“Home,” she said, making it sound as light as she could. But there was no conviction in the word.
He said, “You go ahead to the house. I’ll lock up out here.”
“I can use some coffee. How about you?”
“Fine. With a little brandy in it.”
She hurried across the yard, taking out her house keys as she went, and unlocked the door and switched on the living room light. She shut the door quickly against the gray fingers of fog, but the chill of it was in the room-a dankness flavored with stale pipe tobacco and the vague lingering odor of manure. Or was she just imagining the manure smell? Jan had cleaned the bathroom, but another scouring wouldn’t hurt; she’d do that first thing in the morning, while he took care of locating chemicals for the well. They’d have to go back to Bandon for that, probably. He would have gotten them today, except that it had been after merchant’s hours when they’d arrived. Her fault. She shouldn’t have spent so much time driving around or walking on the beach.
She set about building a fire in the old wood-burner, hoping that the damned thing wouldn’t start smoking before it spread its warmth. She was still arranging wood on the grate inside when Jan came in. He said, “Here, let me do that. You make the coffee.”
“With a slug of brandy, right?”
“Make it two slugs of brandy.”
In the kitchen she took the drip grind from one of the canisters-decaf, or they wouldn’t sleep tonight-and put it into the Mr. Coffee. But when she opened the cupboard, she found it empty of bottled water. There was none in the fridge, either. Had Jan used up the last of their supply cleaning the bathroom? No coffee for them tonight, if he had.
She went down the three steps and through the cloakroom to check the pantry. She had her hand on the latch when she thought she heard something inside, a kind of shuffling or skittering movement. A chill seemed to make the same sort of movement on her back, as if someone had drawn a bony finger downward along her spine. She listened for a moment, standing rigid, but there wasn’t anything else to hear. Her imagination acting up, producing more horror fantasies about rats in that abandoned well under the pantry floor. That, and nerves.
She opened the door, reached inside for the light switch. It was way over near the shelves on the left; you’d think the people who had built the place would In the darkness something moved across her hand-something alive, something that chittered.
A cry froze in her throat; she jerked her hand back, banged her knuckles against the inner wall. Her dragging fingers touched the switch plate. Reflexively she flipped the toggle upward.
Scurrying things on the floor, on the shelves. A bag of sugar ripped open, spilling whiteness like granulated snow. Yellow eyes glaring, fangs bared, little clawed feet snicking against wood.
Rats!
The pantry was full of rats!
Her throat unlocked and she screamed, a shriek of revulsion and primal terror, and then recoiled backward, pulling the door shut with a crash. But one of the rats got through. She saw it, felt it slither across her boot-huge, half as big as a full-grown cat, gray fur matted and riddled with mange. She threw herself sideways, up against the wall, and the rat turned at the noise or movement to confront her. It came up on its hind paws, its mouth wide open as if in rictus, its fangs gleaming and its yellow eyes full of evil. Another cry tore out of her, strangled and mewling this time. Dimly she beard Jan yelling, felt herself flattening against the wall, clutching at it in a blind groping for escape.
But the rat didn’t attack her, it wheeled and skittered the other way, into the cloakroom just as Jan appeared from the kitchen.
He saw it, shouted something, and the rat veered away from him, over to the wall where they kept their shoes and boots and galoshes. Through a kind of haze she saw it rear up again, backed against the wall just as she was-cornered rat, trapped rat, its eyes not yellow but red now in the gloom, like the eyes of a demon. Saw Jan yank his furled umbrella off a hook on the wall, the one with the heavy brass handle shaped like a falcon’s head. Saw him lunge at the rat, flail at it with the brass end. Heard the thing squeal as it fought him like a drunken boxer, heard it squeal again, a different kind of sound, one of pain and rage. Saw blood, and more of Jan’s wild swings, and the grimace of frenzy on his face She shut her eyes, twisted around toward the wall, and jammed her hands over her ears to shut out the thuds and grunts and squeals. She had no idea when the violence ended. She was still standing, face to the wall, eyes shut, hands pressed to her ears, when she sensed his nearness. And in spite of herself, she shuddered when he touched her.
He turned her, pulled her against him-not gently. “Are you all right? It didn’t bite you?”
“No, no…”
“It’s dead. I killed it.”
She had nothing to say. She buried her face against the rough cloth of his coat and held him, not so much for comfort but because she was afraid to look at him up close this way, afraid that the remnants of his savage fury would still be visible. The rage was still in his voice, in the throbbing rigidity of his body.
“More of them in the pantry,” he said. “I can hear them. How many, did you see?”
“I don’t know. Several… I don’t know.”
“All right. I’ll get them out of there.”
“How? You can’t kill them all—”
“I will if I have to.”
He turned her again, so that they were side by side and his arm was around her shoulders. She didn’t took at what lay bloody and mangled on the floor of the cloakroom as they passed through it. Just let him guide her through the kitchen and into the living room, sit her down near the wood stove-the second time today she had let him lead her away from the scene of an outrage. Deja vu. And things happened in threes, didn’t they?
She glanced up as he started for the door. He was still carrying the furled umbrella in his left hand, and when she saw the blood on it she swallowed against the taste of bile and looked away again. “Jan, be careful. Don’t let one of those things bite you.”
“I won’t.”
The front door opened, banged shut again. She got up and went to the stove, stood close to its warmth. She was oold; it was all she could do to control her shivering.
From back in the pansy, she heard the squealing again.
She shut her ears to it, listening instead to the wind. It shifted, began its skirling in the tower and kitchen chimney, and the stove in turn began to smoke. She turned to it. fiddled with the damper. It did no good. If the wind kept up like this, the room would be full of smoke in another few minutes and she would have to open one of the windows. Otherwise The door popped open and Jan was there again. She straightened, turned as he shut the door against the undulating fog outside.
Oddly, it was his hands that she looked as first. He had put the umbrella down somewhere; he caniod nothing in them. His face was congested, the rage still smoldering in his eyes. And the skin of his forehead and around his eyes was drawn tight, so that he was half squinting-the way it got when he was having one of his bad headaches.
He said, “I got rid of them. All of them.”
“Did you kill any more?”
“No. They scattered when I opened the outside door. We’ll have to put out traps. They’ll come back after the food.”
We won’t be here when they do, she thought. Will we?
“Will you be all right alone for a while?” he asked.
“Alone? Why?”
“I’m going into Hilliard.”
“After Novotny? For God’s sake, Jan, no!”
“Yes. This is the Last straw. I’m going to have it out with him.”
“No! Call the sheriff, let him—”
“Fuck the sheriff,” Jan said, and that frightened her all the more. He never used words like that-never. “There’s nothing he can do. This is between Novotny and me.”
“Jan, you promised you wouldn’t drive anymore. You mustn’t drive, not when you’re having one of your headaches.”