by Cameron Kohuss
Mildred Barr, brushing the fly from her coffee, said, with a wrinkled nose, “Are you sure you wouldn’t wish to call on the landlord? After all, dear, the fees for an outside man are exorbitant.” Ms. Barr was in her forties, blonde and petite. A large pair of yellow-rimmed glasses enveloped the majority of her face.
“I’m afraid he’s not at home,” Janet Wells said blandly. “I’ve knocked on his door several times, I phoned him yesterday. There’s no answer.”
Mildred said, “And nothing from his wife, either?”
“No, not at all,” said Janet. “Perhaps they’re away. And besides, it’s the middle of summer; there are bound to be a few pests at least, scurrying about an old apartment building. It’s nothing to worry over.”
“A few pests, of course,” Mildred said. “I mean—I’ve seen a spider or two, at the foot of the bed, or in the bathroom. We have the occasional fly; but the next day it’s gone, you see.”
“We live in the city,” said Janet. “There are all sorts of oddities here. I can’t control that. Anyway, it’s George who wanted the change.” She smiled then and settled back against the sofa. “I was perfectly content to stay in the country.”
“Certainly, dear, but you—” Ms. Barr, as she took up her coffee, paused and scanned the room. She had come down that evening from her own apartment in 9-E, on the pretense of a drink; though it was the word of Mrs. Gillis—right across the hall now, in 5-E—which had driven her for the visit. There was an odd smell, Mrs. Gillis had told her, sweet and death-like, emanating from the Wells’ door. Of course, that was several days ago. Mildred had waited far too long to investigate, she’d told herself, and now, to her displeasure, there was nothing of the sort—neither outside the apartment or within.
And yet—she set the cup on the table and looked about once more.
The flies.
So many flies, she thought, counting them—three upon the wall, five on the armrest of the sofa. There were four more near the bell dome lighting above.
Ms. Barr turned in her chair and spotted another on the kitchen window. It was buzzing about corner-to-corner, in desperation it seemed for escape.
She shifted uncomfortably and said, “Well. They’ve got to be coming from somewhere.”
“The vents,” Janet said casually.
“No,” Mildred answered, “I don’t believe so. I would have heard from one of the other tenants, if it were a problem with the ducts.”
“Or it’s more likely they haven’t told you,” said Janet. She stared idly across the room, her hands warming a small cup of tea. “I would presume it's an embarrassment,” she continued, “a certain judgment of habits and cleanliness. I’m not embarrassed at all. They will come in the summer and, I’m sure, leave the second it’s cool.”
“But why then—” Mildred frowned “—suppose they wouldn’t tell me,” she said, setting her coffee back on the table. “What sense would it make not to voice such a concern? I’ve been told of everything else,” said Ms. Barr, “everything else: failing grades, ill health, whoever’s grandmother is the latest to decline. I’ve been told of possible evictions, likely affairs. In fact—” she lowered her voice and moved to the end of the chair “—in fact,” she said, “did you know Perry Lehman is having one himself?”
“An affair?” said Janet.
“That’s right,” said Ms. Barr. “He’s cheating on that young wife of his.”
“Do you know with who?”
“Oh, that I’m not sure.”
“Then how can you be sure if it’s true?” said Janet. “Or if it’s simply hearsay. Perhaps it’s someone playing a game on you. The same way about the vents. Perhaps they wouldn’t wish to embarrass themselves, with no objections to the indignity of another.”
Ms. Barr adjusted her glasses. A fly landed on the tip of her finger and she swatted it away and coughed. “All I’m saying,” she said, “is to think of the fees for an outside man. To think of the price, that’s all. Now, if you were to tell the landlord, well—and you would have a right to, a right to compensation and a fair shake at getting rid of the problem. It’s the landlord’s responsibility, anyway, and—”
“He’s not home, I’ve told you,” said Janet. “I would know. He lives one floor below us.”
“When did you see him last?” Mildred prodded.
Janet thought for a moment and said, “It was two weeks ago. He was going on about his new pair of silver cufflinks. That was the last I saw of him. I thought the cufflinks were hideous, and I said as much. He got angry and threatened to raise my rent. I told him it would be unethical to do so. I have no plans to pay for extermination, either.”
“But you can’t let this go on,” Mildred said.
“I can if I’d like,” said Janet. “It’s my apartment. I can do as I please.”
“Well,” said Ms. Barr, rising now, “they’ve got to be coming from somewhere.”
Janet watched her as she went into the kitchen, to the kitchen window.
“A crack or something,” Mildred said. She ran a small thin finger along the sill. “They don’t materialize out of nothing. Perhaps they’re attracted to something in the apartment.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. It could be a mouse.”
“A mouse?”
“Something—something dead.” Mildred walked out of the kitchen, slowly, examining every corner. She went to the bedroom door and stopped. “Mind if I have a look?” she asked.
Janet stood, angrily now. “Certainly not,” she said. “And I’m asking you to stop this at once. What concern is it of yours, anyway?”
“All right.”
“Listen,” said Janet. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve tried to get rid of them. Really I have. It hasn’t worked.”
“Tried to—”
“With the vacuum. I suck them up with the cleaner every night until I’m sure I’ve got them all. The next day they come back.”
“Oh, Janet. That’s awful silly.”
“If it lasts through the fall, then—”
“The fall?”
“That’s right,” Janet said.
Mildred removed her glasses to wipe them. “All right then,” she said impatiently, “if you don’t want my help. Fine. I suppose I had better be along regardless.”
“Suppose you should,” said Janet.
Mildred left her and went back to the living room table. She looked at the flies on the armrest and scoffed. Let her have them, she thought; let her keep the damned filthy bastards. She gathered up the coffee, Janet’s tea and the various china saucers, and took them into the kitchen.
Something came to her as she placed them in the sink.
She leaned over the stove, peered down the back wall and gasped.
“Janet,” she called. “Janet, come here.”
“What now?”
“Come here and look.”
“Mildred,” Janet said, now at her shoulder, “I’ve told you, for your sake now—I won’t have this nosing around in my home any longer.”
“There’s something back there.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s something down there on the floor.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Get me a light,” said Mildred.
“You’re imagining things.”
“Look, damnit,” Mildred cried, “get me a light so I can see!”
Resigned, Janet went away towards the hall. She came back a minute later with a flashlight. Mildred grabbed it from her and shined it down the back of the stove. “Oh, my God,” she said.
“What is it?”
“It’s—I can’t tell,” said Mildred. “It looks like a rat.”
“A rat?”
“It’s something purple, or pink. It seems tangled up. I don’t know what it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ll need to pull out the stove to see. It’s too heavy for either of us to do it ourselves. I’ll go call on Mr. Lehman and he’ll help us.”
“Oh, please don’t. George will be home in a few days and—”
Mildred handed her the flashlight and advanced quickly out the door.
#
She came back after a few moments with Perry Lehman on her arm. “I told you he would help us,” she said as they came through the doorway. “I’d bet he could pull that stove out all by himself.”
Mr. Lehman offered her a pained smile. He was a tall and rather decent-looking man, with rough hands and wide, muscular shoulders. For the first several years of his tenancy, he had lived on the twelfth floor. Last September, inexplicably, he had moved down to the second.
“I apologize,” Janet said to him. “She’s dragged you up here for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” said Mildred. “There’s certainly something behind the stove.”
“Something—”
“Dead, Mr. Lehman,” said Mildred. “The reason I’m sure for the flies. You see she refuses to call on the landlord, and the fees for an outside man are unconscionable. I’m simply trying to help, now—” she took up the flashlight and waved it at the stove “—if you would pull that out, we’ll get a better look at what we’re dealing with.”
Mr. Lehman gripped the stove and began to wriggle it forward. When it was almost out he paused and said, “How about that? What do you see?”
“I still can’t tell,” said Mildred. “Keep going so I can get back there.”
He glanced over at Janet and, with a final tug, twisted the right corner of the stove and pulled it free from the cabinet wall.
Mildred stared, the beam of light frozen against the floor.
“My God,” said Mr. Lehman. “What in the hell happened to it?”
The dead rat lay on its side. The bottom of the head was missing, the flaps of its stomach poking outward. There were no legs, no eyes. There was a small pink fetus ensnared by the rat’s eight inch tail.
“The flies!” Mildred said. She turned the light. A large chewed-through hole glared from the bottom of the cabinet wall. “The rat must have eaten through the wood, then lodged itself behind the stove,” she said. “It may have been electrocuted.” She leveled the flashlight. There was a wink as she passed it through the dark. “Janet,” said Mildred. “I think there’s something else in there.”
A noise—a sound of movement from the floor below.
Mildred said, “That must be the landlord! Mr. Lehman, would you call on him please. He lives in 4-A. If it isn’t him, his wife will certainly do. Please tell her what’s the problem; this has gone on far too long as it is.”
He looked at Janet. She nodded.
Mildred watched him leave. She turned to the wall, then squatted and stuck her face into the hole. It was big enough for her to crawl through.
“There could be another rat,” Janet warned.
Mildred inched herself forward. “I have to see what that is,” she said. “I have to know.” She continued through the hole until her shoes had passed fully into the dark. With a short, quick raise of the light, Mildred saw.
It was the undeniable glint of silver.
She opened her mouth to scream. There was no breath. She turned her head as if to retreat, then watched—in abject horror—one corner of the stove as it moved, slowly, back into place.
Cameron Kohuss is a horror writer from Texas. His work, influenced by a love of psychology and the absurd, has appeared most recently in Necessary Fiction, Unstamatic Magazine, as well as Vol. 1, Issue Three of Crab Apple Literary. He can be found on X: @CameronKohuss.
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