A Triple Monadnock Tryst

The headlights of a rented Range Rover cut the fog and dodge the potholes of a muddy road that dead-ends nowhere. Jerked along by some unknown force, the Rover delivers its cargo, Astor Fillmore, to the family’s cabin in New Hampshire’s Monadnock region, there to settle an estate—and a deathly score.

“Finally, we’re here!” Roxanne says from the passenger’s seat. “It’s about goddamn time.” In the vanity mirror, she fortifies an ample coating of red lipstick and black eyeliner.

Ancient oaks, sentinels of a forgotten time and place, flex their craggy arms to announce an unusual arrival. “Let’s get the hell outta here.” Roxanne rubs goose bumps.

“No way, Roxie. This place is the down payment on that Malibu bungalow you love. My wife’ll never know.” 

As her own down payment, Rox treats Astor to two eyefuls of cleavage. Then, she finishes a letter sent from Fate:

. . . As sole heir, then, of the Fillmore family estate, you are the beneficiary of the impending sale of the family’s property. I will meet you there for the passing promptly at 8 a.m. on Saturday, November 15.

Very Truly Yours,

Mortimer Goodman, Trust Officer, Concord Bank & Trust

P.S. You will find the cabin in good order, Mr. Fillmore. Leave the caretaker a handsome tip!

Eyes closed, Roxanne is at Malibu Beach, deliciously alone in a hot bikini, until a slam of the rear door ruins the ocean view. The cutting wind—or some ungodly force—starts Astor and his aluminum suitcase toward the cabin.

Across a blanket of dead leaves, Roxanne follows with an Italian suitcase that matches her weight and nearly her height, even with the high heels. The dreary mist allows only the silhouette of a log cabin. But, in a kind of spectral parting, a swirl opens the curtain of fog to reveal a lonely grave. The mossy burial site is free of leaves, and draped over its worm-eaten marker is a bouquet of red roses, their beauty past. “Astor? What the hell is that?”

“I’ll tell you inside.”

*

“Wow! Good order indeed!” Astor says as the aluminum luggage gouges a dent in the pine floorboards. Back when Elvis was king, Astor’s father built the cabin for weekend family getaways—and the occasional tryst. 

“Shit, I’m trapped in a dismal coffin here,” Roxanne says and shudders at the panorama of wide pine that makes up the floor, walls, and ceiling of the cabin’s one great room. With only an overstuffed chair and a couch, the room is more a wooden cavern. “Ach, it even smells like a dreary tomb.” A wool sweater tames the clammy miasma that clings to her arms. 

“A warm fire will do the trick.” In a grand flagstone fireplace, Astor sparks a fire with the mountain of wood the trusty caretaker left behind. “Besides, there’s no electricity.” Lighting tapered candles, he ducks under a flying hair dryer.

“Ahhh, that’s better!” Astor rubs his short arms over the crackling fire. “Yikes! Even better!” Roxanne runway-walks from the cabin’s one bedroom. A bathrobe flashes open to tease at the negligee painting her slender frame.

“The bedroom’s made up nice, but it smells like a ten-cent cigar.”

“So the caretaker’s a smoker,” Astor shrugs. He pops a bottle of Tuscan wine and arranges the platter of grapes, Brie, and Stonewall Kitchen crackers from an open suitcase. Then, sinking into the couch, Roxanne nestles in the arms of Astor’s silk pajamas. “This place isn’t so bad now, is it?” The lady-killer bathes his porky, drooped jowls and crooked nose under the waterfall of red hair that cascades over Roxanne’s shoulders.

“Who the hell is that?!” Back stiffened, Roxanne bolts straight up. Above the fireplace mantel, the fire’s rising glow illumes a life-sized portrait of an elegant woman dressed in a white evening gown, with bejeweled gloves on her graceful arms. She wears a silver tiara. Her smile, though, is more of a sneer. 

“Those haunting eyes! They’re boring a hole in my skull!” Roxanne pulls her bathrobe together and wanders the room. “They follow me wherever I go!” 

“Now, now Rox. Have a seat.” He tugs on the bathrobe. “More wine?”

“Don’t Rox me! No more wine, Romeo. No more nothing.” She double-knots the bathrobe. “Is that your . . . mother?”

“No. That’s my father’s wife.” He swirls wine. “My mother was a girlfriend he had on the side.”

The flickering flames paint a scowl on the portrait’s face.

Astor’s eyes are someplace far away. “It was Gramma that raised me in Malibu. May as well been shipped there in a ten pound FedEx box. Haven’t been East since.”

“And the burial site?”

“It’s the grave of Mrs. Fillmore here.” He waves the wine glass at the portrait. “She walked in on dad and his cheap . . .” Astor’s eyes meet Roxanne’s. “My mom.”

“What happened?”

“I was teething in California by then. Story goes, Mrs. Fillmore’s body was found here along with two puddles of blood. It was a grisly mess when all the shooting stopped.”

“Two puddles?”

“The bodies of my dad and his girlfriend . . . ahem, my Mom . . . were never found.” The rising wind rattles the windows, flutters the candles, and flares the fire. Mrs. Fillmore’s eyes turn charcoal black and wander as though crazed. 

A shotgun mounted in the mantel’s shadow catches Roxanne’s eye. When she tracks bullet holes in the far wall, long nails dig into the back of the couch. “That does it, fella. Gimme the goddamn keys.”

“Hey, it was a long, long time a-” A pattering sound fills the air. And then something scampers in the wall behind the portrait. Roxanne stands frozen, eyes popped.

“It’s nothing but field mice, no doubt.” Astor forces a plastic smile. “More wine?” His voice rises two octaves. The fire grows wild. Fed by something other than the caretaker’s oak, its shards throw grotesque, dancing shadows around the room.

A rustle—as though a siren call to action—comes next. The patter behind the portrait radiates slowly around the walls. The unbroken thrum shivers Roxanne’s spine.

Then, where the walls meet the ceiling, dust begins to fall. Specks at first, a wave builds as the thrum grows. Munched fragments and coarse sawdust cover the baseboard more and more on every spin of Roxanne’s bug eyes. “Ca … car … carpenter ants!” her breathless lungs allow.

“Don’t worry Rox.” The wine in Astor’s glass quakes. “Carpenter ants don’t bother humans.”

“You make friends, pal! I’m history!” Roxanne’s legs remember how they work. At the door, she sees someone vanish into the shadows behind the gravesite. The door refuses to open, barred from outside with a pinewood plank. She tries the double-hung windows next, but they’re secured—from intruders, no doubt—with one-inch screws. “We’re trapped like raaats!” echoes off the pine. A hammering heart joins the acrid Brie burning in Roxie’s throat.

Back in the great room, the woodless fireplace is in a roar, and the carpet is stained blood-trail red under a shattered wine glass. Astor swallows hard, his saggy eyes transfixed on the portrait. “It can’t be.” But it is: the painting’s black, roving eyes take flight! Soaring from their sockets are a few dozen winged carpenter ants. They avoid the waving arms of a man unnerved and land in Astor’s nest of curly black hair with a threatening buzz. The droning throng smells fear.

The winged demons, antennae raised, probe Roxanne too. But they quickly return to mark Astor with a scent. In time, the devils leave the swain lying in a chubby knees-to-chin ball and then pass through the eye portals, a reconnaissance flight complete.

“What now?” Roxanne says after she unfurls Astor. 

In response, the excavated pine galleys disgorge bands of raging carpenter ants. Legion upon legion follows the foraging trail of the forward scouts, each wave strengthening the scent. An army on the crawl, they march. A force in the air, they fly. They move in a thoughtless, robotic motion—directed by a feeding instinct—and the gloved arm of Mrs. Fillmore. The sneer on her face turns plaintive smile, and a slender finger points to her target: Astor. An inferno rages in the fireplace below as though it’s the gateway to hell.

Even more seething hellions are borne of the portrait’s womb-like mouth, nostrils and ears. The secret lovers are in the grip of an undiluted terror they’ve never known. Encircled by the chittering throng, they stand huddled and helpless, their pajamas soaked in sweat.

Then, in the middle of Mrs. Fillmore’s chest, the blue hole of a shotgun blast takes shape. Blood drains from it and saturates the evening gown. Her face turns ashen but the smile remains. 

From the gruesome hole, an ant takes flight with membranous, double wings. Blue-backed and larger than any of her multitude, she is surely the egg-laying queen of the brood. The legion of obeisant servants below grows silent as she circles the portrait in tribute—and then glides around Astor with a foreboding buzz. 

“Stay away from me!” Roxanne shoves Astor and slowly, very slowly, backs away from the ambush. The squirming phalanx opens a path in its midst, and she—one of three dominant females—gains clemency.

At his ear, Astor hears the queen’s faint squeak; it may as well be a reverberating cannon shot. All in the mob uprear on their little haunches and the sentence is announced: Death! Death! Now executioners unleashed, a murderous trap springs on Astor. Storm troopers climb first and take purchase on his pant legs, first outside and then within. 

A hopping madman with eyes agog, Astor scrambles out of the pajama bottoms and flails at the pack. The yowling gang steps back, but then the largest of the loathsome critters counterattack in a snarling panic to avenge their brethren. In a frantic assault, the angry herd stampedes, slithers up Astor’s legs, and covers his torso three deep.

Pressed in the corner, red hair gone wild, Roxanne’s mouth is an O of fright. Her blank eyes dart everywhere. She tries to scream but is dead silent. Tries to run but is frozen. The wind howls outside. The fire rages on—as Mrs. Fillmore brightens.

The ravening horde blankets Astor in a pulsating shroud. He writhes in the noxious darkness within. Their mark subdued, the beasts dig mandibles and pierce stinging tentacles into Astor’s savory, plump skin. A quivering hand emerges from the orgy and its sweep reveals maniacal, bulging eyes. His jugular found, blood spurts everywhere and the extraction of bodily fluid begins. Some of the worker ants start to haul the precious, succulent food supply back to their colonies.

In a desperate plea for life, the black shroud emits a chilling scream. Astor throttles the multi-headed hellbeast as though it were a single, ferocious monster. But the vermin maul and rip his chest and back, flaying him whole in the bloodlust. 

Roxanne cringes at a muffled howl of agony, the final animal plea of a man insane, damned and delivered early to hell. Arms extended in the way of a Frankenstein, the wriggling, top-heavy mass starts its death march toward Roxanne. Her heart is ready to burst. Mercifully, the lunatic’s nightmare ends when Astor collapses where his father fell on this night forty years ago. 

  Roxanne’s bathrobe sleeve does little to mask the fetid odor of death. She bunches into a bony, trembling ball and awaits the rallying swarm. Resigned to Fate, her bladder empties its store of Brunello. In another female redemption, though, the queen glides back through the open chest of Mrs. Fillmore. On cue, the gluttonous brutes—all except the food processors—retreat. A black curtain darkens the four walls next as the tiny heathens scale the pine boards, skitter through every crack and fissure, and find their hollowed nests.

Mrs. Fillmore’s hands are at peace, and the hellish flames and vicious wind have breathed their last with Astor. In what seems a lifetime—and in a way it is—Roxanne, a putrid stench rasping her nostrils, skirts around the corpse and the sucking sound of its busy attendants.

Somehow, the front door is unbarred. Leaving the accursed realm, the taste of freedom outside fills her lungs. But right away, the lungs empty and a new anxiety seizes them: the grave is dug up and empty of its tenant. She races and takes refuge in the Range Rover—an escape hatch from the brink of hell. Then she realizes the keys are in Astor’s suitcase. Then, oh then, a cadaverous form glares through the driver’s side window, and a madness born of unendurable terror surges in Roxanne. A soul-chilling “Noooooo!” cleaves the crisp night. 

Smiling there sublimely is the ghoulish Mrs. Fillmore, hair the texture of straw, jewels tarnished, and evening gown tattered with a seeping hole in the chest. Her anemic face is gaunt and sunken, with leathery strips of ghastly skin stretched over a protruding skull. The stately tiara, though, shimmers—as does the 12-gauge shotgun.

A door swings open and topples the living corpse. Dashing back inside the cabin, Roxanne collects her breath—and gathers her wits—when the locks click the sound of salvation. Once steeled, she ventures into the great room to find the keys to her escape. Instead, she finds in the glow of a blazing hellfire—oh, the horror!—Mrs. Fillmore. Above her, the portrait frame is empty. “A Fillmore whore you are,” she snarls, thin lips drawn back from her glimmering yellow teeth. She gestures to Astor with the shotgun. “And he the whoreson fruit of my husband’s adultery!”

Hyperventilating, Roxanne backpedals. She hides eyes big as saucers behind trembling hands.

“Stop right there, Missie. You’re on the spot where I humbled the last whore.”

For the ravenous carpenter ants, the shotgun blast is a dinner bell rung. Savage droves pour forth from every woody lair, and another sumptuous banquet begins.

*

At 8 a.m.—promptly—a rusty 1970 Ford pickup truck on its last mile pulls in behind the Range Rover. The pickup disgorges an old timer, broken-down too. “Near time to shut the ole lady down,” he says of the November breath that chills his creaky bones. Snowflakes, vanguards of an early Monadnock Nor’easter, begin to fall. Warming the man is an eternally stoked cigar at the center of a bristled face. Some mysterious force governs the man; his vacant eyes aren’t up to the task.

The force carries the man first to the grave. With a rake, he levels and perfects the site’s disturbed soil and scatters another night’s gathering of leaves.

Inside, the man walks mechanically past the ever-shrinking corpses of Astor and Roxanne, the tireless carpenters still sucking and hauling their winter store of food. “Keep at it, fellas,” the crusty man says with a sideways grin. “Them bones are the hardest part. Ah he heee!”

Then the withered man’s demeanor takes an amorous turn. At the portrait, his blank stare meets the glistening eyes that look upon their dominion below. “Never looked better, sweetheart.” Head cocked and pie-eyed, he basks in the warm glow of an affectionate smile returned.

“Things would’ve been different, dear, for the two of us both.” He adorns the mantel with a fresh red rose. “If only I got that stinkin’ bullet into Mr. Fillmore’s chest before he shot you.” A filthy sleeve mops tears—and years—of regret.

A double-winged flutter brings the lovelorn man back in time. The blue-backed queen soars above the portrait in a majestic salute and then alights on the self-righteous shoulder of Mrs. Fillmore.

The man hoists the shotgun from the mantel, snuffs life out of the cigar, and then bends a knight’s homage to the regal pair. The caretaking done and done well, he tramps into the nicotine-stained bedroom, there at last to take his winter rest.