Story of the Month

Chitters

 

By K.M. Malloy

 

Monstrous wind howled through the shingles and scraggly trees, biting and scratching as the shutters to come into the warmth of the old man’s home. It chewed and clawed at the peeling white paint and rotted wood of the crumbling dwelling, but its efforts were useless. Even so, the beastly wind would not cease. It wanted the trophy in the house. And when it had its eye on the prize it never failed.

But the old man would not bother to listen to the growling wind and snarling cold. He was a grizzly old man who’d seen winters far more bitter and fierce than those of the rugged Arizona desert. He’d lost three fingers and the tip of his nose in the winter of 1917 when he’d gone to rescue his brother in a snow storm back home in South Dakota. The doc said he should have died out there, to which his response had been, “too damn busy to die.” Rugged man he’d been, too busy for cold and death. Too busy even for the beast outside.

Now, here by the fire in a thin white shirt sipping cowboy coffee so strong it could make the spoon stand straight up in the cup, the old man knew he was winding down. Wife dead, kids gone, farm sold, spending more and more time in the worn leather chair by the fire. He knew he deserved the rest, and gave a contented sigh as he sank into the chair, the whiskers of his beard blowing away from his lips as he did.

Outside the elusive beast of the wind continued its beat at the ramshackle house, searching for a way in. It found its opportunity in a task overlooked by the old man.

The latch of the kitchen shutters had broken a few weeks back, and the old man hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet. Now the beast attacked them, using the wind to cause them to open and shut, open and shut. Their constant slap thunk, slap thu-thunk, on and on disturbed the old man’s peace and gnawed at his frayed nerves. His blood grew hot with irritation. Another sip of coffee to calm his nerves did nothing to alleviate the annoyance of the clamoring shutters. With a grunt to hoist himself out of the chair, and a sigh at the loss of comfort, the grizzly old man made his way towards the kitchen.

He stood alone in the dim light, watching the shutters go on clapping open and shut, open and shut, the sound of their clanging like the screams of banshees to his ears. “Bother,” he said. He shuffled over to the junk drawer next to the sink below the window, and set the candle down. The drawer would not open. It took a hard tug on the brass handle to get it to budge, groaning when it complied.

An eclectic tangle of mess was scattered about in the drawer; bits of thread, pens that had been sapped of their ink, stamps that no longer stuck, and a pair of chattery teeth his youngest boy had treasured at eight. He cursed the useless items and pushed them about the drawer.

“Damn it,” he growled.

His roughened hands found the roll of duct tape they’d been searching for. His smiled, flashing yellowing dentures to the darkness, and wrapped his hands over the silver tape. The tape wouldn’t come out. It had somehow gotten itself wedged between the drawer and the counter top.

“Shit.”

He pulled harder, trying to yank it out in sharp jerks through curses. It moved only fractions of an inch. He tried to close the drawer, giving it quick jerks to shuffle its contents about to dislodge the tape. Now the tape was in the way, jamming the drawer open, and all the while the continuous clapping of the shutters stabbed and his ears. Another louder string of obscenities burst forth as the old man balled his fist and swung it down like a pendulum into the drawer, closing it with a sharp bang! He tried to open it again only to discover he’d sealed it shut.

The room went ablaze in red for the old man. His cursing had turned into cacophonous gibberish that only those in pure rage can understand its meaning. A broad hand grasped the handle in a death grip, propped the other against the counter, and with a wild roar the old man yanked the drawer right out.

The window had all the abuse it could take at the moment the contents of the drawer were raining across the kitchen floor. The shutters slapped the foggy glass for the final time, and smashed the window in with a thunderous crash. Glass hurtled through the kitchen, stabbing down into the old man’s thinning arms. The candle on the counter beside him blew out, leaving him alone to curse in the darkness.

Something brushing against his legs kept the old man silent. If felt like a small animal, perhaps a stray cat rubbing against his calf. But it had been hard and prickled, as though it fur had frozen into icicles. And the cold, oh the cold! His leg burned with cold from the caresses of the freezing animal. The chill ran down to his bones and sent goose bumps erupting over his skin all the way to his clipped nose. Little wire hairs in his armpits stood up, but they didn’t stand because of the cold. No, those little gray hairs stood because he was suddenly very afraid that he was alone with the beast in the darkness.

“It’s just a little critter, Charles,” he said to himself.

The beast scampered away.

He felt around the kitchen, and found the flashlight in the top cupboard, and set about fixing the window. A hammer here, a few nails there, and he had the busted junk drawer nailed over the tiny kitchen window.

With his every move he heard the little beast scratching about the house. In the wall he heard it shuffling about, its little claws running up and down the two by fours behind the wood paneling. He thought about trying to get rid of the critter tonight in case it might be rabid, but by time he finished fixing the window and pulling the glass from his arms he’d decided it could wait until tomorrow. He was too dog gone tired to be chasing after cold little critters, though he felt uneasy since the thing had come into the house. The unease would not dissipate though he tried desperately to distract himself from it. What made the feeling worse was that the thing had seemed to take a liking to him. Wherever the old man moved, the critter followed, always studying, always watching.

The midnight hour had come and gone, and the old man found himself once again in front of the dwindling fireplace with an empty coffee cup. Boots kicked off, arm wrapped in a crisp bandage, he cozied up under the quilt Aggie had made him for their first wedding anniversary. Fifty years ago it had been thick, the colors of the pattern vibrant. But now the stitches were coming loose, the corners were tattered, and it had worn so thin in some places it was nearly transparent. But no matter, the embers of the fire would keep him warm through the night, just as they had every night since Aggie had been laid to rest.

Her picture sat upon the mantle, taken when she was still young and gorgeous. He stared at it now as he drifted into slumber where his dreams were not dreams at all, but rather distant memories, and boy did he have some good ones. On this night he remembered-

“Leave it alone, Charles.”

Aggie’s voice was so close, so real it bolted him upright. For several moments he sat with eyes wide and ears strained. Only the crackling of the logs could be heard over the wind and rain.

The old man shook his head and settled down in his chair. A pain in his hip caused him to adjust several times, but soon he was back to the brink of sleep, and to Aggie. But sleep would not come. In old age sleep was fleeting and rarely restful. No, the wee hours of the night for the old are not for dreams, but rater the phantoms of memories.

Little chitterings of the animal could be heard in his half consciousness. Little Charlie, his eldest, had been fond of critters when he was a boy. The boy had once brought home an infant ground squirrel, and no matter how he growled that it would not be kept in the house, Aggie insisted the boy be allowed to care for the creature. So many nights the damn thing would keep him up with its squeaking and scratching and scurrying around. Lord how he’d wanted to take that thing outside and smash it with a shovel! Many a time he’d wake up in the dead of night to snatch it, but Aggie had always stopped him. “Leave it alone, Charles,” she’d say.

Well, for ten years now Aggie had been gone, and he could do whatever he damn well pleased.

All that chittering and chirping was driving him crazy. He could hear the thing scurrying round in the walls. Jaws clamped together, wiggling back and forth to grind his teeth, his knuckles began to tighten around the blanket. Oh how that creature was driving him mad!

“I’m going to kill it,” he said. “I’m going to kill it so damn well you’ll-“

Lightning flashed as the grizzly man jolted upright. He wiped the sweat from his brow, listening for sounds of the ancient ground squirrel. “Long gone,” he mumbled when he came to his senses. “Old varmint, long dead.”

Once again he settled back in his chair to listen to the storm outside, thankful to be by the warm fire. But then he heard it again. He sat up and strained his ears. From above the mantle he could hear the chitters and squeaks of the little beast. Rustling ran along the wall as it scurried about.

“Damn it.”

Bones creaked as he removed himself from the battered chair and went to the mantle. Moving pictures of Aggie and the boys out of the way, he banged hi knotty fist against the wall. For a moment there was silence, but again the noise came.

He thought about chasing it out again, but decided against it. It was too much work this last at night. His body was weary, and the old chair too comforting to stay away. He hobbled back and settled himself again, content in his decision.

But the beast in the wall would not let him rest. It chittered and chirped and scratched along the walls. Every noise it made scathed the old man’s mind, taunting him, pushing him further into the precipice of madness. All throughout the night it penetrated into his mind in the odd place where small annoyances drive a man to great insanity. And all the while was Aggie’s voice echoing around him.

“Leave it alone, Charles.”

An hour shy of sunrise the old man finally cracked. His brittle nerves were burned to their tips and sat as ashes within him. No longer could he tolerate the maddening chitters from the thing in the wall.

The rain had stopped now, but the rumbling wind remained. He retrieved the hammer from the kitchen. Thin white hair stuck out in wild tufts as he stormed into the great room, his blue eyes wide, yellow dentures clamped shut as his lips curled into a sneer over them.

“Alright you varmint, time to meet your maker,” he shouted as he raised the hammer above his head.

The chittering in the wall took on a rapid pace and amplified itself, burning a hole into the old man’s brain. Every chit chit chit pounded in the odd little place within his mind, forever augmenting the madness.

He bashed the hammer into the wall, chips of wood and plaster flying back at him. The hammer came down again and again, until a three foot section of the wall had been obliterated, revealing its skeletal frame. Panting, a grin spread across the old man’s face.

“That’ll teach ya.”

Basking in his triumph, the man lowered the hammer to his side and turned to head back to his chair when the voice stopped him.

“Leave it alone, Charles.”

It came from everywhere and nowhere, sending chills up his crooked spine.

“Aggie?” he called. The only answer was that of the chittering in the wall. “You,” he gasped.

He hunkered down to the staircase and listened. The chittering sounded just to the left of him. He raised the hammer and pummeled the wall. Sweat dripping from his brow, the old man had just lowered the tool when he heard it again by the great window. He hobbled over to demolish it.

No sooner had he bashed the first hole by the window when it came again from the ceiling. Chittering away, the thing continued to grind away at him, stabbing at him like a thousand splinters poked one by one into the soft flesh of the belly. All the while Aggie’s voice was a soft whisper in the dark. “Leave it alone, Charles.”

He threw the hammer into the ceiling, causing the forks to catch on in the beam.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave it alone,” he shouted. “I’ll show that critter.”

He pulled on his boots, not bothering to tie them, and stopped out towards the tool shed. In the sweeping darkness the wind licked and scratched at the old man. Rooting around in the tin shed by the garden he found the small metal gas can. It was only a five gallon, but the tired old man grunted under its weight, his heels gouging into the mud on his way back into the house.

Kicking mud through the kitchen, he plopped the gas can on the counter and ravaged the draws for matches, the chittering ever present. Finding a pack under a box of tinfoil, he placed the matches in the breast pocket of his shirt, and threw the gas cap onto the floor.

“Alright,” he said, hoisting the can off the counter. “Where are you, you little son of a bitch?”

The chittering called from the wall by the back door in the kitchen. He charged for the noise with the can, and swung it forward, sending a waterfall of fossil fuel cascading onto the wall. Pulling the matches from his pocket, he struck one and threw it towards the door. The gas lit into a blaze on the ancient wood.

As soon as he began to laugh with mad satisfaction at cremating the little beast alive, he heard the chitterlings again from the living room. He rushed into the burn the beast. Again he spilled the gas and flung the match. He did it again and again, burning the front door, the great window, the staircase, the mantle. The thing in the wall would not leave the old man alone, and he in turn would not cease his mission to demolish the chittering thing that drove him mad. He would not stop, and soon the house was ablaze around him. The fire ate up curtains, photos on the wall bubbled and melted, and the flames soon consumed even his tattered old chair. Nothing existed for him except to stop that maddening chitter, not even Aggie’s voice that screamed above the wind and the fire and the chitters and his maniacal laughter.

And then it stopped. The chittering silenced. For a moment the old mad stood and listened, an overwhelming sense of relief washing over him as the maddening noise ceased. In the quiet his sense and sanity came back to him. For a moment he looked around the home he had built with his own hands all those years ago as it blazed around him, consumed in hopeless inferno.

“You should have left it alone, Charles,” Aggie’s voice whispered.

“I know.” He nodded and sat down on the small piece of floor that had not yet been reached by the fire’s grasp. He waited in calm for the little house to burn around him, relieved in a way that the beast in the wind of time had finally won, for he was ready for the darkness.