Free Pieces by Mark Tompkins Page B

“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.
    He went outside and climbed up in a
tree between the shed and the house; he wanted to see how the rat
was getting into the cellar. After a few minutes, he saw it squeeze
out of an opening in the old door of the shed. The opening was
extremely small and he couldn’t figure out how the rat’s head fit
through it. It’s more resourceful than I
thought. I’ll have to remember that. It moved quickly
through the grass, stopping underneath the kitchen window. It
reared up on its hind legs, whiskers twitching, sniffing the air
for danger. Sensing none, it disappeared into the wall.
    Austin climbed out of the