CENSUS_What Lurks Beneath Read online

  Upon learning that Dave had lost the laptop to Rasberry crazy ants, Danny insisted that he check all the outlets, appliances and switches in the main house as well as the small out-building where the washer and dryer were located. He had found the usual allotment of fire ants in the outbuilding but it appeared, so far, that the only infestations of the Rasberry crazy ants were here in the living room—at least as far as infestations that disabled wiring and electronics.

  Danny, wearing a one-piece, blue zip-up with “Daniel” in white cursive emblazoned on the right side, bent back down and used the screwdriver to probe the mass of dead ants.

  “The theory is the first ants to get shocked emit some sort of alarm signal. The others rush in, thinking they’re going to aid their colony, and they too meet their maker.” Danny said all of this without turning around, and with an odd sort of reverence normally not associated with people who kill things for a living.

  “And why do they go to the outlets, and electricity, in the first place?”

  Danny turned and handed the screwdriver to Dave, who took it and put it in his back pocket. “I don’t believe there’s a consensus on that issue. Some people believe that it has something to do with electromagnetic fields. It’s a fact that a number of creatures, including ants, use magnetic fields as a guide.”

  Dave, who was a long way from a biologist, was tempted to ask a follow- up at that point but it appeared that Danny was just getting warmed up.

  Danny gestured out the window toward the ugly string of power-line poles in the nearby fields. “Some of the folks who hold to the electro- magnetic attraction school of thought believe that proximity to power lines disturbs the natural order of things.”

  Dave followed his lead and stared at the power lines. They’re an eye- sore, to be sure, and he’s tempted to blurt out that he might agree with the people that think the close proximity to electricity is a disturbance to the natural order of things. He had done a little reading on that front because of potential connection to his headaches, and had come away with the notion that no real scientists thought there was anything to it. There probably wasn’t, but then again how many of these scientists actually lived under power lines?

  “And what do you think Danny?”

  “I think these very small ants like small, defensible places—like laptops and outlet boxes.” Danny smiled, but it was not a comforting smile. “And I think the Lord gave us dominion over all the creatures of this earth, which is why I’m going to lay down a layer of poison so thick that nothing is going to bother you or your family for at least four months.”

  Dave did not know how to reply. Dominion over all things seems a bit strong when speaking in terms of pest control, and this Danny guy seemed like someone who’s been exposed too long to the chemicals he was spreading around. “I’ve got a kid and a dog, is this—”

  Danny held up his hand to cut him off. “I don’t use chemicals that are harmful to humans or pets. Your family is perfectly safe.”

  For some reason this statement led Dave’s mind back to the decapitated deer, and the feeling he had as of late that nothing was safe out here. He made an effort to push that thought down, extended his hand, and said, “Let’s do it.”

  Danny shook his hand with a strong grip and started to head out to his truck before turning back. “I should tell you that the Rasberry crazy ants are immune to the sting of the fire ant. Fire ants cannot overcome the Rasberry crazy ants. They die off and disappear in areas where the Rasberry crazy ants have invaded.”

  Dave smiled, “If these little guys are going to drive off all of the fire ants maybe we should just leave them alone.”

  Danny shook his head and added, somberly, “Reportedly those areas now infested with the Rasberry crazy ants now actually miss the fire ants. Your farm is one of the first this far west to have an infestation. Let’s see what you’re saying in six months.”

  Danny let this aggressive statement hang for a moment as he paused to look around the small farm house. “You didn’t build this place, did you?”

  With no idea where this turn in the conversation would take them, Dave replied, “No, this house is older than either of us. Some of the previous owners just fixed it up a little.”

  Scratching his chin, Danny turned to look out the front window. “I think I came out here with my dad way back in the day. He was in the business too.”

  Dave knew that the “business” referred to was pest control, but for some reason it struck him odd to include this type of practice with other pro- fessions more typically associated—at least in his mind—with gener- ation-spanning businesses. Lawyers, doctors and stock brokers often brought their children into the fold and eventually passed their busi- ness to that next generation. Dave almost declared himself to be a snob, before he gave himself allowances, in light of the fact that people who work with poison for a living might have trouble having children, much less having those children continue in that same line of work.

  Danny walked over to the window overlooking the side porch and gazed out. He turned and looked back at Dave. “Isn’t this the place where that kid killed his family?”

  Dave pondered why no one had remembered that incident when he was in the process of buying the place, and answered, “That was farther down the road, but this land, and this house, was apparently part of that larger property back in the day.”

  Danny took one last look out the window, murmured something unin- telligible, then turned and walked out the front door without saying an- other word. Dave walked over to close the door behind him and watched Danny pull a portable tank and several containers out from the back of his truck. As Danny methodically began to mix some sort of chemical stew into the tank, Dave wondered, again, what he’d gotten himself into. He’d forgotten to ask Danny why they were called Rasberry crazy ants, but it’s probably easier and a lot less dramatic, to look that up on the internet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Floaters

  A few days after the bad news from the exterminator Dave awakened to find himself on the couch at the farm house with his laptop to his left and his shotgun to his right. He rubbed his eyes and then blearily stared at the small amount of light that had begun to leak in around the curtains, alerting all to the fact that it was a new day.

  He absently reached down to pet Sampson and then remembered that he’d left the dog this go-around as he would be driving all day, and his travels would not bring him back to the farm until well into the night. He pulled his hand back and began to reach for his laptop, and then stopped. He never took in the mornings around here because the dumb dog always jumped into one of the ponds, creating wet, smelly and time- laden complications. He had no dog to worry about this time. Why not spend a couple of minutes trying to enjoy the place before he had to load up the truck and head out once more?

  After grabbing his boots and a pair of semi-clean jeans out of the laundry hamper, Dave strode down the path he attempted to keep mowed leading to the lower pond. Even though he had hit this path a week ago with the shredder, the grass had already grown shin-high once again. The dampness created by the dew clinging to the grass soaked the bottom of his jeans and the exposed parts of his boots. He stopped for a second to take in the departure of a huge blue heron that routinely used the ponds for its food, but was not a big fan of people. Once the bird was aloft

  it was quite graceful. Dave watched as it slowly flapped its large wings, likely making its way to someone else’s pond.

  He was brought back to earth by a painful, stinging sensation in his right leg. He looked down to see that he’d stopped in what appeared to be an innocuous spot but was in fact a fire ant mound. The ants, per usual, had waited until a sizable number of them had attached themselves to their victim and, with a cue known only to them, bitten him in unison. Dave jumped and swiped at his boot and jeans but some portion of the ant population had found its way inside the leg of his jeans and now bit his fully exposed calf.

  “Damnit!” Dave screamed at the an
ts as he hopped around on his left foot, trying to remove his right boot without getting stung by the nu- merous ants still clinging to the wet leather, in their attempt to march north and bite the invader. Anyone driving by at this point would be treated to the gyrations and screams of a lunatic, though anyone living near this spot had likely gone through this same painful experience.

  A few minutes later, his leg painfully throbbing, he continued down the grassy path toward the pond. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and touched the screen to display the clock. He had less than an hour before he needed to be on the road yet again. In that same hour he’d need to get cleaned up, iron a shirt and catch up on all the emails that had piled in once he finally fell asleep on the couch. The act of checking the time created an itchiness in him that exceeded that created by the ant stings. He increased his pace, though he had now forgotten what the point of this exercise was in the first place.

  He still had not figured out what, if anything, he would do about the deer skull that lurked somewhere in the deeper waters of the lower pond. To some degree he wanted to stare at the pond as a way to compel a decision—as if looking at it could add some sort of perspective that was not otherwise available.

  The path tracked lower and Dave dropped into the cocoon formed by the lower pond. The only way anyone could see anything down here was if they operated a drone, and they had better be pretty good at dodging tree limbs. His pace slowed as he subconsciously drew out the time to enjoy what was once, and what perhaps could still be, his happy place. His steps stopped completely when he rounded the slight curve to take in the pond.

  He stared at the muddy water, which supported a layer of something that took him a moment to process. It was white, it covered the pond and it was moving, sort-of. Is that fish?

  He walked a little closer and focused on one of the larger floaters. It was a catfish, one of the lunkers he had transplanted from the upper pond. It floated awkwardly on its side, it’s white belly mostly exposed to the world, the whiskers on one side of its face pointed unnaturally up into the air. Its gill-plate slowly opened and closed. It was still alive, somewhat, but it was in shock? Poisoned?

  Dave absorbed the larger setting and saw that the surface was comprised of minnows, sunfish, catfish and some carp he didn’t even know were in the pond. All of them lay on their sides, some of them, primarily the catfish, continued to attempt to breathe. The smaller fish, particularly the minnows, floated in the still embrace of death.

  Dave involuntarily fell back to a sitting position on the sloped bank. His butt rested on the wet, muddy ground. His legs extended before him, with his wet boots only a few feet from the water and the pool of dead fish that floated on the surface.

  What could cause this? He had just walked by the upper pond, where the heron earned his living, and everything seemed fine. He and Adam had been down here just a couple of days ago, and minus the special appearance of the deer skull, the fish had been alive and well.

  Just over the tree tops in front of him he saw a dark wedge in the increas- ingly lit sky. The wedge was joined by other dark spots, spiraling over the pond. One of these dark forms flew directly above Dave’s position, and in the dim light he saw the fingers at the edges of the wings, framed by the lighter tones of the morning sky. Vultures.

  Dave looked back at the dead fish and then slowly stood, absently brush- ing at anything that attempted to collect on his backside. If the vultures had just now arrived—then whatever happened must have taken place just last night—otherwise the banks of the pond would already be full of waddling, feasting vultures.

  He stared again at the large catfish, which continued to struggle to breathe, and reached into his front pocket to extract his phone. He entered his pin and scrolled to the camera icon. He began snapping off shots. The carnage looked surreal in the small screen, and he zoomed in on some of the larger fish to try and provide context.

  The mistake with the SD card would not be repeated here. He would email these photos to himself. He would also send them to the deputy, just as soon as he figured out exactly what it is he’s going to say. He continued to snap away. Numb.

  Later that same afternoon Dave stopped at a gas station along a small, rural highway to fill up his ever-thirsty truck. He flipped the small metal trigger latch below the nozzle, which kept the fuel flowing, and walked back to the open door of his truck just a few feet away. His phone sat on the center console, and he reached in to grab it.

  His emails, phone calls and a lengthy client meeting left him little time to ponder his next steps regarding his property. He pulled up his photo archive and again stared at the odd shots of the dead and dying fish litter- ing the surface of the lower pond. He stopped on the shot that captured the large, dying catfish among a collection of small, already dead fish, and hit the icon to send the photo via text or email. He scrolled through

  his contacts until he found Deputy Evans. He had added her phone number to his contacts after their prior meeting.

  She specifically asked him to contact the main line for the sheriff ’s de- partment for any further problems, but although he had thought about this off and on all day he was at a loss as to how exactly he would call this in.

  I have an emergency to report—someone killed my fish.

  He would not have another chance to get back to the farm until later in the week, and any query to the sheriff was going to turn into a dispatch request for a deputy to come view the problem. If asked about the po- tential for any pollutants or foreign matter being introduced to the pond, he could go down the path of describing the decapitated deer saga again with another deputy, or he could just send this picture to her and ask to meet later in the week.

  In the clumsy manner allowed by his phone, he typed a short message to accompany the photo. “Deputy, this is Dave Reynolds. As of this morning all of the fish in my lower pond are dead. I am traveling until Thursday but would like to meet you out at my place Friday to discuss this further. Thank you.”

  He hit send. The photo disappeared at the same time the fuel nozzle tripped, due to the now full tank.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: A

  Deputy’s Work is Never Done

  While Dave pumped his gasoline, Deputy Evans patiently endured the overly energetic comments coming her way as she stood in tall grass next to a barbed wire fence. The source of the commentary, a citizen she’d sworn to protect, gesticulated wildly at the large deer blind set up just across the fence and continued to elaborate on his views of his neigh- bor and the deer blind, with a thick wad of chew parked on one side of his mouth, producing more spit than he could process. “…and if that cocksucker takes another shot at one of my deer and hits my house—”

  “Mr. Kohl. I’m going to stop you there. We agreed that you’d use a civil tone, and if you can’t do that I’ll leave you to it.”

  Mr. Kohl spat and then used the back of his hand to wipe another batch of brown spittle from the corner of his mouth. “Well I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little pissed off.” He gestured again at the looming deer blind, “If that p—” he stopped and caught himself, “…idiot is too…chicken to answer the door, I have to call the sheriff, don’t I?”

  Deputy Evans’ phone chirped and, without breaking off her exchange with Mr. Kohl, she reached down and pulled her phone from its clip on her belt. “Yes, we’re happy to help however we can, sir, but as I explained earlier I can’t find any evidence of a bullet mark on your house and your neighbors are allowed to put up a deer blind wherever they want on their property.”

  She held the phone so she could see it and noted a new text. She clicked on the text and tried to make out a confusing image of what appeared to be a pond full of dead fish.

  “Am I keeping you from something?”

  Deputy Evans, now fully concentrating on her phone, extended the index finger of her other hand in the universal “wait a minute” gesture. She scrolled past the picture and saw the message from Dave Reynolds.

  “Do you
not see me standing here in front of you?”

  Great. Dave Reynolds again. She almost preferred dealing with this slobbering idiot in front of her. Almost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  Slippage

  The following morning Dave, post a stay a hotel for his far-flung client road trip, stared at the PowerPoint presentation projected on the nor- mally blank, white wall at the far end of the conference table. He occu- pied a chair in the middle of the table with a wireless keyboard in front of him, and members of his client’s committee occupying the leather chairs to either side and across from him.

  Dave had pushed the mouse across the table to the client’s Comptroller, Mike, a nondescript man wearing a white, button-down shirt with a full head of brown hair cut at the customary corporate length. Mike had borrowed the mouse to go through what he characterized as a quick presentation for the group, forty-five minutes ago. Dave fought back a yawn as the pointer generated by the mouse drew an imaginary circle around a graph displayed on the wall. He filed away the figures reflected in the portion of his brain that regularly held all kinds of unrelated data for all his various clients, and began jotting himself notes regarding the various follow-up requests for this meeting that he’d already been tasked with.

  The monotone voice of the Comptroller continued to describe figures and their implications. Dave’s pen now dwelled in the margins of the page, writing shorthand notes to himself that had nothing to do with the meeting.

  State dir./log for shut-in wells? H2S contamination?