Scurry

“Filthy rats!” The old woman yelled at the small creatures as they vanished into the shadows along the walls. “Someone should do something about them.”

“Yes, Millicent.” The old man patted her hand. “But they are all gone now. And no harm was done.” He led her a little farther down the walkway to the safety of an awaiting limousine.

“The neighborhood has gone downhill since we moved out. I’m glad that the old place is being torn down. The rats will have no place to live once it’s gone.” Millie took her seat in the back of the limo.

“Yes, my dear.” The old man nodded and patted her knee. “The rats will be homeless.” He tapped on the glass separating him from the driver. “Now, let’s go home and eat our supper.”

“Oh dear, Woodrow. I don’t know if I can eat after that scare.”

The limo slowly pulled away from the curb to head back to the gated community where the elderly couple lived. The driver had been fortunate enough to be employed at the time when the gates went up. The impoverished lived outside in squalor. As he drove the elderly couple home, he thought about those less fortunate souls. His family was among them.

This trip outside had been Edward’s chance to help his family. Nestled inside the trunk were his brother’s family and his sister. His parents had died years ago. Edward had expected this but he still felt the loss. At least his brother, Edmund, and sister, Emily, would have a chance to lead a better life. The wealthy never paid much heed to their staff as long as the staff saw to their needs. It wasn’t unusual for staff to smuggle their relatives into the Sanctum. The rich could afford the extra food and other sundries.

The couple that Edward chauffeured for had no children of their own; they were planning on living forever. They didn’t socialize much since most of their friends had died. An occasional trip to the theatre or a concert was all the entertainment they took pleasure in. Edward thought it a pity that they didn’t get out more.

The couple was so seldom seen that most people had forgotten what they looked like. They used to get invited to dinner parties, but since they never reciprocated with one of their own, the invitations stopped coming. And Edward had been intercepting what few invitations to go out that they did receive. He had been practicing the fancy script on the notices for months – just to get them to go back to the old neighborhood, just so he could bring his family inside.

A few weeks later everyone was settled. The children were cleaned up, well-rested, and fed. Edward’s brother and sister helped him take care of the large manor. Although the children had the run of the North Hall and most of the third floor, they occasionally strayed out of bounds.

One day, while they were playing a rowdy game of tag, the ran through the hallway of the second floor. The old woman had been standing at the top of the stairs when they scurried past. Startled by their sudden appearance, she lost her balance and fell down the long staircase. Summoned by her scream, the old man appeared at the top of the stairs just as she landed in the entry hall.

“Tsk, tsk. Always though she startled too easily.” He ambled over to the small brass elevator and summoned the car. By the time he arrived at the entry hall, Edward and his siblings had arrived to examine the body. The old man smiled. “Please tell me the old biddy is dead. I don’t think I could stand another century of her.”

“I’m afraid that she didn’t make it, Sir. Any idea what happened?”

“It’s those delightful children of yours.” He pointed at Edward’s sister and then his brother. “Or are they yours?” He sat in a chair near the base of the stairs. “Doesn’t matter. This house is way too large for two people. But the question is, what do we do with the body?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.” Emily assured the old man.

“Good, good.” Woodrow nodded. Looking up the stairs, he sighed. “Perhaps it’s best if the children didn’t see.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll take care of the children.”

“Good, good. I’m going back to my room now. If you would be so kind as to bring up my supper when you are done.” Edward followed Woodrow to the brass lift.

“Of course, Mister Woodrow.”

The old man interrupted. “Please, just call me Woody. We’ll talk some more when you bring up my supper. I have some things we need to discuss. And there may not be much time.”

While Woody returned to his room, the three siblings cleared away the body, dragging it into the kitchen and stowing it in the walk-in refrigerator. The cook had just finished cooking supper. She gasped when the old woman’s body arrived. “What did you do? What about the old man? Is he dead too?”

“No, Lydia, he’s just fine. The old lady fell down the stairs and broke her neck. No sense in letting good meat go to waste. Is his supper ready? He wants me to take a tray up to his room.” The cook nodded and set about placing the food on the tray. Edward picked it up and turned as he was leaving. “Thank you, Lydia. Tell my family that they may dine in the formal dining room tonight. I’m sure that Woody would approve.” Lydia nodded in acknowledgement as Edward headed upstairs.

Woody was sitting at a small table waiting for Edward to arrive with his supper. Edward set the tray on the table and sat down across from Woody. “Just what do you want to talk about?”

Woody took a sip of his tea. “It’s about the house...” He paused to take a second sip. “...and you.”

“I don’t follow.” Edward leaned forward. “Please continue.”

“Millie wanted to live forever. I didn’t. I had the old bat convinced that our brains could be transplanted into your bodies. It’s all fiction, you know – can’t be done. But the idea was that we would all pretend for her benefit. And once Millie and I were under, we wouldn’t wake up. That way the you and Lydia would get the house and the money. You could pretend to be us. Brilliant idea, don’t you think?” The old man winked at Edward.

“But why?” It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed Edward’s mind. In fact, he had thought about pitching it to his brother. And although he and Lydia had been fooling around, they hadn’t seriously considered spending the rest of their lives as a couple. He had to know why the old man would make those plans.

“Because...” The old man hesitated. “Promise you’ll let me finish.” Edward nodded. “Well, to be honest, it’s because I’m your father. Millie refused to have children. She was always so damn worried about losing her figure. Your mother and I were fooling around and I got her pregnant. The money was all Millie’s and I didn’t want to give it up, so I gave up your mother instead. Anyway, when you were old enough, I hired you. You can bury the two of us in the backyard tomorrow morning. Then throw a big party. It’s all here.” The old man walked over to a desk and opened up a laptop. The screen brightened when he turned on the small lamp beside it. “Everything that you need is here. All those classes that you took were to prepare you for today. Now, go eat your supper and have a chat with Lydia. It’s time for me to get ready for bed.”

Downstairs Lydia was busy serving up a new dish that she had prepared to celebrate the end of Millicent. “I’m surprised the old biddy didn’t bounce down the stairs. Well, tonight we feast.” She dished out a scoop of white rice into a bowl, then ladled on the yellow stew.

“What’s this?”

“’S curry.”

Snowfall

“There’s no such thing as global warming.” Randall paced back and forth in front of the picture window as the snow came down in snowball sized clumps and settled on the ground. “If anything, we are entering an ice age.”

“Tell that to the people down in Australia. They’ve had to evacuate the northernmost cities because of the record heat.” Natalie slowly closed the drapes to keep out the creeping cold from the rapidly piling snowfall.

“Bah, that’s just fake news. It’s winter and there’s gonna be a record snowfall. Just you wait.”

Natalie sighed and put on a kettle of water for tea. They’d been arguing about the weather for years. Never been so far apart as they’ve been lately though. She knew the old man would settle down once he’d had his tea. He always did.

Randall sat down in his leather recliner and grabbed the remote for the television. Not much he could do during the storm except hope the power didn’t go out. It was too cold to tinker out in the garage even. He flicked through half a dozen channels before Natalie arrived with his tea. She knew just how he liked it, served up with his favorite treat.

He picked up a cookie and dunked it in his tea while he watched the news talk about the snowfall and show how large the storm was. “This storm is projected to last through tomorrow night before tapering off. Temperatures are expected to drop to minus forty degrees overnight.” Randall changed the channel after the weather lady delivered that bit of bad news.

Natalie was busy in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. “Natalie! Doorbell!” Randall turned up the volume on the television. “Tell them we don’t want any.” Natalie sighed and walked to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

Outside on the porch was a young couple with a small child. “Our ride broke down.” The young man shouted through the door. “May we come in?”

Natalie shouted her reply over the noise of the television. “Yes, just a minute while I unlock the door.” She undid the two deadbolts and turned the handle to open the door just enough to let them through. “Come in, hurry.”

“Thank you. Our vehicle is stuck in the snow. It just quit and won’t budge.” The man removed his coat and dusted off the loose snow before hanging it in the hall closet. He did the same for his wife and child.

Natalie shooed them into the kitchen. “It’s warmer here. Have you eaten?”

“Yes, actually. We were out for dinner and on our way home when we got stranded by the storm.”

“Please, have a seat at the table while I take the old fussbudget his dinner. Then we’ll see about getting you settled in.” Natalie set a bowl and plate on a tray. She poured some soup out of a pot from the stove. Then she put some cookies on the plate and poured out a glass of milk. The guests sat quietly at the table while she bustled out to the living room.

“Who was at the door?” Randall wore his usual grouchy face. “What were they selling?”

“It was a nice young family – a man, woman, and child. Their car got stuck in the storm.”

“You told them to go away, didn’t ya?”

“No, I invited them in for the night.”

“Ha! Didn’t ya listen to the news? It’s a big’un, bound to last a week or so. Ya should have sent them away.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s freezing out there, but soon it’ll be all warm and sunny again, almost summer-like.”

“Won’t! It ain’t even close to Spring. It’s still Janery. No such thing as climate change, I tell ya.”

Natalie flipped her hand at the old man. “Oh, you. Just eat your dinner.” She walked out on him as he started to slurp his soup off the spoon.

Back in the kitchen, she sat down with her own bowl of soup and a small boule of pumpernickel. “Mind if I eat? It’s suppertime. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

“No, we’re fine. Go ahead.”

Between bites, Natalie asked about where they were from and where they had been to eat. “Oh, we’re from out of town. Way out of town, in fact. What was the name of that place we ate at, dear?”

“It was a diner out near the Interstate. In fact, I think it was just called the Interstate Diner. Quaint little place, served dessert with all their children’s fare.”

Natalie nodded her head while she ate and the couple prattled on about wanting to experience something new, eat someplace different, experience that ‘small town’ flavor. They had kept her entertained while she ate her supper. All except the child, who had wandered down the hallway to watch the old man slurp his soup and dunk his cookies into his milk while he watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Once or twice, Randall glanced over at the wide-eyed youngster. But mostly, he ignored the child.

It wasn’t until he was interrupted during a commercial that he gave the child a hard once-over. “Mr. Randall, I’m taking our guests upstairs to show them their rooms for the night.

“Harrumph!” He glared at the youngster. “Don’t you go making all sorts of noise at all hours of the night, ya hear?” The child nodded and took refuge behind its mother’s legs. “Third floor!”

Natalie was partially up the stairs when she replied. “Yes, Mr. Randall. That’s where we are headed. Come along now.”

The adults followed Natalie quietly, but the child skipped up the stairs as if playing a game thought up on the fly. It hadn’t spoken a word since its arrival, nor had its parents called it by name. And neither Randall nor Natalie could make out what sex it was.

The third floor had been divided into two small apartments meant to accommodate the families of household servants. There was a large bedroom meant for the parents and two smaller rooms for children in addition to the living space and small kitchenette. The rooms were a bit dusty from disuse, but the guests were unflapped by their condition and went about settling in to their new lodgings.

By morning the snowfall had reached the top of privet hedge in the back garden. The streets were only discernable by the sharp punctuation of the lamps rising above the snow. A lumpy blanket lay over the driveway to the estate house. Both Randall and Natalie attempted to locate the stranded car of their impromptu guests.

Randall didn’t like to have guests. They spent his money and insisted on making conversation. Randall couldn’t be bothered by people wanting handouts. He firmly believed that charity began at home and didn’t need to travel.

Randall listened at his door for the sound of Natalie heading downstairs to prepare his breakfast. Just as he was turning away, he heard the soft thump, thump, thump of well-padded feet coming down the stairs from the floor above. He bent down and peered through the keyhole. A small blue eye was peeking back at him. “Harrumph!” The small child dashed down the hall and continued to thump down the steps at a faster and noisier pace than before. Randall put on his dressing gown and slippers and followed.

Halfway down the stairs, the young couple caught up with him just as he was losing his balance. “Careful,” the strange man said as he caught Randall by the elbow. Steady yourself on my shoulder. Farrah, go on ahead. Tend to the child while I help Mr. Randall safely down the stairs.” Randall begrudgingly allowed himself to be assisted. He had no intention of dying in front of strangers.

The two men arrived in the kitchen just as the child was busy devouring a plateful of scrambled eggs. “Oh my! The little one does have quite the appetite!” Natalie put down a plate of buttered toast and went back to check on the bacon cooking in the oven.

“Yes, our child can’t seem to get enough to eat sometimes.” Farrah placed two slices of toasted bread on the child’s plate and refilled his glass of orange juice. “Darrin, don’t forget to call about a tow for our vehicle. We don’t want to impose on these kind folks any longer than necessary.”

After breakfast had been served and eaten, Randall pounded his fist upon the table. “Dang it all, woman! Ain’t you gonna ask the damn question we’ve both been dying to know?” Natalie sat bolt upright, a look of trepidation on her face. “Well, now, you two, let’s hear it. Is it a boy or a girl child? And does it have a name? We ain’t heard nothing from you that gives a clue either way. And frankly, it’s annoying the hell out of me.”

Farrah and Darrin placed their hands in their laps, as their faces became serene. The child glared at Randall for a moment. “I have neither. I have no name. I have no gender. It is what it is.”

“So, you can speak. Why didn’t you speak before?”

“I have been speaking through them, through Farrah and Darrin.”

“Where did you come from? How did you get here? We’ve seen no car out in the street or in the driveway.”

The child pointed up. Randall scrunched his face. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Natalie gasped. “You came from the sky?”

The child nodded.

Natalie smiled. Randall scratched his head. “Didn’t see no plane crashed anywhere. I checked all the outside windows.”

“Hush, old man. He, she, it came from space. It’s an alien.”

“Well send it back. If we’da had that damn wall built...”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference. You can’t build a wall in the sky, now, can you?”

“S’pose not. So, how long you plannin’ on stayin’ for?”

“I’ll be gone by morning. You’ll see.”

The five of them spent the day in the living room talking and watching television. The child had a lot of questions about humans and how they lived their lives. By noon, the outside temperature had risen above freezing and the snow had started to melt. The warmer temperature held through the evening as they ate dinner together. After dinner the child and its “parents” retired to their small apartment for the evening.

“It’s a shame that it is leaving so soon.”

“Can’t leave soon enough. Too many illegal aliens as it is comin’ across the border. Don’t need none from space to add to it.”

“Oh, you.” Natalie shook her head and went back to washing dishes while the old man piled a handful of cookies on a plate, poured a glass of milk, and wandered off to watch his game shows.

In the morning, Natalie climbed the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the apartment door. Receiving no response, she slowly opened the door and entered the apartment. Everything still had the coating of dust that it had two days ago when they had first arrived. She went to the master bedroom door and knocked. No reply. Opening the door, she found an empty bedroom coated in dust.

When Natalie arrived at the first of the smaller bedrooms, she didn’t bother to knock. “Perhaps they are in the other small room.” She hesitated before opening the door, but found another empty dust-covered room. “Odd.” She started down the stairs, catching up to the old man as he was on his way down to breakfast.

“Morning, Natalie.”

“Morning, Mr. Randall.”

“Oatmeal today?”

“Yes, always. And cinnamon toast just the way you like it.”

“And our guests?”

“No sign of them. Beginning to wonder if they were ever really here.”

“Really? You thinkin’ it might’ve been cabin fever? Because that would make more sense than space aliens droppin’ by.”

“You know what else is strange? All that snow we had melted overnight. It’s like it was never here.”