Nine years ago, my wife and I moved into a newly built townhouse in a super secluded, green and woodsy neighborhood. A few weeks later, we welcomed our only child, Luke. From that point on, life was as close to perfect as it had ever been for us until a few days ago when Luke woke me up at 2 in the morning.

“Dad… There’s something in the wall,” he said. He didn’t whisper it. He didn’t sound worried at all, actually, so I wasn’t worried either. “Sleep in here if you want…” I muttered in my daze.

The morning came, and my wife left to drop Luke at the bus stop. I had forgotten entirely about what Luke told me until I was getting dressed for work… and heard it.

Scratching, scuffling. Very faintly from down the hall, towards my sons room. Where the attic is. I groaned to myself, remembering what Luke said. It looked like I’d have to reach out to an exterminator. In other words, a service my landlord unfortunately doesn’t cover. It also looked like Luke would be sleeping in our room for a while.

My wife returned from the bus stop a couple minutes later. We took advantage of the idling thirty minutes before leaving for work to try to get ahold of an exterminator. We texted some of our local friends(we do not live close to family) and asked if they knew of any first. Unfortunately, they were of no help, so we took to Facebook next. An older man named Jim with 40 years experience removing bats, squirrels, mice, rats, termites and so on caught our attention. And, it said he was based just five minutes away. The fact he had a high rating averaging from almost 200 or so reviewers, and highlighted testimonies claiming he fits you into his schedule quick and charges a very fair price, gave us the confidence to reach out.

We got an answer almost immediately. He said he’d be happy to check things out around 6 - at the end of his work day, as we are on his way home. Seeing as my wife is back at 2 to pick up Luke from the bus stop, and I’m home at 4, we agreed and sent him our address.

He pulled up a little after 6 in a sedan. Clearly a personal vehicle. The old man got out, wearing an orange cap and dressed from his shoes to his neck in hunters camouflage. “Jim - nice to meet you,” he said. We shook hands, and I introduced myself and my family. He headed to the back of his car and pulled out his toolbox. “Let’s take a look…”

We all went inside, straight to Luke’s room, to his closet. Jim goes up into the attic using a ladder we keep in the closet(for easier access above). He slipped into the dusty darkness, letting the hatch door fall behind him. We waited. He returned about a minute later, quickly exiting and closing the hatch with one hand…

“Sorry. Didn’t want anything to get out,” said Jim.

“Squirrels?” asked my wife.

Jim climbs down the latter, and opens up his other hand for us to see.

In his palm are pasty white droppings. He gives them a hard squeeze, and upon reopening his palm, the droppings are powdered. “See how it it crumbles? Means you’ve got bats,” said Jim, smiling. “Lovely,” my wife remarked. “Easy fix, and a reasonably humane one,” said Jim. “What do you mean reasonably humane?” asked my wife. “It’s a one way device. Once something goes out, it can’t get back in,” said Jim. My wife and I really liked the sound of this(as opposed to other methods used by exterminators). “If you can pay me today, I can get it done right now.” I asked him how much, and he said a hundred dollars. My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief. Jim interrupted our stunned silence with a chuckle. “It’s just one tiny little thing I have to do, it’ll take me thirty seconds…”

We told him that this sounded fantastic.

Jim was true to his word. He went back into the attic and less than a minute later, he’d returned with his toolbox in hand. Job done. “Hundred even,” he said. I handed over the cash. “I can be back in a weeks time to clean up the shit, and permanently seal off the area where I’ve put the one way. That’ll cost you though, I’m afraid, but only forty,” added Jim. My wife and I looked at each other, very much on the same page. “That sounds great,” we both said.

We thanked him profusely as he went on his way, waving him off like happy grandparents from the base of our garage. It looked like Luke would be able to sleep comfortably in his own bed tonight.

We watched some TV and went to bed afterwards, at around 9:30. As I laid in bed counting sheep, I kept an ear out for any more sounds… but I wasn’t hearing any. I rolled over in bed and asked my wife if she’d heard any scratching noises recently, and she said no. This was great news. Eventually we fell asleep, but we were woken up again at 2am by Luke.

I heard the screeching before I heard “Dad,” though. Like, bats screeching.

“Oh, come on…” I said, immediately waking up. Pissed.

“Dad, go listen,” said Luke.

“I hear it, bud,” I told him.

“No, go to my room and listen,” he said.

“What’s going on?” mumbled my wife, getting up.

“Alright,” I say to Luke. “Stay with your mother and I’ll be right back.”

The screeching got much louder as I went to his closet - and I mean much louder, more than you’re probably thinking. I turned on the light, stepped inside, and tried to figure out what the hell I could do about bats suffering at 2 in the morning. Suddenly, my wife and Luke appeared in the doorway, scaring me half to death. “It sounds like they’re dying!” said my wife dolefully. “Do you hear it?” asked Luke. “Yeah, I hear it alright,” I said. Unwittingly.

“Not the screaming…” said Luke. “The… eating sounds… ” I turned around to face Luke. Now, in the light of the closet, I could get a good look at his face. At how scared he was.

And then… sure enough, I started to hear the eating sounds. Just barely.

“Oh my God… It sounds like they’re stuck in that thing!” said my wife, on the verge of tears now. Admittedly, I was on the verge of tears, too. The relentless sounds of small things suffering is not ideal ambience for problem solving, especially at such high frequencies.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Can you go up there?” she asked.

“Probably not a good idea, babe. I’ll shoot that guy a message again tomorrow, and if he doesn’t answer, then we’ll have to-”

“They’re dying!” she said, raising her voice.

“I know, I hear it - but it’s 2am! There’s nothing we can do about it! We’ll just have to sleep through it with headphones, or downstairs. I don’t know.”

“How am I supposed to sleep knowing that there are bats dying right above-”

“I don’t know what to do!” I snapped. My wife shoots me the stink eye. “Well don’t be mad at me,” she said, firmly. I took a moment to collect myself. “You know I’m not mad at you… Do you want me to just see what’s going on then?” I offered.

“… Yes. If they’re trapped in that one way thing, do you think you could just… take it out?” asked my wife. I sighed. “I don’t want rabies or some other disease,” I said. “If there was anything wrong with the bats, don’t you think the guy would have pointed it out to us in the poop or something?” she asked. I shook my head.

“I love you, but probably not. Look, I’ll just take a quick peek so we at least know what’s going on,” I said, heading back to our bedroom to grab the flashlight. “Come on,” I said, waving them along. “You should probably stay in our bedroom in case any bats come flying out.” My wife sighed, and followed behind with Luke. “Don’t say that,” she said, giving me a pinch on the back.

I lead them back to the big bedroom, shut them in, and returned to the closet with the flashlight. I set up the ladder back up, and climbed.

Upon opening the hatch, I’m frazzled by an unbelievable wall of high frequency sound. I let the hatch rest on my back as I blocked my lucky left ear with one hand. With the other, I turned on the flashlight.

Squatting the white-with-poop corner of the attic, stuffing bats into its ‘mouth’, was a living thing. A thing I just can’t describe as a whole. From one ‘angle’(for lack of a better word), it looked like a chicken or medium sized bird; from another angle, like a lobster/horseshoe crab; from another, like a human child. It had several bulbous eyes with what looked like skin-eyelashes around them, and a surplus of small gaping holes that open-close-open-close with its rapid breathing.

I was looking at it, and it was looking at me - and it did not like the light. It violently recoiled further back into the corner of the attic and opened its ‘mouth’, letting out the mother of all screeches. Then, in the blink of an eye, the thing shrunk, and sunk into a small black rectangle on the wall…

The ‘one way’ device.

I stood there for a moment in disbelief. I hear my wife shout my name down the hall, but I was too shocked to even breath.

When I saw the one way device start to breathe, though, that’s when I remembered to.

In fact, I screamed. Hell, I screeched. All the way down the ladder and halfway down the hall, where I bumped into my wife. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” she shouted. “I don’t know but we need to leave right now!” I said through gritted teeth.

We all went straight to the car and peeled out of there. We slept in the Walmart parking lot the rest of the night. When the sun came up I immediately took to Facebook and reached out to Jim. “Hi Jim, sorry to bother you but we need you to come back today. Things aren’t sounding too good in the attic. Do you think you could fit us in today, or tomorrow?” A few moments later, I got my answer.

“Hi there. I’ll be back in a weeks time. I promise, you will be satisfied (;”

I couldn’t believe it. This was hands down the most bizarre thing, ever.

I went back to his profile page and dug a little deeper. Something I should have done before I even sent him a message in the first place… because come to find out, this Jim guys clientele is literally impossible. Sorted by newest first, the first review I read(not in a highlighted testimony) was from a customer in Finland. Then from few days earlier, a customer all the way in Vermont(we live on the West Coast). Then Costa Rica. Then Fiji. Two Fijis, back to back. Sri Lanka. Greece. Wales. Etc, etc, etc. This. Is. Impossible. For so many reasons. Then all of the sudden, Facebook crashed.

I reopened the app and searched for Jim. His entire profile was gone.

We went about the day as normally as we could. We drove Luke to school, my wife dropped me at work(after I got a $5 tee and $9 khakis at Walmart as impromptu work clothes), and she took the car to her job at the hospital. The morning was as stressful as you’d imagine but come the afternoon, my wife texted me some good news. One of her cohorts was very kind and agreed to put us up until our “infestation problem” was taken care of. Of course my wife didn’t elaborate on what that is, though.

We’ve been at their place for 2 days. That means in 4 days, Jim is supposed to return to our house to ‘finish the job.’ Whatever that means… I’ve been thinking of getting law enforcement involved, but I’m pretty sure the help I need is not on the other end of 911…

I can’t say I have a plan other than I’ll be hanging around the house in four days, waiting for Jim. I’m sure as hell not going inside alone, I can tell you that. I’m probably going to ask a guy from work if he’ll wait with me, but I’ll have to ask him tomorrow because his work week technically starts tomorrow. In the meantime, though, I can warn the people of Earth to beware of ‘Jim’ the exterminator on Facebook. If ‘Jim’ is even his real name.