Ken Goddard's
Fiction-Writing Web Site
CHEATER
Chapter One
He
came in through the crawl space. Slowly and methodically pulling himself
through the cool, humid, musty, and ever-confining darkness. Grasping at
the rough concrete footings with his callused bare hands. Scraping his
chest against the supporting cross-beams and his back along the
rough-textured rubble. His face brushing against the low, cobweb-covered
drain pipes.
Pausing every few feet to listen.
And smiling---a thin, distant and chilling smile---all the way.
Something moved in the darkness behind his head, making a faint rustling
sound as it cautiously sought a better view of the intruder, but he
ignored it. He knew all the creatures that inhabited the dark crevices
under houses; knew them intimately. He also knew that in this place, at
this time of the night, he was the predator to be feared. The one to be
avoided at all costs.
The crawl space in this particular house was more confining than
most---so narrow in some spots that he had to turn his head sideways and
empty his lungs to work himself under one of the thick, splintery and
dusty beams; so dark and disorienting in others that it took him almost
a half hour to find the wires and the entry point he had chosen.
Then he started to work.
He
used a tiny, battery powered circular saw, adjusting the depth of the
thin, exposed blade to three-quarters of an inch, and then timing his
cuts through the partially rotted plywood flooring to coincide with the
periodic concealing noises of the nearby heat-pump. He paused frequently
to let the blade cool, using his bare fingertips as he did so to judge
the remaining distances.
He
could have used the small pen-light in his jacket pocket, but in his
perverse way of thinking, that would have been cheating; and he didn't
want to cheat.
Not on this one.
The work was cold, difficult, and demanding, and yet he savored every
claustrophobic moment; glorifying in the almost hallucinatory feeling of
being trapped beneath a huge, all-encompassing mass---a sensation that
seemed to intensify every echoing noise, and magnify every movement of
his body.
He
paused for a moment to take in a few deep breaths, feeling his expanding
chest muscles press up against one of the rough support beams, and then
immediately went back to work. He was only vaguely aware of the fine
sawdust particles striking against his face, and the condensation of his
warm breath against the back of his hands, as he continued to cut
through the laminated wood barrier with the whirring blade.
Halfway through, he paused to install the pair of thick, carefully oiled
brass hinges and a latch, using another miniaturized power tool to drill
the holes and then drive the stubby screws. Then he went back to his
task with a single-mindedness that was characteristic of everything he
had ever done in his life.
Fifty-two minutes, two batteries and one blade change later, he
completed the last of the four cuts. Sliding his bracing knees out of
the way and then inching himself sideways, he allowed the hinged,
twenty-four-by-thirty inch piece of mildewed plywood to fall free. The
resulting trap door swung noiselessly back and forth, with the tip of
the latch mechanism just barely brushing against the rough dirt floor.
Then he reached for the terribly sharp razor knife.
The tantalizing part, from his viewpoint, was that he didn't have to
enter the house this way. There were many other---and far
easier----methods that he could have used that would never be detected,
such as picking the front door locks with his spring steel tools, or
tapping the latch on the sliding glass door, or carefully removing one
of the heavy aluminum storm windows out of the wall.
There were many other ways, but he didn't want to take the easy,
undetectable path on this one.
He
wanted the effect.
The thin razored edge made three smooth, easy cuts through the thick
padding, allowing the loose foam sheet to drop noiselessly against the
hinged plywood. Three more cuts---more difficult but equally smooth---at
a slightly inward angle, and then he allowed the carpet flap to slowly
drop down against the padded trap door.
The crawl space was immediately filled with a faint, diffuse light that
forced him to blink until his irises readjusted to the new
semi-darkness. Then, ever so cautiously, he raised his head until his
pale-blue eyes were just barely visible above the floor line.
Nothing.
Moving quickly now, he levered himself up through the relatively large
hole and hurried over to a small plastic box mounted on the wall
opposite the front door. It took him less than two minutes, using a
fine-tipped screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers, to temporarily
disable the alarm.
He
paused for a brief moment to check his watch. Then, gliding the soles of
his shoes over the carpet surface, he began moving toward the stairs.
He
was upstairs, in the master bedroom closet, waiting for the incredibly
sensitive device he had designed and built himself to detect the
relative positioning of the final tumbler pin, when a loud 'DING!'
jarred at his nerves.
He
located the source of the noise in the adjoining den---what appeared to
be an extremely complicated version of a fax machine with display screen
that read:
ARE YOU PREPARED TO RECEIVE?
He
started to turn away, to go back to the potentially far more interesting
floor safe in the master bedroom closet, when the machine emitted
another loud 'DING!'
Grimacing in irritation, he pulled the thin operations manual out of the
plastic holder attached to the side of the machine, and a small red-lensed
penlight out of his jacket pocket. After scanning the relevant pages, he
quickly typed the word 'YES' on the keyboard and hit the enter key.
It
took the machine almost five minutes to churn out three pages. Intrigued
by the possible implications of a scrambling/descrambling device on a
home fax machine, he waited for the last page to drop into the receiving
box. Then he sat down to read.
Fourteen minutes later, he quickly lowered himself back down through the
trap door into the crawl space; carefully pushed the carpet, the
padding, and the hinged plywood back into place; and secured the latch.
Then, having completed his preparations, he dropped his head back down
onto the rough-textured ground and lay still in the cold, quiet,
cobwebby darkness.
Like a trap door spider, waiting with inhuman patience for its prey to
arrive.