Rats in the Walls

Exhausted, the figure collapsed into bed. For many, sleep was an escape. For Cash Rogers, it was merely unconscious work. The days stock numbers ran like little ghosts down the inside of his eyelids. A brilliant mathematician with cunning intuition, Cash's brain seemed to process patterns and possibilities while he dozed. He'd often wake up already knowing half of what would happen that day.

Cash was a Wall Street prodigy. The big firms had fighting over him since his final year of college. Thanks to a private investor however, he'd gone solo, and racked up enough profits in his two years to rival his would-be employers. Three more years and they feared him, often scrambling to pick up the best of the scraps he'd passed on. He also had enough rats in his enemies camps to manouvre stocks any way he wished. While paid well for information, most just did it for the thrill. For these financial types, working for Cash was equivalent to being waterboy for Michael Jordan. And who didn't want to be on the winning team?

This morning was different than most. Cash woke up groggily. Frowning, his head felt clouded. Something had kept him up. Some.. muffled noise. A scratching? Cursing, he made a memo to talk to the grounds-keeper after work. The last thing he needed in his lovely new estate was a vermin problem.

***

"Eddy! Eddy, a moment please."
The gardener jogged over to Cash, wiping soil off his overalls.
"Ci Señor?"
"Eddy take a look in the walls will you please? I swear I heard scratching last night. Damn rats gave me my first loss in months today - brain was haywire. I need my sleep, you understand?"
"Ci, I look right away Señor."

***

Tossing and turning, Cash punched his pillow, frustrated. It sounded like something was clawing at the plaster. "Will you SHUTUP in there?!" he yelled.

Silence.

Finally.

Drifting off, he made another note to speak to the hired help. As soon as he closed his eyes, it started again.

Scratch scratch.

***

"Eddy! I'm late for work, come here."
This time the Mexican was in the shed. He trotted out with some gardening shears.
"Señor?"
"Eddy, yesterday I asked you to check the walls for infestation. Did you find anything?"
"No Señor, nothing," he remarked.

Cash studied his employee. He worked on Wall-Street. He was surrounded by greedy, lying scumbags. You didn't get very far without being able to tell who was bullshitting and who was trying to stab you in the back. He dealt with poker faces of those financial professionals every day. He stared into Eddy's eyes. This poker face was good, damn good, and for awhile nothing. Then, ding! The tiniest glint of a secret appeared, reflecting like a marble in the sun.

"Eddy.. I treat my employees very generously. I need people I can trust. Can I trust you Eddy?"
"C.. Ci Señor, trust Eddy," he stammered, his head bowed.
"Then get rid of the damn problem. Today! Or I get rid of you."
"Ci Señor, gracias - I fix it today, I promise!"
With a final look, Cash stormed off.

***

His ferrari tore down the winding driveway. He wasn't in much of a mood. Another terrible day, he'd missed a golden opportunity to sell while he was daydreaming about rats. A few wry smiles went around the room as they looked in Cash's direction, knowing he'd lost a few million. It wasn't that the transaction hurt his portfolio in the long run. It just took the sheen off his previously unscathed armour. A few wondered if his dream run was finally coming to an end. Like sharks to blood, they could smell it.

Cash drank beer with his meal, and started doing shots of Jack afterwards. A maid came to take the empty bottle and he jumped, knocking it off the table. The glass shattered loudly, the woman letting out a quiet yelp of surprise. Realising he was drunk and not wanting to scare her further, he stalked upstairs to bed.

***

His head heavy with booze, Cash stirred. As his consciousness drifted up from the bottom of sleep, he'd heard a dull thump. Regaining his senses in the dark, his brain tried to process it. For a couple of days, he'd been surrounded by a constant scratching, imaginary rats clawing all around him, hungry to get at him. He'd sat at work in a daze, picturing rat-heads on his colleagues, their hands turning into human-claws, their chattering babble to squeaks. His gardener was hiding something from him, and he'd been burned for millions. And now this.

Thud!

Starting with a low grumble, his anger rose up in him like magma. It erupted in a primal roar, his fists clenched. Reaching outside his bedroom and grabbing a fire-axe from the wall, he grinned maniacally. Swinging the axe into the plaster, he shouted with each blow. "Shut! Up! You! Fucking! Rats!!" Chunks of wood, paint and powder showered the volcano of rage, as he continued to take the wall apart in a fury. He continued up and down the length of the wall, hacking off larger pieces as they came loose. Finally a wet sounding crack! woke him from the frenzy, and he pulled the weapon free. Got you, Cash thought with satisfaction. Turning on the lights, he took in the devastation before him. He scanned back and forth, looking for the perpetrators of his breakdown.

The wall cavity itself was deeper than normal. Beginning where his walk-in robe ended, the builders had been generous with the dimensions when building this mansion. Oddly, the floor of the newly opened space was littered with rubbish. Coke bottles, chip packets, candy wrappers. Then, he saw it.

Cash's eyes widened in horror. Leaning at an impossible angle, was a small boy. His face was pale, starved of sunlight, though his natural tan was obvious. The floor beneath him soaked with a pool of dried blood. The boys hands and feet were crudely bandaged, soaked through with dark claret. In a daze, Cash inspected them. He was no Doctor, but it seemed obvious - the poor kids fingers and toes had been hacked off with a blunt tool. He saw the massive axe wound between the child's neck and shoulder, and a familiar likeness in the child's face. It hit him with the same impact he'd exacted on the wall.

As a high-powered broker, Cash believed it was not enough to hide your weaknesses, but to have none. While somewhat of a lady-killer, Cash remained single for this very reason, and expected his employees to do the same. You never knew whose pride you might injure on Wall Street, and there'd been more than one tale of revenge or blackmail being exacted after a particularly cut-throat move. With no family, Cash figured his opponents would have less leverage over himself and his staff, should it ever come to that.

He'd hesitated when hiring Eddy. He knew that Eddy did in fact have a son, but his background checks told him the boy was last seen in Mexico, before Eddy had crossed the border to live the American dream. He also had an incredible knack for landscaping, and Cash had badly wanted to turn his snobby neighbours green with envy. So he'd hired the man. Even so, he'd warned Eddy that as part of the contract, he wouldn't be able to have contact with his family. It didn't seem to bother him. Cash figured Eddy was content just to save his money and go buy his own little piece of America down the track. Everybody wins right?

Cash tried to smile. He didn't have rats in the walls. He damned near had a skeleton in his closet. Eddy had smuggled his boy in, no doubt through one of the many cleaning cupboards littered throughout the house. While Cash was trying to sleep, the little tike had been trying to escape; to scratch his way out. The image made the broker convulse. Then, on Cash's order, Eddy had taken care of the problem. He probably told the kid to keep quiet, but it didn't work. As a last resort, he'd used those garden shears to take the kids digits. Lying in the dark, all he could do was weakly thump on the wall as the blood drained from him. Cash imagined the boys final terror when he'd torn into the prison madly with an axe, ending with the child's body. His knees wobbled. He doubled over, emptying his stomach onto the floor.

***

Staring up at the ceiling of his cell, a rat crawled over Cash's leg. He put it out of his mind. After he was charged for manslaughter and criminal negligence, he'd become the biggest riches to rags story in a long while. His license to practice brokering had been taken away and the old Wall Street phrase 'cash is trash' came back in vogue. Cash didn't even blame his gardener that much. It was his own mind that had betrayed him. The tool that brought him so much success, solved so many problems, had finally failed. And just because of some damn scratching. Some damn imaginary rats!

Determined not to be labeled crazy as well a failure, he'd kept that part secret. If he ever hoped to regain his empire, he couldn't afford a trip to the nut house. So when he spotted rats in his cell, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him again. He dismissed them as illusions. As time passed they became tamer, using him as a human jungle gym. Starved, they started gnawing at his flesh. Word must have spread amongst the rats there was food to be had, as more and more turned up in his cell. Eventually the Warden had to step in before Cash was eaten alive. As it was, his entire body was scarred and seeping with sores. After an interview where he fervently denied the rats existence, he was transferred to the psyche ward for his own protection.

***

Broken and confused, he lay in the corner of his cell. Claustrophobia hit, as the walls loomed over him, shaking and rumbling forward. His eyes darted left and right, spotting for his imaginary enemy. All the while his hands idly clawed at the padding. Scratching.