Hornets and Others

Unless Ginny 's with you after all, you bastard.

'Well, let me know if you need anything,' Revell said. 'I—'

Peter cut him off. 'I really have to get back to work.'

'Nothing wrong with that. Take your mind off what you're going through. Actually, that's the reason I called —'

Of course it is, you bastard. He recalled what Ginny had said: 'He would drop you in a second if you stopped producing...'

'I've got to go. I'll call you soon.'

Like hell I will.

He half-slammed the phone down, stared at the wall next to his desk.

Something was crawling up it, above the wooden filing cabinet that held his printer, muted orange and black stripes—

'What the fu—'

He reached out a palm, hit it flat; the hornet, still whole, tumbled from the wall behind the metal filing cabinet and was lost to view.

He was on his feet, pushing his swivel chair back and pressing his head against the wall to try to locate the insect behind the cabinet; unable to, he stalked from the office in anger and went to his messy workbench at the other end of the basement, pushing objects aside—a power screwdriver, coffee tin of miscellaneous nails—until he located a flashlight. He turned back toward the office, flipping the flashlight switch, which produced a click but no lightbeam.

'Shit!'

He reversed stride, rummaged through the wreckage on top of the workbench, then pulled drawers open until he found an opened four pack of D cells; he unscrewed the flashlight's top, turned it over impatiently, dropping one of the two batteries within from his waiting palm to the floor where it rolled beneath the bench.

'Shit! Shit!' He kicked the bench once, pulled back his slipper to kick it again before breathing deeply and turning his attention to the new batteries, which he shoved viciously into the flashlight's tubular body before screwing the head back on and flipping it on once more.

Light shone this time, blinked out until he smacked the tool against his palm, hard.

The beam stayed on.

He strode back to the office and played the beam on the wall above the filing cabinet. Getting closer, he was about to shine it behind the cabinet when he saw an immature hornet crawling over the printer's paper tray, and another on the wall beside it.

He cursed, put the flashlight down on the desk, looked for something to hit the insects with, and found a recent trade journal, which he rolled up, smacking the two hornets with it.

One dropped away to the rug; the other lay squashed against the printer's paper stack.

Wary now, he looked in increments behind the printer, saw another insect making its way up the wall behind, and what looked like two others below it, showing movement.

Shivering, he drew back, moved away from the desk and toward the office's door, his eyes glancing at the rug, the walls, the ceiling.

He closed the door behind him, dropped the rolled up magazine and climbed the steps to the house's first floor two at a time.

He made his way to the front door, pushing his way past piles of Ginny's clothes, Ginny's books, her cds.

He yanked open the front door, pushed open the screen, descended the porch's four steps and walked quickly to the western rear corner of the house, which fronted his basement office and the bedroom above it.

The cable television and phone line entry, as well as the house's gas main, were clustered near the side corner. He examined them, seeing no entry for an insect where the wires and gas line led into the house's siding; everything was sealed and caulked.

He moved closer; a hornet flew past him, then another, and he spotted the entry, below the siding level. He watched a moment, saw a hornet fly to a spot near the corner of the house where foundation met siding, land and crawl underneath the siding.

Edging closer, he crouched nearly to the ground, turning his head to examine beneath the siding.

There was a gap there in the wooden sill plate on which the house rested above the concrete foundation; it looked like the two boards which met at the corner had either not been properly butted, or that the butting board had shrunk, leaving an opening into an area between the house's first floor and basement.

'Jesus,' he said, as a hornet crawled out from the space, flying past him with a rush as another crawled into the opening.

They had obviously built a nest back there.

'Damn.'

Filled with fury and resolve, he got to his feet, returned to the house and kicked his slippers off in the living room, looking for his deck shoes; they were nowhere to be seen and he searched down the hallway, almost reaching the back bedroom before finding the shoes nestled one against the other just outside the bedroom door.

He slipped them on, checked the pockets of his shorts for his car keys and then moved back outside, slamming the house door behind him.

I'll take care of you, you bastards.

He got into his Honda, nearly leaving rubber as he backed out of the driveway, and was back in twenty minutes with two cans of Hornet and Wasp Killer. Barely reading the instructions, he pulled the safety tab from the top of one can, shoved the thin, hard plastic straw that came with it into the can's top nozzle and shook the can as he marched back to the outside corner of the house.

Want to eat this? Enjoy it!

He stopped before the spot, watched a hornet alight and then crawl into the hidden opening, watched another crawl out and fly off. He crouched, thrusting the can's nozzle forward and awkwardly trying to fit it under and into the opening.

The hard plastic straw missed, sliding away as a hornet, angered, crawled out, followed by another.

Flinching, he pressed the nozzle, watching the acrid spray cover the two insects; they froze and dropped to the ground.

And now the rest of you bastards.

Still spraying, he crouched lower, his eye level below that of the foundation, and found the opening.

He angled the nozzle's straw in and tightened his grip on the can's trigger.

A single hornet fought its way out, dropped immediately to the ground. Another, coming from the outside, circled the opening, caught a whiff of escaping spray and also dropped.

He emptied the can, pushed himself back as three returning hornets began to circle the hole widely; one of the insects ventured into the hole, immediately retreated and then dropped to the ground. There was a long stain of spilled pesticide spray down the foundation under the hole, which began to dry as he watched.

A cloud of hornets circled the sprayed opening, darting toward it, landing tentatively on the lowest level of siding over the opening, took off again.

He shook the can, let a final spray cover them; all but one dropped to the ground as the remaining one flew off.

That'll take care of you.

Breathing deeply, the adrenalin rush that had sustained him for the past hour receding, he went into the house, scooping up the second can of insect spray where he had deposited it on the front stoop, in time to hear the telephone begin to ring.

It was Bill Revel! again.

'Pete, I'm sorry to bother you again but you didn't let me finish before. Parade was so wild about that Halloween piece you did that I showed it to Doubleday and they flipped. They'd like you to do more, and turn it into a book. We're talking high five figures, maybe low six for this one—'

'I'll think about it.'

'Jeez, what's to think about? Just say yes and I'll take care of the rest. They're talking about publishing next Halloween, cash register dumpster display, a real push. These characters of yours could become perennials—you