Azaleas (Short story-horror:)

Short story - about 1650 words. Harold Scratchett, goes head-to-head with natures's finest in a losing battle for supremacy.

 

Roof tops, visible against a bright, sunny sky, give way to a tiny back yard where butterflies and bees float from flower to flower in a lush and well cared for garden. Clethora and hydrangea anchor two corners of the rich dirt and mulch berm that stretches the length of a cedar privacy fence.  Hostas border the neatly manicured edge. Red and violet Azaleas parade within like stately ladies of old - rouged, lipsticked and coiffed.

 

Harold Scratchett emerges from his backyard pergola, grabs a pair of garden gloves off a hook and pulls the strings of a wide-brimmed straw hat tight against his chin. His favorite flowered shirt is tucked neatly into his khaki shorts. Nike tennis shoes and knee-high socks make him feel younger. He is in perfect shape for a gaunt, seventy-nine year-old with arthritic hands, a bum-knee, and a canker-sore attitude.

 

He drags the end of a hose, equipped with a newly acquired, in-line Miracle Grow attachment, towards his garden, points the nozzle toward his prized Azaleas and opens the valve on his new wing-ding . . . nothing happens.

 

“Thirteen dollars,” he complains in a course whisper, “for this piece of  junk? Those blood sucking nurseries. I ought to sue them for a million bucks.”

 

Herald looks down the hose line and sees a kink that's cutting off the water. He rolls his eyes, sets the attachment on the ground and shuffles back to unkink the kink.

 

Beverly, his wife, pokes her head out the patio door, “I’m taking Fife to Pets Mart for grooming, try not to kill yourself while I’m gone. And for crying-out-loud, H, why don’t you put on some long pants. You look like an anorexic Richard Simmons.” As she whirls back inside, she polishes off her cheerful adieu with, "Your hose has a kink in it.”

 

Herald picks up the hose at the kinked end and roughly jerks it this way and that as if wringing someone’s neck. “Stupid dog,” he mutters.

 

When the kink finally unkinks, the water explodes so hard through the nozzle of his thirteen dollar landscaping investment it rises up as if a King Cobra looking for an attack of opportunity, all the while hissing and spewing water all over Herald - him on the other end trying to choke it to death. Finally, just before Herald shuts off the water shut off,  the new gizzmo's reservoir spins off and bounces into the flowerbed.

 

Herald looks up victoriously, and raises a fist to the sky. “Mother-scratchin', blow-dumb, piece of . . . Worthless, I tell you. All worthless. I’m gonna sue. I swear it.”

 

A few curses later, Herald, on all fours, crawls around the berm, gently pushing his precious Azaleas aside until he finds the Miracle Grow reservoir planted next to, of all things,  a rather large ant hill where red ants have started swarming it.

 

Herald looks on a moment, then fully realizes their intention. “Think that's yours, do ya? Well, you wait right here.”

           

Herald disappears through the door of his single car garage and reemerges with a can of Raid and a pair of pliers (pinchers, his wife calls them). He’s ready to do what a man has to do.

 

Back on his knees, Herald watches the ants pull the reservoir toward their nest. Most of the label has been chewed off.  While some would marvel at the tenacity of this group effort, all Herald sees is a bunch of thieves making off with his property.

 

Herald grins broadly, secures the tube into the spray nozzle, and sprays the reservoir with the poison. As the ants scatter or drop dead, he uses the pliers to pluck the reservoir from their grasp. Turning to rise, imbued with a feeling of omnipotence, he savagely sprays the ant hill, as well.

 

“Now who's ruler of the universe?” cackles Herald.

 

Herald stands and sprays the reservoir again. Ants fall away like pieces of rust off an old iron lawn chair - but not all of them. Along the pliers a pair of ants speed down onto and inside his glove. Herald yelps, drops the reservoir, and shakes off his glove. The ants have sunk mandibles into his blue-veined, wrinkled flesh, and started delivering their stings.

 

“Ow, ow, ow. You little . . . .”

 

Herald sprays the ants away and blows on the red welts. He looks down where the reservoir has fallen and sees ants swarming onto his tennis shoes. He does an old man's jig and soaks his feet with Raid all the while back-pedaling toward the house.

 

“Get off me you cussed little heathens. I'll kill you all.”

 

Herald steps inside and slides the door shut with a thud. He quickly finds his easy chair and takes off his tennis shoes. The few remaining ants are blasted with his weapon of mass destruction, after which he leans back, throws off his hat and clutches his chest.

 

He breathes deep, and slowly counts, “One . .. I guess . . . two . . . I showed . . . three . . . them . . . four,” and closes his eyes " just for a minute.

 

Herald snaps open his eyes and furtively looks about him. It’s dark. “Blast it all. Must of gone to sleep.” He looks at his watch and slaps it as if it lied to him. “Where is that wretched woman,” he quips, “and her idiot dog.”

 

Herald rises and stretches, mumbling about having slept so long. Then he hesitantly moves toward the patio door where his jaw slacks, his shoulders slump, and his intestines air out. The door is completely covered with ants blocking out the afternoon sun and eating away at the underside of the door slide.

 

It's not late. The ants have blotted out the sun.

Herald frantically shuffles to the linen closet, returns with towels, stuffs them along the bottom of the patio door then soaks them with Raid, but the ants eat through the side molding of the door frame and begin leaking in.

 

Herald squawks with disbelief and flees the room, “Cheap, no good construction. I’m gonna sue them. Sue them for a million bucks. I’ll teach them.” A few moments later he returns with a fly swatter poised to do battle. "Filthy red devils. You don't know who you're dealing with here."

 

With the courage of self-certitude, Herald attacks the enemy's front line. For a minute or two, each menacing swing brings a grunt of satisfaction, but then the blockade laid across the bottom of the door gives way and the ants pour in.

 

Herald backs across the room looking around for other weapons. He throws a sofa pillow, turns over a chair, but the ants,  looking like an animated rug, undulates towards him.  Herald curses them but abandons his effort and retreats to the bathroom.

 

With trembling hands and dwindling certitude, he stuffs washrags under the door.  Then he rummages through the medicine cabinet pulling out all things aerosol and starts spraying the washrags - deodorant, hairspray, freshener, anything - until all are used up.

 

Herald eyes the discarded empty containers with frustrated disgust, balls his fists, squeezes his eyes, and tightens his butt-cheeks. “I'm gonna sue you all. Every last one of you. For millions. You hear me, millions.”

 

Herald looks down and sees the washrags being pulled from under the door. Mouth agape, he shrieks and climbs into the tub, grabs the hand shower and reaches for the hot water faucet. Ants pour into and across the tile floor.

 

Herald sprays the ants off the side of the tub with steaming hot water. Holding the shower head like a machine gun, he screams, “Say hello to my little friend,”  and laughs hysterically. The ants are stayed.

 

The hot water runs out.

 

Herald pushes his words out like a woman in hard labor, “I hate public utilities.”

 

Ants are on the walls, in the sink, all over the toilet. They've filled the bottom of the tub and have plugged the drain. Inexorably, they move up Herald's body. His eyes go wild as a trapped horse.

 

Herald sprays his wretched body with water until he’s as numb from the cold as he is from fear; believing, believing, believing there’s a chance to turn back the assault. But the ants keep coming.

 

Herald weeps, “Oh please, merciful God, please.”

 

Ants race up his thighs into his khakis, over his soaked flowered shirt, up his neck into his nostrils, into his mouth, into his eyes and ears. Each latching on with vice-grip mandibles, synchronizing their stings with  Herald's every move.

 

Like Opus Dei, Herald wracks himself with the hand shower, listlessly swinging it against every part of his body, expending muffled groans with each hit, mind nearly gone.

 

On his hands and knees, head barely above the water, face not visible, Herald is upholstered with ants. He gags, convulses, and collapses. His skinny, frail, unrecognizable body bobs like a cork. The tub roils with ants, dead and alive spilling over the side; in sheer numbers, having paid an uneven price.

 

*

 

Beverly Scratchett and Fife, her precious Toy Poodle, are back from the dog groomer. She puts her house key in the front door lock.

 

If Herald was a canker-sore, Beverly is full blown herpes.

           

Beverly, the dog lover, “Yesum, yesum my yiddle Fife, don't you just yuuk sooo cute.”

 

Beverly, the Stepford wife’s evil twin, “That no-good daddy of yours better not have gotten mud all over my kitchen. Him and his stupid Azaleas.”

 

Fife squirms and whines like a neighbor’s spoiled child.

 

“There, there, Mummy didn't mean to get you'ums all upset.”

 

She walks in, locks the door behind her, tosses the keys on a table, and lets Fife run off. “Herald where are you, you simpleton? Why is there water all over the floor?”

 

Beverly swats at something biting her calf.

The End

 

Reviews

[Sarah Emily]

Simply amazing! Love it! Wonderful descriptions, and fantastic characters. Poor old Herald, I kind of liked him. Sort of reminiscent of that segment in Creepshow with the roaches.