The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [94]
He attaches himself to the fishline. Before reaching the spool, he leaves the fishline to turn down an unexplored hall. He does not walk far, only far enough to see that there is dust and to retreat.
He returns to the fishline, following it to the first dust-filled intersection. He crosses to the hall beyond. He bends forward, blows breath out of his plaster mouth. The dust before him displaces, leaving a cone-shaped depression. Perhaps, he thinks, air currents and breezes created the marks in the dust.
He kneels. He walks his mother's slippers into the dust. The slippers leave a single-part mark nothing like what he recalls of the two-part original marks.
The marks of his father's boots might be similar to the original. Or a rat could have made the marks, leaping zigzag down the hall. Two rats escaped his father: the marks which were to one side could have been made by one rat, the marks to the other by the other.
Brey does not know if leaping through dust is typical behavior for rats. He consults his rat books, but learns nothing. Brey does not know if leaping through dust is typical behavior for his father. He consults his mother. She does not respond.
"Collecting keys will not always be easy," his father has told him.
Yet his father claims never to have collected keys. How would his father know what is easy, what is hard? Does not Brey know more about keys than his father will ever know?
He struggles up from the palette and into the hall. Slowly, he opens his parents' door.
He bends down, lifts an old pillow from the floor. Holding the pillow in both hands, he approaches the second bed.
He brings the pillow down against his father's face. He pushes the pillow down. He holds the pillow down with both elbows locked. He waits.
Nothing happens. His father does not react.
He lifts the pillow away to regard the face. The face is blinking and serious, very much alive.
"I am concerned about you, Brey," says his father. "Perhaps justifiably."
Brey flees.
The Sounds of His Halls.
Lifting up the spool, he crosses the intersection. Dust adheres to the surface of his mask, streaks his hands and arms.
He drops the spool, stuffs a square of cloth into the mouth of the mask to filter the dust. He continues on. The cloth loses color as he breathes. The cloth becomes a protruding bloodless tongue.
The dust upon the walls dislodges, drifting in a fine mist. He drops the spool. He kneels. He moves forward, eyes closed, hands groping through the dust.
Faint sounds. He ignores them. He finishes with one door, moves to the next. The sounds continue.
The halls might be amplifying a lesser noise: a light bulb sputtering out, a drop of water striking the floor. If not, the sound might be the sound of rats.
His father claims the rats will return. There is no reason to disbelieve his father. He must take precautions.
He returns to his hall. He opens his parents' door. His mother lies in her bed. His father's bed is empty. As his mother turns her head toward him, he draws the door closed.
He breaks apart the frame of his palette. He forces splinters of wood into the crack of his parents' door until the door is wedged shut. He explains to his mother, yelling through the door, that he is doing this for her own protection. His father, he cries, would do the same.
He opens How to Build a Better Mousetrap. He consults a series of schematic drawings in Appendix B.
He unscrews the legs of the kitchen table. He makes of the table-top a deadfall trap, propping up one end with a table leg. He compares the drawings to the table, the table to the drawings.
He sets the trap before his door, baiting it with peach preserves. As an added precaution, he mixes shards of glass into the peaches.
He carries a table leg wrapped in cloth stolen from his mother's body. The leg is thick and heavy. The leg fits his hand awkwardly.
He stores several days' worth of food in his bedroom. His canteen is full of water as is his pewter cup. He soaks chips of wood in the toilet, forces them into