Days of Halloween: “Voles” by S. Day

In late March of 1982, there was a small farmhouse along the outskirts of Southern Mississippi. The home was built fifteen years prior by a newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Moore, and four years later became home to their only son William Moore.

The Moores grew only two things on their farm: soy beans and corn. Both of which they cared for with a genuine passion. Their farm stretched for three miles in all directions around their little blue house, and Mr. Moore maintained all of it with only his father and three brothers, all of whom had their own homes on opposite ends of the property they shared. When it came time to plant the soybeans both Mr. and Mrs. Moore were kept quite busy, leaving young William long stretches of time to be out of their way.

William was a timid boy. Growing up on a large farm with no brothers or sisters made him exceptionally good at being alone. He would often go on long walks through the quiet house, looking for and expecting nothing anomalous, only passing by the objects around him and thinking softly to himself.

When the house got too lonely, he would throw on the gray knitted coat his Mother made him and take his meditative strolls outside the desolate farm house.

One day, on one of these walks, he happened to pass beside the rim of the window well leading to his own bedroom. The trench was eight feet deep and lined with cheap metal sheeting. The ground, scattered with decaying candy wrappers and wet leaves, was compounded in thick, dark mud from the newly melted snow.

William stood and beheld as the leaves in the well began to shift just ever so slightly. Transfixed, he realized what it was. A black plump vole the size of one of William’s sneakers scuttled back and forth beneath the foliage.

The next day, Will returned, only to find that the amount of voles had doubled and the next day quadrupled.

It was then that he decided to tell his father of the growing vermin at the dinner table over a plate of ground beef and canned corn. Mr. Moore did not look up from his newspaper as he told William that voles were harmless creatures and would leave the window well on their own.

It was that night though, as William lay stiffly in his own bed, that he began to hear the scratching of tiny claws against glass. The soft screeching sound was subtle, yet unmistakably  present as the cunning creatures grazed the smooth surface again and again in the dark. The noise was faint and unthreatening, yet persisted until morning.

The next day, it took William a decent amount of courage to put on his coat and go outside. When he finally did go to stand and look down at the shifting mud, his uncle called to him from the nearby field.

In his hands, William’s uncle held the twitching coils of a copperhead. The serpent was a deep speckled tan, and snapped in vain at each of Uncle Moore’s fingers.

“Pete told me you’ve been having some trouble with rats around the house, little Will?”

“Voles.”

Uncle Moore beamed, “This little guy will fix that right up.”

“They come out at night.”

“Then throw him in there before bed and they’ll be dead by morning.”

William Moore trusted his uncle and stored the copperhead in an empty shoe box until dark. Then, he crept barefoot, out into the shadowed plane of the back yard and dumped the writhing snake into the pit of voles.

Satisfied, William deposited the empty shoebox back under his bed and rested his head against the thin, cotton pillow. He nearly fell completely to sleep, and yet in that partial, trance-like state right before slumber, the bare subconscious of his mind picked up the rustle of commotion from just outside his dark window.

It sounded distinctly like a battle as the scurrying muffles of a dozen black voles murmured back and forth. Drown out only by the sound of the wriggling copperhead as it slinked in and around the crunching, winter leaves. The fight was a ferocious struggle between good and evil, indicated only by the guttural hiss and cry of the preying serpent. For a long bout of time William stayed just barely awake to listen, only falling asleep when both the snake and the voles had gone silent.

Very rarely did William dream but that night he dreamt very vividly of a pit of voles. The one just outside his bedroom window. The creatures inside were dark and demanding as they skittered side to side over themselves.

Then, William’s mind depicted the lurid image of a copperhead snake, which thrashed considerably as it was lowered into the trench. Within seconds the dozen beasts descended upon the snake, tearing its thin, scaly skin off its smooth white bones and killing the serpent within a matter of seconds.

At morning, William awoke, scared and trembling, to walk and peer out his bedroom window. On the cold dewy leaves there lay only a train of bones from the copperhead. And bubbling beneath it the buried creatures, still living.

Unsettled, William asked his mother if there was anything he could do to keep himself busy. To which his mother was happy to give him the task of ironing the laundry.

William spent the day inside the farmhouse, working for his mother. And only once he lay back in bed did he remember what lurked outside his bedroom window.

This night, the scratching continued, more prominent than before.

William fell asleep to the terrible sound, once again having an unusual dream.

He dreamt of a letter, on plain white paper, decorated with illegible words. The letter was signed by his one older cousin, Mark Moore, who had left the farm two months prior on a trip to Europe.

The letter was one William had never seen before; his cousin had yet to write him one.

Then William dreamt, very vividly, of the letter being thrown into that same pit of voles. The letter glided gracefully down, slowed by the soft air, before being buried beneath the waves of the vermin.

William woke up gasping. Confused. Why would his mind conceive a letter he had never even thought of before?

It was then that his Uncle knocked on his door and stepped inside. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a white envelope. He told WIlliam that the letter had been sent from his son Mark and was addressed to William.

The nephew held the letter in his hands, stuttered a thank you to his uncle, and read the letter in bed while he waited for his parents to leave.

The letter said very little of significance. Only that Mark would bring him back a postcard and that the weather was rainy.

Only when the house was empty, did Will step out of bed. He crept slowly out the door into the yard of his house and stood above the window well.

These creatures needed to be fed and they needed to be fed what they wanted. He didn’t know what made him understand this, only that he understood it completely. It was a scared, visceral part of himself that taught him. The fact of the matter was plain and simple and if the rules were not followed there would be consequences.

So, shakily, William tossed the letter down into the pit, which during the day looked nearly empty though he knew it was not. From the tremble of the ground he could tell there were much more voles beneath the surface then there’d been the previous day. He watched the letter, which sat dormant against the shuddering ground, as if resting balanced against a lung drawing breath. In all the time that he stood to watch the letter, nothing happened.

Yet, that night as he lay in bed there was silence. No scratching at the window.

He dreamt nearly the same dream as the night before except instead of the letter there was a square piece of fabric.

As William was eating breakfast, he realized what the fabric was: a piece of his mother’s favorite sunday dress.

Will considered the implications of this, before coming to the consensus that they very rarely attended church and that his mother would not mind. He cut a square of fabric from the sunflower patterned hem and threw it down into the pit.

Once again, no scratching all night.

The third night, to his own dismay, William dreamt of his own knit coat, limp and useless, being tossed in next.

It was that morning that he paused very greatly to wonder if perhaps he should ignore the dream and the voles’ harsh demands. Perhaps he was going mad and there was no real threat at all.

But then he thought of the scratching, of the dead serpent. He considered the great evil force, their presence insidiously imposing upon such a thin piece of glass. The fact that humans were so entirely vulnerable while in the state of sleep.

He did not ignore the request, and that afternoon threw his only source of warmth into that same wretched pit, knowing it’d be gone by the next day.

The third night was the most graphic of the dreams.

It featured the grave of his father’s dog, who’d gotten frostbite and died at the beginning of March. Will watched himself dig up the carcass, buried in an old potato sack, and carried the mounding heap to the face of his window. The bag and the body inside landed with a thud as it fell against the trench of voles. A thud so great and so consuming that it seized William right out of sleep and left him retching into his bedsheets.

Hours later he kicked open the door to the shed, sending a shrill cry as it flung ajar. He grabbed the smallest of the shovels resting inside and set out into the empty field.

The grave was marked only by a rock, the land around it vapid and desolate. As he dug, Will’s arms began to numb without the protection of his mother’s coat. Cold sweat beaded along his brow. His muscles ached with the effort. Until finally he reached the treasure he had been searching for.

The bag was heavier than he thought it would be. His father had always liked great dames. As he carried the bag from the grave to the pit, William’s face contorted. The smell was putrid.

And when he stood, for the fourth time, before the open abyss of his bedroom window, he felt a sinister sense of approval creep along his neck. He knew what the voles were telling him: there would be no scratching tonight.

William used that thought to console himself as he threw the rotten bag down the eight foot drop. It landed among the pulsing mud with the same resounding thud.

WIlliam hardly slept that night unnerved by what the swirling mass outside his window would ask for next. He slept for less than an hour but while he did he was yet again brought to the window well.

This time he could not make out what his envisioned self was holding. Only that the item was small and fleshy, held firmly in William’s left hand. The offering was thrown in the well and the dream was over.

William awoke confused, still unsure of what he’d seen inside his hand. He pondered the question for a better part of the morning, staring fixedly on the ground outside his window. When he brought a hand up to wipe the tears from his eyes he remembered that he was right handed. And then understood that the item had been his own finger.

Horrified, he ran from his bedroom, up the stairs to his parents room. And, after realizing they had already left, folded himself into the depths of their closet and shut the door tightly.

His heart pounded a rapid beat against the swelling dread in his own chest. The rapid tug of fear only brought his arms closer around himself as his left hand drew protectively around each of the fingers on his right. He decided almost immediately that he would not, could not even consider doing such a thing. Then considered telling his parents, only to remember what he had done to his coat, and that his mother would be furious with him. No, William knew they would not believe him. He knew that if he decided not to give the pit what it wanted there would be consequences.

It was only hours later that he was brave enough to emerge from the dark closet. From under his bed (while keeping a firm eye on the window) he retrieved his old slingshot, forgotten since the long settling winter. Outside, he aimed a blue swirling marble down at the shifting ground inside the window well. He waited patiently for a vole to emerge and when one never did he fired anyway.

He shot all of his marbles into the trench. They hit the ground with a ferocious crack and then bounced before hitting the dirt again. William yelled as he launched each of the marbles, overcome with a mix of anger and fear so primal it couldn’t be human.

After launching the marbles he went back to the closet, holding his slingshot poised and ready. That evening he reemerged, only after his parents had called for him for nearly a half hour. He ate dinner and was sent to bed.

Alone, in his bedroom, he got the subtle sense that something was not right.

He moved very, very slowly to the window, where he found a hold the size of a baseball scratched through the clear pane.

William checked, and double checked but the ground around the window was no longer moving.

Frightened, he called for his parents, who duct taped the hole closed  and in their weariness told the boy rather harshly that it was nothing to worry about.

As darkness fell, WIlliam’s room and the window were silent.

He gripped a flickering flashlight and stood on top of his sagging mattress, straight as a board. He would not sit or let his eyes close, lest he fall asleep.

More than anything he’d ever feared before, William feared falling asleep.

Because he did not know at all the state that he would wake up in.

S. Day is a high school student from Northern Utah. She greatly enjoys reading and writing and has previously been published in The Blue Marble Review. She appreciates any chance to share her work and hopes to keep improving her skills.