The Easter Island Horror

         The bizarre and disturbing details of this report made me doubt my own sanity. It was all I could do not to drum up a cryptic Latin or French phrase, the way Poe used to do, to show you, my dear readers, the extent to which reason will wrestle with terror.
         The long-held theory is that rampant consumption of natural resources turned Easter Island into deserted terrain of ghosts. Logs were needed to roll the giant stone heads across the island. Competition escalated. Larger and grander head statues superceded all else, including edible crops. Now there is a new hypothesis. Did the livestock eat all the vegitation? Evidence shows that chickens and rats were the major livestock on the island. You can bet it wasn’t the chickens that got out of control.

         Through the wavey hot Orlando air, I watched the mechanical condo gate slide open in response to the 4 digit code I had entered. This is where I would study geology and zoology for the following week, under the tutelage of Professor Bauford, University of Central Florida. I smiled at the fake monolith mounted between the entrance & exits gates. There, in a bed of white pebbles and tropical shrubbery, stood a concrete replica of an Easter Island head, smugly silent and aloof. How these icons have permeated the tourist trade, I chuckled.
         I spent the first night in the condo lying in bed, listening to some scratching sound in the wall until I fell asleep around 2:00 PM.
         The next day, Dr. Bauford later explained, “The problem is, the exterminators only spray one section of the complex at a time. The mice just move to another section. I’m going to call the manager and insist that the entire complex gets treated, all in the same day! It’s enough to drive a man to drink.”
         “Would you like a drink, Professor?” I asked.
         “Oh, my, no! I never touch the stuff. You’re not a boozer, are you, Bill?”

         I hadn’t known that Professor Bauford was a teetotaler. It was my practice to drink beer while pouring over the glossy pages of reference books, the less interesting charts and statistics, the dry abstracts collected and photocopied at the college library. The chubby little professor wouldn’t have it. He was a coffee & iced tea man and believed that alcohol led to “half-assed conclusions and drip-dry formations” as he was fond of saying. This unforeseen dilemma forced me, more than once, to beg off early with a variety of excuses. The professor, in his white suit and sketchy beard covering a pock-marked face, sometimes expressed frustration at my frequent departures, so I usually took something with me to read.

         Sitting alone under a ceiling fan in the Trade Winds Pub, I took a refreshing gulp of Corona with lime and poured over an article by {a href = http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=tru...}Terry L. Hunt in American Scientist, and I quote:

“Whether rats were stowaways or a source of protein for thePolynesian          voyagers, they would have found a welcoming environment on Rapa Nui—an          almost unlimited supply of high-quality food and, other than people, no          predators. In such an ideal setting, rats can reproduce so quickly that their          population doubles about every six or seven weeks. A single mating pair          could thus reach a population of almost 17 million in just overthree years.”

         So maybe the rats ate the vegetation. Maybe, I thought, something much worse. Could the giant stone faces have been erected, scarecrow-like, to frighten the rats? A last ditch effort to repel the ravenous vermin?

         I felt a tug on my sleeve.
         “Dr. Bauford!” I stuttered. “What are you doing here?”
         “I think the better question is, what are YOU doing here, Bill? You said you were going to study the…”
         “I AM studying,” I said. “I simply cannot work under your restrictive conditions!”
         “Come with me, back to the condo,” said Dr. Bauford. “And after you have ’slept it off’ we shall discuss your resignation.”
         “Professor Bauford,” I said as sincerely as I could. “<i>Sleep it off</i>? I'm not even drunk yet. Surely, in your younger days, you took a drink once in a while! You know, to take the edge off. Sit down.”
         “I am too busy to sit down.”
         “But, doctor, we can work here. We can talk, bounce ideas off one another! It could be most productive. Please. Please sit with me.”
         The diminutive fat man sighed and unbuttoned his white suit jacket.
         “Fine,” he said. “Perhaps this could work.”
         He sat down at the table as I motioned for the waiter.
         “Coffee,” said Dr. Bauford.
         “With Kailua,” I added.
         “Well,” said the professor. “I suppose one Kailua and coffee wouldn’t hurt.”

         I soon discovered why the professor shunned alcohol. When he finished the first cup, he asked for another, double strength. We drank and talked. Eventually we switched from beer and Kailua to scotch on the rocks. Professor Bauford’s face had splotches of red and he drooled when he spoke.
         “By God,” he said. “You young turkeys are alright! I’ll tell you a little secret.”
         He leaned close to me.
         “I think yer theories full o’ shit but I don’t care; at least you’re thinking!”
         “Thanks, Pops!” I said, slapping him on the back.
         “I’ll tell you another secret,” he spat jovially.
         “Whats’at?”
         “That young wild thing back at the school, Brenda Morristh…Morsisett…Mothsorette . . .whatever the hell her name is. You know why she got an A in my class?”
         “No!” I laughed, not believing what I thought he was saying. “You mean, you . . ?”
         “Hahahaha! Got’er’na’sack, boy!”
         I could deal with this old geezer dissing my theories, but didn’t he know Brenda Morrisette was special to me? Had he not seen me entering and leaving his classroom with her?
         The waiter finally informed us that it was closing time. Professor Bauford and I argued over who was sober enough to drive, but when he clumsily dropped the keys to his Cadillac, I scooped them up quickly.
         “Lemme drive your Caddy!”
         “Fine, boy, fine. Help me in.”

         Careening recklessly around curves and through red lights, it's a wonder we didn't get pulled over by the cops. Approaching the condo, I realized how drunk I was. There were four gates instead of two.
         When I told the professor that, he said, “Aim for the middle, boy!”
         I think we would have been okay, but Dr. Bauford suddenly grabbed the wheel and tried to “correct” my steering. Even as my foot hit the brake, I saw that goofy giant Easter Island head close-up in the windshield.
         The concrete head and the disheveled white suit passed each other through shattering glass. As the little professor flew headlong onto the hood of the car, the statute butted onto the top of my steering wheel, two inches from my face.
         In shock, I watched the statue crack open long ways, like a big scar up the side of the elongated face. Red blood pooled through the professor's white suit. I thought I saw Dr. Bauford move, but it was the movement of the statue as it cracked open further.
         Was something leaking out of the statue? No, something was writhing inside. A rat crawled out. Followed by another. It must have been the one place the exterminators missed!
         As the two halves of the concrete statue fell apart like dry, discarded husks, a hideous dark glob of rats swarmed over Professor Bauford and fed ravenously upon his flesh.

         To my dismay, I was arrested and charged with murder. They questioned me ceaselessly.
         “If Dr. Bauford was attacked by rats,” asked the detective, “Why didn’t they attack you?”
         “I told you!” I spat snidely. “The gas that inflated the air bag must have driven them away! When the air bag ripped open!”

         Most of the time, I sit in my cell. Any chance I get, I visit the library and search the internet for information about the effects of nitrogen gas on rodents.