DAMAGE DEPOSIT

DAMAGE DEPOSIT
by Matthew Pritt

Hunter found the damage while investigating the flickering lights. The breaker box was offset from the frame, exposing the wood behind it. There it was, yet another problem with the rental house.

“I think we have termites,” he called out to Molly.

Hunter pointed the flashlight on his phone and peered into the gap. The board was crumbling in spots, and pocked with little holes. He angled the light down and saw a tiny silver wing snagged on a splinter. Even though he knew exactly what it was, he reached for it anyway. His fingers were too thick to fit through the gap.

“Let me,” said Molly. She squeezed her hand in and stretched toward the wing. Then she let out a pained yelp.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s just a splinter. I’m fine.” She slid her hand through the gap and held the wing up. It looked like it would crumble if she rubbed it between her fingers. “Is this a termite wing?”

Hunter nodded and his shoulders felt heavy. Nothing like finding out your house’s bones were being eaten from the inside. He had hoped the weekend would be a relaxing one.

“I’ll call the landlord tomorrow morning,” he said. “I guess that’s a plus of renting a house. We’re not the ones who have to fix this.”

“No, we’re just the ones who have to live in it.”

+++

Hunter and Molly had been so excited to move in together. Newlyweds fresh out of college, they couldn’t be too picky about where they lived. They were just thrilled to find a mostly affordable house instead of an apartment to rent. It was close to the school Molly would work at when classes started next month, and once Hunter got a job, they could start tackling their student debt.

Until Hunter found work, though, finances were tight. It affected every decision they made.

The sudden reality of living in a less-than-ideal home weighed on Hunter. He’d been up all night googling “signs of termite damage” while Molly slept fitfully, and now that some daylight was coming in, he was getting a sense of how extensive the problem was. The living room wood floor sagged behind the couch, the drywall in the laundry room had little holes in it. Stuck windows were a sign, too, but he didn’t know if the bathroom window was termite damaged, or if it was just old.

The house was owned by some real estate collective in Pittsburgh, about an hour and a half north. The collective had bought most of the houses in the neighborhood. Hunter wondered whether any of the neighbors had similar problems. He checked the office hours to confirm they’d be open. But when he called, there was no answer.

“What do we do?” Molly asked.

“We could call an exterminator,” Hunter suggested.

“We can’t afford one on top of everything else. What’s the point of paying rent if they’re not going to fix stuff like this?”

“You’re right. But if we don’t have evidence, they’re just going to deny that there’s any problem. Anything that looks damaged in any way, let’s document it now. Even if it’s not termites, it’s good to have pictures in case they try to screw us out of our damage deposit whenever we leave.”

They spent the rest of the morning combing through every corner of the house, making note of everything that wasn’t perfect. Molly found a few more discarded wings. Hunter knocked on the bathroom wall to listen for signs of hollowness and his knuckle went straight through.

All day, he tried to call the landlord’s office, but it kept ringing. He emailed a complaint as well, but held no hope of it ever being answered.

That evening, when they were eating a fast food dinner, Hunter noticed Molly held her burger with her index finger out straight.

“Is your finger bothering you?”

“Just a little where I got that splinter.”

“Can I see?”

“I’m fine. You worry too much.”

“Let me take a look anyway.”

Molly rolled her eyes, but held her hand out for Hunter to check. Her whole finger was red and swollen. Hunter squeezed the tip and a droplet of pus came out.

“We need to put something on this right away.”

“Eat your burger before it gets cold.”

“I’m serious, Molly. Your finger looks gross.”

Hunter got up and went to the bathroom to find a bandage and some ointment. Molly had been the one who unpacked this room, and he didn’t know where she’d put everything. There was a medicine cabinet behind the mirror, so he decided to check there. But when he tugged on the corner of the mirror, there was a loud crack and the whole apparatus fell off the wall. It crashed to the ground and shards of mirror scattered over the floor.

Then the lights went out.

They’d been in the house for almost a month now, and the flickering electricity had been a consistent problem. In one of the rare instances they managed to contact the landlords, an electrician was sent to look at it. Naturally, the power worked the whole time the electrician was there, and he couldn’t find anything wrong. And since the power always came back on within seconds, it wasn’t a priority to anyone but Hunter and Molly.

But this time, the power stayed off.

With no window in the bathroom, Hunter was in complete darkness, except for a sliver of ambient light under the door. He swept his foot in front of him to brush away mirror bits before taking a step toward the hall.

“What’d you do in there?” Molly called from the other end of the house. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Hunter shouted back. He crept toward the bathroom door, trying not to step on any shards. Just before reaching the door, he felt a sharp pain in his heel. He groped for the handle and when he pulled it open, his eyes had to adjust to the evening light. He limped into the living room and sat on the floor beside the window.

Molly came in moments later. “What happened?”

Hunter explained while he tried to wrench his leg into a position where he could see the injury. Molly bent down to help and held his foot up toward the evening light.

“I think it must have come out,” she said. “I don’t see anything. There’s a pinprick hole with a little blood.”

“It hurts like hell, though.”

“Poor baby.”

Molly helped Hunter to his feet and he walked around a little. His foot still felt like he had something lodged in it, but he tried to downplay it, hiding his limp as he and Molly went back to the breaker box. Hunter flipped the main switch on and off several times with no effect.

“There’s nothing we can do tonight,” Hunter said. “And I don’t trust myself to take this apart, even in daylight.”

“What do we do if the landlord still doesn’t answer tomorrow?”

“I’ll drive to Pittsburgh and drag him back here myself if I have to.”

+++

In the middle of the night, Hunter felt bugs crawling on his legs. He jolted awake and threw the blankets off.

“I keep feeling it, too,” Molly said beside him, sounding too alert to have just been sleeping. “But I never see anything.”

“You should’ve woken me up sooner.”

“You seemed like you needed the sleep.”

They both got up and stripped the covers from the bed. As Hunter moved around, the crawling feeling faded into numbness.

Hunter got his phone, closed out the low battery warning, and used the flashlight to scan the bed. Bedbugs were the last thing they needed with everything else going on. He didn’t know if he should be relieved or concerned that he couldn’t find anything. Maybe the stress was messing with his circulation and causing the weird sensations in his leg. It was hard to say.

Neither one of them felt like going back to bed, so they fried some eggs on the gas stove, using Hunter’s phone for light. The battery would die soon, but he could charge it in the car when he drove to the landlord’s office.

Hunter was lost in thought, going over everything he needed to say to the landlord, when there was a loud crash beside him. He snapped to alertness.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said.

Hunter shone his phone in her direction and the light danced over fragments of plate and bits of egg all over the floor.

“My hand is really stiff for some reason. I lost my grip. I’m really sorry.”

“No, baby, don’t worry about it. It’s my fault. When the mirror fell off the wall, I totally forgot about your finger. Let me look at it.”

Under the light of Hunter’s phone, Molly’s hand looked worse. The shadows danced between her fingers every time Hunter moved the phone. It was hard to tell how bad it was in the darkness, but with urgent care clinics closed for the night, and unable to afford a trip to the ER, they decided it was best to wait until morning and see how bad it was.

+++

The next morning, when there was still no answer five minutes after office hours began, Hunter made coffee by boiling water on the stovetop. Molly held her mug in her left hand. Her right hand was even more swollen.

“I need to take you to an urgent care clinic,” Hunter said.

“I’m fine. Go to Pittsburgh. I’ll keep an eye on it until you get home, and if it’s still bad, we’ll go together.”

“Your hand looks awful.”

“It’s just a bug bite or something. It already feels better this morning.”

“It looks worse.”

“Hunter, stop babying me. I can deal with my hand being a little stiff, but if you don’t get someone to fix our house, I’m going to be way more miserable.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being stubborn or if you’re serious.”

“Truthfully? I don’t want to go to a doctor and go through tests and pay for all of that if it’s something that’s going away on its own. You know we can’t afford it. You’ll be back from Pittsburgh in a few hours. If it’s worse then, we’ll get it checked out together. Deal?”

Hunter bit his tongue. His own foot was feeling stiff, and the numbness that set in the night before hadn’t gone down much. Every now and then, he had a crawling sensation along his shin. He wondered if what was happening to Molly’s hand and his foot was related.

Molly sighed. “Stop looking at me like I’m dying. Seriously. I’m fine. Go get our house fixed.” She gave him a quick kiss and ushered him to the door.

Against his better judgment, Hunter left. He was glad to get away, but he hated leaving Molly there. He told himself it was okay, that he wouldn’t be gone that long, but he couldn’t stop worrying about her hand. They couldn’t afford for it to be anything serious. He felt guilty for even thinking about it in those terms. If there was even the potential of a serious infection, he should just get her medical care. Why did it always have to come down to money? He was pretty sure she needed a doctor, but if they couldn’t afford rent, their lives would be so much harder. He felt like whatever they chose to do was going to be the wrong thing.

The trip to Pittsburgh was a waste of time. When Hunter arrived at the landlord’s address, he found an abandoned storefront.

He didn’t bother getting out of the car. He didn’t know why he would’ve expected anything else. The landlord didn’t even work in Pittsburgh. It was probably some company based in Denver or St. Louis or Los Angeles that just bought up houses all over the country and bled them for money.

There was nothing left to do but go home. Home. What a strange word for the place he dreaded the most right now. If they couldn’t fix the house, they’d have to find somewhere else to live, but where could they go? They couldn’t afford a hotel, and they didn’t know anyone in town. They were stuck.

By the time Hunter got out of Pittsburgh, his foot was hurting so bad, he had to use his left foot to press the pedals. He pulled over at the first rest area and slipped his right shoe off to relieve some of the stiffness.

Sticking halfway out of his heel was a tiny silver termite wing.

Was that the source of the pain? A wing, stuck like a splinter? Hunter pulled it out.

The sense of guilt over leaving Molly had only grown stronger with his failed trip. He sped the rest of the way home and went straight inside.

“Mol?” Hunter called out. No answer.

He flicked the front light switch to see if the power would come back on, but there was nothing.

“Molly? You okay?”

She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, so he walked toward the back of the house. The bedroom door was closed. He knocked lightly.

“Are you in there, Molly?”

A quiet, unintelligible mumble came from within, and he opened the door. Molly was lying on the bed, the covers up to her waist. She raised her hand to wave at him, but her wrist was bent at a crooked angle.

Hunter hurried to the bedside.

“What happened to your hand?” He tried to keep the worry from his voice.

“I think…they’re inside me.” Her voice slurred, almost like she was drunk.

“What’s inside you? Molly, look at me. There’s something wrong with your hand.”

She tried to say something else, but her jaw popped and fell open. Her tongue lolled out.

Hunter felt the panic rising in him. He had to get her to the hospital now. He reached into his pocket to pull his phone out to call an ambulance, but his pocket was empty. He must have left his phone connected to the car charger. Molly’s phone was on the bedside table, but when he tried to use it, the dead battery icon flashed.

Molly made a gurgling noise. Her jaw still hung open. Too open. Like it was falling off.

Hunter sat down beside her and took her hand in his. As he clutched her, there was a series of snaps, like twigs being stepped on. Her hand went limp, and the solid bone in her fingers crumbled and became gritty. Shocked, Hunter dropped her hand. Her fingers were deformed and bloated. The skin on her hand stretched in places and shriveled in others.

“We need to get you the hospital. Now.”

Molly turned her head toward him. Hunter saw movement in her mouth. He leaned in, then jumped back in horror at what he saw.

Crawling over her tongue and teeth were about a dozen termites, their silvery wings flashing. A few termites spilled out onto the pillow beneath her head. The gurgling sound got louder and Hunter realized she was choking on the blood pooling in her throat as the termites bored into her teeth and gums.

Hunter screamed and stood up to run. But when he took his first step, his foot gave out under him and he tumbled to the ground.

His foot dragged limply behind him. He was sure he’d broken it, but he couldn’t stop to look. He had to get help now. The crawling sensation in his legs was stronger now, and it had spread past his lower body up into his chest.

Hunter crawled out of the bedroom, hoping that if he could just get into the street, somebody might find him and be able to help. He made his way up the hall and into the living room. His leg was now formless deadweight. He couldn’t feel anything below his knee. It had all been eaten away.

Hunter tried to push down the terror. He had to focus on getting help. If he couldn’t get out of the house, he and Molly were going to die here. Even if his bones were crumbling, he couldn’t stop. He scrambled through the hallway into the living room, when his other leg gave out.

Then the doorbell rang.

“Help!” Hunter tried to shout, but his voice was barely above a whisper. He tried to shout again, without much success.

He pulled himself forward, trying to grip the carpet. He kept moving, now about halfway across the living room. The crawling was in his hands now. His fingers couldn’t grip anymore.

The doorbell rang again.

Then, a key slid into the lock, turned, and the front door opened.

A man walked in. He was dressed in a suit and tie and held a briefcase in his hand, which he set down beside the door. He looked around the room, but didn’t even seem to notice Hunter on the floor.

“They made a mess of this place,” he said into his cell phone.

“Help me.” Hunter pleaded.

The man glanced for a moment at Hunter, then went back to inspecting the house, looking at places on the walls or floors. He walked toward the bedroom, but Hunter could still hear him talking into his phone.

“Bits of porcelain in the kitchen. Mirror ripped out of the wall. There’s a mess in the bedroom. These tenants were bad. I don’t know if their damage deposit is going to cover the repairs.”

Hunter tried to say something, but nothing came out. He could feel himself collapsing from within. The crawling was everywhere now.

The landlord returned to the living room and pulled a red “FOR RENT” sign from his briefcase. He set it in the living room window.