This past weekend we went camping. We stayed in a lovely little knotty pine cabin (veneer! pasted to plywood! but still very charming) with a loft where the Unreliable Narrator slept above the main sleeping area on the first level where we were.
Last night a loud scrabbling CHEWING sound emanated from between the walls not far from our bed. Think 2×4s slowly being fed through the sharpened maw of a nocturnal animal.
It woke me. Twice.
The second time, HB got out of bed and went to the corner near where the canted roof met the wall.
He did something completely unexpected–so unusual it woke me completely up. He knocked a few times on the wall with his knuckles: rap rap rap. The LOUD GNAWING and rustling continued. He stepped outside and flashed the beam of his light around over the porch and into the eaves.
The noise stopped for a bit.
HB came in and got back into bed. Not five minutes later, the sound of (likely) sharp, long, RODENT teeth crunching up wood and a creaturely body thumping against the insides of the wall resumed.
Clearly, this would go on all night.
I had a vision of the giant squirrel that was pestering us using his buzzsaw jaws to crash through the wall and eat my child. That was it.
I got up. Stood on the wooden chest directly under the area of wall. I could hear loud MUNCHING. Jaws working.
I growled twice. Long, guttural, and low, like a bear or a dog.
Silence.
Then I scrabbled my nails against the fakey knotty pine directly over where the source of the noise had been. As if I were trying to burst my way through the wall and EAT the offending animal.
I leaned forward and breathed heavily on the wall.
Silence.
Satisfied, I got back into bed.
Then I teased HB mercilessly: “What kind of city dweller are you? What was with the knocking? Do you think this is an apartment building and that woodchuck or whatever will just pipe down if you knock?”
We snorted and giggled, trying not to wake the Unreliable Narrator up. I put my cold feet on him for good measure.
HB (miming broom handle against ceiling): “Uh, excuse me, can you keep quiet?”
Me (fake exasperated): “Ai-ya, send a man to do a woman’s job. You have to get the message across: ‘PREDATOR. I. WILL. EAT. YOU. Now shut the fuck up.’”
HB: “And you did. That’s why I married you.”
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