15. Mabel

Mabel

I walked home half in a daze. Joshua and I had done a lot of making out the last two weeks but other than some ass squeezing we hadn’t even gone to third base. I wasn’t expecting him to make a run for third – and in his office no less -- but damn I was glad that happened. I couldn’t remember the last time I had an orgasm so strong it made my eyes roll back in my head.

I wouldn’t have minded having another round and maybe making an attempt for home base, but Joshua was working the late shift at the clinic and had to get back to his patients. They kept a skeleton crew on until nine pm for emergencies since the closest emergency animal hospital was over forty-five minutes away from Starlight Bay.

As the orgasm glow wore off I became slightly embarrassed that I’d let Joshua eat me out right in his office, where any of his staff could have walked in. Thank God I wasn’t a screamer. The instant his tongue touched my pussy I had lost all sense of where I was. We could have been in the middle of the town square during the Fourth of July Festival, and I wouldn’t even had noticed.

When I got home from the clinic I made myself a bowl of cereal for dinner, wrote two thousand words for my novel, then went upstairs to read in my bed for a while. I’d just fallen asleep when I heard it. Something was scratching on the ceiling over my head. What the hell?

I turned on the light and looked around. Esmerelda was sitting perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the ceiling as her body vibrated with concentration.

“What is it?” I asked.

My dog didn’t answer.

I heard something running overhead and then some more scratching. What the hell was up there? Was something on the roof?

I pulled on a coat and a pair of rainboots I had near the door and headed outside, Esmerelda at my side. I walked the perimeter of my house, shining a light up towards the roof but didn’t see anything moving up there. Meanwhile Esmerelda was straining to go back indoors.

The minute we got back in the house, Esmerelda tore up the stairs, planting herself at the end of the hall where there was a square cut out of the ceiling, and what looked like a door in the insert. I couldn’t see a handle or anything, but it had to be an attic. I’d never even noticed it before.

How did I not know I had an attic?

The scratching came right over our heads again, and Esmerelda barked in warning. My little protector. There was definitely something – more than one somethings I was afraid – walking around inside my ceiling. From the sounds of it, they were trying hard to get down to this level.

My heart thundered in my chest as I stood there frozen in terror. Crap, what was I supposed to do? I was pretty sure that only an inch of plasterboard was protecting me from whatever was up there.

Without a second thought I grabbed the phone that I’d slid in my pajama pants when I got up, and scrolled until I found Joshua in my contacts. He answered on the second ring, his voice heavy with sleep.

“Mabel? Are you okay? It’s one a.m.”

“Something’s here,” I whispered, like I was afraid whatever was in the attic would hear me. “It’s scratching inside the ceiling. I looked and it’s not outside, it’s definitely inside, in the attic.”

Esmerelda barked again, jumping up and down a couple of times underneath the attic door.

“It’s in the attic!” I whisper-shrieked. “There’s more than one of them, and they’re trying to get down here!”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Stay away from them, okay? Go downstairs with Esmerelda where it’s safe.”

“Okay.”

Eight minutes later I saw lights in my driveway. Joshua rushed in, looking adorably rumpled. He was wearing navy sleep pants, running shoes, and a faded old sweatshirt, holding a baseball bat in one hand and a gardening shovel in the other. A canvas shopping bag was looped over his shoulder, like the kind you used to go grocery shopping.

“What are those for?” I asked, nodding towards the bat and shovel.

“In case I have to kill something,” he explained.

“Kill something?” I screeched. “You’re a veterinarian. You’re not supposed to kill stuff.”

“Depends what it is,” he said grimly. “Show me where the access panel is for the attic.”

I took him upstairs, then brought him a stepstool. Joshua dug in the canvas bag, bringing out a thick knit hat which he put on his head before covering his face with a N-90 mask, the kind we’d all been wearing during the pandemic. Then he put a headlamp around his head, turned it on, and pulled on some thick gardening gloves. He looked ready to do battle.

“Stay back,” he said, “until we know what we’re dealing with. They might come down when I opened the door.”

“Ah!” I clamped my hand over my mouth as a small scream escaped. Meanwhile, Esmerelda pranced around, vibrating with excitement.

“Sit,” I said firmly, pointing to a spot farther down the hall. She gave me a pouting look but complied, keeping her gaze firmly focused on Joshua.

He stepped up the stepstool, pressing on the board that made the ‘door’. It must have been on hinges because it angled open, revealing the inky blackness beyond. Joshua stepped up another step, his head and shoulders disappearing into the attic while I watched from down below, wringing my hands nervously. I picked up his baseball bat just in case he needed back-up.

I heard him swear, which was weird because Joshua never swore, and then he came out more quickly than he’d gone in, pulling the door closed behind him with a slam.

“What is it?” I asked. “You look freaked out.”

“It’s rats.”

“WHAT??!?!” I screeched so loud that Joshua flinched. “How the fuck did I get rats in my damned attic?”

I started pacing back and forth in agitation.

“Oh my God! They’re probably going to give me the plague. What if they hurt Esmerelda? Can dogs get the plague? What are they even doing here? I keep a clean house. I don’t leave out food. How could I possibly have rats? This is so gross. I’m never going to sleep again. I’m going to have to sell this house now, or maybe set it on fire. I like this place a lot, but I can’t live with rats, this isn’t freaking Ratatouille . I don’t even speak French!”

I may have wailed that last part.

Joshua removed his headlamp and mask, putting them back in the bag, then grabbed my shoulders, stopping my frantic pacing.

“They probably got in through the soffits or something. It happens. Looks like there are at least two, plus some babies. Mama Rat was probably looking for a good place to give birth and her friends joined her.”

“And she chose my attic?” I screeched, too freaked out to lower my voice or calm down. “Wasn’t there a nice hovel somewhere she could go?”

“It’s unlikely that they’ll get into the main part of the house tonight,” Joshua continued. “Unless there’s a hole somewhere they’ll have to chew through the drywall before they can get in.”

“OH MY GOD!”

Joshua’s hands tightened on my shoulders.

“Nothing bad is going to happen to you or Esmerelda,” he said calmly. “We’ll get an exterminator out here in the morning to check it out and figure out a plan. You can both stay at my house until this gets fixed. How about you pack a bag, and I’ll bring you home with me?”

I felt some of my panic recede.

“Can you come with me to pack? In case they eat through the ceiling and try to kill me before I leave?”

I wasn’t one who liked to appear vulnerable, but these were desperate times. One corner of his mouth quirked but he resisted smiling.

“Sure.”

We headed to my bedroom, and I started randomly throwing things into a large tote bag. Joshua sat on a chair in the corner, Esmerelda walking back and forth between us. The scratching sound came from overhead again and I screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

Esmerelda barked in response.

“It’s all going to be okay, Mabel, I promise. You and Esmerelda will be safe at my house, and you can stay for as long as it takes to fix this.”

For some reason I believed him when he said everything was going to be okay. Not because I was being melodramatic – believe me I was aware that I was, but I couldn’t help it. No, I believed him because he wasn’t telling me to calm down or to stop being ridiculous, which is exactly what my ex-husband would have been doing in this scenario. I believed Joshua because he came over here prepared to bludgeon things to death for me even though I was pretty sure that it was against his veterinarian oath. And I believed him because he was currently petting my dog, calming down Esmerelda the same way he was calming me.

“I’m ready. Let’s get out of here before we get killed.”