Tales From The Mist: An Anthology of Horror and Paranormal Stories

by Scott Nicholsonan

  “Come on!” Terry called to his new albino friends. “This is what living is about! Follow my lead! Fight!”

  One by one, a swarm of fat, pasty, white rats dropped down and attacked the snake. Badly outnumbered and wounded, it finally flung Terry loose, and backed away from the rats, striking at any rat that dared to follow.

  Giles had never been so glad to see Terry, as he was the moment his brother leaned over the edge and grabbed his hand. The hideous white rats gathered behind him, apparently waiting for their orders.

  That could be useful. They just got a little less hideous.

  The problem was that they were waiting for Terry, not for him.

  That’s an easy enough problem to solve.

  As he slid up onto the floor, he feigned losing his balance, and tugged hard on Terry’s hand. Already precariously positioned on the wrong side of the bars, Terry slipped and tumbled to the dark water below as one of the bizarre white mutants pulled Giles to safety.

  Terry popped back up a moment after the splash, to the happy cheers of his pallid followers. Giles hadn’t noticed before, but a thin mist blanketed the surface of the water.

  Across the pond, two half–submerged logs slipped silently beneath the curling mist and drifted towards Terry. Crocodiles! He was suddenly very glad he hadn’t fallen in. Had he really considered jumping in there for a swim?

  As he turned to take command of his new slaves, the one that helped pull Giles up pointed down at Terry and shouted, “Follow his lead!” He backed up a few of steps and jumped over the edge with a running start, followed by a horde of pink skinned idiots.

  After the last rat splashed into the pond, Skit raced up to Giles, again gesturing for him to follow. Below them, the mist swirled, and all that could be seen of the rats were their swishing tails in their wakes as they headed to the opposite shore. Every few seconds, a long, toothy snout grabbed a rat from below, and one more tail vanished from the mist with barely a ripple.

  “Shame,” Giles muttered. “I could have used them.”

  He followed Skit to a door that been shattered, and lay in pieces in the carpeted hall beyond. Beneath those chunks of wood, one of the humans from the glass rat prison lay in a pool of blood with a gaping hole in its chest. This just wasn’t Giles’ day. The heart was his favorite bit.

  The other human slumped against the wall a few paces further down with her hand to her throat. She looked like she might still be alive, even though she wasn’t moving. Giles climbed over her legs, getting her blood in his fur, but he didn’t mind. He’d been covered in worse.

  Another doorway led to a small kitchen, where they crawled beneath the stove and through a hole into the wall. It felt good to have walls around him again. He was feeling pretty good in general, now that he thought about it. That human blood was tasty, and rather refreshing. He even started to get a better sense of where he was within the building.

  “This doesn’t seem right, Skit. Why are we going up? All right, don’t get pissy! No, no, I’m not doubting you. Can we just keep going, please?”

  Up they climbed until the wall opened to an unfinished, attic–like storage area. There were mountains of food pellets, shredded fabric and paper, and glinting eyes of more rats than he could count peering at him from every corner, nook, and mound. Skit ran to a pile of soft shredded cloth and crouched beside Alice and her four kittens.

  The rest of his pack was here, too, including Jimmy and the four or five other rats who had gone missing. They weren’t just Alley Rats, though. He saw Road Rats from the troublingly empty warren he passed through on his way here, Bog Rats, Grave Rats, and several others he only vaguely recognized.

  Jimmy wasn’t exactly his old self, and neither were the other four Alley Rats at his side. He had seen at least one of them before, judging by their glowing red eyes, long claws, and bulging muscles. He started to feel a little sick, and more than a little angry.

  “I’m glad you finally made it, Giles,” Jimmy said, lounging near Alice’s mound. “You could have just used Alice’s tunnels, you know. They’re a real time saver. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters. I’d like for you to meet Henry, King of the Bog Rats.” Jimmy pointed to a pile of skulls, all completely stripped of flesh.

  Giles didn’t look at Jimmy or the skulls. His eyes were on Skit. He’d trusted that little cockroach! They had been friends since he was little. His father had warned him never to trust a cockroach, but he also said not to trust anyone, not even your family. That was why Giles had gone to all of the trouble to kill most of them, his father included. He never trusted another rat, but Skit was different. At least he had thought so.

  Alice’s gloating expression didn’t help, either.

  “Your time is up, old rat,” she said. “At least you get a choice. I wanted them to just kill you. You can either submit to King Jimmy, like Mangle, there,” an older rat bowed his head when Alice said his name, “or you can submit like Henry and all the others who left their skulls behind for the kits to play with. I recommend Henry’s way.”

  Giles looked around the room, considering his options. Most, if not all of his pack was already here. He should have taken off with that little mouse when he had the chance. He couldn’t bear handing his authority over to that upstart, Jimmy, and having to live with Alice for one more day. He’d add his own skull to the pile of kings, if those even were the other kings.

  “Think carefully, King Giles of the Alley Rats. I have your mate, your kits, and what’s left of your pack. I have tasted the flesh of the gods, and now I am one of them.” His eyes glowed brighter to illustrate his new power. “Tonight is a new night for rats. All rats will come together under a single king, and we will begin our new kingdom here, in the home of our enemies.”

  Giles hated speeches. He hated giving them, and hated hearing them even more. His mind wandered as Jimmy spoke, and he thought of the sweet little round–eared mouse. He never even learned her name. Of course, he hadn’t known Alice’s name for weeks, at first. Things could have been different with this one, though. He could almost smell her delightful scent, and see her face among the crowd of rats watching him.

  Hold on! He did see her face. She sat right in front of him, gazing up at Jimmy in rapt devotion.

  Cruel world!

  “I see that I do have something you want. Say the word, Giles, and she’s yours. Live among us in peace and plenty, and share the protection and bounty of Jimmy, King of all Rats! Or you could refuse, and we’d have to fight. I wouldn’t kill you, though. Not until you watched me kill your mate and kittens. I can’t have some punk coming after me to avenge his father in six months, can I?”

  Giles laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine by me. You want to be King? Be my guest. I’ll take the mouse, but you can kill Alice and the brats, anyway. Seriously. You’ll thank me later.”

  At Jimmy’s nod, one of the other red–eyed vampire–rats poofed into a cloud of swirling shadows and mist, and re–poofed beside Alice. “Should I start with the screamer, or the squealers?” he asked Jimmy.

  Those were his last words. With all of the attention on Giles and Jimmy, no one noticed the King Cobra with a cat’s fang earring creeping into the rat’s lair. The snake struck from behind, sinking its fangs into the rat, and lifting him high into the air. Everyone screamed and scattered, but Giles went right for the mouse.

  In the next instant, white rats spewed up from the open walls below, swarming over the lair. Jimmy stood before the cobra, staring into its eyes, and amazingly, it slowly lowered its head and spat out the mangled rat.

  Terry leapt up behind the snake and pulled the cat fang from its head, but it still lay docilely at Jimmy’s feet. Giles vanished down one of the walls with his mouse, as the white rats, following Terry’s lead, swarmed over the vampire rats.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  Massively outnumbered, the vampire rats still killed a great many normal and pink rats before they were overrun and torn to bits. Terry and Jimmy fought one on
one, but Terry was already badly wounded before that fight even started.

  He took Jimmy’s blows and slashes, and dodged his bites, but his injured leg slowed him down, and finally, Jimmy knocked the cat fang from Terry’s hands, and pinned him to the ground. As Jimmy leaned in to finish Terry off with a savage bite, Alice picked up the cat fang, and threw it to Terry.

  Terry and Jimmy both dove for the weapon. Even though Jimmy was faster, Terry was more experienced, and bit Jimmy’s shoulder as he reach for the fang. He fumbled it right into Terry’s hands, and he stabbed it down through Jimmy’s neck and into his heart. Instead of blood, dark hued light spilled out of the wound, making him appear to glow and sparkle with beautiful colors. Jimmy even smiled at its beauty, just before he disintegrated into a pile of greasy ash.

  The lair fell silent as Terry stood and brushed himself off. All of the rats, white and brown, watched to see what their savior would do.

  Even the Cobra bowed its head to Terry in gratitude for removing the painful cat fang from its head, and for killing the rat that controlled its mind.

  Cheers erupted for Terry, the Rat King, but Terry stopped them.

  “Giles! Where’s King Giles?” Terry asked. “Where’s my brother?”

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  “Giles renounced his title to Jimmy,” Alice said, “And since you killed Jimmy, that makes you the King! Terry! King of Rats!”

  “King of Rats!” the rest shouted.

  Terry looked around at his subjects, and at the giant snake towering over them with a hungry, if controlled gleam in it eye.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  Terry led the rats out of the serpentarium escorted by his new king cobra friend. Every time he saw a cockroach, he wondered if it was Skit, and if he knew where Giles was. Giles would know how to be King much better than he ever could. The world was different, though. They all felt it. Maybe it was different enough that he could actually be a good king.

  A strange, but oddly pleasant tension filled the air. The humans’ cursed lights had all gone dark, and nothing roamed the streets but Terry and his rats. Every so often, the distinct shrieks of terrified humans would sing through the night, but no dogs, cats, or humans showed themselves. For the first time ever, the decent burrowing folks, the rodents, the insects, the children of the earth, walked the surface without fear.

  Terry led his pack to the only place he knew. A lone figure stood at the other end of the alley, cloaked in comforting darkness and swirling shadow. He wasn’t there for the rats, even if they shared an inexplicable bond. He was a guardian. Terry didn’t know what he was guarding against, but he supposed it didn’t matter. If they needed a guardian, then there were still enemies, and that was something Terry understood. This wonderful new world of peace and prosperity would still have to be fought for, but for now, the children of the earth would now have their day.

  The End

  Epilogue: Eternal Love

  Giles’ head felt like it was splitting in half, and he wished it would. He had fled Jimmy’s attic lair, dragging Serra along with him. How could he have known that the trail of food he found would lead to a deadfall into one of the prisons that the pathetic white rats had recently escaped?

  It was a tiny cage. A lever on one side opened a trap door in the ceiling that dumped food down on top of them, and a lever on the other side poured water into a tiny depression in the floor.

  Serra, his constant companion, ate and drank continually, unless she was talking. There was still something in her eyes that forced him to listen to and obey her. She had eaten the flesh of the gods, too. He considered trying to eat or drink himself to death, but Serra must have read his mind, and now closely monitored everything he consumed as she talked and talked and talked about Jimmy and Alice, and how pretty their kittens were. He hoped for death, but he knew it would be a very, very long time coming.

  About Greg

  Greg Carrico writes horror and science fiction. He loves writing bad guys that readers will care about, even as they despise them. When not creating new worlds and plotting their destruction, he advocates for animal welfare, adopting rescue dogs, and asks slower drivers to stay in the right lane. Visit with Greg at his blog (http://www.gramico.com/blog), on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/GregCarricoAuthor), and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/GregoryCarrico). Make the world a safer place by buying Greg’s books and keeping him behind his desk, instead of behind the wheel.

  TO E.A. POE

  By Mitzi Flyte

  Madison House

  Baltimore Maryland

  To: E. A. Poe

  c/o: Godey’s Lady’s Book

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  September 20, 1845

  Mr. Poe:

  I have spent many sleepless nights thinking about writing this letter. I started many times only to discard it. I could not bring myself to put into words the tragedy that befell my family, my poor small family. You, Mr. Poe, I fix the blame on you.

  Ah, yes, you do not know me and therefore how could you have caused my family any hurt? Such is the subject of this letter. However, I must clear my head and bring my thoughts and the events into focus. Then you shall understand what you have done—that you have caused my sister to commit an unspeakable act.

  My family once consisted of me and my sister, Charlotte, a wonderfully sweet and loving girl. Our mother died at her birth and our father died recently, leaving us with only each other. Even so I had hoped for a good marriage for my sister. When I received the letter from my dear friend, Charles Redding, asking for Charlotte’s hand in marriage I thought my prayers had been answered.

  Charles and Charlotte had been fast friends as children and when Charles left Baltimore for London several years ago, Charlotte was devastated—only his letters lifted her heart. I had hoped that there had been an unspoken agreement between them and Charles’ letter confirmed that hope.

  Charles would be returning to Baltimore after spending time in the Far East helping to build his father’s spice business. Most of his time was spent in India and he had regaled both me and Charlotte with letters of the culture, the fanciful and the dreadful.

  Mr. Poe, you may not be acquainted with life in India. The country is very poor with people living in the streets, the climate extremely warm. But Charles had observed one ritual that had caused him great discomfort. This he wrote in a letter to me, beseeching me not to mention it to Charlotte. He did not want her to know that such things happened in the world.

  Charles had made friends with some of the natives and when one of them died he felt obligated to attend the service. Unfortunately it was not a burial, but a funeral pyre. The body was being burned on top of a pile of wood and to his horror he watched as the man’s wife climbed onto the pyre with the body and slowly burned herself alive. This, he was told later, is an old custom in many parts of the country. Of course I never mentioned it to Charlotte. I thought I was protecting my sister. I was very wrong.

  The next letter from Charles mentioned when he would be returning. The letter was very short and the writing painfully scrawled. Charles would be home by June, weather and good seas permitting. But he was not well; he was sure it was a mild problem and the sea voyage should help to clear it. Knowing the many diseases that one could contract in the uncivilized parts of the world, I was not hopeful. And this information, too, I kept from my sister.

  My sister, who was joyously preparing for her wedding, could not know of my misgivings. I was deeply worried about my friend but I was more concerned about Charlotte. She could not lose Charles again. My sister is one who is very devoted to those she loves. She had even set her mind to finding me a proper wife so I would not be alone after her marriage. I indulged her for I knew how fortunes change. And change they did.

  The ship carrying the bridegroom arrived on schedule and I soon received a message to bring a cart, not a carriage to the waterfront. A cart, I wondered. Did Charles bring so many trunks that he needed a cart? I persuaded Charlott
e to stay home and await her love, while I took a servant and the cart down to the ship. The cart was needed because Charles could not sit up without fainting. His handsome face was pale and drawn; the skin, almost transparent over his thin wrists, showed narrow blue veins. Upon seeing him I wondered if there was any blood left in his poor body. Had the ship’s doctor bled him to where he had nothing left?

  I could tell each move of the cart gave Charles pain, so I made sure that it was a comfortable journey to our home outside the city. It was with great difficulty that the driver, a servant and I assisted my friend into our home. Although he had expended no energy, he had to rest in the hall before we three carried him up the stairs. Charlotte stood in the entranceway, her eyes wide with fear and concern.

  My sister must have quickly pushed that fear into a corner because it was only a few moments before she stood in the doorway to the invalid’s room and announced that she would care for him. She then ordered a maid to move a cot into the room. It would be on this cot she would sleep. She requested one of the younger maids to help her; a younger one could go up and down the three flights of stairs to the lower level kitchen while Charlotte remained with her husband–to–be.

  As we piled Charles&srquo; trunks into the room, I saw that Charlotte was already bending over him, cleansing his sweaty brow and whispering endearments. Small flames of hope rose in my breast—hope that my friend would live and hope that my sister would find her happiness.

  But that was not to be. The days passed and Charles worsened, sometimes to the point of delirium, calling out strange names, grasping at unseen objects. And through it all Charlotte stayed by his side, performing duties that I never would have thought my sweet sister capable of doing. I could not persuade her to leave his room. The little maid would bring her a tray after she had brought Charles’ meager fare, whatever Charlotte thought she could get him to eat. I saw her slender frame get even thinner, her pale complexion turn ghostly and I feared for her. Too many times I thought that whatever had brought down my friend could also harm my sister.