The Exterminator A Short Story by Hilde Kate Lysiak

A Short Story

by Hilde Kate Lysiak

It was a dark room. Specks of light were coming in from beneath the closed curtains. Dust collected on glass shelves that contained old tea cups and other antiques. From the tiny shop window, a dirty closed sign hung. An old man walked in with an exterminator.
“I’ve been finding ants everywhere!” said the old man.
“Ok, Sir,” said the exterminator. “We will check it out,” he added.
“Thanks,” said the old man.
The exterminator grabbed his detector out of his leather backpack and started waving it around the room.
“Huh. I don’t see any signs of ants right now, but give me some time to check it out,” said the exterminator.
So the old man went back home and relaxed. A week later, the exterminator called. He told the old man that after looking and looking, he still found no ants.
“I think you are free to open your shop back up,” said the exterminator.
The old man was glad. He went back to the shop but still saw lots of ants! This time it was worse. There were ants crawling up the old porcelain tea cups, down the front of the glass shelves and onto the floor. The old man screamed as they began crawling up his pant leg and ran out of the door.
This time, instead of immediately calling the exterminator, the old man sat down and thought for a minute.
“Am I going crazy?” he wondered. “I haven’t been sleeping much lately. It’s probably all in my mind.”
So the old man decided to open the shop.
All his regular customers were so excited to see the shop reopened. Even though it was dirty inside, the building was one of the coolest in town. And the man only paid $100 a month in rent!The old man was so happy to see everyone come in. He was so happy that he almost didn’t notice the swarm of ants crawling out of a hole in the wall. There were millions of them! As the ants crawled into his ears and mouth, the customers had no idea why the old man was freaking out. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, prancing around like crazy. Then he fell to the floor.
The old man was dead.
The customers couldn’t explain what had happened to the old man. The doctor’s figured he had some type of stroke or heart attack.
The shop closed.
The next month, a sign hung on the front of the building.
“Ernie’s Exterminating—Open for Business,” it said.