A Reader’s Story
Categories: Blogs, Featured
Written By: Eric Jensen
I recently came across a truly awesome piece of information. Somebody from South Africa came here to Melted Reel after doing a Google search for:
HOW TO MAKE APE TRAPS
Is that not incredible? This is how I imagine the circumstances that led to this memorable visit.
Onward Came the Apes
Tumelo Buyskes sat huddled in a corner. He’d always thought of himself as a man in control of fears rather than someone whose fears controlled him. Yet there he was, actually shaking in terror, cowering in a corner like some craven animal. He clutched his knees tightly to his chest, trying in vain to stop the shaking. He couldn’t help feeling disgusted with himself and with his situation.
The light above him flickered. Tumelo’s breath caught in his throat as he stared up at the bulb, sure that this time the light would go out and stay out. After an eternal second, the light managed to stay fighting the good fight, but dimmer than it had been before.
Shit, Tumelo thought. Why didn’t I set aside more fuel for the generator?
He knew these thoughts did no good, but he couldn’t help himself. It would have been such a simple thing, to make sure the emergency generator that provided backup for his little house was fully fueled. He could have checked the damn thing a thousand times, but he let it slide.
After all, how could he have expected this?
He could hear them outside. The apes. They’d been after him for almost three days. Has it only been three days? Tumelo thought. It felt like there’d never been a time when the apes hadn’t been coming for him, ceaselessly pressing on until at last they acquired their prey.
Last night they’d almost made it in. The apes had thrown rocks through all the windows. Though the electrified bars remained in place and functional—for now—he’d been forced to nail wooden coverings over all the broken windows; after the rocks, the apes had begun throwing scat. The last thing Tumelo needed was to outlast the siege only to succumb to some shitborne disease or parasite.
But with the windows broken, he could hear them. All day and all night, their simian shrieking and chattering. It was the worst at night. With nothing in his eyes but darkness, the howling of the apes in his ears was enough to drive him mad.
In the beginning, Tumelo had held onto the belief that help would come in one form or another. That hope was what had kept him facing the day—and the night, the horrible noisy night—but now he admitted it to himself. No help was coming. No help would ever come.
The light dimmed again, just a fraction, but Tumelo noticed. All his attention was focused on that light, the symbol of the only thing keeping him alive. If the bulb sputtered again, it wouldn’t be coming back. A snippet of song drifted through Tumelo’s mind. I’m goin’ down three times, but lord I’m only comin’ up twice. Though he wouldn’t have thought it possible, Tumelo actually laughed.
Yeah, that’s just about the size of it, ol’ Hank, he thought.
If he was going to do something, he had to do it now, before the power went out and the apes finally came for him. He was exhausted, a man at the end of his rope, so he did the only thing he could think to do.
Tumelo booted up his computer, silently sending out a fervent prayer to whoever might be listening that the generator be able to handle the added load for just a few minutes. He opened his browser and there was Google, waiting to retrieve whatever information he sought.
In his desperation he could barely think. He typed the only words that would come to him: HOW TO MAKE APE TRAPS. As he typed he heard the gennie starting to chug-a-lug and wheeze. It wouldn’t be long now.
He clicked on the first search result. There was no time for second choices, no time to do a little web surfing and compare ape-wrangling tactics from around the world. He needed an answer right now, dammit, and so he read the words on the screen.
What the hell is this? Tumelo thought. His eyes scanned back and forth as he took in the information as quickly as he could. This…this is just some asshole’s opinions! Opinions about some long-forgotten TV show!
He was right. The website contained no practical information on constructing ape traps, only loudmouthed bloviation and swear words trying to pass as jokes. It was useless to him.
Tumelo was frantically clicking on his browser’s back button when he heard the generator give one last BLAAAT. The light went out. The computer screen instant went black.
Outside, among the screams, he could hear the sound of ape feet and knuckles galloping toward him.
No, he thought. No no no no no. A tear escaped from the corner of Tumelo’s eye and cut a winding path down his cheek.
The apes were closer. The shouts were so loud Tumelo thought his skull would split. Then he heard the screech of metal being bent and torn. With the power out, the apes were pulling the bars from the windows. Only seconds now.
Tumelo slid open the bottom drawer of the desk where his computer sat, now nothing more than a useless pile of plastic and circuits. He pulled a stack of legal pads from the drawer and threw them aside. His notes, his records, his life’s work, none of those things were any good to him now.
He took the revolver from the bottom of the drawer, where it had rested for more than eight years. He looked at it, marveling at the heft of the thing in his hands.
Another scream of rending metal from the windows. Always, the howling of the apes.
Tumelo Buyskes put the handgun’s barrel into his mouth, and from there he passes out of our story and our ken.
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