At noon that Saturday, Lisa found nothing interesting to do in her living room except to pick fleas off Poe. In the feeble, flickering glow of one candle she spotted another flea stumbling madly through the cat’s fur to escape her pursuing fingernails.
“There now, Poe—hold still.” The cat purred and stretched his white belly. Lisa scraped her nail under the fur and snatched the disoriented flea between her fingers. Life struggled briefly before she dropped the flea into the pool of hot wax cradled within the fat candle. She gazed at the flea and thirty-one others trapped as though in amber. The flea’s tiny legs twitched their last.
“Dead, Poe,” she whispered, ignoring the growl of her hungry stomach. Poe wiggled on his back and pawed at her hand for more attention. She should eat, she thought, but there could be more fleas. There always were. As she combed her black nails through Poe’s fur again, she was startled by the sound of voices from outside. Loud, manly voices, followed by the rattle of a delivery truck door rolling up. Poe mewed.
“Shh, baby.” Lisa uncrossed her legs and winced; she had sat on the floor for hours and her legs cramped in protest. She crawled to the front window, but she didn’t dare push back the curtain for fear of being seen. Motionless, she crouched under the window and listened.
A man coughed. “This is the place.”
“Looks condemned. Yard ain’t seen a mower this year.”
Lisa’s breath caught in her chest. They are talking about my house. Her lungs tightened and she looked frantically around for her inhaler. Heavy footfalls echoed on the walkway outside. Her inhaler had been on the floor right beside her. She scrambled to Poe and lifted the limp cat, but the inhaler was not there. The men’s voices grew louder, closer. Her heart pounded, her breaths quick and short. Where did I last see my inhaler? She cleared aside several fast food bags, sending roaches scurrying across the carpet, but the inhaler was not there. Boots scraped on the doorstep, muffled voices just outside the front door. Poe shrank from Lisa’s searching hands, and he streaked into the kitchen. She couldn’t breathe; her heart throbbed louder and louder in her ears. Standing, she felt her head swim, dizzy, the room spinning and tilting. The pounding, pounding—it was a knocking on the door—would not stop, rapping knuckles beating their way into her sanctuary, mocking her helpless attempt to find her breath, to find her inhaler.
And there it was. Her eyes caught the inhaler on the old pinball machine next to the front door. She grabbed the inhaler and shoved it between her teeth. The knocking at the door grew more insistent. With three quick puffs she inhaled the medicine, freeing her lungs.
“Anybody home?”
“Just a minute.” Her voice was weak and phlegmy as she undid the locks on the door. She tugged the door open a crack and sunlight blinded her.
“Are you Lisa Adams?”
Lisa nodded as she made out the silhouettes of three men on the front porch. “What do you want?”
“We have a delivery for you,” and as Lisa’s eyes adjusted to the light, she saw the man peer down at a clipboard in his hands. “From a Mister Harold Adams, in some funny-named town in Connecticut.”
Lisa cleared her throat and let the door open an inch wider. “Shinipsit.”
“Yeah…that’s it—got to be careful saying that one.” The other men laughed. The man with the clipboard turned it to face Lisa. “Just need you to sign—“
“What is it?”
“Huh? Oh, I dunno. Looks like junk if you ask me.”
One of the other men took a step forward. “Lotta scrap metal, Ma’am—whole truck full.”
Lisa squinted at the shipping invoice and the name, Charles Adams. Uncle Chuck. She’d not gone to the funeral last month. Why should she have? In all her twenty years she’d only met the man once. Weird old Uncle Junk, as she called him then, with his ramshackle mansion, curious gadgets and machines, all half-completed and strewn about every room. She remembered how, ten years before, she and her brother had gotten lost on purpose in one of the countless rooms of the house—a house of jumbled additions, built over the years in no particular sense of rhyme or reason. Most of the rooms appeared to have no purpose—just extra wings splayed out at odd angles leading to nowhere. She and her brother Todd had hidden behind a beautiful leather chest while their mother called for them from every room. Lisa remembered the musky leather smell of that box, and the peculiar whirring from inside it.
“Just need you to sign here, Ms. Adams.” Lisa jumped, startled as the deliveryman urged the clipboard and pen under her nose. “Where do you want this…stuff?” he asked as she scribbled her name on the dotted line.
“The living room, I guess.”
The men snickered. “Ma’am, we’ve gotta eighteen foot truck full from top to bottom. Why don’t you come out and take a look—“
Lisa shrank from the door and clutched at her inhaler. “No, I….”
“Nice day, out…a pale girl like you could stand some sun. Just come out and—“
“No…no, just—“Lisa struggled to not slam the door shut. “Put it in the backyard.”
The man frowned. “Fair enough, then….” Click, the door was shut.
Lisa leaned her elbows on the pinball machine and sucked on her inhaler. Oh God, not today. Not today of all days. Nothing works right. Not even this stupid pinball machine. Why did I ever buy this thing? She kicked the machine and took another breath from her inhaler. Todd will be here soon. At that thought she peered around the living room. “Poe, we have to straighten up this place!”
Hearing his name, Poe scampered from the kitchen and rubbed against Lisa’s legs as she gathered up the empty fast food sacks. She raced to the kitchen but found the trashcan overflowing with garbage. After a frantic scan, she opened the cabinet under the sink and tossed in the sacks--rotten burgers, fries and cockroaches included--and slammed the door shut. The deliverymen struggling with the backyard sounded as though they were just outside the front door. Lisa hurried to make the living room presentable for her brother.
After an hour, she had cleared a path from the front door to the couch.
* * *
A pounding on the door awakened Lisa, and she rolled off the couch. Todd was here. In her hurry to get to the door, she almost tripped over Poe. She pushed her hair out of her eyes before she unlocked and opened the door. The three deliverymen stood on the porch, their shapes haloed by the orange sunset. The smell of sweat wafted into Lisa’s nostrils.
“All done, Ma’am,” said the first deliveryman. “We piled it as best we could behind the house.”
“Umm, thank you.”
“This, however, was marked for inside delivery.” The man gestured to a large box at his feet.
“What is—“
“Dunno, a chest of sorts—damn heavy.”
Lisa closed the door an inch as the other men strained their necks to peer into her house. “Just leave it there and I’ll bring it in later.”
“Ma’am, it’s awful heavy. Took them two both to get it up here.”
“It’s okay, I’ll have help soon,” she said from the cracked doorway. The man shrugged and she shut the door and locked it. She pressed her ear to the door and listened to the men’s muffled voices as they trudged back to their truck. Doors slammed, the engine rumbled to life, and the truck slogged up the road. After the sound had finally died away, Lisa unlocked the door and opened it just a crack to peer outside at the box, its surface smooth and brown.
Whir—Click.
Lisa jumped back at the sound from the box. Without moving, she listened patiently from the doorway. But the box was silent. Lisa fumbled for her inhaler on the pinball machine, and opened the door wider. Without stepping out of the doorway, she grasped a handle on its side and tugged. The box barely moved. With both hands she pulled on the handle and dragged it through the doorway and into the house. After she shut and locked the front door, she retrieved the candle and held it close to the box to examine it.
Lisa saw it was actually a chest, all covered in a smooth, brown material. The musty scent of leather rose from it as she brushed dust off its top. Uncle Junk’s chest!
“What’s inside, Poe?” Lisa searched the chest’s sides for a latch as Poe tentatively sniffed at it. “How does it open?” Lisa could find no cracks in the chest, nor any mechanism for opening it. Poe purred and rubbed against it.
Bzzzz.
Poe shrank from the chest, arched his back and hissed. Lisa also scooted away from the chest, and she listened breathlessly for the chest to make another sound.
Ring! Lisa jumped up and grabbed the telephone on the pinball machine. “Hello?”
“Lisa, I can’t make it tonight—too much paperwork.”
“You’re going to work yourself to death.”
“At least I have a job.”
Lisa sneered at the receiver. “Todd, don’t start on me again.”
“Okay, but I’m coming over tomorrow, so be there. Never mind--you’re always there.” Lisa didn’t answer. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just a weird day.”
“Weird? How can you have a weird day? You never do anything. That loser boyfriend didn’t show up again, did he?”
Lisa touched the bruise over her eye. “No.”
“Good, you tell me if he does and he’ll be sorry. No charge.”
Lisa snickered. “I thought all you lawyers were about money.”
“Money for a legal service, not illegal, Lisa. I never sold drugs like some people.”
Lisa bit her lip. “I hate it when you’re this way, Todd. See you tomorrow.”
She slammed the phone down, causing the pinball machine to shake. One of its balls was dislodged and rolled down a track. Poe meowed. “I wish this pinball machine worked, Poe,” she said with disgust. “I wonder how much I could get for it. I could buy you that fancy cat food on the commercial with the fluffy white kitty.”
At that, the chest behind her made a loud burping sound, and Lisa whirled to face it. “And what the hell are you supposed to be? Some great inheritance—a burping box and a heap of scrap metal.” Lisa almost expected a response, but the chest only sat in heavy silence. Finally, she shrugged, picked up Poe and her candle and went to bed.
* * *
The first thing Lisa did the next morning was peek out the kitchen window at the backyard. Sitting in the middle of the yard was a pile of scrap metal: warped sheets of aluminum and tin, twisted metal chairs, tangles of copper wire, crumpled sheets of steel, and all other sorts of useless junk. What the hell am I going to do? This time the landlady will kick me out for sure. Already two months behind on rent, the lawn, the broken window in the bathroom. And now there’s a mouse hole in the wall. I’ll have to pay somebody to take that junk away. I need money—Todd’ll kill me if I ask for more, but I have to.
Lisa hurried to the phone, hoping she could catch Todd before he left his house. “He’ll understand—I didn’t do this. How could I know I’d get a pile of shit dumped on me? Weird Uncle Junk. Todd’ll understand—he has to.”
As she picked up the phone, she bumped the pinball machine. Suddenly the pinball machine lit up and began playing music. The phone dropped from her hand and clattered onto the top of the leather chest. She stared aghast as a pinball popped into play, ready to be sprung into action. With trembling hand, Lisa pulled back the launcher and sent the ball flying up its track. The pinball machine worked! The ball bounced around and the score display turned rapidly. She tried the levers and they flipped the ball sharply back into play.
“Awesome,” Lisa breathed. As she was getting into her game, a sound from the leather chest startled her and she jumped; it was the phone protesting that it was off the hook. Just as she picked up the phone and hung it up, it rang and she shrieked in alarm. The phone flew from her hand and onto the floor, and the ringing stopped.
Poe sauntered to her and pressed his face against her knee as she squatted to retrieve the phone. “Poe, did you fix this pinball machine?” The cat purred and gazed up at her. “You’re a good little boy, yes you are. I wish I could get rid of all your fleas, you poor thing—“ Her eye was caught by something small and shiny. It zipped silently across the carpet and into the kitchen where it disappeared through the new mouse hole in the baseboard.
Lisa squinted at the hole. What she had seen looked like no mouse. It was shiny, like metal, and it moved in a straight line like no mouse ever ran. She picked up Poe and went to examine the hole. With her finger she traced its edges and found it was a perfect arch, its edges smooth as though cut by a jigsaw. Poe squirmed out of her arm and sniffed the hole.
“You’re not doing your job, Poe. Mice are supposed to be afraid of cats.” She stood and peered out the back window again. The scrap heap was still there, taunting her fear of the outside. Then she saw something in the pile shift and fall: a coil of wire tumbled to the bottom of the pile and slowly unraveled. “I’ve really got to get rid of that mess before Mrs. Whithers finds it. I hate her. I wish she were dead, old hag.”
Whirrrr, Burp.
Lisa turned to the chest. She noticed at its bottom a small panel she had not seen before. It opened and out shot a shiny disk that whizzed toward her. She screamed and hopped up onto the kitchen counter, scattering dirty dishes to the linoleum. Glass shattered across the floor and a shard almost hit the disk as it fled out the mouse hole. Poe scampered toward the hole, almost as an afterthought.
“You’d never catch a mouse that way, Poe,” Lisa said as she dropped to the floor. With her foot she swept the broken dishes aside. She shuffled to the chest and peered at the open panel.
Click, the panel shut.
She tried to open the panel, but she couldn’t find its edges; the side of the chest was smooth with no sign of any panel. Lisa wrinkled her nose at the chest and kicked it. A battering on the front door caused her to jump, and she leapt to her feet to unlock the door. As soon as she undid the latch, the door burst open.
“Todd, what—“She stumbled back as her ex-boyfriend slammed the door behind him. His wild eyes under a mop of stringy blond hair quickly surveyed the room before they pinned her where she stood. His body emitted a cologne of whiskey, pot and gasoline.
“Where’s my money?” he said, kicking Poe with a greasy boot.
“Todd’s bringing it. Get out of my house, Rusty.”
Rusty seized her wrist and pulled her into his unshaven face. “You said that last week—either give me my money now, or I’ll take something else.” His other hand groped for her breast under her tee shirt. “Sell some more stuff for me, baby and we’ll call it even.”
Lisa tried to knee him between the legs but he wrenched her arm and forced her to the floor. “You’re hurting me,” she cried, and as she clawed at his face, he landed on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her, and crushed her clawing fingers in his powerful grip.
“Aren’t you the feisty tigress,” he laughed.
She struggled to free her hands from the carpet. “If I was a tigress I’d rip you to shreds.”
“Too bad for you, all you’ve got is that flea-bitten kitty to help you.” As he started to rip off her shirt, the sound of approaching sirens caused him to stop and cock his head. The sirens got closer and closer until they sounded like they were just outside the house. He waited for the sirens to keep going, but they stopped, and the red and blue lights swirled under the crack of the front door. Rusty clambered to his feet and opened the front door to peek out.
“Ambulance next door,” he muttered. “Have my money tonight. I’ll be back, bitch.” Just before he slipped out the doorway, he smacked the phone off the pinball machine. The door banged shut and the phone smashed to pieces against the wall.
Lisa peeled herself from the carpet and rubbed her wrists. “I wish a tigress would rip you to shreds, Rusty!” she sobbed.
Click. Bzzzzt.
* * *
From the cracked door, Lisa watched the EMT’s slide Mrs. Whithers’ body into the back of the ambulance. Gaggles of neighbors stood in the old woman’s front yard.
“Slit her own throat,” said one neighbor, shaking her head. Radios buzzed and crackled. Police gently shooed the gawkers back home.
Lisa shut her door softly and sat cross-legged on the floor. Poe curled in her lap. “Poor lady—can’t believe what she did to herself.” Yeah, and I wanted her dead, remember? Poe purred and Lisa unconsciously began searching for fleas in the cat’s fur. Wanted the old hag dead just because I couldn’t pay rent. What a lousy person I am. “Wasn’t my fault, Poe.” The cat pawed at her searching hand. “People who only care about money are unhappy. Poor old lady. We’re happy, aren’t we, Poe?”
Lisa squinted closer at the cat’s fur and realized she hadn’t found a single flea. She drew the candle closer and combed both her hands through Poe’s fur. Usually this exposed the fleas and sent them scattering; yet Lisa saw no fleas. Curious and almost disappointed, she rolled the limp cat around in her lap. Then she saw one—a big one—and snatched it. Expertly, she maneuvered it between her nails and crushed it. She was surprised the flea didn’t pop, and she dropped it into the hot wax. The flea, twice the size of any flea she had ever seen, swam through the wax and crawled unfazed to the edge of the candle. Just before it sprung away and out of sight, Lisa noticed it gleamed as though plated in silver, and its front legs looked like tiny scalpels. Shuddering, Lisa pulled Poe away from the direction where the strange bug had bounded.
Just as she started to search the carpet for the insect, a loud metallic crash reverberated from the back of the house. Fearing that more dishes had fallen in the kitchen, she went to investigate, but saw nothing that might have caused the sound. Then, through the back window, she noticed the heap of metal in the yard had changed: it appeared several pieces were missing, and the pile had sunk. In front of the pile was a framework of sorts that she had not noticed before. A vaguely cylindrical shape stood horizontally on four legs of curved metal. The object had no straight lines or flat surfaces, like a sculpture carved by Mother Nature.
“I’ve got to get Todd over here to help me get rid of Uncle Junk’s junk.” She turned to stare at the pieces of busted phone on the floor. “But I need a working phone first.”
Clink-Bzzzt.
The panel on the side of the chest magically appeared and slid open. Out from the darkness inside the chest whizzed three metal disks, the size of watchcases. Lisa pressed against the wall and watched in alarm as the disks scooted to the telephone. Sharp implements protruded from the disks as they drew near the phone, and Poe crouched to spring upon the whirring gadgets.
“No, Poe!” Lisa scrambled to scoop up the cat, and she back-pedaled to the safety of the kitchen counter. In fascination she watched as slowly her phone was reassembled. Sparks flew as the disks welded wire. Wisps of smoke floated from the phone as broken plastic was mended. Screws turned and plastic snapped to metal.
After fifteen minutes, the disks retreated into the chest, and the panel clicked shut and vanished. Lisa gaped at her phone, whole again and like new. She inched for the phone, keeping her eye on the silent chest, and picked up the receiver. A dial tone answered her—the phone worked.
“What the hell—“She started to key in Todd’s number when she was startled by another metallic clatter from the backyard, and she hung up the phone to peek out the window. In the dim light she saw the framework had changed, and that it was taking the shape of some monument of a four-legged animal. A long tail, like a tight coil of steel projected from the hindquarters, and the entire body was now laminated with metal. The metal skeleton of a massive head was forming before her eyes. She squinted and saw tiny disks and other shapes scurrying all over the structure. Suddenly a shower of sparks erupted from the head as the gadgets began welding another plate. Lisa stared, unable to pull herself away from the assembly in her backyard.
Zzzzzing.
Lisa hurdled to one side as another disk raced in through the baseboard hole; the chest opened its gullet and swallowed the miniature vehicle. What is this thing, Uncle Junk? Her gaze drifted back to the repaired phone, and she got an idea.
“I wish the broken glass wasn’t on the floor anymore.” She watched the chest, almost expecting to hear it answer her in Uncle Junk’s crusty voice.
Burp. The panel slid open and two disks whooshed out. They darted all over the kitchen floor, and Lisa jumped onto a chair. Quickly, the tiny glass particles on the floor vanished as the disks passed over them. With just as much speed, the disks vanished back into the chest. Lisa dropped to the floor and inspected it. Dust, dirt, crumbs were left untouched; not a speck of glass remained. Poe searched the floor with her, and finding nothing of interest, rubbed against her.
“Poe, that…thing got rid of your fleas!” Lisa squealed, hugging the cat. “I just said I wished I could get rid of all your fleas, and it did the rest.” Poe purred in her arms. “Oh, what a wonderful device.” She approached the chest in wonder, staring at it with a new appreciation. “A treasure chest--it fixed my pinball machine and the phone. What else can it do, Poe?”
From far away outside, the wail of a siren mourned.
Lisa let Poe drop from her hands. “Oh my God.” Her heartbeat pounded in her temples. She scrabbled for the inhaler on the pinball machine. “I’ve killed Mrs. Whithers!”
Clunk—Bzzzt, answered the chest. Lisa stumbled to stare out the window. The metal tigress was almost complete. A faint greenish glow glimmered from the machine’s eyes, and its massive head rotated to face her. The tip of its tail flicked impatiently as its metal hide bustled with disks rushing to complete their final touches.
She didn’t feel herself slump to the floor, nor did she see Poe sprawl into her lap. The pounding on the door, she could not hear it.
“Lisa, open up or I’ll bust down the door,” Rusty’s voice called. Lisa awakened from her daze. The doorknob rattled violently. “I swear I’ll bust it down!”
Lisa ignored the sounds outside the door, didn’t see the wood splintering or the hinges shuddering. The only sound she heard reverberated from the backyard--a growl like the ignition of an enormous motorcycle.
She parted her dry lips and licked them. “I wish Uncle Junk’s chest would destroy itself.”
The electrical drone and mechanical clatter of the chest’s suicide mission almost drowned out the sounds of ripping flesh, the screams and gurgle of death from beyond the door. Lisa found her inhaler and puffed.
The medicine was gone.
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