A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “There! See if you can get out of that!”

  As George opened his mouth to speak, Gil glared at him and the old man shut it with an almost audible snap.

  “That’s the spirit,” Gil said softly.

  He pulled the knife out of his shirt and held its six-inch blade up before George. The old man’s eyes widened.

  “Nice, isn’t it? I snatched it from the kitchen of that wimpy Monroe Neuropsychiatric Institute. Would ve preferred getting myself a gun, but none of the guards there were armed. Still, I can do a whole lot of damage with something like this and still not kill you. Understand what I’m saying to you, old man?”

  George nodded vigorously.

  “Good. Now what we’re going to have here tonight is a nice quiet little house. No noise, no talk. Just a good night’s sleep for both of us. Then we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  He gave George one last hard look straight in the eye, then turned and headed back to the couch.

  Before sacking out for the night, Gil went through George’s checkbook. Not a whole lot of money in it. Most of the checks went out to cash or to the township for quarterly taxes. He noticed one good-sized regular monthly deposit that was probably his Social Security check, and lots of smaller sporadic additions.

  He looked through the three undeposited checks. They were all made out to George Haskins, each from a different greeting card company. The attached invoices indicated they were in payment for varying numbers of verses.

  Verses?

  You mean old George back there tied up to the bed was a poet? He wrote greeting card verse?

  Gil looked around the room. Where? There was no desk in the shack. Hell, he hadn’t seen a piece of paper since he got here! Where did George write this stuff?

  He went back to the bedroom. He did his best not to show the relief he felt when he saw that old George was still tied up nice and tight.

  “Hey, old man,” he said, waving the checks in the air. “How come you never told me you were a poet?”

  George glared at him. “Those checks are mine! I need them to pay my taxes!”

  “Yeah? Well, right now I need them a lot more than you do. I think tomorrow morning we’ll take a little trip down to the bank so you can cash these.” He checked the balance in the account. “And I think you just might make a cash withdrawal, too.”

  “I’ll lose my land if I don’t pay those taxes on time!”

  “Well then, I guess you’ll just have to come up with some more romantic ‘verses’ for these card companies. Like, ‘George is a poet/And nobody know it.’ See? It’s easy!”

  Gil laughed as he thought of all the broads who get those flowery, syrupy birthday and anniversary cards and sit mooning over the romantic poems inside, never knowing they were written by this dirty old man in a falling-down shack on Long Island!

  “I love it!” he said, heading back to the couch. “I just love it!”

  He turned out all the lights, shoved the knife between two of the cushions, and bedded down on the dusty old couch for the night. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought he heard rustling movements from under the floorboards. George’s ‘tenants,’ no doubt. He shuddered at the thought. The sooner he was out of here, the better.

  What time is it?

  Gil was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and peering around in the mine-shaft blackness that surrounded him. Something had awakened him. But what? He sat perfectly still and listened.

  A few crickets, maybe a frog—the noises seemed to come from outside instead of from the crawl space—but nothing more than that.

  Still, his senses were tingling with the feeling that something was wrong. He stood up and stepped over toward the light switch. As he moved, his foot caught on something and he fell forward. On the way down his ribs slammed against something else, something hard, like a chair. He hit the floor with his left shoulder. Groaning, he got to his knees and crawled until his fingers found the wall. He fumbled around for the light switch and flipped it.

  When his eyes had adjusted to the glare, he glanced at the clock over the kitchen sink—going on 4:00 A.M. He thought he saw something move by the sink, but when he squinted for a better look, it was just some junk George had left there. Then he turned back toward the couch to see what had tripped him up.

  It was the little hassock that had been over by the rocking chair when he had turned the lights out. At least he was pretty sure it had been there. He knew it hadn’t been next to the couch where it was now. And the chair he had hit on his way down—that had been over against the wall.

  In fact, as he looked around he noticed that not a single piece of furniture in the whole room was where it had been when he had turned out the lights and gone to sleep three or four hours ago. It had all been moved closer to the couch.

  Someone was playing games. And Gil only knew of one possible someone.

  Retrieving his knife from the couch, he hurried to the bedroom and stopped dead at the door. George was tied hand and foot to the corners of the bed, snoring loudly.

  A chill rippled over Gil’s skin.

  “How the hell . . .?”

  He went back to the main room and checked the door and windows—all were locked from the inside. He looked again at the furniture, clustered around the couch as if the pieces had crept up and watched him as he slept.

  Gil didn’t believe in ghosts but he was beginning to believe this little shack was haunted.

  And he wanted out.

  He had seen the keys to the old Torino in one of the drawers. He found them again and hurried outside to the car. He hoped the damn thing started. He wasn’t happy about hitting the road so soon, but he preferred taking his chances with the cops out in the open to being cooped up with whatever was haunting that shack.

  As he slipped behind the wheel, he noticed a sliver of light shining out from inside the shack’s foundation. That was weird. Really weird. Nobody kept a light on in a crawl space. He was about to turn the ignition key but held up. He knew it was going to drive him nuts if he left without seeing what was down there.

  Cursing himself for a jerk, he turned on the Ford’s headlamps and got out for a closer look.

  The light was leaking around a piece of plywood fitted into an opening in the foundation cinder blocks. It was hinged at the bottom and held closed by a short length of one-by-two shoved through the handle at the top. He pulled out the one-by-two and hesitated.

  Connors, you are an asshole, he told himself, but he had to see what was in there. If it was snakes and snapping turtles, fine. That would be bad enough. But if it was something worse, he had to know.

  Gripping the knife tightly in one hand, he yanked the board toward him with the other and quickly peered in, readying himself to slam it shut in an instant. But what he saw within so shocked him he almost dropped the knife.

  There was a furnished apartment inside.

  The floor of the crawl space was carpeted. It was worn, industrial grade carpet, but it was carpet. There were chairs, tables, bunk beds, the works. A fully furnished apartment . . . with a ceiling two feet high.

  Everything was doll size except the typewriter. That was a portable electric model that looked huge in contrast to everything else.

  Maybe George wasn’t really crazy after all. One thing was certain: The old fart had been lying to him. There were no snakes and snapping turtles living down here in his crawl space.

  But just what the hell was living down here?

  Gil headed back inside to ask the only man who really knew.

  As he strode through the big room, his foot caught on something and he went down again, landing square on his belly. It took him a moment to catch his breath, then he rolled over and looked to see what had tripped him.

  It wasn’t the hassock this time. A length of slim cord was stretched between the leg of the couch and an eye-hook that had been screwed into the wall.

  He got up and continued on his way—carefully now, scanning the path for more trip ropes. Th
ere were none. He made it to the bedroom without falling again—

  —and found George sitting on the edge of the bed, massaging his wrists.

  Dammit! Every time he turned around it was something else! He could feel the anger and frustration begin to bubble up toward the overflow levels.

  “Who the hell untied you?”

  “I ain’t talking to you.”

  Gil pointed the knife at him. “You’ll talk, old man, or I’ll skin you alive!”

  “Leave him alone and leave our home!”

  It was a little voice, high-pitched without being squeaky, and it came from directly behind him. Gil whirled and saw a fully dressed little man—or something squat, hairy, and bullnecked that came pretty close to looking like a little man—no more than a foot and a half high, standing outside the bedroom door. By the time Gil realized what he was looking at, the creature had started to run.

  Gil’s first thought was, I’m going crazy! But suddenly he had an explanation for that two-foot high furnished apartment in the crawl space, and for the moving furniture and trip cords.

  He bolted after it. Here was what had been tormenting him tonight! He’d get the little sucker and—

  He tripped again. A cord that hadn’t been there a moment ago was stretched across the narrow hall. Gil went down on one knee and bounded up again. He’d been half ready for that one. They weren’t going to—

  Something caught him across the chin and his feet went out from under him. He landed flat on his back and felt a sharp, searing pain in his right thigh. He looked down and saw he had jabbed himself in the leg with his own knife during the fall.

  Gil leaped to his feet, the pain a distant cry amid the blood rage that hammered through his brain. He roared and slashed at the rope that had damn near taken his head off and charged into the big room. There he saw not one but two of the little bastards. A chant filled the air:

  “Leave him alone and leave our home! Leave him alone and leave our home!”

  Over and over, from a good deal more than two voices. He couldn’t see any others. How many of the little runts were there? No matter. He’d deal with these two first, then hunt down the others and get to the bottom of this.

  The pair split, one darting to the left, the other to the right. Gil wasn’t going to let them both escape. He took a single step and launched himself through the air at the one fleeing leftward. He landed with a bone-jarring crash on the floor but his outstretched free hand caught the leg of the fleeing creature. It was hairier than he had realized—furry, really—and it struggled in his grasp, screeching and thrashing like a wild animal as he pulled it toward him. He squeezed it harder and it bit his thumb. Hard. He howled with the pain, hauled the thing back, and flung it against the nearest wall.

  Its screeching stopped as it landed against the wall with an audible crunch and fell to the floor, but the chant went on:

  . . . our home! Leave him alone and leave our home! Leave him . . .”

  “God damn it!” Gil said, sucking on his bleeding thumb. It hurt like hell.

  Then he saw the thing start to move. Mewling in pain, it had begun a slow crawl toward one of the piles of junk in the corner.

  “No, you don’t!” Gil shouted.

  The pain, the rage, that goddamn chant, they all came together in a black cloud of fury that engulfed him. No way he was going to let that little shit get away and set more booby traps for him. Through that cloud, he charged across the room, lifted the thing up with his left hand, and raised the knife in his right. Dimly he heard a voice shouting somewhere behind him but he ignored it.

  He rammed the knife through the damned thing, pinning it to the wall.

  The chant stopped abruptly, cut off in mid verse. All he could hear was George’s wail.

  “Oh, no! Oh, Lord, no!”

  George stood in the hall and stared at the tiny figure impaled on the wall, watched it squirm as dark fluid flowed down the peeling wallpaper. Then it went slack. He didn’t know the little guy’s name—they all looked pretty much the same through his cataracts—but he felt like he’d lost an old friend. His anguish was a knife lodged in his own chest. “You’ve killed him! Oh, God!”

  Gil glared at him, his eyes wild, his breathing ragged. Saliva dripped from a corner of his mouth. He was far over the edge.

  “Right, old man. And I’m gonna get the other one and do the same to him!”

  George couldn’t let that happen. The little guys were his responsibility. He was their protector. He couldn’t just stand here like a useless scarecrow.

  He launched himself at Gil, his long, nicotine-stained fingernails extended like claws, raking for the younger man’s eyes. But Gil pushed him aside easily, knocking him to the floor with a casual swipe of his arm. Pain blazed through George’s left hip as he landed, shooting down his leg like a bolt of white hot lightning.

  “You’re next, you worthless old shit!” Gil screamed. “Soon as I finish with the other little squirt!”

  George sobbed as he lay on the floor. If only he were younger, stronger. Even ten years ago he probably could have kicked this punk out on his ass. Now all he could do was lie here on the floor like the worthless old half-blind cripple he was. He pounded the floor helplessly. Might as well be dead!

  Suddenly he saw another of the little guys dash across the floor toward the couch, saw the punk spot him and leap after him. “Run!” George screamed. “Run!”

  Gil rammed his shoulder against the back of the couch as he shoved his arm far beneath it, slashing back and forth with the knife, trying to get a piece of the second runt. But the blade cut only air and dust bunnies. As he began to withdraw his arm, he felt something snake over his hand and tighten on his wrist. He tried to yank away but the cord—he was sure it was a cord like the one he had used to truss George—tightened viciously.

  A slip knot!

  The other end must have been tied to one of the couch legs. He tried to slash at the cord with the knife but he couldn’t get the right angle. He reached under with his free left hand to get the knife and realized too late that they must have been waiting for him to do that very thing. He felt another noose tighten over that wrist—

  —and still another over his right ankle.

  The first cold trickles of fear ran down Gil’s spine.

  In desperation he tried to tip the couch over to give him some room to maneuver but it wouldn’t budge. Just then something bit deeply into his right hand. He tried to shake it off and in doing so he loosened his grip on the knife. It was immediately snatched from his grasp.

  At that moment the fourth noose tightened around his left ankle, and he knew he was in deep shit.

  They let him lie there for what must have been an hour. He strained at the ropes, trying to break them, trying to untie the knots. All he accomplished was to sink their coils more deeply into his flesh. He wanted to scream out his rage—and his fear—but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He heard George moving around somewhere behind him, groaning with pain, heard little voices—How many of the little fuckers were there, anyway?—talking in high-pitched whispers. There seemed to be an argument going on. Finally, it was resolved.

  Then came a tugging on the cords as new ones were tied around his wrists and ankles and old ones released. Suddenly he was flipped over onto his back.

  He saw George sitting in the rocker holding an ice pack to his left hip. And on the floor there were ten—Jesus, ten of them!—foot-and-a-half tall furry little men standing in a semicircle, staring at him.

  One of them stepped forward. He was dressed in doll clothes: a dark blue pullover—it even had an Izod alligator on the left breast—and tan slacks. He had the face of a sixty-year-old man with a barrel chest and furry arms and legs. He pointed at Gil’s face and spoke in a high-pitched voice:

  “C’ham is dead and it’s on your head.”

  Gil started to laugh. It was like landing in Munchkinland, but then he saw the look in the little man’s eyes and knew this was not one
of the Lollipop Kids. The laugh died in his throat.

  He glanced up at the wall where he’d pinned the first little runt like a bug on a board and saw only a dark stain.

  The talking runt gestured two others forward and they approached Gil, dragging his knife. He tried to squirm away from them but the ropes didn’t allow for much movement.

  “Hey, now, wait a minute! What’re you—?”

  “The decision’s made: You’ll make the trade.”

  Gil was beginning to know terror. “Forget the goddamn rhymes! What’s going on here?”

  “Hold your nose,” the talking runt said to the pair with the knife, “and cut off his clothes. Best be cautious lest he make you nauseous.”

  Gil winced as the blade began to slice along the seams of his shirt, waiting for the sharp edge to cut him. But it never touched him.

  George watched as the little guys stripped Connors. He had no idea what they were up to and he didn’t care. He felt like more of a failure than ever. He’d never done much with his life, but at least since the end of the sixties he had been able to tell himself that he had provided a safe harbor for the last of the world’s Little People.

  When had it been—sixty-nine, maybe—when all eleven of them had first shown up at his door looking for shelter. They’d said they were waiting for “when time is unfurled and we’re called by the world.” He hadn’t the vaguest notion what that meant but he’d experienced an immediate rapport with them. They were Outsiders, just like he was. And when they offered to pay rent, the deal was sealed.

  He smiled. That rhymed. If you listened to them enough, you began to sound like them. Since they spoke in rhyme all the time—there was another one—it was nothing for them to crank out verse for the greeting card companies. Some of the stuff was pretty sappy, but it paid the taxes.

  But what next? One of the little guys had been murdered by this psycho who now knew their secret. Soon all the world would know about these Little People. George had doubly failed at his job: He hadn’t protected them and hadn’t kept their secret. He was just what the punk had called him: a worthless old shit.