The Trap
Dark Alley
Dark Alley
| I was sitting watching TV, eating fish fingers and chips, when it started. It was a Saturday night. Mum and Dad were on one sofa with their haddock while Jake, my younger brother, and I were on the other, fighting over the last of the ketchup. Then, for the very first time, I heard it. Scritch, scratch, scritch. Scritch, scratch, scritch. I sat dead still, listening. Scritch. Scratch. Then Jake noticed it. And then we were all sat there, frozen, listening to the scritching and the scratching. Mum looked at Dad. Dad looked at me and I looked at Jake. Silence. Nothing. I gave the ketchup bottle one last squeeze. Mum stabbed a chip with her fork and raised it to her mouth. There it was again. Scritch, scratch, scritch. We froze. Jake sniggered nervously. Scritch, scritch, scratch, scratch. “What is that?” asked mum. “I don’t know,” said Dad, setting his plate down. “Hang on and I’ll have a look.” Mum grabbed the remote control and turned the TV down, looking across at us with a frown. Dad now stood in the hall. We all strained our ears. Scritch, scratch, scritch. It sounded very loud. And very close. “It’s coming from the hall cupboard,” Dad said. Our hall cupboard was a mystery. With one step down, it was long and dark, stretching underneath the stairs. The floor was made of concrete. I had thought there was a cellar underneath, when we first moved, but Dad told me not to be so silly. Now, though, I was starting to wonder again. Somebody was in the cellar and they wanted to get out. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. “I’ll have a look before lunch tomorrow,” said Dad. “It’s probably just a mouse.” We settled back down as best we were able, but we kept the volume on the TV low. It didn’t start again until the middle of the night. The house was so still and quiet that it echoed along the hall and up the stairs. Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch. I lay in my bed trying not to breathe, straining my ears. Was it getting louder? Closer? Something was in our house and I didn’t like it one bit. I pushed back the covers and got out of bed, edging closer to the bedroom door. A knot in my stomach had developed and was pulling tighter. Nervously, I turned the corner. Everything had gone quiet again. The hall was pitch black. Another brief scratching noise broke the silence just as my eyes started to adjust. Suddenly I realised why it seemed so very dark. I wasn’t looking out into the hall. Something was in front of me — something large. I started to turn back to my room but the dark mass before me moved. My stomach lurched. “Katie, stay still! I’m trying to listen.” Dad! Thank goodness. My heart tried to recover itself. We stood on the landing for what seemed like forever but heard nothing more. We must have distracted it. “It’s just got to be a mouse,” Dad whispered, distracted. Then he abandoned me and went back to bed. Reluctantly, I returned to my room, jumping onto the bed as fast as I could before something, anything could grab my ankles. On Sunday morning, in the safety of daylight, Dad began emptying out the hall cupboard. How everything had ever fitted in there was a mystery: ironing board, vacuum cleaner, an old wine rack and several tool boxes. The list was endless. Jake and I were barricaded into the sitting room by a teetering wall of junk. We peered under the leg of an old breakfast barstool, watching as best we were able. “Nothing,” exclaimed Dad finally. “No droppings. Nothing. Not even a way in or out, as far as I can tell.” Jake turned to look at me nervously. What was in the cupboard? Later, when the smell of roast chicken was in the air, Dad took us on a quick trip to the DIY store. We were going to buy a trap. Jake was as excited as can be. “A trap,” he kept saying. “A real, proper trap.” He ran up and down the aisles of plugs and doorbells and paints like a wild thing until Dad grabbed hold of his hand and knelt down to talk to him quietly. Jake always shut up when Dad talks to him quietly. Then we found the traps. There were plenty to choose from. It was an aisle of death. Some came with poison and some just snapped. There was an array of potions and pellets. At first, Dad picked up a back-snapper but I squealed in protest. “Would you snap Humphrey’ s back?” I asked him. Humphrey was my hamster who lived in the playroom. I’d checked on him the night before and there he had been, sawdust in ears, munching away in his bedroom. So we struck him off our list of suspects. Humphrey was in the clear. He was not the creature in the cupboard. Finally, Dad came away with a humane trap — a tube with square edges, made from tough, black plastic. It was bent in the middle, so that when the mouse gets in it for the food, which you leave inside, the tube tips up and the little trap door closes. Then you release the mouse into the wild. We just had time before our Sunday lunch to place it in the cupboard and put everything back. Except the breakfast stool. That, mum had said, was headed for the dump. So the trap was set. Positioned perfectly in the middle of the cupboard. Not too far back, out of reach, and not too near the front to frighten the creature with the opening and shutting of the cupboard door. All we could do now was wait. Sunday night was just like Saturday. Long periods of silence followed by scritch, scratch, scritch. Sometimes, it sounded as though it was right at the back of the cupboard, almost under the bottom stair. Other times it would move. It was really starting to spook Jake. At one point he started to cry, so Mum took him into their room for the night. And I was left alone in my room, cut off from everyone else, listening to an unidentified something. On Monday evening, Dad checked the trap. He got down on his stomach, gingerly reached through the clutter with one arm and grabbed at the trap. “Got it!” he exclaimed with relief as he sat up. “Oh. It’s empty.” Mum looked at Dad. Dad looked at me and I looked at Jake. Jake’s face paled and I felt the knot in my tummy return. The creature, whatever it was, was still at large. “Maybe it’s too big to get in the trap,” said Jake. “It can’t be a mouse, can it?” His face started to crease up ready for a cry. “Don’t be silly,” Mum reassured, fluffing his hair. “You’re blowing this all out of proportion.” Mum and Dad glanced at each other quickly. They didn’t look convinced either. Later, I found out why. It was about 8:30 in the evening and, while there was no scritching or scratching to keep me awake, a tap was dripping somewhere downstairs. I crept down, trying not to wake Jake. Mum and Dad were in the sitting room, with the door closed. I could hear them talking as I headed to investigate the tap in the downstairs loo. “I couldn’t believe it,” Dad was saying. “Actually eaten through it?” asked Mum. I hovered in the hallway, listening. “I don’t think it even went in it,” carried on Dad. “Just chomped a hole in the thing.” They were talking about the trap, I just knew it. I tiptoed off to the kitchen tap, wondering what sort of creature actually ate tough plastic traps. And then I saw the trap for myself. It had been left on the worktop, a hole in it big enough for me to poke my finger through. You could see gnaw-marks in it. I was horrified. The plastic was tough and thick — and eaten. I turned off the dripping tap and padded back upstairs, jumping onto the bed and tucking my feet in quick. Now there was real proof of this creature. Proof of the worst kind. Teeth marks. On Tuesday evening, Dad put the trap back in the cupboard. I think we all knew it wouldn’t work but there was nothing to be done. That night the scritching and scratching came back. We must have all been awake, lying in our beds, wide-eyed, listening in the darkness. Suddenly, though, the scratching noise changed. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. I sat up, trying to make out the sound. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. My heart raced. I could hear movement from Mum and Dad’s room and saw a light come on under their door. A few minutes passed before Dad emerged in the hallway. “It’s alright, Katie,” he said. “I think we’ve got him. He’s in the trap. It’s just rocking as he tries to turn around and get out.” “Oh good,” I replied, sinking back into my bed. But it didn’t feel good. It felt worse. The creature was there, alive, downstairs and in our trap. Desperate to escape. Frightened perhaps. Or angry. Very, very angry. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. By morning, I was very tired and hadn’t slept a wink. We all came to breakfast, rumpled and bleary-eyed and I knew I wasn’t the only one to have had a sleepless night. I knew, too, that we had to check the trap this morning. We had to free the creature. Once we were all washed and dressed, there were fifteen minutes before Dad had to take us to school. Fifteen minutes to end the mystery. We all lined up in our narrow hallway. Dad opened the cupboard door, turned on the light and peered in. Mum, Jake and I held our breath. Out came a toolbox. Out came an old lampshade. Then, once again, Dad reached through to grab the trap. “It’s gone!” he announced, a look of astonishment on his face. “Gone?” Mum asked. “Gone,” Dad repeated. Mum looked at Dad. Dad looked at me and I looked at Jake. Jake began another grizzle. “Right,” said Dad, “This is ridiculous.” And with that, he began to empty the contents of the cupboard while we all just stood and watched. Then, when he was finished and we were surrounded by the now familiar junk, we peered into the empty space. There, in the furthest corner, was the trap — or what was left of it. It had been dragged away and eaten. Totally gnawed to bits. It had such a big hole in it that it was now useless. Destined for the bin. None of us said a word. We just stared into the empty cupboard, aghast. That night was the end of things. If you could call it an end. The creature in the cupboard was winning, and it was getting to Dad. He’d had enough. After dinner, everything came out of the cupboard again and a sleeping bag, pillow and torch went in. “What on earth are you doing?!” Mum exclaimed in a high-pitched tone. “I’m going to wait for that mouse,” Dad told her. “Don’t be daft,” replied Mum, incredulous. “Well, what else do you suggest?” Dad’s voice rose now too. Mum threw up her arms in exasperation and headed for the kitchen. Things were getting out of hand. Jake and I just looked at each other, not quite sure what to do. This just wasn’t right. The creature in the cupboard and the eaten trap were scary in themselves but somehow this plan seemed a bad idea. At bedtime, Jakes eyes were wild with fear. He clung to Dad desperately, refusing to go upstairs. After lots of tears and tugging, though, he was safely in bed. And so was I. I could hear him sobbing across the hall. Later I heard Mum come upstairs alone. I thought of Dad in his stupid camp in the stupid cupboard; felt the familiar knot in my stomach. It seemed to have been there for days. Soon the house fell silent. What was Dad thinking? I imagined him lying there on the concrete, in the cold and dark, walls close on either side. And then I heard it. Scritch scratch scritch. It was in the cupboard with Dad. Scritch. Scratch. What would Dad do now? I knew I had to stay still. I knew I couldn’t rush down and open the cupboard door. So I lay there, heart thudding against my chest. In the end, I buried myself under the covers to shut out the horror of it all. When I woke up in the morning, I found myself still there, huddled deep within the duvet. Leaving my room, I found Mum sat at the top of the stairs. Across the hall, Jake was curled up in Mum and Dad’s bed, fast asleep. “Mum?” I whispered. No answer. She just stared down into the hall. “Mum, what is it?” I asked. Still no reply. Cautiously, I made my way downstairs. The cupboard door was open. I looked in. Dad’s torch lay in the furthest corner of the cupboard, just where the ruined trap had been before. The sleeping bag was heaped on the concrete. Dad was nowhere to be seen. “He’s just…gone,” said Mum, coming up behind me. “I came down this morning and he just wasn’t there.” Jake ran downstairs to join us. He looked at Mum. Mum looked at me and I…looked deep into the cupboard. Nearly two years have passed since then. We still live in the house, almost as though we’re waiting for Dad to return. I often imagine opening the cupboard door to find him, torch in hand, having found and conquered the creature under the stairs. But there has never been any sign of him. Only the occasional scritch, scratch, scritch in the middle of the night. © Dark Alley All Rights Reserved www.millionstories.net If you liked this story then read "Rachel's Tribute" also by Dark Alley. What we like about this story: It is a perfect Halloween tale. Hang on, what's that noise? Can't you hear it? It's coming from the cupboard under the stairs. |
| We like this story because: It reminds us of stories we heard around the camp fire years ago, or the time we stayed at that old house in the woods with the cellar door that was loose on its hinges... |
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