The Lighthouse

She shut her ears to it, listening instead to the wind. It shifted, began its skirling in the tower and kitchen chimney, and the stove in turn began to smoke. She turned to it. fiddled with the damper. It did no good. If the wind kept up like this, the room would be full of smoke in another few minutes and she would have to open one of the windows. Otherwise The door popped open and Jan was there again. She straightened, turned as he shut the door against the undulating fog outside.

Oddly, it was his hands that she looked as first. He had put the umbrella down somewhere; he caniod nothing in them. His face was congested, the rage still smoldering in his eyes. And the skin of his forehead and around his eyes was drawn tight, so that he was half squinting-the way it got when he was having one of his bad headaches.

He said, “I got rid of them. All of them.”

“Did you kill any more?”

“No. They scattered when I opened the outside door. We’ll have to put out traps. They’ll come back after the food.”

We won’t be here when they do, she thought. Will we?

“Will you be all right alone for a while?” he asked.

“Alone? Why?”

“I’m going into Hilliard.”

“After Novotny? For God’s sake, Jan, no!”

“Yes. This is the Last straw. I’m going to have it out with him.”

“No! Call the sheriff, let him-”

“Fuck the sheriff,” Jan said, and that frightened her all the more. He never used words like that-never. “There’s nothing he can do. This is between Novotny and me.”

“Jan, you promised you wouldn’t drive anymore. You mustn’t drive, not when you’re having one of your headaches.”

“I don’t have a headache. Don’t argue with me, Alix. I’m going.”

“Then I’ll go with you. I’ll drive-”

“No you won’t. I told you, it’s between Novotny and me. You’re staying here, behind locked doors.”

“I can’t stay here, not with those rats-”

“They’re gone, they can’t get back in the house. You’ll be all right. Just don’t answer the phone.”

“Jan… ”

But he was at the door, through it, gone into the mist.

She ran out after him, caught up near the garage. “Please don’t go. Please!”

“Go back inside. You’ll catch cold out here.”

“I won’t let you go-”

“You won’t stop me. Go back inside.”

The look he gave her froze her in place; he moved on to the garage. Even in the foggy dark, it was unmistakable-a look of resolve and the kind of savage fury she’d seen when he was beating the rat to death. Chills rode her back and shoulders. She couldn’t move even as she heard the car start, saw him back it out and the lights come on. Couldn’t move as he drove out through the gate and fog swallowed the car. The last she saw of it was its taillights glowing bright red. Like the rat’s eyes in the cloakroom just before it died.

Hod Barnett

Hod didn’t like it. He just didn’t like it.

Taking a few potshots at the Ryersons’ station wagon, that was one thing. Even putting some shit down their well-no big deal. But the rats… that was an ugly thing, there wasn’t any call for that kind of thing. Big ones, too, seven or eight of them. And half-starved. Mitch had got a couple of kids to trap them; the Stedlow place was crawling with the buggers, with old man Stedlow dead a year now and his kin just letting the house and barn go to ruin. Rats like that, who the hell knew what kind of disease they might be carrying? Suppose one of them bit Ryerson or his wife?

Not that anybody would say he’d had anything to do with it. It was Mitch’s idea, and Adam had taken the cage full of rats out there tonight. All he’d done was tell Mitch he’d seen the Ryersons leaving town, driving off toward Highway 1 about four o’clock. He hadn’t even known about the rats until after Adam got back. Mitch hadn’t said anything to him while they were shooting pool in the Sea Breeze earlier.

Mitch and Adam were still in there, playing Eight Ball for beers against a couple of fellows from the cannery. Cracking jokes, laughing it up, Adam hippety-hopping around like he had a stick up his ass and he was trying to shake it loose. It got on Hod’s nerves; that was why he’d up and left a couple of minutes ago. It was like something had happened to the two of them, changed them. Mitch especially. Sure, Ryerson had run Red down and then threatened to have Mitch arrested on account of his car getting shot up. But that wasn’t cause to go putting a bunch of filthy rats in the lighthouses, right there in the pantry with all their food-Jesus! — and maybe giving Ryerson or his wife some kind of disease. It just wasn’t right.