"I can't figure out for the life of me where the things are coming from. I've put traps in every corner, sprayed outside and inside--there isn't even any food in the room, not even near it! Do you have a professional you could recommend?"
Maeve had finally taken up her work neighbor's offer to come in for an after-hours drink. He worked the bar, but there weren't many people at present. In fact, the place was almost deserted except for a couple all over each other in one corner booth and two old men and an over-makeuped old woman at the other end of the bar. So he had time to talk to her. Something about his gruffness comforted her; he had an honest look about him. Of course, she'd been deceived before.
Anyway, she'd found herself talking about ants. There was something dangerous in talking about ants; she knew it wasn't an ideal subject matter but hadn't been able to stop her complaining. The insects were becoming more than a nuisance--they were freaking her out.
"I can come take a look--if that's not too presumptuous," he said, leaning back against the counter, crossing his arms.
That was definitely too presumptuous. The corner of one of Maeve's eyes twitched. Was he onto her? No. She was overthinking, as usual. "That's all right. I'll look someone up. Lots of reviews online, I'm sure."
"I got a neighbor, think his son-in-law might be an exterminator. I'll talk to him, get you the name of the company."
"Thanks. That'd be . . . fine. That's fine."
Laughter from the couple in the corner--Maeve's attention turned to them. The woman was in a deep-cut red top and jeans, her legs over those of the man next to her; both were too young and attractive to be fair. Maeve found herself annoyed with them, especially the woman. She looked naïve. He'd lie to her, surely--that man she was with; he was probably already lying to her, and she'd do something stupid, probably sleep with him, and then he'd leave her with more problems than she deserved. Maybe the woman did deserve problems, though--who was Maeve to say? Had she deserved her own? Maybe. Hadn't she killed her own father? Hadn't she gone off and gotten pregnant and broken her father down until his health at last failed him? Her mother had made sure to let Maeve know that she'd literally destroyed her father's heart. So maybe Maeve the disreputable, disappointing daughter had deserved every single thing she'd brought upon herself. But did that mean Cora deserved the repercussions of it all, as well?
"Hey, hey there! You with me?" The man was waving a hand in front of her eyes, laughing a little, though with a slight hint of concern evident in his tone.
"Sorry. What were you saying?"
"I could ask him if he has time to come look at your ant problem."
"Oh." Maeve shook her head. "No, that's all right." She didn't want to talk about this anymore. That couple in the corner brought up images of someone she'd rather not think about; the old woman laughing made her think of Luce; the ants . . . no. She couldn't sit here and talk about it anymore. Too much. "I--I have to go," she muttered, sliding off the barstool.
The man--what was his name, even? He'd told her, but she'd quickly forgotten--he stuttered a bit, gestured in confusion. "But you didn't finish your drink--"
Maeve was out the door without a response before he could say anything else. He wasn't even on her mind, actually. The ants were there, crawling through the tunnels of her brain, tapping in her skull, desirous of finding a way out. Or maybe wanting to stay; they'd made a comfortable enough nest there, hadn't they? They'd crawled from her floor to her bed into her ears, and they were there to stay. What could she do, set up a trap at her mouth, her nose, her eyes, and hope they followed one another out?
No. It wasn't the ants in her room that had gotten in her head. It was the ants that'd been on it, that afternoon, when he'd taken her to it--
But she couldn't! She wouldn't think of that.
Rain began to fall as she reached her car, fumbled absent-mindedly with her keys to unlock the door and slid in. Maeve sat for some moments, staring as the drops began to form and run in rivulets down her windshield. Lights from beyond reflected strangely in their crystal-clear beads and streams, stars against a blurred backdrop. A sudden sensation on her cheek caused her to lift a hand to it, and she found that water ran in a thin line from her eye as well.
That shook her into action, and she wiped away the tear, lowered her hand, and turned the key in the ignition, starting the car and pulling it out of the lot onto the road. She really should have had that drink, she quickly realized. The images were difficult to dispel . . . perfect rounded toes, grasping fingers, and those strangely-colored amber eyes. Pale and soft and . . . but the ants. The ants! And he'd never told her how, how it came to be that the thing was there. She'd been young and stupid, and even after Cora, she'd continued to be stupid, though the "young" had waned. Why had she thought he'd ever be someone other than what he was? She should've known from the start. It wasn't as if there weren't signs, that was the thing--she had known. She'd just chosen to ignore all of it, all of him. But it'd fallen apart quickly enough, hadn't it? And then she'd been in Hell. But it had all really started with those ants--
No! God damnit, no.
Maeve managed to force the images back, shove them into the recess she'd carved into her mind just for them. She couldn't let it all fall apart again, not now, not with Cora at stake.
Waterfalls ran down her windows. It was absolutely pouring. Maeve hardly saw the passing cars and establishments. Thank God traffic lights were colored, or she would've never made it home in one piece.
The sun still had about an hour before rising by the time she stumbled to her door. Surely Cora was asleep. Quietly, not wanting to wake her daughter, Maeve entered the house and crept into her room and fell into bed, hoping to sleep for a few black, dreamless hours before she had to head to work at the elder care center.
Hardly an hour into her sleep, though, Maeve woke with a start. Daylight streamed through the windows, but it was gray and cold. Had her alarm gone off? She grabbed her phone from her bedside table and checked it; it was two in the afternoon.
She was late!
Maeve bolted up with the intention of getting out of bed and racing through her necessary routines, but her breath caught when she saw the floor: it was a literal carpet of black ants. And they were alive, moving here and there, scrambling over one another in staticy movements. She could even hear them, the sound like a wet rag twisting out liquid. Her breathing fragmented; her eyes searched for any place she could put her foot in order to escape the room. She threw a magazine from her bed onto the floor as if to make a stepping stone, but it was entirely swarmed within seconds. Unsure what to do, Maeve scooted back, got to her feet and stood on her mattress against the wall as the insects began coming up the bedposts. What was she supposed to do? Where could she go? They were on her sheets, coming up in constant streams, like a reverse of the rainwater that'd been running down her windows hours earlier. Maeve couldn't even scream--what good would it have done? Cora was surely at school by now! Panicked, the woman scooted along her bed and reached a bare foot toward her windowsill, quickly shifting herself to the eight-inch ledge but having to duck her body into the frame so as not to fall out.
She'd open the window--break it if she had to! But when she twisted to reach the latch, she suddenly lost her balance and, to her horror, stumbled to the floor.
Immediately, the ants cleared a space around her feet. Maeve stood there trying to be as still and narrow as a lamppost, fists up against her chest. Several seconds of terror ticked by as she waited for them to wash back toward and onto her as they had the magazine, but to her relief, they seemed disinterested in doing so. Instead, they seemed to diminish in numbers, and Maeve watched in awe until suddenly, she realized that they were disappearing through a gap in her floorboards, in the corner of her room, near the closet.
Sure that gap hadn't been there before, Maeve's fear shifted to curiosity. At last, she'd be able to find their source. With each step, the ants parted for her feet, and by the time she reached the corner and crouched down to look at the floorboard, they had almost entirely vanished. The woman's heart pounded in her head, a sudden rushing replaced any other ambient sound, and she reached a trembling hand to the opening between the boards. It was about an inch wide and four or five inches long--there was plenty of room to get a grip. Though she was unsettled at the notion the gap had come out of nowhere, Maeve was too determined to question it and, wrapping her fingers over the edge, gave a mighty pull, ripping the wood right up in a flourish of splinters and dust.
Whatever lay right beneath was teeming with black insects and white beetle grubs and glistening worms, but beneath it all Maeve made out in the coffin-like space a small decaying corpse--
She fell back, screaming.
Footsteps, then, running down the short hall. Her daughter's voice at the door, the overhead lights suddenly illuminating the dim room, revealing a perfectly-formed floor, not an insect in sight.
Maeve sat, shuddering, panting, eyes peeking through the cage of her fingers. When she felt a touch on her shoulder, she jerked back and pulled her hands away to see Cora standing over her, the girl's face contorted in fear. "Mom! Are you all right? What happened? What's going on?"
Everything was fine. Everything looked normal. What . . . what had just happened?
"Were you dreaming?" Cora tried again.
Maeve saw she had to satiate her daughter. Taking a deep breath, she rose shakily to her feet. "What time is it?"
"Seven thirty," her daughter stated. "I was just about to get in the shower for school--"
"Go ahead," Maeve insisted. "I'm fine. It--it must've just been a dream. A--a nightmare. It felt real, is all." She reached her own hand up to Cora's and lowered it from her shoulder, tried to force a smile. "I shouldn't have stayed out so long." She regrouped, perked up, pushed whatever had just happened away from her thoughts, as she'd learned to do. "I guess I'm not late for work, then."
"Yeah, well that's good . . ."
Maeve looked at her daughter, whose large, dark eyes still shone concern, even if the tone of her voice didn't. Something flickered across Cora's features, something that caused Maeve to wonder if maybe it was time she tell the truth about everything--
But no. This certainly wasn't the time, with both of them limited by their obligations.
Maeve nodded. "I'm fine, Cora, really. It was just a really, really bad dream."
Though the girl gave her mother a piercing look, she did at last turn and exit the room, and Maeve was left alone to stare at the now-innocuous corner and wonder whether something did, in fact, lurk beneath its unassuming boards.