Bradbury Stories 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Part 103

She thought of sleep, but the thought didn't take.

Lying flat in her bed, she watched the ceiling so fixedly she felt she could x-ray whatever it was that cavorted behind the plaster.

A flea circus? A tribe of gypsy mice in exodus from a neighbor's house? Several had been shrouded, recently, to look like dark circus tents, so that pest-killers could toss in killer bombs and run off to let the secret life in the places die.

That secret life had most probably packed its fur luggage and fled. Clara Peck's boarding house attic, free meals, was their new home away from home.

And yet. . . .

As she stared, the sounds began again. They shaped themselves into patterns across the wide ceiling's brow; long fingernails that, sc.r.a.ping, wandered to this corner and that of the shut-away chamber above.

Clara Peck held her breath.

The patterns increased. The soft prowlings began to cl.u.s.ter toward an area above and beyond her bedroom door. It was as if the tiny creatures, whatever they were, were nuzzling another secret door, above, wanting out.

Slowly, Clara Peck sat up in bed, and slowly put her weight to the floor, not wanting it to creak. Slowly she cracked her bedroom door. She peered out into a hall flooded with cold light from a full moon, which poured through the landing window to show her- The trapdoor.

Now, as if summoned by her warmth, the sounds of the tiny lost ghost feet above rushed to cl.u.s.ter and fret at the trapdoor rim itself.

Christ! thought Clara Peck. They hear me. They want me to- The trapdoor shuddered gently with the tiny rocking weights of whatever it was arustle there.

And more and more of the invisible spider feet or rodent feet of the blown curls of old and yellowed newspapers touched and rustled the wooden frame.

Louder, and still louder.

Clara was about to cry: Go! Git!

When the phone rang.

"Gah!" gasped Clara Peck.

She felt a ton of blood plunge like a broken weight down her frame to crush her toes.

"Gah!"

She ran to seize, lift and strangle the phone.

"Who!?" she cried.

"Clara! It's Emma Crowley! What's wrong?!"

"My G.o.d!" shouted Clara. "You scared the h.e.l.l out of me! Emma, why are you calling this late?"

There was a long silence as the woman across town found her own breath.

"It's silly, I couldn't sleep. I had this hunch-"

"Emma-"

"No, let me finish. All of a sudden I thought, Clara's not well, or Clara's hurt, or-"

Clara Peck sank to the edge of the bed, the weight of Emma's voice pulling her down. Eyes shut, she nodded.

"Clara," said Emma, a thousand miles off, "you-all right?"

"All right," said Clara, at last.

"Not sick? House ain't on fire?"

"No, no. No."

"Thank G.o.d. Silly me. Forgive?"

"Forgiven."

"Well, then . . .good night."

And Emma Crowley hung up.

Clara Peck sat looking at the receiver for a full minute, listening to the signal that said that someone had gone away, and then at last placed the phone blindly back in its cradle.

She went back out to look up at the trapdoor.

It was quiet. Only a pattern of leaves, from the window, flickered and tossed on its wooden frame.

Clara blinked at the trapdoor.

"Think you're smart, don't you?" she said.

There were no more prowls, dances, murmurs or mouse-pavanes for the rest of that night.

The sounds returned, three nights later, and they were-larger.

"Not mice," said Clara Peck. "Good-sized rats. Eh?"

In answer, the ceiling above executed an intricate crosscurrenting ballet, without music. This toe dancing, of a most peculiar sort, continued until the moon sank. Then, as soon as the light failed, the house grew silent and only Clara Peck took up breathing and life, again.

By the end of the week, the patterns were more geometrical. The sounds echoed in every upstairs room; the sewing room, the old bedroom, and in the library where some former occupant had once turned pages and gazed over a sea of chestnut trees.

On the tenth night, all eyes and no face, with the sounds coming in drumbeats and weird syncopations, at three in the morning, Clara Peck flung her sweaty hand at the telephone to dial Emma Crowley: "Clara! I knew you'd call!"

"Emma, it's three A.M. Aren't you surprised?"

"No, I been lying here thinking of you. I wanted to call, but felt a fool. Something is wrong, yes?"

"Emma, answer me this. If a house has an empty attic for years, and all of a sudden has an attic full of things, how come?"

"I didn't know you had an attic-"

"Who did? Listen, what started as mice then sounded like rats and now sounds like cats running around up there. What'll I do?"

"The telephone number of the Ratzaway Pest Team on MAIN Street is-wait. Here. main seven-seven-nine-nine. You sure something's in your attic?"

"The whole d.a.m.ned high school track team."

"Who used to live in your house, Clara?"

"Who-"

"I mean, it's been clean all this time, right, and now, well, infested. Anyone ever die there?"

"Die?"

"Sure, if someone died there, maybe you haven't got mice, at all."

"You trying to tell me-ghosts?"

"Don't you believe-"

"Ghosts, or so-called friends who try spooking me with them. Don't call again, Emma!"

"But, you called me!"

"Hang up, Emma!!"

Emma Crowley hung up.

In the hall at three fifteen in the cold morning, Clara Peck glided out, stood for a moment, then pointed up at the ceiling, as if to provoke it.

"Ghosts?" she whispered.

The trapdoor's hinges, lost in the night above, oiled themselves with wind.

Clara Peck turned slowly and went back, and thinking about every movement, got into bed.

She woke at four twenty in the morning because a wind shook the house.

Out in the hall, could it be?

She strained. She tuned her ears.

Very softly, very quietly, the trapdoor in the stairwell ceiling squealed.

And opened wide.

Can't be! she thought.

The door fell up, in, and down, with a thud.

Is! she thought.

I'll go make sure, she thought.

No!

She jumped, ran, locked the door, leaped back in bed.

"h.e.l.lo, Ratzaway!" she heard herself call, m.u.f.fled, under the covers.

Going downstairs, sleepless, at six in the morning, she kept her eyes straight ahead, so as not to see that dreadful ceiling.

Halfway down she glanced back, started, and laughed.

"Silly!" she cried.

For the trapdoor was not open at all.

It was shut.

"Ratzaway?" she said, into the telephone receiver, at seven thirty on a bright morning.

It was noon when the Ratzaway inspection truck stopped in front of Clara Peck's house.

In the way that Mr. Timmons, the young inspector, strolled with insolent disdain up the walk, Clara saw that he knew everything in the world about mice, termites, old maids, and odd late-night sounds. Moving, he glanced around at the world with that fine masculine hauteur of the bullfighter midring or the skydiver fresh from the sky, or the womanizer lighting his cigarette, back turned to the poor creature in the bed behind him. As he pressed her doorbell, he was G.o.d's messenger. When Clara opened the door she almost slammed it for the way his eyes peeled away her dress, her flesh, her thoughts. His smile was the alcoholic's smile. He was drunk on himself. There was only one thing to do: "Don't just stand there!" she shouted. "Make yourself useful!" She spun around and marched away from his shocked face.

She glanced back to see if it had had the right effect. Very few women had ever talked this way to him. He was studying the door. Then, curious, he stepped in.

"This way!" said Clara.

She paraded through the hall, up the steps to the landing, where she had placed a metal stepladder. She thrust her hand up, pointing.

"There's the attic. See if you can make sense out of the d.a.m.ned noises up there. And don't overcharge me when you're done. Wipe your feet when you come down. I got to go shopping. Can I trust you not to steal me blind while I'm gone?"

With each blow, she could see him veer off balance. His face flushed. His eyes shone. Before he could speak, she marched back down the steps to shrug on a light coat.

"Do you know what mice sound like in attics?" she said, over her shoulder.

"I d.a.m.n well do, lady," he said.

"Clean up your language. You know rats? These could be rats or bigger. What's bigger in an attic?"

"You got any racc.o.o.ns around here?" he said.

"How'd they get in?"

"Don't you know your own house, lady? I-"

But here they both stopped.