It was common knowledge that cats sometimes sit and stare at a nothing. Sorin’s cat had been doing that for hours at a time the last few days, but always with the same span of wall.

“What’s up Mister Lemon?” he asked as Sorin finally stopped what he was doing and joined his cat, Mister Lemon, on the floor.

Mister Lemon glanced at him briefly before returning to his vigil of the wall. Sorin looked at the wall to see if there was anything he could discern about it. It looked like a normal stretch of wall to him. He got closer.

scritch

An odd, barely audible sound reached his ears.

scritch…scritch

“Oh,” Sorin muttered. “Bugs in the walls, or maybe mice.”

He didn’t like the idea of something living in his walls so he pulled out his phone and began looking up exterminators online. The first one he found let him schedule an appointment without needing to call anyone. Just fill out a form, pick a time slot on their calendar, and done. They had an opening for that very afternoon and he took it.

Why couldn’t every service be like that? The fewer phone calls he needed to make, the better.

Sorin went back to his work, focusing on his laptop while he filed documents for the law firm he worked for. Working from home was a dream come true for him and had allowed him to leave the overcrowded, overpriced city and actually buy a home. His mortgage was even lower than what he used to pay in rent. It was ridiculous.

The rest of the morning flew by and before he knew it there was a knock on his door. As Sorin got up to answer it, he noticed Mister Lemon was still staring at the wall. No doubt his superior hearing meant he could easily hear whatever it was that was in the wall. Must have been driving him nuts knowing there was something in there that he couldn’t get at.

“You got something in your walls?” the exterminator asked when Sorin opened the door and let him in.

He was a tall, thin man, with a long beard. In one hand he carried a tool box and in the other he held out a business card identifying him as Carl Edinsburg.

Sorin took the card as he explained the situation.

“I only noticed the sound today, but wanted to get it taken care of sooner rather than later.”

Carl nodded and knelt down beside the wall. He opened up his tool box and pulled out a stethoscope which he used to begin listening at the wall. He tested a few spots but eventually zeroed in on the same spot that Mister Lemon had been staring at.

“There’s definitely something in there,” he said, still listening. “Doesn’t sound like mice. Maybe ants.”

He pulled another device from his toolbox that looked like a stud finder, only when he put it up to the wall it displayed numbers. As he swept it back and forth, the numbers increased as he moved away from the spot on the wall where the sound was coming from.

“This measures the density of the wall,” Carl explained, probably knowing from experience that Sorin was about to ask what the device did. “Whatever’s back there is hollowing the wall out. Doesn’t look like they’d gotten very far yet, though,” he added in a reassuring tone. “I’ll poke a little hole in the wall, about the size of a dime, take a look with my little camera so I can see exactly what we’re working with, and then I’ll be able to apply the treatment. Once I’m done I’ll patch the hole and that should be that.”

“Sounds great,” Sorin replied. “Do I need to leave the house when you do the spraying or whatever?”

“No, it’s just one spot treatment. You should be fine to stay home. I would recommend you schedule a full fumigation though, since quite often where there’s one nest, there’s usually more.”

Sorin nodded and let Carl get to work. He glanced over from time to time as Carl did as he’d explained, drilling the hole and then inserting a flexible tube that had a camera on the end. Sorin couldn’t see the display but he did recognize the look of confusion on Carl’s face. The confusion didn’t last very long, however, and quickly turned to fear.

Carl threw the monitor away from himself, cursing.

“What’s wrong?” Sorin asked.

Carl didn’t reply. Instead, he ran for the door, still cursing. He left his tools behind, leaping into his truck and speeding away.

Sorin was about to pick up the monitor to see what it was that had freaked Carl out so badly when he noticed the camera in the hole getting pulled farther and farther in. The scratching sounds were getting louder, too. Without thinking, Sorin yanked the camera out of the hole and then rummaged inside the tool box until he found the wall patch putty. He scooped a handful of it out and smeared it across the hole.

The scratching noise quieted somewhat.

He pulled his phone back out and set up another appointment with the exterminators, this time for a full fumigation. That done, he packed up his laptop and Mister Lemon and drove to the nearest hotel. He could spend a couple days there while things were sorted out with his home. A part of him wondered what it was that Carl had seen, but overall he knew he was happier not knowing. Sometimes, ignorance really was bliss.