“But they said your head was bitten off . . .”
“Not mine. My brother’s.” Ratty clenched his gray fists. “Once she understood that she couldn’t find me, Weasel mauled one of my brothers in a helpless fit of rage.”
“And you—”
“I was laying low. You know I’m good at that. I decided I wasn’t going to go to slaughter. And I suggest you don’t go either.”
“But we aren’t going to see Weasel,” said Chief Badger.
“You’re going to see Super Bat, and that’s one in the same. Super Bat works for Weasel and is fanatically loyal to her. My sources tell me that she has a direct order from Weasel to eliminate you tonight because you know the truth. Because you know the clues lead to the top. There won’t be any retirement. It’s a trap. Super Bat is waiting for you with a special forces unit. You’ll either both be eliminated on the spot or handed over to Weasel, who will maul you in her torture chamber.”
“Thank you, friend,” said Badgercat. “Thank you for warning us.”
“Yes,” said Chief Badger nodding, “we appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” said Ratty. “Enemies of Weasel are my friends. Good luck.” He gave a flip of his tail and dove into the grass.
“Ratty!” yelled Badgercat after him. “Do you think you could hide us? Otherwise Super Bat will find us!”
Ratty didn’t answer.
“Ratty!” Badgercat’s voice broke into pitiful meows. “Ratty, friend! You really won’t help us?”
Badgercat perked up his ears so as to not miss a response. But all he heard was the rain and the rustling of the grass.
“Quite the friend you have there,” mumbled Badger sourly.
“Fine, I’ll help you” finally came Ratty’s voice from afar. “Follow me.”
* * *
Ratty led them through underground rat tunnels. They went from a deserted burrow to a half-flooded basement, to a sewage pipe, to a rotten stump, to an empty tree hollow, to an abandoned nest in the roots of a hundred-year-old oak, and then back to the sewers. He was their guiding star in the pitch-black underground labyrinth filled with countless offshoots, twists and turns, traps, dead ends, and hidden trapdoors.
He brought them to a hollow, damp corridor that led deeper and deeper underground. Their paws sloshed, and the farther they walked, the more their tails and paws submerged into a murky sludge. An invisible, predatory echo fragmented their squelching footsteps and irregular breathing, and flung the reverberations against the walls.
Along the corridor were massive wooden doors that were visibly rotted at the bottom. The doors had barred window holes. Chief Badger looked through a few: empty, half-flooded rooms that looked like prison cells.
“What is this place?” asked Badgercat, shivering.
“An abandoned rat sanatorium and research center,” said Ratty stopping in front of one of the doors. “For special service personnel. At one time, special agent rats came here for medical procedures and monitoring after being poisoned or seriously wounded, or if they suffered from other ailments. They were treated using the most advanced medical technologies.”
“And then what happened?” asked Chief Badger.
“Oh, nothing special,” said Ratty getting out a ring of rusty keys. “Some of the rats were cured. Others, unfortunately, were not.”
“Why does this sanatorium have bars on its windows?” continued Chief Badger.
“For safety.” Ratty turned one of the keys in the lock.
“Whose safety?”
“The personnel’s, of course.” Ratty opened the door. “And now yours. You can hide out here. This room even has a table. If you get up on it, you’ll stay more or less dry.”
Badgercat gracefully braced himself and in one leap was atop the table.
“And how long do you suggest we hide out here, on this table?” wondered Chief Badger.
“Until I neutralize Weasel.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Poison,” said Ratty simply.
“But Super Bat could kill you!” Badgercat grew nervous.
“A real rat lives as if he’s already been killed. But what doesn’t kill a rat makes it grayer.”
“Ancient rat wisdom,” clarified Badgercat in awe.
“All this ancient wisdom is getting confusing,” said Badger clambering onto the table with difficulty.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ratty from the doorway. “You won’t need any ancient wisdom.” He walked into the corridor and closed the door behind him. “You won’t need anything anymore.”
Ratty looked at them through the barred window and winked. They heard the clank of a key turning in the lock. One, two, three times.
“Ratty, did you lock us in?” asked Badgercat in surprise.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For safety.”
“Whose safety?”
“The personnel’s, of course.” Ratty sneered quietly.
“What personnel?”
“Weasel’s special service personnel. Our hunt has ended today. We’ve gotten everything we needed from you. We no longer need you, police badgers of the Far Woods. You know too much. Now you will quietly disappear. That will be best for everyone.”
Ratty brought his gray clawed paw up to his nose, then touched the barred window, as if blowing them a kiss, gave a dramatic bow, and walked down the corridor.
“But, Ratty, you hate Weasel!” yelled Badgercat in desperation. “She bit the heads off some of your best friends!”
“I don’t have any friends!” The echo split Ratty’s calm voice into hundreds of cold fragments and threw them against the walls of the corridor and their cell.
“Then why did you help me, Ratty? Why did you help me hide?”
“Badger logic,” answered Chief Badger wearily. “He was just using you. They needed a constant suspect, so they could continue plucking birds and pinning it on you.”
“We needed a suspect,” echoed Ratty’s voice. “So we could continue plucking birds. But then we stopped needing you. Because we found the phoenix.”
“Who is the phoenix?” asked Chief Badger quickly.
“You know it’s a crane. Why do you bother asking?” whispered Badgercat.
“Why do you care, Fatso?” The echo laughed the laugh of a thousand Rattys. “You won’t be closing this case. Focus on your afterlife.”
“Ratty, you have no heart!” yelled Badgercat.
“A real rat lives life as if its heart has already been ripped out . . . ripped out . . . out . . . out . . .” As Ratty’s voice receded, the echo brought fewer fragments their way.
“So you’re just going to leave us here alone to die of thirst and hunger?” yelled Badgercat. “After many days and nights?”
“No, that would be much too cruel . . . cruel . . . cruel!” echoed Ratty. “You’ll die a different way . . . way . . . way! And today . . . day . . . day!”
“What a rat!” Badgercat helplessly let out what remained of his claws. “This whole time he was working for Super Bat and Weasel! He tricked me into trusting him! He plucked our birds! When he said it was time to flee the Black House”—Badger gasped in outrage—“he stayed behind! He promised to clean up and destroy all the evidence, but instead he plucked Magpie! He planted a piece of my broken claw in the oak! He was the one who gnawed on the trunk! He . . . he gave me catnip to help calm my nerves! Son of a badger! He must have added something to it—I almost went insane from that catnip!”
“Quite the friend, as I said before,” concluded Badger.
“Are you trying to make me feel worse?” snapped Badgercat.
“No. I’m only teasing.”
“Well, if you’re so smart and perceptive and if you’d already figured Ratty out, why did you let him trap us in here?”
“Well, I had to test my theory. I had to make sure I was right. And in the process, convince you—since you trusted him so wholeheartedly.”
“Don�
��t you think, Chief, that you could’ve tested your theory a different way—not at the cost of our lives? Lady Cuckoo predicted you might die today, but what about me? I’m still young!”
“Let’s not panic, Badgercat. You really think I’d let us get locked in here without a plan? The door is very flimsy. The bottom is all rotted. It can easily be . . .”
A strange noise, as if someone was sharpening their teeth against a stone, forced them to look at the door. Through the barred window they saw rats. Lots of rats. Lots and lots of rats.
And they didn’t seem normal. Their red eyes had a senseless, vicious gleam. Their dirty fur stood up in all directions, and a whitish foam trickled from their mouths. The pointy remnants of their yellow teeth gnawed on the bars covering the window and sunk into the rotted wooden door.
“Some were cured. Others, unfortunately, were not,” mumbled Badger.
“What?”
“They have rabies,” said Chief Badger. “It’s a pack of rabid rats.”
“You said something about a plan,” whined Badgercat.
Chief Badger was silent.
“You have a plan. Right?” Badgercat was puffed up into a fur ball, not taking his eyes off the rabid rats. “You said something about the door. Remember? That it was very flimsy, the bottom is all rotted, it can easily be . . .”
“. . . chewed through,” finished Chief Badger. “But that plan won’t work anymore. Actually, it will still work. Just not for us, but for them.”
CHAPTER 33: IN WHICH EVERYTHING FITS IN THE SUITCASE
“Oh, Mama, please forgive him!” said Barbara, clasping her paws together under her chin, as if in prayer. “Papa didn’t tell you about the maniac because he was afraid of losing you again. He loves you very much!”
“He only loves his job!” said Melissandra shaking her head. She tossed another cardigan and a dandelion-fluff scarf into an open suitcase.
Her exceptionally elegant, ethereal clothes were laid out in neat stacks on the bed, table, chair, floor, and all the shelves of her room at the Inn Beneath the Seven Oaks. Barbara had no earthly idea how her mother managed to fit all those stacks into one, albeit very large, suitcase. Barbara herself traveled light, with only a small backpack. But Melissandra could indeed do it. She could do many things, including forgive.
“Mama, he loves you!” insisted Barbara. “You’ve got to forgive Papa.”
“Never!” Melissandra put a stack of cobweb-laced nightgowns in her suitcase. “No, no, and no. We’re going home. To Underwood.”
“Is that ‘no, no, and no’ final? Or is there a chance I could convince you?”
“How are you going to convince me?” Melissandra answered the question with a question.
“He has your charred picture hanging up in his house!” said Barbara. “Right in the middle of the place—so that he can see it from anywhere in the burrow!”
“I don’t believe you.” Melissandra’s eyes flashed with curiosity.
“I’ll prove it! Let’s go and have a look.”
CHAPTER 34: IN WHICH THIS IS THE END
“Best case scenario: they rip us to pieces,” said Chief Badger, not taking his eyes off the door.
The brainless rabid rats persistently but unsuccessfully gnawed at the window bars. But there were a lot of rats. A lot. And by the sound of it, other brainless rabid rats were persistently gnawing at the bottom of the door. With far more success. The rotted, softened wood crumbled easily under their teeth. The rats’ inevitable infiltration into the cell was only a matter of minutes.
“And worst case scenario?” Badgercat flattened his ears against his head. He didn’t want to hear the answer. But even with his ears flattened, he heard what he already knew.
“If they don’t kill us but only bite us—we’ll become just like them.”
Badgercat eyed the door desperately. Bared teeth, covered in white, bubbling foam, beady red watering eyes frozen as if in a trance—would he really become like them? He, such a graceful . . . talented . . . young Badgercat? Death was far better. He decided he wouldn’t come out of this encounter alive.
Somewhere from up above, from a world that was forever lost to them—a world where animals exchanged gossip at the Tree Knot Tavern while enjoying a mothito or two, where the plump mushroom caps peeked out from the fallen leaves, where the herby, sleepy grass breathed out the smell of rain—came the faraway rumble of a summer night’s thunder. The Thunder Bearer was scolding his Celestial Bear Cub again.
“After the midnight hour, tune in for the owls!” said Badger barely audibly.
“What?” Badgercat looked at him, amazed. “Usually, animals talk about important things on their deathbeds, not repeat commercial jingles!”
“That wasn’t me,” said Badger. “It was the radio transmitter! I took it away from Sneaky Sal last night but forgot to put it in the evidence locker. And the thunder just activated it.” Chief Badger suddenly began to laugh.
“Are you having a good time right now?”
“You know what, Partner? I’m having second thoughts about dying right now.” Badger shook the transmitter and tapped it with his paw. “Testing, one two, one two . . . We’ll transmit a distress signal. This is Chief Badger, live on the air! Can anyone hear me? Over!”
The transmitter gave a short grunt and grew silent.
“Mayday! Chief and Assistant Chief Badger of the Far Woods Police are in danger!” Chief Badger desperately shook the transmitter. “We need backup! Can anyone hear me? Over! Over!”
Silence. Then a loud crunching. But it didn’t come from the radio. It came from the door. Five seconds later the door collapsed into the murky water in a pile of wood chips. The pack of rabid rats burst into the cell, screeching.
Some rats swam. Other rats ran along their pack-mates’ backs. Some choked on the murky, sludgy water. Others dug their clawed feet into the floor. There were a lot of them. So many, that they completely filled up the cell.
“This is the end, Son,” said Chief Badger tossing aside the useless radio transmitter and hugging Badgercat.
The transmitter fell into the mass of bodies swarming in the murky water. The rabid rats instantly ripped it to shreds.
“After all that, thank you for calling me Assistant Chief Badger on air,” whispered Badgercat.
“It didn’t go on air, Son.”
“I know. But it still means a lot.”
CHAPTER 35: IN WHICH THERE ARE SCREAMS OF FEAR
Starling was sitting in Chief Badger’s basement before a pile of pine nuts. He hadn’t eaten a single one. First of all, he’d lost his appetite. Second of all, he was afraid the sound of crunching nut shells would be heard by the animals upstairs in the burrow. Two badgers: Melissandra and Barbara. Badger’s wife and daughter.
Starling felt incredibly uncomfortable. As if he were a criminal who had broken into someone else’s burrow. Badger hadn’t told him that he was expecting company. So when he heard footsteps from above, he was so frightened that he’d decided to hunker down and not give any signs of life. But then it turned out to be two badgers. They were admiring a photograph on the wall and discussing the mess in Badger’s burrow. That was probably when he should’ve flown out of the basement to greet them. But he was shy and hesitant and . . . well, the moment had passed. Coming out now would be embarrassing and uncomfortable. What if they thought he was eavesdropping on purpose? What if they were angry? What if they made him leave? Where would he fly in the dark, lightning-strewn sky? In those woods, where every bush could be concealing a bird-plucker, where there wasn’t a single safe place left?
“Barbara, do you think he’ll like it if I fold his clothes into neat stacks?” came a nurturing voice from up above.
Of course, he’ll like it, thought Starling, smiling.
“Yes, Mama. He’ll be over the moon. Do you want me to help?”
“No, I’ll do it. You’re just as messy as your father. You don’t know how to make neat stacks—”
“Who cares a
bout that? I have other aptitudes . . .”
The badgers’ voices were so homely and pleasant that Starling began dozing off without even realizing it. A dream was already formulating. It was of his grandfather, Starling the Elder, who was long gone.
“Now watch. Shirts should be folded like this, so the collar doesn’t get wrinkled,” instructed his grandfather. He laid out a black shirt on a cloud. “And mittens . . . ,” his grandfather suddenly stammered, opened his beak, and let out a piercing, blood-curdling scream.
Starling jolted awake. Starling the Elder and his cloud disappeared, but the screaming continued. Terrified, helpless, wild screams were coming from the badgers upstairs. Starling could hear someone’s barbaric footsteps up above. And by the sound of it, all the furniture in the burrow was being upended.
“Ladies, please” came a smooth female voice. “Please get a hold of yourselves.”
“Do you want me to chew through their throats, so they’ll be quiet?” came a cold, predatory male voice.
“Later,” said the female, her voice domineering.
“Madame already said these two fools could be useful,” a third, whiny voice interjected. “We’ll liquidate them later.”
“My apologies, Pigeon,” said the predatory voice. “Madame is exceptionally generous as always.”
“And you are heartless as always,” said Madame softly.
“A real rat lives life as if its heart has already been ripped out.”
CHAPTER 36: IN WHICH IDIOTS DON'T HAVE A CHOICE
The rats were scampering up one another’s backs and up the tall legs of the table. Losing their grip, they’d tumble down but would immediately resume their climb. The others, who were swarming on the flooded floor, gnawed away at the bottoms of the legs. Chief Badger and Badgercat were sitting atop the table and hugging. Whatever awaited them beyond this world, whether it be the loving embrace of the Celestial Bear Father or just cold black nothingness, real badgers left life with honor.
The Plucker: A Beastly Crimes Book Page 15