The man watched the new arrival through one of the window slits in the bunker. The stranger had emerged from the hawthorn at the side of the house to walk down through the long grass to the edge of the runway. There he’d examined the bunker before returning to the house. As the man watched the stranger ford his way through the grass, leaving a line of broken stalks, he picked a rat out of the mesh cage. The rodent twisted its head, fixed fierce eyes that glinted like beads of black glass in its head onto the man’s thumb, then thrust its jaws forward to bite. The man didn’t flinch. His heavy duty canvas gloves didn’t allow the teeth to penetrate. In his unhurried way, borne of years of practice, the man positioned the rat over a vertical metal rod that was no thicker than a pencil. The rod ran from elbow height down to where the other end was fixed into a baulk of timber that rested on the floor. Once the rat’s belly rested against the filed point of the rod, the man exerted a steady pressure downward against the rat’s back. The animal writhed; it arched its spine in agony; its jaws jerked wide open as its enraged squeaking rose into a high-pitched shriek. More pressure. The rat spasmed in his hand; its tail lashed – a naked snake-like member that curled around his wrist. Pressed harder, and … in. The spike passed through the rodent’s skin, through its gut to pierce internal organs, then its spine with an audible crunch. This was routine. Efficiently, the man threaded the body on to the metal rod. He slid it downward smoothly, its passage made easier by the creature’s own blood that lubricated the metal. When the rat couldn’t descend any further because of the fifteen skewered rodent bodies beneath it, the man stepped back to check his work. The apparatus resembled an abacus. The bodies of rats and birds on ten more steel rods that jutted vertically from the timber could have been the abacus beads. The upper parts of the rod were vacant as they awaited more animals. The bottom halves of the rods were sheathed in decaying animals. Dried blood formed sticky patches on the concrete floor. The weakly squirming rat with the rod penetrating its body added more oozing rivulets of crimson to the mess.
Satisfied with what he saw he nodded. In fact, the satisfaction came as a surge of relief that made his neck muscles relax. He’d begun to wonder if he’d left it too long. Maybe he should have added another rat or bird to the poles, otherwise things might have gotten a whole lot worse. No, he wouldn’t leave it as long next time. But he hadn’t anticipated the arrival of the bunch of young men and women yesterday.
When the old people left at the end of last year, he thought he’d have the ancient house with its sandstone tower to himself forever and ever – amen! Strangers unsettled him. They’d no right to be here. Ideas of talking to them filled him with deep unease. What if they were inquisitive? However, a more powerful instinct told him to learn why they were here. Those kind of pressures on him to converse with people after all this time, coupled with a fear that they might invade the private world he’d built for himself, made him increasingly edgy. One rat wasn’t enough, was it? Best catch another soon, or a magpie maybe. If only he still had the motorcycle he could ride into a nearby town and pick up a cat. He slipped off his canvas gloves. These he pushed into the pockets of his leather jacket. Before he left, he crouched down to put his face so close to the rat on the rod that his nose almost touched it. Its pink mouth was partly open, he could see the moist tongue; it had blanched from pink to a white. The mouth would soon go like that, too. The animal didn’t move. The limbs were still; the tail hung limp. He blew on it. The force of his breath ruffled its brown fur. He blew again. No movement. Not a flicker.
‘You’re dead, old son,’ he told the rat with satisfaction. Still nodding, he picked up the wire cage and headed for the door. As he fished the key from his pocket, he worked out what he should do today. Bait the cage. Shave away the stubble from his face so as not to make the strangers suspicious if they should see him. He opened the steel door in the bunker just an inch so he could check there was no one about. From this side of the building no one in the house could see him leave. A second later he exited the door. After locking it behind him, he stood at the edge of the runway. The cold March air felt good on his skin. As well as refreshing his blood it cleansed him like a stream of fast-flowing water. He gazed out along the runway that ran like a causeway through the lake. Although it was no more than ankle deep in places he knew there were submerged hollows and ditches. If you didn’t watch your step you could easily plunge out of sight. That’s exactly what happened to an old man who had wandered from the house when it was a nursing home. It had been one summer when the swamp water had turned bright green with algae blooms. He’d watched the old man walk out along the runway, waving his arms as if beckoning to an invisible aircraft to land. After that he’d begun wading through the shallow water. He’d gone about thirty paces; a shrunken figure with an untidy shock of white hair then … Ffftt! He’d simply dropped out of sight as the submarine ditch had swallowed him from view. The man’s hands had broken the surface as if he tried to stir the air above the water. Then the hands had slowly sunk beneath green scum. It took the staff in the home the best part of a week to find the old boy. The state of his face proved to everyone that one animal that wasn’t scarce round here was king rat.
The man checked the cage. Soon it would perform its duty again. With a glance back at the brooding presence of the house he followed the path to his home in the woods.