Käfer

By johnnedwill 

Cassie did not care about the cockroaches until the night she couldn't sleep. She was proud of her new apartment - the first place she could call home since she had left her family - and did her best to keep it clean. Every day she would be busy with her chores: vacuuming the floors, cleaning the work surfaces and disinfecting the nooks and crannies. Intellectually she knew that it was impossible to keep every insect, every vermin out of her home. But, so long as there were no signs of any unwelcome invaders, Cassie could ignore the possibility.

It was not until Cassie was woken one night by the sound of scritching that she was forced to confront the truth. According to the glowing numerals on her alarm clock, it was just after two in the morning. Cassie lay in the dark, semiconscious, vaguely aware of something just below the threshold of her hearing. She tried to get back to sleep, but it eluded her. Whatever it was that had woken her could not be ignored.

Cassie yawned, clambered out of her bed and padded into the apartment hallway. Her apartment was small - bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen-lounge - so she did not have to go far to find the source of the noise. Cassie listened carefully. The bathroom? No. Whatever it was did not have the characteristic echo of tiles and glass. That left the kitchen. Cassie stepped to the left and fumbled for the light switch.

At first glance, there was nothing in the kitchen. Then, attracted by the sound - louder now to Cassie's ears - she found the source: a small, black insect, skittering across the counter top. Cassie reacted instinctively, smashing her hand onto the work surface. She felt something crack under her palm, and lifted her hand. There. on the counter, was the body of a cockroach. It had been dealt a mortal blow, but its limbs were still twitching. Cassie felt a spasm of revulsion and hurried to the sink to scrub the taint of the pest from her hands. Then she yanked a piece of kitchen roll from the dispenser above the sink and returned to the dying cockroach. Carefully Cassie picked it up in the paper towel and carried it to the bin.

At the bin, Cassie paused to take one last look at the insect. it struggled in her grip, as if trying to escape, and stared at her with gleaming, silver eyes. "Goodbye," Cassie said, and squeezed the cockroach, fatally rupturing its carapace before dropping the paper towel and the dead creature into the bin.

Cassie soon put the encounter with the cockroach out of her mind. After all, it was only one of the creatures. But Cassie had forgotten that where there was one, others were likely to follow. She had been shopping, picking up groceries for the week, and had put the bags on the counter. Her back had been turned for no more than a minute; but, when she returned to put her groceries away she spotted a dozen black forms clambering over the tins and packages.

Cassie screamed and swept the cockroaches - and the groceries onto the floor! Then she grabbed a broom and flailed wildly at the insects, hoping to drive them back into whatever crevices thy had emerged from. The roaches scattered in all directions, then doubled back under her blows. For a minute or two, Cassie chased the creatures around her kitchen until they vanished under the cupboards and carpet. Exhausted, Cassie sank back against the front of the stove. It took a while for her to regain her composure.

On her hands and knees, Cassie surveyed the kitchen floor, looking for the gaps and cracks the cockroaches had used to make good their escape. For a moment she was sure that she could see lights moving under the cupboards, scurrying back and forth, but she put them out of her mind. It was obviously just her eyes playing tricks on her.

For the next week Cassie laid down poison and sprayed the edges of the kitchen-lounge with polysyllabic chemicals, hoping they would keep the cockroaches at bay. And it seemed that she had been successful as the creatures did not reappear. Cassie, satisfied that she had defeated them, ceased her efforts.

All was well until Cassie arrived home after a night out. When she switched on the lights in her apartment, she was startled to see what looked like a rippling pool of black oil covering the work surface around the sink. Cassie stepped forward, unsure of what the pool actually was. As she came closer, Cassie could see that the 'pool' was made of hundreds of cockroaches, their black

carapaces reflecting the lights in the ceiling above. They swarmed around each other with a clicking of chitin and a rustling of a myriad busy legs. Cassie froze in place, her right hand raised to her mouth in an attempt to hold back the bile that threatened to hurl from her stomach. Fascinated, horrified by the sight, Cassie stared in silence, not daring to move until the cockroach horde had retreated back to where it had come from. Then, released from whatever fascination had paralysed her, Cassie fled.

The exterminator arrived early in the morning. Cassie, who had spent a sleepless night in a hotel room, was waiting for him outside her apartment block. Despite feeling tired and dirty, she managed to give him a smile in greeting.

"Miss Underwood?" the exterminator asked, leafing through the sheaf of papers on his clipboard. Cassie nodded. "Yes. That's me."

"You say you've been having some trouble with cockroaches?"

"Yes. Let me show you." Cassie made her way up the stairs to her apartment, the exterminator trailing behind her. She opened the front door and showed him into the kitchen. "They were in here. Hundreds of them."

The exterminator looked around the apartment with a practiced eye, checking every crevice and crack. "It's the same with all these old buildings," he said to no-one in particular. "When the owners refurbish them, they just put in new panelling over the walls. That's where the roaches live - in the gaps."

"Can you get rid of them?"

The exterminator made another circuit of the apartment, this time paying close attention to the ventilators and the windows. "I can. I'll have to seal the apartment so I can fumigate it. That should get rid of your roach problem."

"How long for?"

"Twenty-four hours should do it."

"No." Cassie shook her head. "How long will it be before those things come back?" She shuddered at the thought of those black-shelled creatures hiding in her apartment.

The exterminator shrugged. "Who knows?"

Cassie took a deep breath. "But you can get rid of them?"

"For a while. And if you spray regularly, you should keep them from coming back." "Good." Cassie felt a weight lift from her mind. "Do it."

As the exterminator set to work, sealing the windows and vents with plastic and tape, Cassie emptied her drawers and packed her belongings. She did not want to leave anything behind that might provide a haven for the cockroaches; nor did she want to find their corpses. Then, satisfied that she had retrieved everything she might want or need, Cassie left the apartment. She returned a day later. The exterminator's van was parked in the street, its doors open. Cassie did not have to wait long before the exterminator returned, carrying an armful of stained plastic rolls.

"My apartment?" Cassie fought to keep her voice steady. "Did it work?"

The exterminator nodded. "I guarantee it." He tossed the used plastic into the back of the van. "Come and take a look."

Cassie's apartment was just as she had left it. The only signs that the exterminator had been busy were some fragments of silver tape around the window frames and a sickly-sweet, chemical smell. She stood in the middle of the kitchen-lounge, looking nervously for any signs of the cockroaches.

"Don't worry. The smell will go in a day or two," the exterminator informed her. "Just let the place air out a little."

"What about the cockroaches?" Cassie asked. "I thought there would be some -."

"Bodies? I vacuumed up about forty or fifty - all dead. It's all part of the service. Do you want to see them?" The exterminator turned towards the apartments front door.

"No!" Cassie took a moment to centre herself and to fight back the waves of panic and disgust that welled up inside her. "No. Thank you. Thank you very much."

Once the exterminator had gone, taking the last of his equipment with him, Cassie set about unpacking and setting her apartment to the way it was before the arrival of the cockroaches. It took until suppertime for Cassie to finally feel that her apartment was her home once again. Then, physically and emotionally exhausted, Cassie went to bed and slept long and deep.

She woke the next morning, refreshed and ready to face the day. As Cassie entered the kitchen to make breakfast, she caught sight of something small and black scuttling across the work top. It couldn't be! The exterminator had promised! Furious, Cassie picked up a glass and slammed it down over the insect, trapping it. She leaned forward to examine the creature in its transparent prison.

Inside the glass, the cockroach was looking back at Cassie, staring at her through the hood of a transparent suit.