The Trailer

Tom Burroughs wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked down the road. It was hot. August in Iowa usually is, but today it was so humid, the traveling insurance salesman felt he could squeeze water out of the air. His car sat about a mile behind him, its radiator spewing steam from a busted hose. He felt lucky the Olds had lasted this long. He had put a lot of miles on that car as he trolled the countryside looking for people dumb enough to buy his insurance policies. You would think someone who sold insurance would take time to plan ahead, he thought, but not Tom Burroughs. Get what you can and move on. It was that philosophy that got him this far. He wiped his brow and spat. How far was that exactly, he thought. He stared over the shimmery heat waves emanating off the blacktop and began walking again.

A small trailer sat at the top of the rise, the only house he had seen for miles. Step by step, he watched it get closer while cursing out loud for getting himself stranded out here in the sticks. He had spent ten years learning to figure out who lived inside by the outsides of their homes. Based on his experience, he thought he was just about out of luck. The trailer was old; old enough to have metal siding. That was a sure giveaway that no one with money lived there. Probably some old guy living off his social security or disability checks, he guessed. A fiberglass overhang above the front steps was ragged on the edges, worn through in spots, but it offered some shade from the afternoon sun. Birds had long ago made nests in the pockets between the sheeting and the siding, raised their hatchlings and moved on. The nests now sat empty save whatever lice and parasites remained to feed off the shit and feathers left behind. The skeletons of long-dead plants stood guard in terra cotta planters on both sides of the aluminum screen door. He stepped up onto the tiny porch, wiped his thick black hair from his forehead and straightened his tie. A good impression, even in backwaters like these, could mean the difference between a closed door and a closed deal. He knocked.

Minutes passed. He turned and looked back at the empty driveway. A weathered barn sat just east of the trailer with an ancient pick-up sitting inside and an empty pasture behind it. Tom listened to a battered set of wind chimes clanging in the hot, summer breeze. He knocked again.

“Hello,” he shouted to the closed door.

He leaned his head forward and listened.  He could hear voices inside the trailer, low and steady, the constant chatter of some daytime game show.

Tom pulled open the screen door and banged on the metal door behind it. Tom leaned forward and peered through the narrow window. A layer of filth obscured his view, dozens of years worth of cobwebs, dust and grime. He knocked again and grabbed the handle.

If it’s open, I go in, he said to himself. If not, I just move along. Simple as that.

He squeezed the knob and swallowed a large hard lump that had built up in his throat.

Tom turned the knob and pushed.

“Hello,” he shouted again.

He opened the door wide and stepped in. The heat hit him like a fist. It was hot outside, but the inside of the trailer was stifling. Droplets of sweat popped out on his forehead and under his arms. He wiped it from his face with a damp hand and let his eyes wander down the tiny hall.

“Hello,” he called again, following the sound of the television, “My car broke down. It’s just down the road.”

He stepped into the small living room. An old man sat on the couch. His gray-haired head was slumped over as he slept in front of the game show flickering on the console television that was old before Archie and Edith made their prime time debut.

“Sir,” he went on, “If I could just use your phone, I’ll be on my way. I…” Tom stopped.

He crouched down so he was at eye level with sleeping figure. What Tom had mistaken for gray hair was a matt of fine threads. Cobwebs as thick as those filling the corners of the porch outside. The figure’s face was deeply lined with eyes closed and sunken deep into their sockets. Withered, Tom thought. His eyes slid down to the man’s hands, resting on his knees. They were hairy and scarred, with large knobby knuckles. A thick layer of dust colored them gray. Tom felt a chill run up his spine in spite of the incredible heat inside the room.

“A mummy,” he whispered, unaware he said it out loud. He reached out and let one finger drop onto the man’s hand, tracing a line in the dust. Two watery blue eyes popped open in front of him. The traveling salesman let out a high-pitched squeal and fell back. The blue eyes followed him as he tumbled back. Tom looked up and watched a dozen tiny red spiders scramble from the man’s collar as his head turned, as slow as a hinge in desperate need of oiling. The rheumy eyes blinked once, twice and scanned the room. The old man leaned forward, as if he planned to stand, then rocked back into his seat. A thin silvery sheen draped off the man’s shoulder. Little red bugs, each no bigger than the tip of a poorly sharpened pencil, ran back and forth along this nearly invisible sheet, laying new lines and securing new anchors.

“No,” Tom managed to squeak.  The old blue eyes remained locked on his brown ones. The figure opened its toothless mouth, but no sound came. He breathed out a tired sigh and snapped his mouth closed.

“Gene,” a cracked voice hollered. Tom scrambled to his feet and looked back down the hallway. A small hunched figure was hobbling down the narrow corridor.

“Gene,” she croaked again, “You still watching the television?”

An old woman stepped into the beam of light streaming through the dusty window. Tom’s mouth dropped open. With each step she took, the woman added another layer of thin silver strings to her purple nightgown. Thousands of the minute arachnids scrambled over these tightropes pegging ends to the walls and racing over her body to add another layer of their tiny trappings. Tom lifted his hand like a traffic cop trying to stop a line of cars. He squeaked again as he saw narrow rainbows reflecting from his own wrist. The air was filled with sticky little ropes, nearly invisible individually, but with every movement Tom could see the white and silver fluff building on his arms and hands, weighing them down. Each wild swing brought more multi-legged raiders scrambling from their corner perches, running along the tiny cables. The air became thick with them. Tom could feel the tickle of the tiny creatures running over his arms, his hands, his hair.

“Oh,” the old woman said, looking past the spiders clambering over her glasses, “You got comp’ny.”

Tom began dancing around the room, slapping his hands around his head to clear away the accumulating threads. They tickled a sneeze from him, then clogged his sinuses as he inhaled. Tom stumbled and fell back into a battered armchair in the corner of the room. His back held tight to the seat, leaving him stuck like a fly on a dangling flypaper strip. A burning sensation began to bite into his skin. He tried to lift his arm again, but only felt the prickly sensation of a limb gone numb.

“HELP ME!”

“I’ll put some coffee on,” the old woman said staring off into space. She took one step toward the kitchen behind Tom and stopped. He watched as she began to sway in place. She took a final step and collapsed. Her head hit the floor with a hollow thock. Tom winced at the sound. Suddenly, the body began to shake and twitch with arms and head flailing like a marionette in the hands of an incompetent puppeteer. In one violent buck, the woman’s head bounced off the floor, sending two teeth clattering under the end table. The fit stopped as suddenly as it started. A tiny black dot appeared on the back of her neck. Tom watched it grow, first becoming a dime-sized hole, then splitting wide. A river of the red spiderlings streamed from their human nest, leaving the body to crumple as the masses emptied out. In seconds, they were gone, under the couch, the chair, into the crevices of the room, and, to Tom’s horror, up the pant legs of his companion. The two men stared at the wrinkled pile on the floor; a mess that reminded Tom of the discarded skin of a snake.

Tom looked over and saw the blue eyes staring back at him.

“Jeanette,” the old man said. A tear ran down his cheek, cutting a clean streak in his dirty face. He leaned back and closed his eyes. His head drooped forward as he slipped back into his poison-induced coma. On the television, Bob Barker told another contestant to come on down. Tom began to scream.



A noise woke him up. He recognized the sound from somewhere. A distant memory now lost. He looked down. His hands sat on the arms of the chair. They didn’t move when he told them to rise. He lifted his head. It felt heavy and unsteady on his neck. The room was nearly dark. Cold, too, he thought as his breath puffed out in front of him. A figure twitched and jerked at the far end of the room. It screamed and danced in the fading light. That’s the sound Tom remembered. Screaming. Screaming until his throat hurt. Screaming until the numbness settled in. How long ago had that been? He looked over to the couch on his left. Hadn’t someone else been here then, he asked himself.  A man? A woman too, maybe? A thick pile of dust lay on the center of the floor. Another dirtied the end of the tattered couch. The tendons in his neck felt like guitar strings wound too tight as he turned to his right. An unfamiliar face looked back at him from the window. The reflection of a gray haired old man, years older than Tom remembered being. Thick black hair had given way to a high forehead. Eyes so sunken they looked like empty sockets in the glass, like a skull returning his gaze. Tom leaned back in the chair. His legs began to twitch, feeling like bugs were crawling under the skin. Another memory shot through his mind, vague and terrifying. He watched as the new man fell onto the couch and fought to get back up. In the dark hall, Tom saw shapes skittering about, spindly shadows about the size of small dogs creeping along the walls and ceiling. They’re bigger now, he thought, but wasn’t sure what that meant. He felt groggy and confused. He looked at his new companion again, watching as the struggle died out.

“Ain’t so bad,” Tom said in a quivering old voice he didn’t recognize as his own. “Ain’t so bad, once you let go.” His eyes slid closed. He was just so tired.

The trembling in his legs began to build, but Tom felt nothing. He didn’t feel his foot kick up, then fall to the floor detached from his knee. He didn’t feel the skin on his wrist splitting or hear the screaming from the man on the couch.

No, he thought as darkness wrapped itself around him, it wasn’t so bad at all.