Flies and Oil

Most days, it was obvious that #MeToo hadn’t reached the oil fields. Walking from the rig to her trailer, Locksley could shrug off the catcalls and the lewd suggestions. But the stares. It still unnerved her how open they were. How hungry.

Today, they were staring. But today, it wasn’t because she was a woman. At least not like that.

Normally, she played the game she’d signed up to play. She ignored the pinups openly hanging in the breakroom and the mansplaining. She kept her tongue just the right amount of sharp and her skin thick. And her head down when she needed to.

Today, she kept her head down. But it was because she was seeing double as she walked and her scalp was throbbing. And because of what had happened. Still, she could feel the stares, open as always, but now full of anger and outrage instead of lust. Against the dying light, the erect and skeletal outline of the drill mast was a judgment.

In her trailer, she hesitated a bit, knowing what she should do. She stared into space for a bit, giving up on making her eyes focus, then stumbled the two feet into the kitchenette and put on a cool washcloth. Finally, she Facetimed Gavin.

“Hold on,” he said before she could say anything. He hadn’t showered again and his eyes were tracking something beyond the screen. There was a swatting sound.

“Gotcha.” He looked at the guts on his fly swatter. “I just cannot get on top of these flies,” he said. “I called the exterminator. Actually, I’ve called three. But none of them can figure out where the little buggers are coming from. No nest or anything.”

She tried to smile.

“You said you wanted an old house.”

Hundreds of tiny black specks danced on the wall behind him. Maybe her head was hurt worse than she thought. The doctor had held up her fractured hard hat in astonishment and told her she should go home, but the look on her toolpusher’s face had made it clear that if she did, it would be the end.

Gavin’s eyes were looping wildly again and there was another swat.

“I mean, that’s sort of what I said, but — .” He finally looked directly at her. “Are you crying?” he said.

Was she? She wiped her cheeks and was surprised to find moisture.

“There was an accident,” she said as steadily as she could. “People got hurt.” She was having trouble focusing her eyes. There was a weird shadow behind him. More flies? She’d thought he’d been exaggerating in some passive aggressive pout. But this looked different, almost like a person was standing behind the laptop, casting a vague shape against the wall. She couldn’t focus her mind enough to piece together where in the house he was. And he didn’t seem to notice.

“Are you okay?” he said. She heard concern and for a second, she felt the tears forming on her eyelids. But there was something else too, something angry. So she lied.

“Yeah. Totally. But I’m worried they’ll say it was my fault.”

“Was it?” He was tracking another fly. She felt suddenly trapped.

“How’s Ava?” she said.

“Don’t change — ” Smack! Smack! He looked at her again. “Don’t change the — ” Smack! “Ha. Gotcha, little monsters.” He grinned, then scowled. “Was it your fault?”

Anger slicked across her pain.

“No,” she said. “And before you ask, I’m staying the rest of my hitch.”

His face hardened and he looked like he was going to say something, but then his eyes unfocused and he swatted again. And again. Beneath her concussion and her anger, she felt a spark of panic at this uncharacteristic distraction. But the fear was vague, unformed. And it disappeared as his eyes focused on her again and she could see him pushing down whatever it was he really thought.

“Of course you are,” he said with practiced steadiness. “You wouldn’t come home unless you got really hurt, right? Or fired?”

She looked away and he sighed.

“Look Locks,” he said. “I promise I’m all in on our deal. You get to follow your dream and get this….dream house.” He swatted again. “Creepy sounds, flies, and all. Please stop acting like I’m not supporting you. I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

Before she could respond, he said, “I gotta get Ava out of the bath. You sure you’re okay?” Smack!

“I’ll call you later” she said. She stumbled around the trailer, trying to remember how to get ready. Finally, she gave up and just collapsed onto her bunk. As she drifted off, she thought, Creepy sounds?

The next morning, she woke to her toolpusher pounding on her trailer door. Eight Advil later, she was back on the rig doing the dirtiest, most menial jobs they could find for her, daring her to say no.

“Being a woman in the army was hard,” she said to Gavin later. “This is so much worse.” Oh, how her head ached. “But…if I’m gonna run one of these companies one day, this is the only way to get there, right?” She tried to make it sound like she wasn’t trying to convince herself.

“Hold on a sec,” he said. “These flies are like — organizing themselves somehow. Here, talk to Ava.”

He turned the laptop to where their daughter was playing quietly with her dollhouse. It had come with the house, and much like the house, it was a fantastic thing of real wood and craftsmanship, even if it was a bit run down. The agent they’d bought the house from had been reticent to talk much about the history of the house, but Locksley had liked this touch. Some mother had clearly loved her daughter here, to have given her such a thing.

It looked like Gavin had refurbished it nicely.

At least he’s done something other than obsess about flies, she thought. He obviously hadn’t done much else. She could still see old slats through the torn wallpaper on the playroom wall behind her daughter.

Ava smiled and held up one of her dolls.

“Did you lose a tooth?” Locksley said.

“Uh-huh,” Ava said proudly. She frowned. “But the tooth fairy hasn’t come yet. Daddy says sometimes she gets real busy.”

“It’s true,” Locksley said, forcing herself to not roll her eyes. As Ava started narrating her game, holding her toys so close to the camera they became nothing but blurry shapes, Locksley looked at her little girl’s mouth and the cute, gaping hole where her tooth had been.

She’d missed so much out here. And knowing that she was following a path she’d chosen as a little girl didn’t change that.

Her parents had had an old rig when she was a kid and she’d loved it. Running through the rigging. Listening to the pulsing thrum of the derrick. Smelling her father’s dirty, oily stink when he’d hold her as the sun set and cast its red light on the mast.

She’d really learned to love the excitement, the hard work — everything — when she’d worked on various rigs in the army. So after her tour, when Gavin had lost his job, they’d agreed she had to take a chance to multiply her parents’ dreams — her dreams — by a million. So they’d bought that old house in the country for him to tinker on and —

A woman walked past the door behind Ava. A tall woman, straight-backed and pretty, in a hard kind of way.

Locksley sat up.

“Ava, who was that?”

Ava looked around.

“What?”

“That woman. Who was it?”

“What woman, mommy?”

“Get daddy.”

Gavin was distracted, swishing at his face.

“You have a woman there,” she said. She suddenly remembered the shadow she’d seen yesterday. Had she been there then too?

“What?”

“I saw a woman in the hall.”

Her tone was clear and suddenly he was paying attention.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The woman. In the hallway. Who is she? Seriously Gav…”

He swatted at something, but this time, not even the flies could distract him from his anger.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re out there, surrounded by tough guys, and to hear you tell it, every single one of that has offered to sleep with you. But yeah, I’m the one having an affair. Out here, in the middle of nowhere. In this damn house you saddled me with.”

“I saw someone,” she said.

He looked like he was going to sign off in anger, but then he sighed.

“Look babe,” he said. “If you wanna give up, fine. But don’t pretend it’s because I’m cheating on you. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no one here but me and our daughter. You sure you didn’t hurt your head the other day?”

She was about to respond, when suddenly he yelped and jumped back and knocked the laptop to the floor.

“Damn flies,” he shouted. She watched his feet dancing and for a moment, was genuinely worried. What was going on there? But then she heard Ava laughing. Locksley stared a the door in the house a hundred miles away, sideways in the dropped laptop screen, rubbing her still-aching head and wondering if indeed, she was seeing things. Finally, she hung up and when he texted her later, she told him she needed to get to bed and she’d call him tomorrow. He texted back that he loved her and that he hoped she was okay, but she’d already taken a bunch of Advil and fallen asleep.

The next day, she got called off the rig to the manager’s office. Her head still ached something fierce, but she forced herself to ignore it as she walked up the steps to the trailer. Carefully, she prepared her face. Confident, but not too confident.

The toolpusher opened the door for her, his face stoic. She walked in and paused. Several of the upper management were there. None of them looked at her directly and there was a tension in the room, almost like a snake had just slithered in.

“There’s gonna be a lawsuit,” the toolpusher said abruptly. “‘Cause of the accident you caused.”

“Jackson caused it,” Locksley said, trying to stay calm.

“He said, she said.”

“No,” she insisted, looking at the manager. “Not he said, she said. I’ve been working on rigs since I was a girl. In the army, I had the best safety record of anyone. I would not — .”

Her phone buzzed. Involuntarily she glanced. It was Ava’s emergency phone.

“Look,” the toolpusher said. “It’s not just that one thing — ”

Buzz.

She looked at the manager again, but he still wasn’t looking at her. He was fidgeting, and clearly didn’t want to be here, so she turned to the toolpusher.

“Sir, this may be an emergency. My daughter.”

He shrugged and raised his hands and for one second, as he walked way, she considered ignoring it

She swiped on the phone.

“Honey, you okay?” But Ava wasn’t there.

Her phone was on the floor, perfectly still, camera aimed at a spinning ceiling fan above. There were flies everywhere and she felt suddenly cold. Afraid, yes, but also, actually cold. As though the temperature in the Texas oilfield had just dropped twenty degrees.

“Ava?” she called. “Ava? Baby, it’s mommy. What’s happening?”

The buzzing of the flies was intense and they seemed to be multiplying in front of her eyes. And yet, still, she could hear something else, something behind the buzzing. A sickening, wet sound. Somewhere.

“Ava,” Locksley screamed. “Gavin?”

She looked up frantically. No one was looking at her. The toolpusher was writing something on a paper at the desk. The manager was squirming and looking at the wall. All the other men may as well have been statues. Only the drill mast was watching her.

When she looked back at the screen, the flies were gone. The fan was spinning slowly and now there was no noise. Then, slowly, something loomed onto the screen. Vaguely feminine, but gaunt. Stretched. Black tendrils of hair or shadow or something clung to her — to it? — somehow blocking out the midday sun. Not just on the phone, but in the manager’s trailer too. As though the whole world was being sucked into this empty, ghoulish visage. Locksley saw the ceiling fan spinning vaguely through it. It chuckled.

“They are mine,” it hissed. “You’ve left them to me.”

Without hesitation, Locksley ran from the trailer, digging her keys from her pocket as she rushed to her truck, hanging up on the thing and frantically dialing 911.

She ignored the men calling after her, and the drill mast that now seemed somehow impotent behind her. And as she ripped open the door of her Chevy, she also did not notice the swarm of flies that kicked up behind her, spinning and buzzing and swarming after her.