Edna Dowell swept the floor, resting on the end of her broom almost as often as she passed its bristles over the shiny wooden floorboards. She was an old woman on the downside of seventy and more than a little senile, but still sprightly enough to clean the house by herself. It took her longer than it used to, but by stringing together enough spurts of energy she could usually get it all done in a day.
After a short break she swept the remaining corners of the living room, and then passed the broom around the legs of the couch and end table, bringing a small pile of dirt and dust toward the much larger pile in the middle of the floor. That done, she took another moment to catch her breath.
The house was run-down, but clean. Old, mended and recovered furniture was scattered about the room, as mismatched a collection as you might expect when someone did much of their shopping on garbage day. Each piece had a character all its own, from the chesterfield she’d picked up behind the bowling alley to the chairs in the hall that used to sit in the laundromat; from the pictures of other people’s families hanging on the wall to the bookcases full of books she’d never read.
And then there was the big oval rug she’d found behind the funeral parlour two blocks over. The design on it was quite faded, but there wasn’t a hole or worn spot to look at. A true wonder of afind, in more ways than one.
Edna’s breathing finally eased into a regular rhythm and she knelt on the floor. Then, lifting the edge of the rug, she swept the dirt underneath it. The dust swirled toward the rug as if sucked in by an unseen wind, then settled onto the floorboards in a scattered pile. With a satisfied nod Edna lowered the edge of the rug back onto the floor. There was a slight bulge in it now, but she paid it no mind. In a week or two, when she felt up to cleaning again, the bulge would be gone … as would the dirt beneath it.
The first time she’d swept the dirt under the rug was on the day she’d first brought it home two years ago. Just as she was finishing up her cleaning there’d been a knock at the door. With nowhere else to sweep the dirt she quickly swept it under the rug and tossed the broom in the closet.
Her guests that day had stayed for hours and it was a whole week before she remembered what she’d done with the dirt. But, when she pulled back the rug to sweep it up and take it out to the trash she was surprised to find it gone. Not just spread around or absorbed by the rug’s fibres, but gone without a trace. After that she swept dirt under different parts of the rug to see if it would happen again, and it did. In time she learned to sweep everything under the rug and it eventually became as much a part of her cleaning routine as Misters Murphy and Clean.
Unfortunately, not all of her little problems could be handled so easily. The current problem, or perhaps just the latest incarnation of a constant problem, had to do with money, or lack thereof.
Three years ago her pension had been de indexed and no longer kept pace with the cost of living. Then, last year, her rent had gone up three percent, the maximum amount allowed by the government’s rent control board. She’d made up the difference with what little savings she’d squirrelled away over the years but that was all but gone now. She wasn’t sure if she was one month behind in her rent or two, but what did it matter? She only had enough money for groceries and she’d be damned if she’d go hungry while giving that do-nothing slumlord another red cent.
He’ll be coming around soon enough asking for his money, she thought. He can ask all he wants, but I can’t give him what I don’t have. He can threaten to throw me out too, but I won’t move. He might own this house, but this is my home.
She patted the bulge in the rug, and it shifted slightly under her touch.
The knock on the door didn’t surprise her, she’d been expecting it for some time. She hadn’t paid her rent in months and her landlord was anything but patient. As if on cue, the knocking grew louder and more frantic as the man on the other side pounded harder on the old wooden door.
Edna slowly got up from her chair in the living room and began shuffling her way to the door. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper.
“I know you’re in there, Dowell,” the man shouted. “I seen you pick up your mail.”
When she reached the door she paused for a moment’s rest, then unlocked and pulled the door open.
Marty Genetti was a squat man with a full head of black hair blow-dried straight back in the shape of a cycling helmet. He was probably in his fifties but still looked like the teenage hoodlum he’d been over thirty years ago. “I come for the rent,” he said.
“And a good morning to you too, Mr. Genetti,” said Edna.
“Yeah, it’s a great morning, but it would be even better if you had the rent money you owe me.”
“I haven’t got it.”
Marty just shook his head. “That’s crap. I know for a fact that the pension cheques went out today and you already took in your mail.”
“Well, the cheque wasn’t in the mail,” she lied. She couldn’t possibly turn over her pension cheque. There’d be nothing left for her to live on.
“Nice try, Dowell. But never bullshit a bullshitter. You got your cheque today and you’re going to give it to me or I’ll boot you out. I got six families practically begging me to live here.”
“I don’t have it,” she said, her voice beginning to crack.
“Fuck this,” Marty muttered, barging his way into the house. “Where did you put the mail? In the living room?” He walked into the large room off the hallway looking for envelopes. There were a few Christmas cards on the window sills, but they’d been there for years. “What about the kitchen?”
“No!” Edna cried. She’d put the mail in the pantry, but it wasn’t very well hidden and he’d find it there as soon as he looked.
He went into the kitchen, Edna following as fast as her feet could take her.
“What’s with all the cookie tins? That where you keep your stash?” He started taking the tins off the shelf and opening them one by one.
Edna did keep some bills and a few coins in a couple of the tins, but that was emergency money for doctor’s visits and medicine. If he took that she’d literally be without a penny to her name.
“Stop it!” she shouted. “Stop!”
“Oh, am I getting warm?” He laughed, almost as if he was enjoying his little act of terrorism.
“Please, stop!” she pleaded again, but her words only spurred him on.
He found a Christie’s tin with some money in it. “All right,” he said. “This is a start. Let’s see what else we can find.”
Edna began trembling in frustration and anger. lf he kept on like this he was bound to find her pension cheque and then she’d be left with nothing. She had to do something, but what?
“Heh-hey! Here’s a twenty,” he said, looking more and more like a neighbourhood bully shaking down kids for candies.
Edna glanced at the kitchen counter. Her rolling pin was there, a chipped and cracked rolling pin made out of marble she’d found years ago in a dumpster behind the Commisso Brothers Italian bakery. She stared at the rolling pin for what seemed like forever, then finally picked it up ...
“You gotta have a piggy bank here somewhere.”
… raised it over her head …
“Or maybe a roll of pennies—”
… and let it fall.
Marty Genetti stared up at Edna, his green eyes bulging out of their sockets in a look of surprise, and one side of his head crumpled up like a squashed paper bag. His fingers were closed tight around the money— Edna’s money—but that didn’t stop her from cracking his fingers open and prying the bills from his fists. After she’d picked the loose change off the floor, she counted all the money and put it in neat little stacks on the kitchen table. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d thought she’d had stashed away.
She looked down at the corpse in her kitchen and was struck by a thought. With some effort, she got down onto the floor, turned him on his side and pulled the billfold from his back pocket. It was made of black leather, as soft as a baby’s skin. She opened it and a smile broke over her face. The wallet was stuffed with bills, the smallest of which were twenties. She took out the money and placed it on the table, marvelling at how springy the stacks of paper were.
She replaced the wallet and patted his pockets for any loose change. She found a few more bills—mostly fives—and a bunch of loonies and quarters. She considered taking his rings, but figured they’d probably be more trouble than they were worth, and picked herself up off the floor. Then she sat down at the table and counted the money. There was over a thousand dollars there, more than enough to pay the back rent and stock up on food.
As she sat there filled with joy over the windfall, she began to think about her situation. If the landlord was dead, who do I pay the rent money to? Oh well, not to worry, somebody will be by asking for it sooner or later.
She was about to get up to put the money in a safe place when her foot kicked against the dead body on the floor. “Oh dear,” she said, realizing she had a bit of problem on her hands. Killing Genetti had been easy—he was a nasty, dirty little man who’d gotten what he deserved. However, getting rid of his body, now that would be tricky.
Edna sat and thought about it.
When it came to her, it was like a new day dawning in her life, as if Somebody Up There was telling her she’d done a good thing.
If Marty Genetti was dirt, the only place for him was under the rug with the rest of it.
Edna got up from the table and made herself a tea. When she’d finished the cup of orange pekoe and was sufficiently rested, she began dragging the corpse into the living room. It wasn’t an easy task, but by nightfall she’d pushed, pulled, kicked and rolled the body into the middle of the living room. Then with little ceremony she raised the edge of the rug, gave the body one last roll, and lowered the rug over top of it. The rug barely covered it, and the hands and feet stuck out from the comers, but at least the face, with those bulging eyes and lolling tongue, was hidden from view.
Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. And went upstairs to bed.
In the morning Edna came downstairs rested and chipper, having had the best night’s sleep in ages. Outside the sun was shining, the air was fresh, and it was a beautiful, beautiful day.
As she entered the living room, the first thing she noticed was the bulge in the rug. It was quite lumpy, but considerably smaller than it had been the night before. The second thing she noticed was the curled pair of hands lying just beyond the near edge of the rug, and the pair of black shoes soles-up on the floor at the other end. The hands ended at the wrists and the exposed flesh and bone was smooth, as if it had melted away like candle wax rather than been cut by a knife. The feet were similarly disembodied socks, skin, muscle and bone melted away at a slight angle.
Unsightly mess, that, thought Edna, picking up the edge of the rug and quickly kicking the hands underneath with a flick of her flu1fy pink slippers. Then she walked around to the other end of the rug and swept the shoes underneath it, too.
“There,” she said aloud, noticing there was a bit of colour to the rug now. “Much better.”
She went into the kitchen, humming a tune.
The lump in the rug took about a week to go away. Each day Edna would come down the stairs to see it smaller by half. The last few days she heard a sort of slurping sound coming from the rug—and every once in a while a crack!—but then that eventually stopped and the rug lay flat again, not a lump to be seen.
Sipping her morning tea by the front window, Edna took a moment to look at the rug more closely. If she wasn’t mistaken, it looked newer somehow, the design on it brighter and more colourful. It looked like two bright red pools surrounded by some darker colours, but other than that she couldn’t make out what it was.
She finished her tea, went upstairs and got dressed. She hadn’t been shopping in weeks and the cupboards were practically bare. Now that she had money in hand, it might be a good idea to stock up on groceries.
She was just about ready to leave the house when there was a knock on the door.
“Now who could that be?” Edna said aloud.
She went to the door and opened it to find a young woman standing on her front porch. She had coal-black hair, tanned skin and wore a large round pair of dark sunglasses. Although it was quite mild out she had on a big fur coat made from dozens of tiny pelts. Edna thought of the poor hamsters that had died in the creation of that coat and disliked the woman immediately.
“Edna Dowell?”
“Yes!”
“I’m Maria Genetti, my father owns this building.”
“Isn’t that wonderful,” she said warmly.
The woman took off her sunglasses, revealing small brown eyes that were covered by far too much makeup. Her painted eyes narrowed into slits as she looked at Edna. “So, he left the house a week ago to collect overdue rent and he hasn’t been seen since. And since you’re one of the two tenants of his that are overdue, I was wondering if he came here?”
Edna was silent a moment, thinking what she should do. If she said he’d been there and then left, the police would surely come asking questions. If she said he’d never been there, then this woman—this evil, evil woman—might go away, but she’d end up leaving with all the overdue rent money. That would never do!
She looked up at the woman. “Maria?”
“Yes.”
“He was here, Maria.”
“Really? When?”
“This morning.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said with sigh of relief.
Edna nodded. “He came in here looking for rent money.” She paused a moment, as if trying to remember. “And then he went into that closet over there and never came out.”
The look on the woman’s face soured. “What are you talking about?” But, then, ever so slowly, a look of terror crept over her features as Edna’s words played on her mind.
“Let me see!” she said, barging past Edna toward the closet at the end of the hall.
No manners, thought Edna. Just like her father.
The young woman opened the closet door and peered inside.
Edna went silently into the kitchen, knowing the woman would stand there in front of the closet for a few moments, unable to see anything in its shadowy depths.
“There’s nobody in here,” she said, her head still buried deep in the darkness. “Where did he go?”
She pulled back from the closet and turned around.
Only to get a good look at the rolling pin.
“What happened to my—”
Up close.
Maria Genetti had had some money on her, but not much. She certainly wasn’t as well off as her father had been. After Edna had gone through her purse and pockets she barely had two hundred dollars to show for it.
Oh well, she thought. Better than nothing. She put the money in her own purse, stepped over the body in the hallway and left the house to do the shopping.
When she returned an hour later with her wheeled wire cart laden with groceries, she was surprised to find the dead woman’s body lying face down in the hallway. Standing over the corpse, she tried to recall what had happened, then began nodding.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Of course. Mustn’t leave people lying around in hallways. What would the neighbours think?”
And with that, she took off her coat, brought the grocery bags into the kitchen, then dragged the body into the living room. As she moved the body closer to the rug she noticed something strange about the floor covering. The edge of the rug was trembling slightly, like the upper lip of a starving man who’d just caught the scent of fresh-baked bread.
“Patience,” she told the rug in a tone of voice more suited to house pets than home furnishings.
Then with one last push she managed to move the body into position. She raised the edge of the rug, gave the body a kick and watched as the rug curled around the corpse, pulling it wider.
“Thank you,” she said to the rug. “Now, where was I?’’ She saw the empty wire cart standing at the front door. “Just about to go shopping.”
She put her dirty tan coat back on and left the house, headed for the market.
The lump in the rug was gone in just under three days. Edna spent nights sitting in her rocker watching it slowly getting smaller, shrinking like a block of ice on a warm spring day. There were still the same slurping sounds coming from the rug, but only for a little while and only near the end.
After the lump was gone, things settled down and Edna was at peace knowing she had more than enough money to live on and that any new problems that arose could be easily swept under the rug.
She was happy for the first time in years.
About a week later there was another knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“Police, ma’am.”
Edna glanced through the peephole and saw the uniformed policeman. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Dowell. We’re looking for two missing persons, Marty Genetti and his daughter Maria.”
Edna was silent. If she didn’t let the policeman in he might get suspicious, thinking she had something to hide. Better to let him in, answer his questions and send him on his way. “Just a minute,” she said, opening the door.
The police officer was young and handsome, with short blond hair, a bushy blond mustache and pale blue eyes.
“Come in.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Now, how can I help you?”
“Well, I’ve been going through the neighbourhood asking everyone if they’ve seen either of the two people. Marty Genetti owned a lot of property on this block.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and he was known to make visits around the first of each month to collect rent from problem tenants.”
“Problem tenants?” she asked with a smile. “Well, that must be why I never saw much of him.”
The police officer gave her a polite smile.
Edna looked shyly away and noticed the rug.
It was moving.
The policeman kept talking. “That might be so, but some of the people on the street said they saw him knocking at your door a few weeks ago.”
Edna suddenly felt warm all over. From what the policeman had said she couldn’t deny Genetti had been here. Perhaps it would be better to play along. She took her eyes off the rug for a moment and looked up at him. “Oh yes, that’s right,” she said, feigning recollection. “You’ll have to excuse me, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“That’s all right,” the policeman nodded, “my mother’s like that sometimes.”
“He was here. Came to check on a leaky tap in the bathroom, but I’d fixed it the day before, so we sat and had tea in the kitchen. Ate two and a half of my biscuits, and then he left.”
The policeman scribbled some notes in his book, asking Edna further questions about when Marty Genetti arrived and how long he had stayed.
“I can’t recall such things very well. It might have been ten minutes, it might have been an hour.”
As the policeman continued making notes, Edna took the opportunity to glance back at the rug. It was less than a foot away from the policeman’s big black boot, inching closer.
“Perhaps you’d like to join me for tea as well?” she asked, walking across the living room and placing both feet on the edge of the rug to hold it in place. “I brew the best on the block.”
“I’d love to ma’am, but I’ve got fourteen more apartments to check out and the captain doesn’t like approving overtime.”
“Another time, perhaps?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.”
The policeman took a few tentative steps to the door, waiting for Edna to escort him out. When he finally realized she intended to remain standing in place on the edge of the rug he said, “Well, goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” chimed Edna. “And good luck.”
When the man was gone and the door closed, Edna stepped off the rug and pointed an admonishing finger at it. “Naughty rug!”
A ripple coursed over the edge of the rug, and then it was still.
Ten days later, there was yet another knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Edna asked.
“Health Department.”
Edna said nothing. Why would the Health Department be knocking on her door? “There’s nothing wrong with my health,” she said. “Thanks just the same.”
“No ma’am. Some people on the block have been complaining of a bad smell these last few days. I need to take a look around, see if it’s coming from your apartment.”
“I don’t smell.”
“No one’s saying you do, ma’am. But there were several complaints and I’ve got to check out the entire block.”
Edna thought it over. If there was a smell (which there was not!) the man wouldn’t be easily shooed away. Better to let him in to take a look around, satisfy his curiosity.
“All right,” she said, at last opening the door.
He was a middle-aged man with a mustache and greying black hair. The name over his pocket read “Dave.” As he stepped inside, he began sniffing. “Something die in here?”
Edna sniffed too, smelling nothing. “You watch it, sonny. I might be old, but …”
He stepped further into the house, sniffing like a bloodhound.
It was obvious to Edna he was looking for something and wouldn’t stop until he found it. Best to stop him first.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “Maybe it has something to do with the hole in the wall inside the pantry.”
Dave looked at her curiously. “What hole in the wall?”
“Come and I’ll show you.” She led him into the kitchen and opened the door to the large walk-in pantry filled with canned food, the steering wheel from a 1972 Maverick, and two department store mannequins. “See that hole there?” Edna pointed inside the pantry and stepped back to let the man by.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Maybe it’s behind Dolly.”
Dave shifted one of the mannequins, then tried the other. “Nope.”
He began easing himself out of the pantry when the back of his head was bashed in by Edna’s rolling pin. He let out a cry and slumped forward. After a moment, he put a hand over the back of his crushed skull and moaned in terrible pain. His foot slipped on the kitchen floor and he fell backwards, hitting his head again.
As blood pooled around his skull he looked up at Edna, his eyes blinking as if to ask, “Why?”
In answer to the question, the rolling pin came down again, sending his forehead deep into his brain.
I took Edna the rest of the day to drag the body into the living room, and the rest of the night to clean up the blood.
By the time Edna dragged herself upstairs to bed, the lump under the rug had shrunk by half and the rug itself was coloured with deep black-and-purple swirls that circled the two crimson pools like hurricanes around an eye.
The next morning, the lump was gone.
It had been two days since Dave had visited and Edna wondered why more Daves hadn’t stopped by-—or even a Bill or Bob. But while it was a concern, future visits from the Health Department wasn’t what worried her most. It was the rug. It had started getting unruly.
Ever since the policeman’s visit the rug had begun to move. Not much at first, just a few inches here or there, but enough that Edna was forever setting it right. Over time, it began roaming the room, its bright red circles looking more like angry eyes with each passing day.
Now, every time she walked through the living room it moved toward her, its edges rippling and undulating as if in a wave. At first she thought it was cute that the rug followed her around like a cat wanting milk, but as the days wore on and there were no more visitors, the rug had gotten downright feisty.
This morning after breakfast when she walked past it on her way upstairs, it had nipped at her feet, taking one of her pink slippers from her foot in the process.
“Bad rug,” Edna scolded, kicking it with her other slippered foot. “Bad.”
And then the rug lurched forward, pulling the second slipper off, leaving her foot scratched and red with blood, as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.
Edna ran from the living room and hurried up half a dozen steps before turning back around. The rug was there on the landing, trying to flow up the first step but unable to pull itself off the floor.
Edna sat there for a long time, catching her breath and watching the rug with a mix of fear and fascination. Finally, it glided back into its familiar spot in the middle of the living room floor where it lay still, except for the wave that undulated around its edge every few minutes.
After watching the rug for a while, Edna took a few tentative steps toward the landing. With each step the rug became more restless, almost like a dog growling at the approach of a stranger. As she set her foot on the landing, the rug slid across the floor, its leading edge curled back in a sneer.
Edna turned around, ran up the stairs into her bedroom and slammed the door.
Edna spent the next day in her bedroom. Twice she ventured out trying the steps only to find the rug waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.
It had managed to curl over the first step and was inching up the second. Seeing that, she went back into her room and crawled back into bed.
But as the day wore on the first pangs of hunger began to gnaw at her belly. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she’d had a bite to eat and with each hour that passed she grew more acutely aware of how hungry she was.
It almost made her laugh. The kitchen was full of food and her purse was full of money, but the thing that helped her to get those things was the same thing that was going to deny her their pleasures.
It was almost better to be penniless and starving.
Almost, but not quite.
She pondered her situation well into the evening, and was finally struck by a thought, a way to satisfy both hungers—hers as well as the rug’s.
She picked up the phone.
And ordered a pizza.
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