Related Cases (1)
Related Novels (1)
Related Chapters (2)
The Colony in the Walls
Words: 2347 · Source Novel:: The Termite King's Shadow
Eddie, now inhabiting Holliday's tailored suits and gated estate, discovers the opulence is a veneer over rot. The company, Atlas Fumigation Inc., is a pyramid of deferred liability. His office manager, Gloria Finch, watches him with unnerving precision, questioning sudden changes in handwriting and coffee preference. His first crisis erupts: a lawsuit from the Carrs, a working-class family whose home's foundation has been devoured by termites after Atlas "guaranteed" protection. To maintain his mask, Eddie must channel the ruthless performative charm he imagines Holliday possessed, buying off inspectors and intimidating the family with legal barrages. Each victory feels less like a deception and more like becoming.
The Fumigation
Words: 2487 · Source Novel:: The Termite King's Shadow
Down-and-out exterminator Eddie Santoro, drinking away his failure in a Port Azura bar, recognizes the man whose advertisement haunts him: Arthur Holliday, the Termite King of the West Coast. Holliday, drunk and maudlin, mistakes Eddie for an old wartime buddy. Eddie plays along, absorbing every slurred detail of Holliday's empty mansion, estranged wife, and a business built on fraudulent "barrier" contracts. That night, Eddie follows him home. The killing is clinical, almost professional. As he wraps the body in a fumigation tarp, Eddie studies Holliday's wallet, his watch, the calluses on his hands—architectural details of a life he intends to colonize.