Pieces

Pieces

Mark Tompkins

Published by Undead Literature at
Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Mark Tompkins. All Rights
Reserved

Edited by Josh “Major FITP” Parsons

Cover Art by DM Illustrations

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
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of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this
work may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews. For information, address Mark
Tompkins at
[email protected]
.

“
Motherfricken, Shiite Muslim, Cork
Soaking, Bastage, Son of a…Bunghole!” Austin Powell exclaimed after
the hammer had slammed down on his thumb. He dropped it and
squeezed the rapidly swelling digit with his other hand. A large,
dark blood blister grew beneath his thumbnail and he cringed in
pain. He knew it would take months for the nail to be normal again
and he was hoping the pressure in the blister would find its own
release. Cutting through his nail to pop the blister and relieve
the pressure was not his idea of anything remotely fun.

“
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…Owww.”
He chanted as he sat down on the step above the one he was
replacing. His feet pressed faint prints into the well-packed dirt
floor and he tried to will the pain away. Its intensity made him
lightheaded and he rocked back and forth until it subsided to the
point he could continue his task.

The house’s previous owner neglected to do
any preventative maintenance in the low traffic areas and Austin
was trying to remedy that. Entering the cellar, he’d almost fallen
through two rotted steps near the top of the staircase, and aside
from the bottom step he was currently replacing, the rest seemed
sturdy enough. He’d vowed to replace every board the first chance
he had, eliminating their need for maintenance for many years.

He’d spent most of the morning ferrying the
cellar’s contents into the shed beside the house. Due to the
condition of the main steps, he’d used the horizontal wooden storm
doors at the rear of the cellar where, for some reason he couldn’t
imagine, the steps were in much better condition. He’d moved
everything because he was having a cement floor poured in the
cellar the next day. He envisioned shelving units and pegboard
keeping things neat and organized.

He picked up the nail he’d been attempting to
hammer when he hit his thumb, and positioned it back in the detent
created from its sharp point. He heard rustling behind him and
turned to see a large rat sitting on its haunches, staring at him,
unafraid. Austin possessed a typical disgust for rats. He
considered them disease carriers and the presence of one here, in
his home, was unacceptable. The rat simply looked at him, its eyes
still and attentive, as if waiting for food. Did the previous owner
feed this thing? Why was it so bold and unafraid? There would be no
rats in Austin’s house, period, end of story. He mentally added rat
poison to his shopping list and threw his hammer at the small
intruder. The hammer skipped off the floor near the black furred
rat and it turned and skittered through a small hole in the
baseboard. The rat stopped just inside the hole and turned around,
peering at him with its shiny black eyes. It seemed to be
memorizing his face, plotting revenge on him somewhere deep in its
tiny brain. Austin threw the nail and the rat turned and fled, its
hairless, pink tail thumping against the baseboard in its hasty
retreat. The first place Austin would put the rat poison was that
baseboard hole. He had found the entrance to its home, and resolved
to kill it.

He retrieved his hammer and nail and finished
installing the step with a flurry of noise, meaning to show the rat
he meant business, and it should stay away.

He walked up the stairs, stretching over the
two rotted steps He would make a trip to the local hardware store
after he attended to his smashed thumb. The pain had already
lessened substantially, but a low, deep throbbing had set in and
didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. He ran it under cold
water. Why? He couldn’t say. It seemed the right thing to do and he
hoped it would shrink some of the swelling. He put a few ice cubes
in a plastic bag and lay it over his sore thumb. He sat down at the
small, round dining room table and pulled his smart phone out of
his shirt pocket.

He had only recently relinquished his
hold on the past and traded in his flip phone for a new smart
phone. One of his favorite apps was the notepad. He was a
“
little yellow sticky”
man to
the core, and they were seen, en masse, throughout the house. Now
he was slowly replacing them with the electronic version. He
transcribed his mental list to electrons and when he was finished,
checked on his thumb again. There was a black blister underneath
the nail, but the ice had kept the swelling to a minimum and the
pain was becoming manageable. He knew that it would be tender, so
he vowed to be very careful with it for the next few days. Now,
with his electronic shopping list, it was time to head to the
hardware store.

His gaze drifted outside to the storm clouds
gathering on the horizon. Hill City, South Dakota is known more for
its snowfall than its rainfall, but when it did rain, it could be
what his father used to call ‘a real toad strangler’. It was
mid-June; the peak of the rainy season, and Austin hoped it
wouldn’t rain too hard until he had the chance to install some
fresh seals around the cellar’s storm doors. He wanted to stop the
spread of mildew and have the cement floor poured within the week.
He saw by the trees that the wind was blowing from the east, so the
storm might miss him, but just in case, he wanted to be back from
the hardware store before the rain fell.

He opened the door of his Ford truck, knocked
as much of the dirt off his feet as he could, and slid into the
familiar cab. It was an old truck with the normal array of
scratches and dents, but he still liked to try to keep it nice.
Once a week, he ran it through the car wash and vacuumed the
carpet. He had owned this truck for the last twenty years and
considered it an old friend. It had been with him through both of
his failed marriages and was the only thing in his life that had
been truly faithful. Periodically, he contemplated trading it in
for something with more of the modern perks. However, at age
fifty-seven, he didn’t want the burden of another car note and he
doubted he would find another one so dependable.

He backed out of the driveway, noticing his
only neighbor, Jason Francois, spraying the cracks of his driveway
for weeds. Jason, a retired military man like himself, kept his
yard and home tidy. They had the typical “wave and say hello”
acquaintance. Austin hoped to get to know him better, but was busy
working on the house and hadn’t found the time to initiate anything
more meaningful than quick bouts of renovations small talk. For
now, though, he was off to the Hill City hardware store.

The little brass bell dinged hollowly when he
entered the store, drawing looks from the counter.

“
Morning, Hank,” Austin
said.

“
Morning, Austin. How’re the
renovations coming?”

“
Alright, I guess. I found some rotten
stairs and I’m going to need a few boards to replace them. Can you
have Alex throw a few two by twelve’s in the back of the truck for
me?”

Hank nodded and yelled the instructions to
the back room behind the counter where Alex, a strong young man in
a flannel shirt, threw three long boards over his shoulder and
exited out the back door.

Austin absently scratched at the two-day
stubble on his chin.

“
I’m having a cement floor poured in
the cellar tomorrow and once that’s done, I think I’m going to put
some of those heavy duty plastic shelving units up. You know, the
ones that just go together, without any tools?”

Hank nodded again and pointed to the back of
the store. “I know the ones. I got ’em on the back wall there.”

Austin turned and scanned the back wall of
the store over the short aisles. Seeing them, he nodded,
satisfied.

“
Yep, that’s them. Those suckers may be
plastic, but it’s thick and they sure can hold a lot of stuff.
Besides, I’m not putting anything too heavy on them, I’ve already
got some metal ones in the shed I can put the heavy stuff
on.”

Austin pulled a cart from the line and
meandered off down the aisle. He remembered a woman in Louisiana
telling him they were “buggies” not “carts”, and he smiled. Before
that, he had no idea shopping carts possessed other monikers.
Whatever they’re called, he always got the one with the screwed up
wheel that pulled hard to the right and was a bitch to push. He
looked at his list and the first thing he noticed was the last item
added, rat poison. That rat’s eyes, black as pitch, floated into
his mind and he shuddered.

“
Hank, you got any really good rat
poison?”

“
Oh yeah! Get the bright green box on
the bottom shelf. It’ll kill anything. You don’t have any pets do
you?”

“
Nope,” Austin replied. “I never really
wanted the responsibility of taking care of them.”

“
Okay, then that’s the one you
want.”

He grabbed the metal mesh, sheet rock mud,
putty knife, and bag of fertilizer he needed on his checklist and
stacked it all on the checkout counter. He spotted a one-pound bag
of Hershey’s Kisses hanging on a peg, and threw them in at the last
minute.

“
Good choice,” Hank remarked. “Those
are the ones with the air bubbles inside. They taste great, but if
you ask me, they’re just taking out some of the chocolate and
charging the same amount of money.”

“
Well, I won’t know until I try them,
so I guess I’ll see for myself. I may also use them to sweeten the
deal for my nasty roommate. They might make the poison more
attractive. Thanks for all the help, Hank.”

“
No problem. You be sure and let me
know how that rat problem turns out.”

“
Roger that, I sure will,” Austin said
over his shoulder as he wheeled his purchases to the truck,
correcting the bad wheeled cart the whole way.

He drove home, pulled into the driveway
and shut off the engine. He sat there, looking at the house,
pleased he had been able to buy it. Located at the end of
Thunderhead Falls Road, it was a modest, single level log home with
a cellar, giving him more room than he would ever need. During a
weeklong vacation to the Black Hills, he and his ex-wife stayed at
Audrey’s Bed and Breakfast. His time here planted a seed that
continued to grow, eventually leading him back to the area after
his divorce. He liked the solitude and the beauty of the area, and
knew he had at last found home. A big black rat scurried from the
trees and ran behind his shed, interrupting his thoughts.
Damn rats. I gotta kill them all. I bet that’s the
same big boy I saw in the cellar earlier. I’ve got something
special for you!

Austin unloaded the truck. He tossed a bag of
fertilizer on a metal shelf in the shed and noticed the same rat
was sitting in the corner, staring at him. He had no doubt, its fat
body meant it ate well, which Austin hoped would prove useful soon.
If this rodent will eat anything, then poisoned food was exactly
what he would find in the cellar tonight. Austin smiled and walked
to the door.

He turned around. “You come on down to the
cellar tonight, I’ve got something special for your ugly little
butt.”

The rat’s ears moved slightly, registering
the sound, but he was otherwise motionless. Austin closed the door
and went to the house, humming the theme from the A-Team. He went
down to the cellar, placed a few pieces of chocolate and the rat
poison in a paper bowl, and slid it into the rat’s hole. Then he
ripped off a small piece of mesh, stapled it over the hole, covered
the screen with sheetrock mud, and left it to dry.