Scratchin

"Old Man" Scharnewski's house sat at the corner of Maple and Pool Avenues.  He was the most crotchety old shit in town.  No one remembered him ever being young; he was always the smelly old man in the navy blue holed up sweater that burst out on to the porch to holler at the kids passing or to the paperboys.  He was angry inside and out and wanted to be alone, save for his big nasty dog, Dewey.  Dewey was a stinking hulk of mottled sporadic fir, that limped about, with a temper rivaling only his master.  Everyone was more than willing to oblige them both, giving them wide berth.  His kids lived in town. Timothy was one of my best friends growing up and lived down the street from me.  He never even sent his dad a Christmas card. The old man's wife had jumped ship long ago.  His daughter Katrina owned a gift shop over on Lincoln, but I don't ever recall her speaking of him; good or bad. Sad in a way, but I was grateful that he wasn't my old man.  He was just a junkyard dog.

Then something strange began to happen.  This old strap began to yell at us all on his town visits as well.  Used to be that he would just snort, growl or ignore you if you passed in the street, his old dog doing the same.  But he began to stop people and hassle them, beyond the "Your son was cuttin through my yard again..." or "You kid throws newspapers worse n you! Tell him to get it on the stoop" He began to say weird stuff: "They're comin. You'll hear em before you see em but then, it'll be too late."  He'd nod slowly, knowingly.  His Doomsday predictions were tough to swallow; coming from a man with chocolate staining the corners of his mouth and remnants of his latest meal clinging to his beard while wreaking of rancid fryer grease and sweaty onions.  "The sprickets are here and they are hungry!" he'd hiss ominously and scamper off; message delivered.  

"They were Red Coats Old Man and that was a LONG time ago!" I remember calling after him.  

We had a good laugh at the codger. As mean as he was, we thought our eye rolling, hand gestures and snickering were just desserts.  We only laughed harder when Mrs. Riley, the librarian, said that he had dashed out in to the neighborhood wearing just his propers wailing  "It's over! Not ONE of you is safe!" before scrambling back inside his unkempt house.  We were all glad for her binoculars and story.  It was all over town faster than the diner's specials on that Wednesday. But then the papers began to collect on the driveway and the lawn, that was usually high became a thicket.  We feared the worst.

No one wanted to go but we couldn't call. He'd ripped his phone out eons ago. At last, we called the sheriff, Mike, because we could hear Dewey scratching to get out.  It was summer and here that means it's stinky hot.  Mike slowly approached his door half expecting him to come roaring out per usual. The rest of us looked like eight year olds, standin, half hidden behind the trees afraid to get in trouble.  Nothing.  Mike signaled us and we crept up on the forbidden porch.  The windows were filmed and filthy; the screens caked with soot and neglect. The smell of kerosene barged through the cracked panes and  made our noses itch.  Mike walked to the back and hollered for him. Nothing but Dewey to answer us, so we popped the lock and stepped in.  


I don't know why I was shocked.  He was a lonely, mean old man.  His house was the same.  The counters were littered with food and trash.  The floor was cluttered with garbage and papers.  His crazy handwritten notes were scrawled and taped on the walls, tables, everywhere containing one word; sprickets. We almost laughed; almost, but then we saw Dewey.  What was left of that old hound was a tufted heap of rotting mush by the door.  Its nails ground down to bloody nubs.  It had dug and chewed at the wall like a prison escape.  The old man was in his chair covered in angry dripping sores.  His skin was raw and appeared almost to be peeling off him; like mange.  We leaned in, but not too closely because the smell was unbelievable.  I heard someone behind me gagging and had to cover my own mouth to keep my breakfast in.  


"What a way to g..." Mike started but the old man leapt from his chair and attempted to encircle us.  We all screamed like teeny girls and cowered like lambs for slaughter.


"AHHHH COMING! SPRICKETS!" He screeched and dashed passed us out on to the lawn where he began to pull skin from his limbs like sheets of old sunburn.  We ran after him, threw a blanket around him and  carted him down to the hospital's quarantine room.


"Bites.  Venom like a spider." Said Mac quietly as we stood over the wispy dying man.  


"Took Dewey first." his small voice graveled. "I tried to tell you; save you.  Didn't you hear em? Scratchin."
as he choked these words, his spindly fingers crawled through the air up near his gaunt face.  We all leaned back and absently scratched ourselves.  Creepy old bastard.  He died later, Mac telling us the venom had paralyzed his lungs and what antidote they'd given simply wasn't enough for the massive quantities in his system. Too little too late.


The monstrous task of cleaning up his house was my gift.  As owner of BuzyBeez Exterminators, I had to go in and scrape out that shit hole of a home and let me tell you what partner, it was full to the gills.


Ants. Roaches. Silverfish. Mice. Termites. After almost twenty-five years, I don't get the willies but man oh MAN that was bad news.  I used more chemicals than DOW trying to get that place clean; z-phos, bromethalin, but just when I thought I'd done a good job, I heard scratching.  It startled me that's for sure.  It drifted up from the crawlspace so I loaded up my "gun belt", hunched over and wiggled in to meet the sprickets.  They were grey with a kind of cricket body but they had an extra set of legs in the front like a spider.  These were long and notched so that when they chose to move, they raised up on the back jumping legs and these extra stilts and ran. Quick little buggers they were and aggressive. They charged right at me grabbing at me with little pincer hands and their mandibles gnashing.  They weren't small either; almost as big long as my index finger with a head the size of a dime. I squashed one with the butt of my flashlight which only seemed to call more. The scratching noise came from a combination of clawed feet scurrying and their jaws coming together in hungry clicks. I backed out of there fast and loaded up the big gun, methyl iodide would fix this. So I pumped it in there with a vengeance, sucking deeply from my respirator. Those little monsters stood at the edge of their doomsday clouds and clacked at me.  They barked and squealed, rushing back away into the darkness.  Only when my canister was empty, did I stop.  I listened and heard nothing .Then I called Mike and told him what I'd found; what I'd done. (aside from contaminating the old man's well with my chemical frenzy)  We came to a conclusion I now wish we hadn't.


The fire department's trainees were eager to get a practice in. The old man's house was pushed to the top of the list.  We burned it down.  It smoldered for days after and the smell was suspicious, but we dismissed it to everyone as the stink of a hoarder and filthy old recluse.  After that had all been cleaned up, I went home, relieved to finally be rid of the mess formally known as "Old Man" Scharnewski.  I cracked a beer and sat down to make fun of Wheel of Fortune.  One beer became the pack and I fell asleep.  Nothing new. Things were back to normal.


Except for the scratching that woke me.