eight
“I see tracks.”
“What do you want us to do?” Ivan called from six feet, or so, away.
“Keep following me but drop back a little more. Eventually he’ll move away from the water’s edge. Looks like he might have been dragging something.”
“A body?” Kim piped in.
“Unlikely. Dragging a body through a public park usually draws attention. Even if it’s done at night, which I suspect was the case.” Dan crouched, squinting at the ground, then nodded.
“I think I see the tracks coming in; those seem to be heavier and have faint drag marks that are obscuring them slightly. Then I see the ones from the target returning. They are lighter and unobscured. Probably what my contact found. Look to see if you see a place where the grass is flattened down by something heavy being dragged over it.” He rose and dusted off his hands on his legs. “Don’t be surprised if you don’t though. Grass has a tendency to spring back, unlike the carpet in my house.”
About twenty feet later he made a satisfied grunt, exclaimed “Got you,” and started heading away from the stream at an angle. Pointing through the trees he strode in that direction, leaving the rest of the group to catch up.
When he stopped to stoop, they halted a few feet back. This continued until they started into a residential area. It looked like they were heading through large backyards. Some had playsets and toys scattered around. When they headed cross field they encountered a dog house. Dan tensed, prepared to react, but when neither barking nor the scuff of nails proceeded an attack he moved on.
Several more yards had empty dog houses. Weird detail.
The tracks Dan was following ended at a neat two-story house. It looked well-maintained, the kind of place the neighbors might hold up as an example. But the windows had a slight haze to them, like they hadn’t been cleaned in a while, and the sidewalk leading up to the door had a thin film of dirt left from the thaw that any self-respecting house-proud owner would never let sit.
The door was also partially ajar. Dan’s senses went on high alert, something about the very slight gap speaking loudly to him.
“The door is open. We should check to make sure the owner is safe.”
Ivan came up next to him and nodded. “As a selectman it is my duty to protect the citizens of Ourton. Also,” his smile took on a wicked edge, “as a selectman it is my great honor to give you permission, as a citizen representative of the council newly appointed, to enter this premises and confirm the wellness of the resident.”
“No. You’ve been trying to deputize me forever.”
“Then I guess you can’t enter,” Ivan announced as he strode for the door, loosening the strap on his sword as he went. “I, of course, being a selectman can enter with impunity.”
Dan hurried to catch up before Ivan entered the premises. “I will escort you, selectman.”
“I’m afraid I can’t accept your aid, citizen. It would be wrong.”
Bracing his arm across the door, Dan barred Ivan from entering. “Seriously, some day I will rip off your head and shit down your neck.”
“Better men than you have tried.” Ivan took Dan’s arm between two fingers and lifted it. It was a testimony to his size that he made Dan’s arm look, well, average sized instead of the sturdy tree limb it appeared next to others.
“I’ve tried,” Ben announced cheerfully as he neatly slid between them, under Dan’s arm, and into the house.
“Don’t touch anything!” Dan called as he and Ivan rushed through the door at the same time, twisting their shoulders so they’d both fit.
“You mean like this doo…” Ben’s words cut off on a defined shriek.
The women all rushed in as Ben’s shriek faded only to be buffeted by Dan’s and Ivan’s more manly shouts, if by more manly you could mean a whole octave lower than Ben’s shriek.
“Mice! Mice!”
From the door Ben had opened a slew of mice poured. Not a clutch. Not a chunk. A slew. Perhaps the term wave could even apply.
Ben, who had instinctively fallen back only to have his foot come down on a mouse (or two) and fly out from underneath him, sprawled on the floor across the threshold of a room to the right. Over him poured the wave of mice, blanketing him in moving, furry forms. Where before he shrieked now he was deadly silent as he writhed to get away from the things.
Or, not completely silent. As the rest reached him they could hear very quiet, under his breath, freaking out. As in incoherent, not quite words, sounds in a stream that flowed together like the carpet of rodents did over his supine form.
Now, a well-known fact about Ourton was that they had mice and rats of abnormally large size. Not, you know, like that movie – those rats had been ridiculous, but large just the same. So, really, at least four of the other six people in his crew decided that they would probably have responded pretty much the same as he was having giant mouse paws hammering his body with large quivering noses and springy whiskers whispered like a promise of plague all over him.
What followed was several minutes of chaos as all seven of them responded to the mouse migration.
Kim slid in and reached through the remaining mice to give Ben a hand up. Ben rubbed his face and all exposed skin repeatedly before regaining his composure, squaring his shoulders and chin in a display of ‘ain’t nothing to see here’ to which Kim gamely played along.
Stooping, Prairie scooped up one and tried to pet it. It proved too big – and squirmy – to fit on her palm so she ended up squeezing it to her chest like a widdle, bitty teddy bear she just wanted to love until its eyes popped out. (Guess who had been one of the two not squigged out by the plague of mice)
Siobhan did a weird kind of dance, hopping to avoid stepping on mice while simultaneously kicking them left and right and into walls. When one caught a particularly glorious amount of air, she belted out “Booyah!”
Gwen took her plunger, ran behind several, herding them for the door, calling out as she did so that she’d really love a nice push broom. Luckily the mice seemed disposed to head that way anyhow and soon Gwen was the drum major at the head of a parade of scurrying, squealing rodents.
Ivan and Dan stood plastered to the wall on either side of the hall, avoiding the running rodents, the plunger, the kickline, and getting caught up with the mouse in Prairie’s enthusiasm. When Prairie hoisted her mouse in Ivan’s direction, an open expression of delight suffusing her features, he graciously waved off her offer. *No, no, you keep it!*
Once the hall was clear of mice, and a head duck into the open door of the room they had poured out of confirmed there were no more in wait, Ben and Kim stepped into the room.
As Ivan, Dan, and Siobhan started down the hall Gwen called out, “Don’t die!”
“Or if you do, do so loudly,” Prairie added and hugged her mouse friend.
Gwen gave her a look that combined lowered lids and raised eyebrows, gazing pointedly at the mouse then at the ground. Prairie’s lower lip jutted.
“Nope. Not falling for that,” Gwen mock scolded. “Let the mouse go be with its friends. I’m sure its lonely.”
“It wouldn’t be lonely if I took it home with me.”
“What do mice eat, Prairie?”
“They eat food.”
“And do you eat food, Prairie? Like do you have enough in your house to feed a gigantic mouse?”
Another lip jut, a reluctant “no”, and then Prairie stooped and placed the affection-dazed mouse on the floor. It shook itself as if expelling rain then ran tail-on-fire for the open front door.
“Let’s try the room over there.” Gwen pointed to the left.
“Sure.”
The room was a kitchen. Nice. Appliances once probably really shiny were coated in a thin layer of dust. Prairie’s hand came down on Gwen’s when she reached for the handle on one of the bank of refrigerators that took up one wall.
“You do not want to know what that will smell like if there was veggies in there.”
Gwen gave an exaggerated gag. “Noted. I’m not sure what we are going to find in here that will tell us anything besides someone hasn’t been here for a while.”
“Agreed. Want to try another room?”
“Sure.”
As they stepped back into the hall Siobhan’s voice carried from the room she, Dan, and Ivan had entered. “We didn’t find anything in here except a lot of debris which might have been caused by animals! We’re going to try upstairs.”
“Ok!” Gwen called out in response then turned to Prairie, “How long do you think it takes for animals to move into a deserted house?”
Prairie shrugged. “It depends. If the house is close to a wild area, which this one is. A female mouse gets pregnant about five to ten times a year and can have a litter of three to fourteen pups and it takes nineteen to twenty-one days to gestate. Mothers can mate right after giving birth so you can get a new litter every twenty-five days or so. And female mice can start making babies at six weeks old. Which means a place, with enough females in it can get overrun quickly.
At Gwen’s wondering look Prairie squinched her shoulders until they brushed her earlobes. “It was something I read in my nursing program. Gestation periods of different animals and stuff. It’s a little weird that I remember all of it.”
“That,” Gwen pointed at her face, “was an impressed look. Not a judgy one.”
Enter The Woods 