My blog for 6/3/2013 Creepy-a very short story.

CREEPY

by

Melody Scott

 

What has menacing eyes, big sharp teeth, can change its form to slide through a paper bag and gleams with ugly?   A cockroach, of course.  And I had one threaten to maul me from right there on my just-washed kitchen floor.  The sucker was a half a foot long.  Yuck.

I should have used Clorox in my wash water.  I should have used Raid in my wash water.

I was afraid to take my eyes off the thing, but I had to do something before it charged.  So I dashed into the bedroom and pulled the shotgun out from between the mattresses and ran back to the kitchen.  Obviously, that wasn't going to work—blowing a hole in the floor would be hard to explain and would hurt my ears.

Somewhere in the back of my memory banks I'd seen my mother-in-law go after a roach with a broom, so I automatically slithered along the wall to the corner where my broom rests more than it should.  But, wait.  My mother-in-law's roach had been very spry and eluded her that day in her kitchen, even though she had chased it around and beat it with an alacrity that reddened her face and made her hair stand up in the back.  So I leaned the broom up next to the shotgun while I had a chilling stare-down with the roach.  After all, it couldn't leave while my eyes pinned it in place.  They only leave when you blink.

My mind raced.

A two-pound coffee can was within reach, so I quickly poured the coffee out onto the counter—so what?  It was clean.  And I could put the coffee into a ziplock bag after this caper.  Slowly I crept toward the creature, all the while hypnotizing it with my eyes.  I reached out with my inverted can and quickly slammed it to the floor.  The roach laughed and lumbered toward the stove where it turned and crouched at me.  The coffee can rolled across the floor, sprinkling coffee grounds in its wake and ticking me off.

I lurched for the vacuum squatting in the back of the utility closet, plugged it in and removed the attachment on the end of the tube, still keeping the creature pinned to the floor with my eyes.  That sucker wouldn't escape THIS time.  I heard myself exclaim, "aha!" as I vaulted over the coffee can, holding my weapon out before me.

The roach issued an epithet as it darted between my legs to the other side of the room, almost making me pass out, and plastered itself to the floor in front of the dishwasher.  I had to rethink this.  It could run up the whining tube I was holding, then up my arm into my armpit where it could find an artery and I'd be dead.  My eyes glazed over at that thought.  I needed a longer tube on my vacuum.  Eight feet would be about right.  Didn't have it.  Shoot.  Just as I jumped up onto the counter where I could sneak across to the dishwasher and drop the cookie jar on the roach, a big boot came out from behind the trashcan and smashed that sucker flat. 

My husband looked at me, eye level from the counter, and said, "what are you doing? Playing with a roach?

I nearly fainted with relief.