by Ellison Hyde
Gloria did not like coffee, but she liked a cup of hot cocoa in the morning. Or cold, depending on the season, though the other was vastly preferable.
She sipped at her cup, sucking in the mini marshmallows before they disintegrated in the heat. It was a windy day outside, chilly, the branches on the trees creaking like the old pews in the church under people’s rear ends. Her head ached, as it often did. Gloria did not much enjoy the prospect of going outside, but it had to be done, and before Milton got up.
She got dressed in between her sips of cocoa: hat, coat, boots, gloves—the heavy leather ones, just in case. By the time she finished the cup, she was more or less ready. Her headache was not any better, though, so she daubed some vinegar on her forehead to open the pores—she wasn’t ever sure if this helped, but she figured it was worth a try—and then went out to the garage.
In the garage, behind a table saw, and below a row of yard tools hung on the wall—and that broken weed-eater that would need fixing before spring, she reminded herself—were four piles of traps in as many wheelbarrows, covered by one giant tarp. One pile was her own; neglected now, in serious need of oiling and clear-coating and cleaning. The other three—well. One was Mrs. Tibbold’s across the street, another was Mr. Sidelittle’s next door, and the other was for Mrs. Kravitz down the way.
Milton didn’t know she kept things for other people, or that some of their own supply had shrunk a bit to accommodate their need. Gloria had a feeling he would not like it. But it was just the neighborly thing to do.
It had started with Mrs. Tibbold. The arthritis in Mrs. Tibbold’s hands had gotten severe, and her skin thinner, and her legs weaker. She didn’t have a husband anymore to worry about, but she had still been going out every morning to set her own traps, insisting it was for the good of the community and she had to “do her bit.” But Gloria had seen her struggling with them late into the morning one day. When she’d gone over to help, she found that one was fully stuck, another was nearly rusted shut, and a third was missing half the augers; the rest were in not much better shape. So Gloria had offered to take them and clean them of rust, oil them, replace parts that needed replacing, sharpen the augers, and so on—and to set them for Mrs. Tibbold every morning.
But then there had been Mr. Sidelittle’s accident. His wife was the susceptible one, so the traps were his to deal with. And the poor man couldn’t afford to pay gutter cleaners; insisted on doing it himself. The age of both his body and his ladder finally intersected in a bad way. He survived, thank goodness, but couldn’t be doing things like setting traps on his own, so Gloria thought, what was one more?
Then Mrs. Kravitz lost her husband to the trespassers—he’d gone off to join one of those unofficial militias somewhere and she hadn’t heard from him since—and everyone found out she had never even bought traps. Some of the folks in the neighborhood said she deserved it for not taking precautions, for being one of those shrivelly-chested “the trespassers have feelings too” types. Gloria just couldn’t see it that way. She’d been one of those types, too, in her younger days. Everyone you met, she thought, was just a version of you at some other point in your life, and pushed this way or that by different circumstances. She easily could have lost Milton if they hadn’t been lucky.
Mrs. Kravitz certainly could not afford her own traps, and maintaining them—well, she’d already lost a foot to diabetes, and she wasn’t in the best of health otherwise. She had insisted it wasn’t worth the bother, but a susceptible brother had come to live with her, so now there was someone in the house to worry about again.
So every night Gloria made sure Milton got his melatonin. She needed him to take his full ten hours of sleep. When night started to melt into morning, Gloria took out her wheelbarrows, one by one, setting her neighbors’ traps and then her own. Then in the afternoon, when Milton was out and the trespassers had retreated for the day, she’d collect them again, clean them off, bury any errant small parts left over, oil them, and pile them back in the garage.
She did Mrs. Tibbold’s first. Setting the traps took a good twenty minutes or so, even for a modest property like Mrs. Tibbold’s, but it took longer this morning. Gloria’s head felt tighter and heavier every time she bent over. But she did notice the daylilies that grew in random patches around her yard were starting to emerge. She knew a lot of people thought they were weeds, but she liked them. They were one of those lovely first signs of spring, along with the redbuds and the tiny red blooms on the maple trees.
It would eventually, of course, mean cold cocoa and more ticks in the yard, but everything came with a trade-off.
She finished up at Mrs. Tibbold’s, then went to the Sidelittle house. Their lights were not on yet. Gloria tried to move quietly, but she tripped over a branch that had fallen in the wind, and fell on one of the traps. The thick leather of the glove protected her hand, but her knee connected with one of the blunt edges. Could have been much worse, but it slowed her down by a few minutes.
Her headache was worse by the time she got to the third house. Mrs. Kravitz came outside shortly after Gloria started putting the traps about the place, though she was careful not to leave the front stoop. “How are you this morning, Mrs. Leander?”
“Bit of a headache,” she said.
“Oh, that’s too bad. Too much pressure in the blood?”
“I suppose it must be,” Gloria said, though she wasn’t actually sure. At least the small talk allowed her to remain upright for a few minutes. The pain in her head had become something like brace drills slowly being spun through the backs of her eyeballs. The bending over and getting up and all was starting to become a bit dizzying, and the swaying of the dark branches above her in the purple light made her feel a bit as though she were some tiny fish under wafting clumps of sargassum.
“Do you need bleeding?”
Gloria looked at Mrs. Kravitz—a slight woman, on crutches at the moment—her prosthetic feet “never fit right” she said, and “looked awful besides,” so she didn’t much wear them. She didn’t know if the woman possessed a proper spring-loaded head lancet or if she was just offering to take a kitchen knife to Gloria’s forehead. She didn’t much like the idea of the latter. “Bless you, Mrs. Kravitz, but you needn’t go to the trouble. I’m about done here, and I’ll have a lie down after; I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you’re sure. At least take some vinegar?”
“I’ve already—” Gloria began, but Mrs. Kravitz had disappeared inside the house. Gloria hurried about setting the last of the traps, but was not in time to prevent Mrs. Kravitz from handing her half a bottle of white vinegar and a rag.
“You can keep it,” said Mrs. Kravitz.
“Thank you, very much,” said Gloria. “It’s very kind of you.” She made a show of daubing more vinegar on her forehead, which seemed to satisfy Mrs. Kravitz, who finally made a series of polite have-a-nice-days and went inside.
Gloria finished her work and pushed her wheelbarrow home, now with half a bottle of vinegar and a rag. Dawn had broken already, and if she didn’t set the traps in time…
Gloria rubbed her hideously-scented forehead, took a deep breath, and began trotting up the hill with the wheelbarrow at a jog.
By the time she got to the garage her head was squeezing itself so hard it was difficult for her to connect in a meaningful way to whatever visual input her eyeballs were providing, and she was getting a bit breathless and dizzy. Gloria managed to roll out the spiked barricade for the bottom of the driveway but found herself too unsteady to wrestle with the traps. There was nothing for it; she’d have to bleed herself first.
She went inside and rummaged in the kitchen drawers. Milton always said every top drawer was a junk drawer and he had a system for their thematic categorization, but if it existed, it was inscrutable to Gloria.
After opening five of the drawers and cutting a finger on a utility knife that had not been drawn back into its sheath, she finally found the lancet. She pulled back the spring lever, put it to her temple, and released, then did the same on the other side, and then three times about her forehead for good measure.
She waited, taking a few deep breaths over the sink while blood ran down her face and dripped into the drain. Her head didn’t hurt much less, but she felt a little steadier at least now.
It was nearly six forty-five. Milton wouldn’t be asleep much longer, and the trespassers–
They might already be coming.
Gloria wiped her face the best she could and went out again to set her own traps. Some were unwilling. God, but she needed to oil them. Or clean them, in some cases—there was one that had old flesh and blood gumming up the hinges. She must have been too tired to notice when she last pulled it up. It made her think of dinner, for some reason. What was she going to make for dinner. The eternal question. No answer was ever quite right; everything bored her, but she couldn’t stomach anything fancy or spicy or with too much sauce, and Milton was on paleo or keto or proto-scurvy or whatever it was now and that made everything harder, which was fine of course, she’d figure it out, but—
She oughtn’t get distracted. Blood was still oozing in itchy runnels down her face. She didn’t have time to worry about her appearance, she thought, but when it got in her eyes it became more than a problem of aesthetics. She had to at least get the drag-and-sweep traps on top of the driveway done. A trespasser making their way in was one thing; Milton making his way out to see one of them or one of the papers they carried was another.
Rapid blinking eventually cleared her vision. It was then that she saw one of them. On rollerblades, with a sack full of those deadly little parcels.
Rollerblades—
Usually it was cars or bikes or scooters…
The girl on rollerblades hopped over the roll-out spiked barricade at the bottom of the driveway.
“Fudgesicles.” Gloria hadn’t gotten but four of the traps out. It wouldn’t be enough. She ran back into the garage. Couldn’t be the shotgun—if Milton wasn’t awake yet, a gunshot would do it—so she snatched the compound bow off the wall and one of the diamond-tipped arrows. She pulled back and her old rotator cuff injury twanged at her, unsteadying her grip. She’d miss her chance soon. Gloria took a deep breath, aimed, and let loose as the trespasser cranked her own arm back to throw her parcel.
The arrow hit home. The girl on the rollerblades dropped, skidded backwards down the hill into the spikes—that’d leave a mess, right near the street too where everyone could see—and then lay gasping under her boxwood shrubs. Gloria waited. But the gasping went on, and then there was a failed attempt at crawling, a raised middle finger, and a weak toss of the parcel into the driveway before the final collapse on top of one of her little solar pathway lights that marked the edge of the asphalt.
The light fell over. The plastic cover shattered.
Gloria let out a breath. Twenty dollars at Home Depot for another six—you could never buy just one. Maybe they could afford it, but she wasn’t sure, and besides, if she set out more than she already had, it would look…well, like she was doing more than just marking out where the driveway was in the dark.
She wasn’t sure where the line was between safety and showing off.
Gloria hurried to collect the little parcel. They didn’t wrap these things up—just had the paper folded and tied up with some string, with the headlines naked for everyone to see.
DAILY INFORMATION PAMPHLET
Windowstrikes Kill Millions of Birds Every Year: How to Prevent It
Making Friends as an Adult: It’s Hard, But It’s Worth the Effort
How to Treat Headaches at Home, and When to See a Doctor
Gloria’s eye caught on this last one. She very nearly read past the headline.
“Gloria?”
Milton’s voice. It was still far off. Gloria shoved the paper back in the girl’s pack and turned.
“Morning, Milton.”
Milton surveyed the driveway from the porch.
Gloria hoped the few traps she’d got out were enough to keep him up there.
“Started at the wrong end, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I was…being silly.” She put a hand to her pounding head and wiped off what she could of the drying blood.
“Shall I spring these and come help?”
“No, no. It’s no trouble. You’ve got to get ready for work. I’ll…I’ll get all this cleared up by the time you have to go.”
Milton sipped at his coffee. “Did this one have explosives, too?”
“Hm?”
He used his mug to gesture at the girl’s body from afar. “In the bag?”
“Oh.” Yes, that was what she told him; what they all told the susceptibles. “Yes, it looks that way.”
“Fucking terrorists. Do it on purpose just so I can’t get ‘em with my gun without blowing ourselves up.”
Gloria nodded, unsure what to say to this, since he said it every time. It was the main reason she tried to have any bodies cleared away before he woke up—so he wouldn’t say it again.
Well, that, and to keep him from seeing the papers. But that was a given. All of this, everything…it was to keep susceptibles from seeing the papers.
If they did, the retaliation would be severe.
“Well, good job, honey. I’ll go get ready for work, can’t be late today, big meeting.” Milton finally went back in.
Gloria sagged, and let herself sit on the driveway a moment, massaging her aching shoulder. She really ought to get up earlier in the morning.
“All right there?”
Gloria’s body jerked in alarm. Mrs. Pryor had emerged from around the other side of the boxwoods in her jogging clothes, with a brand new little travel crossbow strapped to her arm. “Need any help?”
“I…I’m all right. I just need a moment.”
Mrs. Pryor carefully stepped over the spiked barricade and looked down at the trespasser. “They get younger all the time, don’t they?”
“Well, we’re certainly not getting older.”
Mrs. Pryor laughed softly. “I suppose they have to be young, not to know any better.” She knelt down and took out one of the papers. She let out a low whistle. “Oof. These people…they’ll have ‘em out here shooting the birds down and refusing to leave the house in case they accidentally make friends. And the headache thing…” She clicked her tongue. “People would go about trepanning everyone with mallets and chisels or something. Or, well—deck screws and impact drivers, I guess. Arthur really goes for power tools.”
Gloria nodded. She winced. Sometimes she thought about trying to get ibuprofen without Milton knowing, but it was risky. Besides, she was young when the susceptibles overwhelmingly decided that using it meant a person was categorically weak and therefore it was unacceptable—too young to remember what it was like. At least if she didn’t remember, she didn’t know what she was missing. Nothing really treated her headaches effectively now, but Mrs. Pryor was right: it could always get worse.
“Good thing you got her down. Sorry it wasn’t in the traps though. Did you not get them out in time?”
“I was a little slow—”
A snapping sound echoed from across the street. Over the hedge, Gloria could just about see the head of a trespasser get sucked down as the auto-burial jaw trap bored him into the dirt of Mrs. Tibbold’s yard.
“I need to clean and oil the augers on some of them anyway; I’m not sure if they’d even work correctly…” Gloria sighed, and rubbed her temples.
Mrs. Pryor frowned absently at the paper. “Didn’t you sharpen and oil our augers last week? Why did you take ours if you needed to do yours?”
“I…oh. Well, I had the Bell’s and still had one of Mrs. Tibbold’s left to do, and Mrs. Rotifer also needed some maintenance on hers, so I was just—I was just collecting, I suppose, to get things all done at once, and of course I meant to do ours as well, but then Milton lost his prescription so I had to go back and get another, and the propane delivery was late and it took a while to calm Milton down, and then we had those warmer days and the car and deck and windows all needed a wash so I thought I had to take advantage, but then Mr. Sidelittle’s pump—that little pump, I forget what it’s called, the one for the HVAC—that stopped working so I decided to replace it but he argued about it and—”
“Hey.” Mrs. Pryor shoved the paper into the girl’s bag and looked at Gloria seriously now, her glance landing on what were, probably, traces of dried blood on her head. “Why don’t you go on inside. I’ll take care of this for you. Shoveling is decent exercise anyway—I can skip the jogging.”
“No, that’s really—”
“You didn’t get your own traps out because you were doing everyone else’s, weren’t you?”
Gloria sighed at her. “I just need to wake up a bit earlier.”
“How little sleep do you get already?”
“I get enough, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Pryor huffed. “Leander, let me help. It’s really not a bother. Arthur drinks so much he’s hardly ever awake enough to worry about; I don’t have half the trouble you do.” Her eyes wandered away towards the street. She raised an arm and fired off a bolt from her little crossbow. There was the sound of a bike colliding with pavement, and the face of a man with a helmet on slid just into view behind the hedge. The bolt had struck in the center of his eyebrows, just a touch lower than the bottom edge of the bike helmet.
Gloria was a bit jealous. Not of Mrs. Pryor, but the man with the bolt in his head, now unaware of anything at all and perfectly horizontal.
And she realized how desperate she was to lie down.
But now there were two messes…
“I know what you’re thinking, now. That one’s on me. No concern of yours.” Mrs. Pryor winked.
“Well,” Gloria sighed. “I can manage this one, still—”
“Look…” Mrs. Pryor held out a hand and helped her to her feet. “I’ve only recently started to get what it seems like you already know: we have to do for each other. That’s why I have this silly little crossbow, now. Do a bit of cleanup to save other people the effort. But if it’s just you doing for everyone else and no one doing for you, you’ll go down hard. And if you fall down…” Mrs. Pryor shook her head. “There goes the neighborhood, doesn’t it?”
Gloria gave a nervous laugh.
“So let me balance it out a bit, before Mrs. Tibbold suffers for it, hm?” Mrs. Pryor patted her shoulder.
Gloria tried not to show any pain on her face and nodded. She pushed down a little heaving sensation in her chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Mrs. Pryor.”
“And don’t worry about cooking today, either. I’ll bring you a casserole for dinner. Does Milton like chicken or beef?”
“You don’t have t—”
“I’ll bring one of both. You can stick one in the freezer. I’m not taking no for an answer. You go on inside and lie down. Take a rest for once. I’ll get your wheelbarrow back to you soon. And I’ll make sure no one else gets in till Milton leaves.”
Gloria did not know how to protest further. The little heave in her chest had turned to a lump in her throat, and it would have been hard to speak without embarrassing herself. She turned away as Mrs. Pryor shoved the body off the spikes with one foot and rolled up the barricade. Gloria carefully picked her way back up the driveway, using fallen branches and sticks to snap the drag-and-sweep traps that would be in Milton’s way when he tried to leave for work. She didn’t know how they made them so they wouldn’t drag-and-sweep if they snapped empty, but—well, technology; what didn’t they think of?
She neared the front door and heard the wheelbarrow give a hollow metallic thunk as Mrs. Pryor hefted the body into it.
The sound of kindness, she thought.
She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to hear it.
* * *
Ellison Hyde lives in the U.S. with her dog and raging attention deficit problems, where she does things, but not with any particular consistency to speak of.
* * *
