirrel’s tail only two inches from his nose. It was caught in the bow of another trap—the second snap he had heard this morning. But there was no body attached.

  This was getting a bit gory. He couldn’t buy a squirrel chewing off its arm and then its tail. If anything, it would drag the tail trap after it until it got stuck someplace.

  Nope. Something had eaten it. Something that didn’t smell too good, because the attic was really beginning to stink.

  He ducked down the ladder, grabbed the flashlight he always kept in the night table, then hurried back up to the attic. Light from the single bulb over the opening in the attic floor didn’t reach very far. And even with daylight filtering in through the gable vents, there were lots of dark spots. He wanted the flashlight so he could get a good look along the inside of the eaves and into all the corners.

  He searched carefully, and as he moved through the attic he had a vague sense of another presence, a faint awareness of something else here, a tantalizing hint of furtive movement just out of his range of vision.

  He shook it off. The closeness up here, the poor lighting, the missing animal carcasses—it had all set his imagination in motion. He gave the attic a thorough going over and found nothing but a few droppings. Big droppings. Bigger than something a mouse or squirrel would leave. Maybe possum-sized. Or raccoon-sized.

  Was that the answer? A possum or a coon? He didn’t know much about them, but he’d seen them around in the woods, and he knew every time he put turkey or chicken scraps in the garbage, something would get the lid off the trash can and tear the Hefty bag apart until every last piece of meat was gone. Raccoons were notorious for that. If they’d eat leftover chicken, why not dead mice and squirrels?

  Made sense to him. But how was it getting in? A check of the gable vent he’d resecured yesterday gave him the answer. It had been pulled free again. Well, he’d fix that right now.

  He went down to his workshop and got a hammer and some heavy nails. He felt pretty good as he pounded them into the edges of the vent, securing it from the inside. He knew what he was up against now and knew something that big would be easy to keep out. No raccoon or possum was going to pull this vent free again. And just to be sure, he went over to the north side and reinforced the gable vent there.

  That was it. His house was his own again.

  Wednesday night was chaotic. Excitement ran at a fever pitch with the twins packing their own little suitcases full of stuffed animals and placing them by the front door so they’d be all set to go first thing in the morning.

  Hank helped Gloria with the final packing of the big suitcases and they both fell into bed around midnight. He had little trouble getting off to sleep. There probably weren’t any mice left, there weren’t any squirrels, and he was sure no raccoon or possum was getting in tonight. So why stay awake listening?

  The snap of a trap woke him around 3:30. No thrashing, no slapping, just the snap. Another mouse. A second trap went off ten minutes later. Then a third. Damn! He waited. The fourth and final trap sprang at 4:00 A.M.

  Hank lay tense and rigid in bed and wondered what to do. Everybody would be up at first light, just an hour or so from now, getting ready for the drive to Newark Airport. He couldn’t leave those mouse carcasses up there all the time they were away—they’d rot and the whole house would be stinking by the time they got back.

  He slipped out of bed as carefully as he could, hoping the movement wouldn’t awaken Gloria. She didn’t
budge. He grabbed the flashlight and closed the bedroom door behind him on his way out.

  He didn’t waste any time. He had to get up there and get rid of the dead mice before the girls woke up. These damn animals were really getting on his nerves. He slid the bolt, pulled down the door, and hurried up.

  Hank stood on the ladder and gaped at the traps. All four had been sprung but lay empty on the flooring around him, the peanut butter untouched. No mice heads, no bits of fur. What could have tripped them without getting caught? It was almost like a game.

  He looked around warily. He was standing in a narrow cone of light. The rest of the attic was dark. Very dark. The sense of something else up here with him was very strong now. So was the odor. It was worse than ever.

  Imagination again.

  He waved the flashlight around quickly but saw no scurrying or lurking shapes along the eaves or in the corners. He made a second sweep, more slowly this time, more careful. He crouched and moved all along the edges, bumping his head now and again on a rafter, his flashlight held ahead of him like a gun.

  Finally, when he was satisfied nothing of any size was lurking about, he checked the gable vent.

  It had been yanked loose again. Some of the nails had pulled free, and those that hadn’t had ripped through the vent’s plastic edge.

  He was uneasy now. No raccoon was strong enough to do this. He didn’t know many men who could do it without a crowbar. This was getting out of hand. He suddenly wanted to get downstairs and bolt the attic door behind him. He’d call a professional exterminator as soon as they got back from Orlando.

  He spun about, sure that something had moved behind him, but all was still, all was dark but for the pool of light under the bulb. Yet . . .

  Quickly now, he headed back toward the light, toward the ladder, toward the empty traps. As he sidled along, he checked in the corners and along the eaves one last time, and wondered how and why the traps had been sprung. He saw nothing. Whatever it was, if it had come in, it wasn’t here anymore. Maybe the attic light had scared it off. If that was the case, he’d leave the light on all night. All week.

  His big mistake was looking for it along the floor.

  It got him as he came around the heating unit. He saw a flash movement as it swung down from the rafters—big as a rottweiler, brown scruffy fur, a face that was all mouth with huge countless teeth, four clawed arms extended toward him as it held onto the beams above with still two more limbs—and that was all. It engulfed his head and lifted him off the floor in one sweeping motion. For a few spasming seconds his fingers tore futilely at its matted fur and his legs kicked and writhed silently in the air. As life and consciousness fled that foul smothering unbearable agony, he sensed the bottomless pit of its hunger and thought helplessly of the open attic door, of the ladder going down, and of Gloria and the twins sleeping below.

  THE YEARS THE MUSIC DIED

  Nantucket in November. Leave it to Bill to make a mockery of security. And of me. The Atlantic looked mean today. I watched its gray, churning surface from behind the relative safety of the double-paned picture windows. I would have liked a few more panes between me and all that water. Would have liked a few miles between us, in fact.

  Some people are afraid of snakes, some of spiders. With me, it’s water. And the more water, the worse it is. I get this feeling it wants to suck me down. Been that way since I was a kid. Bill has known about the phobia for a good twenty years. So why did he do it? Bad enough to set up the meeting on this dinky little island, but to hold it on this narrow spit of land between the head of the harbor and an uneasy ocean with no more than a hundred yards between the two was outright cruel. And a nor’easter coming. If that awful ocean ever reared up . . .

  I shuddered and turned away. But no turning away in this huge barn of a room with all these picture windows facing east, west, and north. Like a goddamn goldfish bowl. Not even curtains I could pull closed. I felt naked and exposed in this open pine-paneled space. Eight hours to go until dark blotted out the ocean. But then I’d still be able to hear it.

  Why would my own son do something like this to me?

  Security, Bill had said.

  A last-minute off-season rental of an isolated house on a summer resort island in the chill of November. The Commission members could fly in, attend the meeting, then fly out again with no one ever knowing they were here. What could be more secure?

  I’m a stickler for security, too, but this was ludicrous. This was—

  Bill walked into the room, carefully not looking in my direction. I studied my son a moment: a good-looking man with dark hair and light blue eyes; just forty-four but looking ten years older. A real athlete until he started letting his weight go to hell. Now he had the beginnings of a hefty spare tire around his waist. I’ve got two dozen years on him and only half his belly.

  Something was wrong with the way he was walking . . . a little unsteady. And then I realized.

  Good Lord, he’s drunk.

  I started to say something but Bill beat me to it.

  “Nelson’s here. He just called from the airport. I sent the car out for him. Harold is in the air.”

  I managed to say, “Fine,” without making it sound choked.

  My son, half-lit at a Commission meeting, and me surrounded by water—this had a good chance of turning into a personal disaster. All my peers, the heads of all the major industries in the country, were downstairs at the buffet brunch. Rockefeller was on the island, and Vanderbilt was on his way; they would complete the Commission in its present composition. Soon they’d be up here to start the agenda. Only Joe Kennedy would be missing. Again. Too bad. I’ve always liked Joe. But with a son in the White House, we all had serious doubts about his objectivity. It had been a tough decision, but Joe had gracefully agreed to give up his seat on the Commission for the duration of Jack’s presidency.

  Good thing, too. I was glad he wouldn’t be here to see how Bill had deteriorated.

  His son’s going down in history while mine is going down the drain.

  What a contrast. And yet, on the surface, I couldn’t see a single reason why Bill couldn’t be where Jack Kennedy was. Both came from good stock, both had good war records and plenty of money behind them. But Jack had gone for the gold ring and Bill had gone for the bottle.

  I wasn’t going to begrudge Joe his pride in his son. All of us on the Commission were proud of the job Jack was doing. I remember that inner glow I felt when I heard, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” That’s just the way I feel. The way everybody on the Commission feels.

  I heard ice rattle and turned to see Bill pouring himself a drink at the bar.

  “Bill! It’s not noon yet, for God’s sake!”

  Bill raised his glass mockingly. “Happy anniversary, Dad.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Today was nobody’s anniversary.

  “Have you completely pickled your brains?”

  Bill’s eyebrows rose. “How soon we forget. Six years ago today: November eighth, 1957. Doesn’t that ring a bell?”

  “No.” I could feel my jaw clenching as I stepped toward him. “Give me that glass.”

  “That was the day the Commission decided to ‘do something’ about rock ‘n’ roll.”

  “So what?”

  “Which led to February 3, 1959.”

  That date definitely had a familiar ring.

  “You do remember February 3, don’t you, Dad? An airplane crash. Three singers. All dead.”

  I took a deep breath. “That again.”

  “Not again. Still.” He raised his glass. “Salud.” Taking a long pull on his drink, he dropped into a chair.

  I stood over him. The island, the drinking . . . here was what it was all about. I’ve always known the crash bothered him, but never realized how much until now. What anger he must have been carrying around these past few years. Anger and guilt.

  “You mean to tell me you’re still blaming y
ourself for that?” The softness of my voice surprised me.

  “Why not? My idea, wasn’t it?”

  “The plane crash was nobody’s idea. How many times do we have to go over this?”

  “There never seems to be a time when I don’t go over it. And now it’s November eighth, 1963. Exactly six years to the day after I opened my big mouth at the Commission meeting.”

  “Yes, you did.” And how proud I was of him that day. “You came up with a brilliant solution that resolved the entire crisis.”

  “Hah! Some crisis!”

  A sudden burst of rain splattered against the north and east windows. The storm was here.

  I sat down with my back to most of the glass and tried to catch Bill’s eye.

  “And you talk about how soon I forget? You had a crisis in your own home—Peter. Remember?”

  Bill nodded absently.

  I pressed on. Maybe I could break through this funk he was wallowing in, straighten him out before the meeting.

  “Peter is growing to be a fine man now and I’m proud to call him my grandson, but back in ‘57 he was only eleven and already thoroughly immersed in rock and roll—”

  “Not ‘rock and roll,’ Dad. You’ve got to be the only one in the country who pronounces the ‘and.’ It’s ‘rock ‘n’ roll’—like one word.”

  “It’s three words and I pronounce all three. But be that as it may, your house was a war zone, and you know it.”

  That had been a wrenching time for the whole McCready clan, but especially for me. Peter was my only grandson then and I adored him. But he had taken to listening to those atrocious Little Richard records and combing his hair like Elvis Presley. Bill banned the music from the house but Peter was defying everyone, sneaking records home, listening to it on the radio, plunking his dimes into jukeboxes on the way home from school.