The Custodian

“Willie P, I need you to take that old chair out to the garage before it gets put out with the trash.”

My knees ached so badly I thought about declining, but where else could I get the run of an otherwise unoccupied house for a thousand dollars a month? The chores Nickilim put me to were demeaning, but I didn’t have the money to even ask around for another place.

“Sure Ninki.” The chair was heavy and awkward to handle. My knees almost buckled, but I finally horsed it out and into the garage. As I turned to go, something crunched under my boot. It was a peanut husk, and there were twenty or thirty more scattered around the cracked concrete floor, along with what looked like seeds.

I’d been told to park my car on the street, and I’d never been inside the one car garage before. As I continued to look around, I caught sight of something scurrying under a piece of cardboard. A rat. It looked like Ninkilim was feeding them.

My stomach churned. I hate rats, and got out as fast as my knees would let me. Then I called Ninki, who when she was in town stayed in another house two streets over. She was a woman with a volatile temper, so I used careful words.

“Ninki, ah, I put the chair in the garage like you asked. You should know, I think there’s at least one rat in there, probably more.”

“You didn’t hurt it did you?”

“No, but you should try to get rid of them, if they’re in the garage chances are good they’ll get into the house as well.”

“You let me worry about that. Just leave them alone.”

I went back in the house carrying bad memories. I’d been nipped by a rat as a toddler, and both feared and hated them.

Hector, my altered tomcat, ignored me. To get my mind off the vermin I wrote a birthday card to one of my daughters. Not that either daughter or my ex-wife ever called or wrote. I’d been a philandering and abusive drunk, and sobered up only after I’d lost them.

Then I wrote out the rent check to Ninkilim. Weird name. I’d asked her about it early on and she’d snapped back that it was middle eastern. I didn’t ask her to be more specific.

When she was in town, Ninki visited the house at least once a week to assign me chores, always menial, and remind me of what I could and couldn’t do in the house. I cooked my assistance subsidized dinner and ate it while watching basic cable on a vintage television, Then I went upstairs, took my braces off and massaged my knees. Thirty-five years taking down trees had done their worst, and my bone doc said there was little point in trying another operation.

I thought for the umpteenth time about going out into the Bridgeport streets and scoring something that would help me sleep, then recited some AA mantras and got ready for bed.

The throbbing pains woke me about two a.m. That’s when I heard the rustling. I slept just below a crawl space attic with a drop-down ladder. There was something moving around up there. Something big enough that I heard scratching on the two by fours. I wanted it to be squirrels, but suspected it was rats.

Meager social security and SNAP benefits kept me trapped here, unless I wanted to bunk in at Operation Rescue and risk being stolen from or beaten up or both. Between my legs and the animals in the attic I couldn’t get back to sleep and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Bored, with nothing better to do, I picked up my phone and typed in Ninkilim. What came up was weird. The only listing was for a Mesopotamian god or goddess of teeming creatures. Why the hell, I thought, would someone give you a name like that.

As I sat at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice, a large rat ran out from under the cabinet. Without thinking I threw the heavy glass and amazingly hit it. It let out a rasping hiss and scrabbled back under the cabinet.

My knees ached in throbs as I knelt on the floor to clean up the mess. There was some blood mixed with the juice, and I guessed that I’d hurt it pretty bad. I hoped it would crawl outside to die, as otherwise I’d have flies and stink to contend with.

I mindlessly watched a TV shopping network for an hour before I made coffee and tried to kick start myself for another day. I went out later that morning to buy the basic groceries I couldn’t afford.

While I was out, Ninki called my cell phone.

“You killed a rat last night.”

“Ah, maybe hurt it, it startled and scared me.” Thinking how the hell could she know that?

“You will regret it,” she said firmly and hung up.

I did nothing much of anything for the rest of the day and evening and got ready for bed. Hector preferred having the run of the house rather than being confined with me, and watched me go up the stairs. But an hour later, he woke me by scratching at the door and yowling. As soon as I opened it he rushed in, fur hackled.

“Really brave,” I told him. “What was it, a cockroach?”

I dropped back to sleep. And woke up to piercing hisses and cat screams. When I turned on the nightstand light, I saw Hector being attacked by at least a half dozen rats. The bodies surged in frenzy across the floor and back toward the door. I had nothing but a boot for a weapon, and slammed the heel down on one rat that doubled over trying to bite me. I swung sideways and connected with another rat that flew off, a chunk of Hector still in its mouth.

The rest of the rats ran toward the one I’d knocked away and on into the closet. I slammed the closet door shut and turned back toward Hector. The rat I’d boot heeled wasn’t moving. Hector was, but barely. A minute or two later, he noiselessly died.

I sat on the floor next to him, crying. I don’t have many friends, and Hector was the being I whispered my fears to . After a few minutes I looked around. There was another dead rat in a corner of the room. Good for you Hector, I thought, you got your teeth into at least one.

I got dressed and took the three dead animals out into the back yard. Hector I buried, the rats were trashed. Then I came back inside and did some thinking. It wasn’t over.

Ninki called later that morning. I told her what had happened,

“I’m sorry about Hector, but I did warn you,” she said. I said nothing, because I knew if I did, I’d explode. Ninki was an outsized woman, not fat, just Amazonian in proportions, who could probably drop me with one punch, yet I didn’t care. I hit the end button and thought about my move.

Shopping later that morning took three hours because I had to go to several stores to get what I needed. Setting up required that I kneel on floors and joists and my knees screamed at me. Preparations finally made, I waited. Just after midnight I did a walkaround with a plastic trash bag.

The garage first. There were three rat-trapped rodents still alive and two dead. I slit the throats of the still living, released the bodies from the traps, and rebaited. There were also two dead rats laying on the garage floor who’d presumably eaten the poison I’d put out. Their bodies were contorted into death rictuses that I relished seeing. They joined the others in the bag which was dumped next to the trash can.

Then I clambered upstairs, pulled down the attic ladder, and painfully climbed up. There were seven poisoned rats on the floor, and probably a lot more that had crawled off to die. I bagged them, put out more poison and started back down. I almost fell and had to drop the bag to catch hold of the ladder. The bag hit with a gassy plop.

I knew I had to leave, At the very least, Ninki would throw me out. My few things fit into one large suitcase, and after packing. I left. No note, no indication where I was going. The local Operation Hopeful was full, but I got a bunk at a shelter three towns over.

Two days later I got a call from a guy I’d known from AA meetings. “Willie P’, what the hell did you do?”

“Hey Sammy, long time. What’re you talking about?”

“At the meeting this morning, this giant woman comes in. disrupts the meeting, and offers a Franklin to know where you are. She looked really mad, and like she could throw me down stairs without a deep breath.”

“Anybody tell her?”

“Nah, nobody knew. But she didn’t look like she was giving up, so you better get ready or run.”

“Thanks, Sammy, I’ll watch out.”

Except I had no place to run to and no foreseeable help. In my active addiction I’d already touched up or alienated every friend and relative I had. So I stayed at the shelter.

And that’s where she found me. I was walking toward my car from the shelter when she stepped out of a recess and sucker punched me. When I woke up I was back in her kitchen. Trussed up to a chair. My feet were bare. Ninki was looking at me.

“Willie, Willie, you were being such a good custodian, why did you have to kill my children?”

“Your what? They’re rats, Ninki, vermin, and they killed my cat!”

“Yes, and others of mine in the millions are killed around the world. But this was an oasis, a place of refuge for my teeming darlings. And you defiled it.”

I realized how insane Ninki must be, and picked my words carefully. “I’m sorry if in my anger I killed some of your–followers. What can I do to make amends?”

Her expression was somehow both placid and ominous. “What indeed? I could kill you but that would require finding another suitable custodian for the house, not an easy task. No, I’m going to make you an offer.”

“Offer?”

“I must travel to visit other of my colonies. You will remain here and tend to the house and my followers. You can stop paying me rent, and instead spend half that amount on food for my little ones. If you agree and then run off, I will find and kill you.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“I will kill you where you sit.”

Given the choice between immediate death and maybe death, maybe quickly won. If I lived, there was always a chance I could escape this demented hag.

“The rats can’t ever be in the same room as me.”

“Agreed. You should know that your assent binds you to me in ways you cannot yet appreciate.”

“I don’t have a choice do I.”

Ninki smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “Good. One last thing. You killed many of my loved ones. There must be a penalty attached to that.”

My stomach churned. “Penalty?”

“Or perhaps an object lesson for your actions. In a moment I will summon my devotees. They will gnaw off all your toes, nothing else, just the toes. You will become slower, but that shouldn’t prevent you from fulfilling your duties. Ready?”

BIO: Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 650 stories and poems published so far, and thirteen books. He works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he squats on the review board, and at Scribes Micro, where he’s the idle figurehead.

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