6 Noises in the Night #2
I almost sigh with relief, tensing to throw off the covers and lock the thing back in the basement.
But then the second one appears at the top of the dark doorway into my room.
Somehow it’s moving along the wall as if unaffected by the basic laws of gravity.
Now I understand Calvin’s uneasiness. There’s something very wrong, something unnatural about those vacuums. They are alive.
They are creatures. Every instinct tells me to run screaming out of the Winnebago, but the memory of being effortlessly pushed aside during my earlier experiments holds me back.
I’m no longer sure survival is a given if these things are determined.
At first, I don’t understand where the extra shadows are coming from, the threads of darkness that swirl all around the room.
My heart stutters as I realize long appendages are extending from the vacuum on the ground and exploring the space, reaching into every corner before retracting silently back into the vacuum shells like some sort of octopus-turtle hybrid.
All at once, the one on the wall has a full set of skittering jointed legs, and it scuttles spiderlike onto the foot of my bed.
The second one performs a nearly identical metamorphosis and scrambles up the wall and all the way across the ceiling to dangle directly above me; it moves almost too quickly to see.
I always thought I’d fight if something like this happened to me. Turns out I freeze like a fawn. Maybe if I stay under the covers, I’ll be safe. I’m like a child; if I can’t see the monsters, they can’t see me. But I can’t stop looking. And they look back.
The one on the ceiling is watching me. It lowers its vacuum carapace, suspended on a silvery wire, as thin as spider silk, hovering right above my face. I’m afraid to close my eyes. I’m afraid to open them, so I stay frozen, my eyes slit open.
The one at my feet gently pushes and prods at my leg, as if it were trying to determine what I am and whether I’m a threat.
It’s like a predator sniffing at lunch and deciding whether it’s hungry yet.
I struggle to breathe steadily and keep my limbs from twitching.
The one on the ceiling is inching closer and closer, a hairsbreadth away from brushing a metallic limb against my cheek, when Eldi lets out an immense snuffle.
Both vacuums move toward her faster than I can blink, scrabbling crab-like with surprising agility.
It’s then that I find I can move again, shaken out of my paralysis because I’m not letting them get Eldi.
I grab for a broom that’s propped by the bedroom door because I was too lazy to put it away earlier, and now it’s the only excuse for a weapon close at hand.
What a stupid mistake. If I make it through this, from now on, a knife will go under my pillow, a baseball bat under the bed, pepper spray in the nightstand. Something.
What an elementary mistake, Regina. This is why weapons never come off, even when you sleep.
I promise myself if I survive tonight, I won’t be so defenseless again.
Only a second or two has passed, but by the time I reach the front of the Winnebago, both little vacuums are hovering over Eldi. One scans her with a green light, exactly like the tablet did earlier.
“Get away from her!” I shout before I can think better of it.
If vacuums could startle, these do. I flinch as one flings one of its tentacle extensions against my throat. Its glint in the dim light and its cold steel sting tell me it’s some kind of blade. I don’t back down, though I should. I’m outmatched, and we all know it.
“If you hurt her, I’ll destroy you,” I whisper, afraid to even breathe too loudly as I feel the cold metal, sharp against my throat.
It’s an empty threat, and they must know that too.
The two little robots make the softest of clicking noises, then a chorus of musical notes, singing back and forth, as if they were communicating with each other. I can almost imagine the argument they’re having.
Can you believe this human? I should get rid of it, the one holding me at knifepoint might be saying.
Eldi snuffles again, and Goat falls from her grasp, tumbling to the floor. With a spurt of static, the Winnebago radio switches on, softly playing a song. Bob Marley croons “Three Little Birds” over the speakers—a soothing background noise, a not-so-subtle message not to worry about a thing.
The machine not holding a knifelike appendage to my throat makes a purring noise, reaches a tendril, and gently strokes Eldi’s face. Put that away; you’re scaring the human, I imagine it chiding its fellow.
The other suddenly retracts its knife arm, still chittering and singing to itself. I huff in air with relief as an appendage picks up Goat and tucks him neatly back under Eldi’s arm.
My worry for Eldi evaporates as the two little vacuums launch off the bed in a whirl of coiling octopus arms and flashing metal.
One of the vacuums pauses, beckoning me.
Well, are you coming or not? it might as well be saying.
Winnie’s doors fly open of their own accord, and they putter off into the night.
I don’t think these vacuums are going to hurt me anymore, so I follow them.
They head for the cornfield at a steady clip.
I stand in awe as the blades reappear and they mow down the stalks with speedy efficiency.
I watch for hours. They move quickly and silently, with coordinated movements, a dance they both know well.
When the patterns begin to take shape and I remember the burned floors and the cut carpets, I understand.
Of course. Crop circles. They’ve been making crop circles all this time.