Feeding time (standard:horror, 1259 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Jul 10 2008	Views/Reads: 3401/2187	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A cowboy plumber is left in a victim's house alone, but what's that sound?

The van pulled up outside the house, its driver switching off the
engine. Mrs Lyson watched from behind a net curtain in her upstairs 
bedroom. It's about time, she thought, watching as the plumber rummaged 
in the back of the van for his equipment. He was soon heading up the 
path and ringing the doorbell. She opened the door and allowed Bill 
Hollis to enter. They exchanged pleasantries, and Mrs Lyson told him 
that the sink upstairs was only producing a trickle of water when 
turned on fully. She insisted on giving him a cup of tea before he even 
put one foot on the stairs, and told him about all the trouble she had 
had in trying to get a reputable plumber when there was so many cowboys 
out there. She asked him if he didn't mind her going out to the shops, 
leaving him to get on with it. Whilst surprised by her faith in him 
that he was honest and sincere, he did not expect her to leave him in 
the house all on his own. She was either not thinking straight, or 
placed absolute trust in him. In the hallway, she donned her coat and 
bade him farewell. She would be back in an hour or so, she told him, 
and Bill had the house to himself. 

Bill was in his early forties, slightly overweight, and always in need
of a shave. He had been a plumber for five years, a joiner before that, 
and before that, spent seven years in prison for trying to smuggle 
heroin through customs. Before that he had been in college learning 
media studies, until he left, realising he was going nowhere with it, 
and had to abandon his dreams of acting in dramas, or on the cinema 
screen. Upstairs in the bathroom, he found nothing wrong with the taps. 
They were all working fine, but he would still tell Mrs Lyson that he'd 
fixed it, and charge her accordingly. Accordingly, in Bill's terms, 
meant as many costs as he could get away with. Bill's reputation as a 
plumber was not impressive. He always did minimal work at high costs. 
He was the type of person that are featured many times on TV where 
rogue workmen are often found out and confronted. He wondered how long 
it would be before he was shoving a camera out of his face and running 
away down the street. He placed a few tools around the bathroom, to 
make it look as if he had been working, and opened the cupboard beneath 
the sink to expose the pipes, in case she came back early. He decided 
to spend the time waiting for Mrs Lyson, wandering around the house to 
see if there was anything of interest. He wouldn't steal anything, 
unless he was quite certain he could get away with it, but he had a 
friend, who had met in prison who was good at house breaking, so if he 
made a mental note of everything worth taking, he could tell his friend 
who would burgle the house, and split any sales he could get from 
selling them. His friend was often remarkably tight-fisted when it came 
to sharing the wares. He would take approximately 70% of the takings, 
telling Bill that it was him who did all the hard work, and all Bill 
did was tell him what was worth stealing. He was right of course, but 
Bill didn't think it fair that he took so much, so he didn't see this 
particular friend much, only when an opportunity arose where he could 
perhaps make a substantial profit. First things first though, he 
thought. He would have to search the house for valuables. 

It took five minutes to go around it all, and end up in the front
bedroom, over looking the front of the house. He was disappointed. 
There was barely anything worth a second glance. She didn't have a 
video, or a microwave, and the TV and radio she had dated back to the 
early eighties, and were not worth much. He stood at the window, 
looking out to see if he could see Mrs Lyson. He couldn't, but turned 
around when he heard the bedroom door shut quietly, as though somebody 
had come in and tried not to wake anybody who were sleeping in the bed. 
He thought that perhaps it was one of those doors that shuts slowly, 
and closes after a few seconds, so he thought nothing of it, nor the 
fact that the temperature in the room was slowly dropping, as though a 
window had been left open at night. He was curious though, about an 
emerging sound that was filtering into his ears. It grew louder until 
it reached a certain pitch. He could not work out what it was. It 
Sounded like the base of a waterfall to Bill, and out of the corner of 
his eye, movement caught his attention, and he looked up at the ceiling 
at the cause of the noise. At first he could not comprehend what he was 
looking at, but eventually it sank in. The ceiling was seething with 
cockroaches, climbing over each other in some unknown pursuit. Each one 
looked to be the size of a small mouse. Bill had to scream when, as if 
on cue, they all dropped.  Landing in his hair and crawling beneath his 
collar, these cockroaches sank their incisors, or where they teeth? It 
certainly felt like, into his flesh, and slowly but surely, they ate 
him down to the skeleton. 



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