Catch Of The Day

CATCH OF THE DAY

BY JOSHUA JOHNS

Nick didn’t realise he had been staring at the thing for almost half an hour. For close to 30 minutes he had stood frozen; eyes fixated on the thing in the rat trap. If he had blinked during that time he didn’t remembered doing it. In his left hand he clutched a digital camera. On it was over one hundred pictures of the rat trap, but in each of them, the rat trap was empty. When Nick looked at it with his eyes, however, it definitely contained something...

When Nick’s wife Darlene told him that her mother was coming up from Sydney to visit it had been no big deal. It simply meant he would have to stock up on his mother in law’s favourite biscuits – an obscure brand of sugar cookies which could only be found at one equally obscure store in town for an exorbitant price per packet. Nick didn’t mind, he was in fact quite fond of his mother in law Doris. She was a lovely lady who treated him as though she was his actual mother; she only stayed for a week at a time, never got in the way and spent half her time taking Darlene and their two children – 6 year old Craig and 8 year old Sarah to various shops to shower them with a wealth of gifts. Doris always made sure she returned home with something for Nick as well.

The only problem caused by Doris’ visits was the rodent infestation that seemingly accompanied the purchase of her special biscuits. Maybe it was coincidence but every time the mother in law came to stay so did a family of rodents which would terrorise the family home before retreating back into hiding within a week or so of Doris’ departure. It was possibly a seasonal thing as Doris tended to come and stay around the same time each year. Maybe the rodent invaders sought refuge from the elements and returned whence they came once the weather permitted. Or maybe it was just those particular biscuits that drew them in.

Either way Nick had developed a ‘live and let live’ policy every time the rodent invasion occurred. Usually they caused minimal damage. They got into a few packets of biscuits and a bag of flour or so and they always cleared out in a timely fashion. So Nick saw little point in killing them as it mean he would then have to dispose of their tiny carcasses and if his children saw they would no doubt get upset and ask questions. Nick was not yet ready to explain death to them. This year things were different; this year the rodents had declared all out war on the family home. Nothing was safe this time around. Whole packets of food had gone missing, shoes had been gnawed through and worst of all, little Sarah’s most prized stuffed toy Mr. Tinky (whom she had treasured since she was 6 months old) had been chewed through so viciously that no amount of sewing and stuffing could fix the plush elephant.

Although it was almost unbearable to see his little girl so distraught, it wasn’t the death of Mr. Tinky that alarmed Nick enough for him to fit the house out with a dozen or so rat traps. It was an incident that occurred a day or so after the soft toy was massacred. Nick had been making himself a before bed snack – a ham, lettuce, cheese and tomato sandwich. The sandwich itself had been made, ready to eat, sitting on a plate on the kitchen bench. Nick turned around and opened the refrigerator to grab a drink. He heard the plate clang! against the bench top and spun around to see the plate wobbling to a stop. It was completely bare. Nick looked all around the floor half expecting to see the sandwich scurrying across the floor on unseen tiny legs. Half expecting to see it disappear into a hole in the skirting board like in an old cartoon. But he saw no such thing; the sandwich had simply vanished. It shook Nick enough that the next day he stocked up with a cache of high quality heavy duty rat traps.

He strategically placed them around the house in areas most terrorised; each trap baited with a sugar cookie. Every morning for the past three days Nick inspected all the traps to find the sugar cookies missing but the traps intact. Not one of them had been set off and to frustrate him even further more food was missing from the cupboard and more shoes had been destroyed. He had had enough. On this morning Doris, Darlene and the kids woke up super early and left for the markets. It was an outing that almost always took them away from the house for the whole day. That suited Nick just fine; it gave him ample time to carry out his plan.

He put six traps out on the kitchen bench in a circular pattern and set each one but loaded none of them with bait. He had formulated a sting operation of sorts. He recreated the ‘sandwich incident’ placing the plated snack right in the centre of the traps. He turned away and opened the fridge, his ears pricked expectantly. Then he heard it – the clang of the plate followed immediately by the satisfying SNAP! of the rat trap. Nick had a wry smile on his face that instantly dropped away to a look of disbelief when he turned to see what was caught in the trap.

If he wasn’t still clutching the refrigerator door he very well might have fallen over. He stared for about 30 seconds then ran to grab the camera. He returned and took photo after photo but not one picture he took showed anything caught in the trap. It didn’t even show up in the view finder screen on the camera. Nick felt a huge wave of unreality wash over him; like his brain just did a flip in his head. Then he stood staring again, a sweat produced entirely by fear dripped off his face.

What stared back at Nick from the trap was not a mouse or a rat or a rodent of any kind. It was a tiny man, maybe seven inches tall. He was tubby and completely naked. Patches of straight, wiry hair peppered the little man’s body in sporadic clumps. He was mostly bald headed but for a few of the same stiff hears that were on his body. His ears were pointed at the top. He sported razor sharp teeth and his eyes were pools of ebony; so dark they resembled tiny black mirrors. The little man’s brows were creased in an expression of rage; his little mouth chattered incessantly as he struggled to free his foot pinned in the rat trap.

Nick swore he could hear the little man emitting a noise – partly from its razor sharp teeth hitting against each other as it opened and closed its jaw but the thing was also making a barely audible growling noise. Some of it almost sounded like words. Nick lent in closer to try to better hear the thing. He swore it was chanting “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” over and over again but he wasn’t certain. Nick lent slightly closer. Suddenly the little man leapt up and bit Nick right on the earlobe. Needles of white pain shot through his brain as he batted at the creepy little thing dangling from his ear which in turn still had the rat trap hanging from its foot.

It took three decent hits before Nick dislodged the thing from his ear. He watched as it flew through the air then landed hard on the kitchen floor. On impact the rat trap detached from its’ foot and clattered against the tiles, shooting off in the opposite direction of where the thing landed. Quicker than Nick could blink the little man took off into a gap between the oven and kitchen cupboards. Nick crouched down to see where the little man had gone but there was no sign of him anywhere. When he stood back up he noticed drops of blood on the floor. His ear was bleeding profusely from where that little thing had bit him. Nick reached for the roll of paper towel on the bench and in the corner of his eye he saw a fork disappear. That little bastard (as Nick had christened it in his head) stole it so fast it created the illusion that the fork had vanished.

Nick tore off a few sheets of paper towel, scrunched them up and held them up to his earlobe to soak up the blood. He spun on his heels when he heard the missing fork clang against the base of the oven. Before he could see the source of the noise, the fork seemingly shot across the floor and stabbed Nick in the ankle. He cried out in pain and watch as the little bastard ripped the fork from Nick’s flesh with a spray of blood before plunging it back in several more times. The little bastard then punctured the top of Nick’s foot a dozen times in rapid succession. This all happened in a space of seconds. Nick screamed and went to bring his foot up to look at it closer but before he could the little bastard plunged the fork right into Nick’s Achilles tendon. The pain was excruciating. Nick fell to the floor and clutched his foot, the fork still protruding from, blood dripping from the puncture wounds.

He reached down to pull the fork out. It was in deep, to the hilt in fact and Nick had to wiggle it back and forth for it to come loose. He let out a loud scream and thought he was going to faint. He laid his head down on the cool tile and covered his eyes with his hands to give him a moment to regain composure. Immediately he felt something land on his chest; it was as if someone dropped a full can of soft drink on his sternum. Nick uncovered his eyes and saw the little bastard standing there brandishing a steak knife. Instinctively Nick tilted his head to the right as the little bastard lunged with the knife. It only just missed. Nick was not so lucky the next time around. The little man rammed the blade into the flesh just above Nick’s collarbone. Nick’s eyes bulged with pain as he cried out. He swatted at the little bastard but it held tight to the knife. The little bastard withdrew it with lightning speed. Nick didn’t even register what was going on; he just felt the pain of the knife being extracted before it was once more jammed into him. This time into the side of his neck. Everything went green and his vision started to spiral. Blood welled in the back of his throat, overwhelming him with copper taste; choking him.

Nick coughed a spray of blood and reached for the knife. He grabbed the handle. He was about to pull it out in a panic but had a moment of clarity and stopped himself – removing the knife could make things worse – it could be the end of him if he did. At that moment the home phone rang. Nick struggled up onto his knees, blade still protruding from his neck. The phone continued to ring until the answering machine picked it up. At that moment Nick put his hand on the kitchen bench catching his finger in one of the other sting operation rat traps which set off all of the others in succession. He barely flinched at the pain; it was nothing compared to what he had just endured.

“Hi bub,” it was Darlene, “Just letting you know me, mum and the kids will be home in about 15 minutes. We’re bring lunch and I have a surprise for you. Okay see you real soon. Love you.”

Nick managed to get to his feet and reached for the phone when the little bastard appeared in front of him; another fork in his hand. Out of instinct rather than a feat of coordination, Nick managed to grab the little bastard. As soon as he did so the little man bit Nick’s hand and stabbed it with the fork. Nick did not let go; he held tight, trying to crush it to no avail. He looked around in panic for something to either trap the little bastard under or kill it with. Nick had lost a lot of blood and was starting to feel faint. The little bastard was tearing up Nick’s hand making it harder to keep hold of it. Very soon the little man would be free if Nick didn’t taken action. That’s when it caught Nick’s eye – the food disposal unit in the kitchen sink. He tightened his grip on the little bastard, making sure it didn’t escape. In one swift motion Nick shoved the little bastard into the sink and down into the food disposal unit. He held his hand over the unit’s opening trapping the little man inside and reached for the switch on the wall. The garbage disposal whizzed to life. A sickening sound of metallic blades pulverising flesh and bone rose from the kitchen sink. The little bastard screeched and screeched in such a shrill register that Nick thought his eardrums were going to burst. He reached into a kitchen drawer and grabbed an oversized barbeque fork with a wooden handle. He rammed the fork down the garbage disposal forcing what was left of the little bastard further down. The disposal unit laboured, stopped then kicked back in with a sputter before spraying Nick in a shower of bloody chunks, bone fragments and sinew. He did not have his eyes or his mouth closed – the little bastard puree went everywhere. He spat it out as soon as it hit his mouth but he swallowed some of the blood and grisly flesh. All he could see was red. He wiped the blood from his eyes. He had done it; he had defeated that little bastard man. He was in so much pain and feeling faint again. No, wait. Not pain. Rage. He wasn’t going to faint. He felt suddenly very awake, alert and more so he felt burning anger. He had an urge; a hunger to inflict violence.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Nick spat in a fury.

He looked down into the sink and saw his reflection – his eyes were pools of darkness. He heard a car pull up out the front. Doris, Darlene and the kids were home. And they had a surprise for him.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you”

Nick decided he would give his family a surprise of his own. He grabbed the barbeque fork out of the sink, walked over and stood behind the front door. He raised the fork above his head as he heard keys in rattle in the door lock. The front door swung up and Darlene entered.

She called out: “Honey I’m home.”..................... THE END