​

​

Trap Door

 

 

 

     "I’ve got bad news,” Frank said.

     He was studying one of the shelves in the garage. There was a row of mason jars containing different size nails on this particular shelf. It was not the nails that had caught Frank’s gaze.

     “Oh?” Diane his wife replied from the other side of the garage. She made her way over to where Frank stood at the work table. “What’s up?” 

     He pointed towards the jars of nails. “Looks like we have mice,” Frank said dully.  And then Diane saw it too—a few mouse pellets among the mason jars.

     “Oh no,” Diane said, dismayed, her face wrinkled in disgust. “You know I can’t stand mice, Frank.  Don’t they carry diseases?”

     “Oh sure,” Frank said, smiling a little, “cancer and cooties. Hang on a sec,” Frank said.  He stepped around Diane’s garaged Elantra, careful not to bump a side mirror, and rooted through cardboard boxes at the back of the garage. 

     “Mice.  Great,” Diane said. Where had the little critter managed to work its way into the garage?  Diane seemed to remember hearing somewhere that a mouse could squeeze itself through a quarter inch space.  Again she felt dismayed.

     “Bingo!” Frank said, and returned to the work table.  He held something in his hand.

     “Whatcha got?” She asked.

     Frank’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, a very simple device,” he said.  He held up a square tube of dark blue plastic ten inches long.  It had the shape of a check mark, one side longer than the other.  Diane thought it resembled one of the blocks from Tetris.

     “You put it down like this,” Frank set the tube on the work table, long end down, short end sticking up.  “Put some cheese or peanuts at the far end, set the door up like this..…”  Frank propped up the door at the mouth of the device..… “when the mouse smells food he goes in for a bite, his weight makes the back end tip down and this end tip up…and closes the trap door.”  Frank pressed the short end down to demonstrate. The door flapped shut.  Frank finished, “..…and you have caught yourself a mouse.”

     “Ohhh,” Diane breathed, visualizing a mouse going through the motions.

     “Be a doll, sweetheart,” Frank said, “you get the honors of fixing our little friend his last meal.”

     “Be right back,” Diane said.  She left the garage through the door that gave on the kitchen.  A minute later she returned with a small cube of sharp cheddar.

     “Cheddar,” Frank said, “good choice.”  He dropped the cheese all the way to the back of the tube, shaking it a little.  Then he set the trap with the door propped wide open in front of the jars of nails.  He adjusted it carefully until it was perfect.

     “All done?” she asked. “All done,” he said, and headed for the kitchen.  It was almost dinner time and Frank was hungry.  Diane hung back for a second, eyeing the blue trap with its back end jutting up and little blue door yawning open like a square shaped mouth.  She wondered if the same rodent that had used their garage shelf as a toilet was perhaps watching her from the shadows.  What if it had rodent friends and they were all watching her?  She thought of a spider with eight eyes, and shivered.  She turned and stepped quickly into the kitchen, flipping the switch to the garage light as she went.

 

     The next morning was a Saturday.

     Frank and Diane prepared their house for visitors.  Diane’s parents would be dropping in for a barbecue.  As she tidied up the place and seasoned hamburger patties, Frank went outback to sweep out the Tuff-Shed. 

     Frank was quite proud of his Tuff-Shed as he had assembled it himself.  He had known a guy in construction who’d laid a smooth concrete foundation upon which the Tuff-Shed had been bolted. 

     Frank himself wasn’t cut out for carpentry, and the assembly of the shed had been more of an undertaking than he had anticipated.  By the time assembly had been nearly done and he was applying the final cosmetic touches, Frank had been baffled he’d managed to do it.  His back had ached, his knees had stiffened and bruised, and his blistered hands had been blasted by foul ball hammer blows.  Diane had also been impressed that day, but Frank hadn’t let his pride show too much.

     The shed really was as tough as in the tv commercials.  It could make a decent tornado safe haven or, Frank sometimes mused, maybe even a bomb shelter.  All his work aside, Frank had never found much use for the Tuff-Shed.  He still kept all his tools, lawnmower and various landscaping equipment in the garage.  The shed was his pride and he was hesitant to assign it any one purpose.

     Today, Frank dusted the shelves and swept out the floor meticulously. Standing empty, the shed looked much larger on the inside.  The door was the roll-up type made of steel on rollers. When the door was shut it slid into a groove in the foundation and automatically locked.  It created a bank vault like seal.

     On the shed’s exterior was a small button programmed for Frank’s fingerprint.  Frank, and only Frank could open this baby.  Now Frank took his time spraying WD40 into the door tracks.  He smiled.  Good shed.  Strong shed.  High tech.

     He tested the door, sliding it up and down.  Nice and smooth.  Satisfied the shed was presentable for Diane’s folks, Frank exited and rolled the door down—CLICK!—Locked for security.

     Good shed.

     Frank was halfway back to the house when he heard a shriek from the garage.  He ran.

     He slammed through the back garage door.  There stood Diane grimacing at the blue mouse trap.

     “Hey,” Frank said, putting his arm around her. “You good?”

     “Yeah,” she said sickly. “It’s just... he’s still alive.”

     Indeed, Frank heard the scratchy sounds of a mouse struggling inside the tube. “No worries,” he said, “I’ve got this one.”

     He took the blue tube and left the garage.

     Diane stood alone in the garage. Once again she thought of a spider with eight eyes.  She had the absurd certainty that she was being watched... Watched by many eyes.  What might she look like to a spider with eight eyes?  Her unease went a step further—suppose the watcher knew that SHE knew she was being watched? 

     Then the feeling dissolved.  Still, she wanted out of the garage with a quickness.

 

     They sat on the couch waiting for Diane’s parents to arrive.

     Frank had helped himself to a bottle of Coors from the ice chest, and Diane was sipping a glass of lemonade.  The TV showed a lackluster baseball game with the volume down. 

     The question had been gnawing at her, and she couldn’t help herself.       “So, what did you do with the uh.. mouse?”

     “Oh, I bought him a one-way ticket to mouse heaven,” Frank said. He thought that was clever, and undoubtedly softer than admitting he’d crushed it under his shoe.  He took a sip of beer and added, “Right about now he’s singing songs with Mickey Mouse.”

     That made her smile. “At least he can’t show up when mom and dad are here,” she said. “Mom would go into cardiac arrest.”

     “As long as there aren’t more, ya know, hiding out,” Frank had a good buzz from the Coors, saw her widening eyes and regretted this last. “But I doubt it,” he added quickly.

     “Where are the stray cats when you need them!” She said. Then she perked up. “Wanna get a cat?”

     “Nah,” Frank shook his head, “that hissing thing they do.. kinda creepy.  Besides,” he took another sip of beer, “real life Tom and Jerry would be.. messy.  Imagine a bloody mouse corpse on the kitchen floor when you go to make peanut butter and jelly?”

     “Yeah,” she conceded, “I guess you’re right.”

     Her cell chimed, and she checked it.  “It’s mom,” she said.  “They’re five minutes away.  Let’s wait for them out front.”

     They sat on the front porch sipping their drinks and listening to nearby birds.  It was a picture perfect June weekend, the kind of Saturday made for a barbecue, beer and ballgame.  In the distance a lawnmower droned.  The smell of cut grass wafted under the sunshine. 

     Diane’s parents pulled up in a champagne colored Cadillac a few minutes later.

     “Mom!” Diane threw her arms around her mother Emily. 

     “So good to see you,” Emily said, jabbing a cane at the driveway.  Her eyes found Frank standing next to the Cadillac with his beer.  “And there’s Frank, how are you, Frank?”

     “Good, good,” Frank said, “hope you brought your appetite.” 

     Diane’s father Jack emerged slowly from the driver’s side of the Cadillac.  “Young lady, get over here right now and give your old man a hug!”

     Jack was hard of hearing and compensated with a booming voice.

     “Dad!” Diane said and hugged her father.  They made their way inside over the usual banter, been a while, things are good, you’re looking good, beautiful day innit?

 

     “Wow!” Jack remarked with enough volume to send a couple of robins fleeing from the mulberry tree.  “So that’s one of them big bad Tuff-Sheds from the tv ads.”

     “Yup,” Frank said.

     “Looks damn near bullet proof,” Jack hollered, “and plenty roomy.”

     “Sure is,” Frank agreed, “put it together myself,” he added, with a little emphasis on the last word.

     Jack took a few steps back to admire Frank’s shingle work on the shed’s roof.  “What are ya gonna keep in there, a Harley?  Mower?”

     “Not sure,” Frank said.

     “Just don’t let my little girl talk you into using it for a She Shed!”

     Frank laughed.

     “Youngsters these days come up with all kind of bad ideas!”

     “That, they do,” Frank agreed, wondering what his neighbors might make of Jack’s hollering.

     “Besides!” Jack added, “Anything with a name like Tuff-Shed goes with: hammer!  Hatchet!  Hand saw!  Power drill!  Vice grip!  Not so much pink doilies and curtains!”

     Frank bellowed laughter and spilled some of his beer into the lawn. Bullhorn voice aside, it occurred to Frank how much he liked his father in law.

     “Hey, Em!” Jack called to his wife.  “Come on outside!”

     Diane and her mother came out, Emily leaning over her cane.  “Take a look at the shed Frank built.”

     “My goodness,” Emily said, “it looks like a small house.”

     Working her cane she stepped inside the shed and looked around.

     “I’ve always loved the sweet smell of new wood,” she said.

     Jack entered the shed likewise for a smell.  “Is that pine!?”  Jack yelled.  “Cedar!?”

     “Could be.  Pretty sure most of it’s oak,” Frank replied.  He and Diane both took a step into the shed to admire the woodsy smell. 

     That was when Emily swooned.  Diane caught her mother before she could hit the cement.  Emily pointed to one far corner of the shed, eyes wide. 

     A bloodied mouse corpse lay on the floor. 

     It had an unmistakable crushed look. It’s tiny hands stuck straight up as if in surrender.

     “You having problems with mice!?” Jack yelled.  Inside the shed his voice was even louder.

     “Yeah,” Frank said, “guess so.”

     “That’s the second one in two days,” Diane said.

     Frank almost said No, actually, I think that’s the same one from earlier, but kept quiet.  After stepping on the mouse that morning, he’d placed it in the trash can.  How it could’ve wound up here..…

     “I’ll take care of him,” Frank moved towards the back of the shed when there was a BOOM!

     Then, CLICK!

     It was suddenly very dark inside the shed.

     What the hell just happened!” Jack burst.

     As Frank’s eyes adjusted to the dark he caught movement around the shed’s door.  The door had shut, but how?

     He took a few steps closer and saw.  Along the sides and upper rim of the door clung dozens of mice, maybe a hundred.  Maybe two hundred.  Frank had sprayed a good amount of WD40 into the tracks of the door and on the rollers.  Yet his mind was still too reluctant to make the connection.

     How much did a hundred mice weigh?

     Enough to force down a well-oiled steel door?  Surely not..…

     Then the rows of mice scattered with a series of eerie squeaks.  The two women gasped at the sound.  Frank had to revise his estimate—this was far more than a hundred—but several hundred mice.

     They squirmed and writhed over one another, and within seconds they were gone from sight. 

     “Hey, Di?”  Frank breathed.

     “Yeah?”  Her voice sounded shaky.

     “Tell me you have your cell on you.”

     “It’s in the house.”

     “Anyone have their cell?”

     “No!”  Jack yelled.  “Who do you wanna call?!”

     Suddenly Frank felt like laughing. 

     Oh, we are in quite a pickle now.

     High up in the rear wall of the shed was an eight-inch ventilation fan housed within two grates.  Frank thought this opening gave just enough light into the shed to make the other three look ghostly.  He thought again, we are in quite a pickle.

     “Well, Jack,” he said, fighting back hysterical laughter, “it seems we are in quite a pickle.”

     “Oh! Well, what do you mean?!”

     “You see, the door.. the door locks when it’s closed.”

     “Are you saying we’re locked in!”

     “We’re locked in.”

     “What kind of design flaw is that!?”

     “I sorta had it custom—”

     “No windows!?”

     “No windows.”

     “Well, what’s in here we can use to break out!?” Jack yelled. “Any tools at all!?”

     But Frank had been so indecisive as to what to use the Tuff-Shed for that it was as empty as on the day of assembly.  “No tools,” he told Jack.

     As a mental side note, he thought: no food or water either.

     “What kind of guy has a bomb shelter for a shed with no tools in it!?”

     And so the four of them talked it over, bickered, banged on the door, banged on the walls, talked it over some more, bickered some more.  They went around and around, turning it over, looking at it from every possible angle.

     They were stuck. 

     And Frank had a secret.

     He didn’t dare speak it.  It was just too outrageous.  In fact, you could call it a Tuff-Secret.  He was the only one who had seen the hundreds of mice weigh the door down.  He kept thinking of the mouse they had captured in the garage the previous night.  The one that had made Diane shriek because it was still alive and kicking.  Still alive, and trapped in the blue tube.

     The four of them spent the remainder of their lives in the Tuff-Shed.

     Frank took his Tuff-Secret to a Tuff-Grave.

​