Shuffling noises nearby spoke of animals racing to get away from him as he moved. Every fifty feet, he remembered. Good thing he hadn’t asked what the diseases did to a person, curable or not. He shuddered at the thought he might even step on one of the damn things. Seeing all those rats in one pit was creepy enough. To imagine there were any around him now just plain gave him the heebeie jeebies.
His flashlight’s battery was dying, the beam a yellow coffee ring on the trees. Great, like I’ll be able to see any rats now if it dies, he thought.
The pit had to be getting closer, he hoped, maybe another hundred yards. Nothing looked familiar in the darkness of the woods. Just a lot of frigging branches. The cops should have cleared a goddamn path. This was just about futile at this time of night. This was—
He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the groaning.
“Hello?”
The groaning grew louder. Someone in pain. Ted undid the snap on his shoulder holster, took his gun out. Cautiously, he followed the groaning, which drew him in the direction of the pit.
“Oooooh.”
“George? That you?” It sure as hell sounded like George. But there was a new sound now, a hitch-pitched squealing. Like a car with bad brakes. It was getting louder, closer.
Adrenaline coursed through Ted’s veins as he raced through the woods, ignoring the limbs whipping him in the face. The pit swam into view, moonlight rippling down through the tree canopy into the clearing, illuminating the police tape.
“Ooo…”
“George!” Ted ripped the tape with his hand, stepped past it and looked into the pit.
George was lying at the bottom, his legs and arms bent at 90-degree angles, but not the way God intended them to. “Jesus Christ, George. What happened?”
George was wide-eyed; his face was a mass of contusions.
Now the high-pitched squeal stopped. Something rushed through the woods behind Ted, swishing the leaves, drumming the ground, then was gone.
Ted spun around, his flashlight bouncing faint shadows over the surrounding trees. Everything was so damn dark. Where the hell was the guy? He’d shoot him on sight.
He spoke over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the woods. “George, just hang on, there’s a car on its way. Give it a minute. Is this our guy? Do you know which way he went?”
A grunt. Sounded like I don’t know.
Got to be here somewhere, Ted thought. Just heard him a second ago. He’s not as stealthy as he thinks.
The running footsteps came out of nowhere to his right. He turned to shoot. Something slammed into him. A trench coat. A rat mask. White erupted under his eyes. The floor of the pit came up and rammed into his body.
His back shrieked in pain and he went stiff, barely able to move, the wind knocked out of him.
Get up get up get up, he told himself. His gun, torn from his grip when he’d landed, was a dark spot on the dirt. The flashlight was nowhere in sight, probably still up above the pit. Reaching out, he snatched up the gun. He rolled over, ignored the pain that flared up his spine, and aimed up.
Nothing. Just treetops and the silver dollar moon beyond.
On the ground to his right, George was grunting hysterically. He seemed…genuinely scared.
Where was the guy? Ted swung the gun all around the edge of the pit, waiting for a shadow to appear. There was no getting up, he knew that, his back was sprained or broken or something. The guy had hit him with such force it nearly knocked his brains lose.
Then there was sound. Something moving around up at the edge of the pit, something dragging its feet through the dirt.
Show yourself, thought Ted, gun aimed.
As if in response, something long and gray flipped over the edge, wound itself around the nearest ladder and yanked it out in the blink of an eye. More shuffling, and the gray hose-like thing found the other ladder and yanked it out as well. Then, whatever the hose-like thing was appeared over the edge once more, just dangling, yet moving ever so slightly on its own. What the hell is that, thought Ted? A snake? Now it swished back and forth, twitching, the movement unmistakable. Both he and George stared at it disbelieving.
A tail. One hell of a large fucking tail. Boy, this guy went all out on the costume.
“Come on, you shithead,” Ted yelled. “Stick your head over the edge. I just want to see your stupid mask.” He held the gun out, still aiming, just looking for one good opportunity to fire.
The tail disappeared.
Silence.
Then, more shuffling.
Next to him, George became frantic. Grunting, almost screaming.
Ted looked at him, barely visible in the moonlight, followed his friend’s gaze up toward the edge of the pit on the north side. Something black was sliding out over the edge. Oblong, moving cautiously, titling downward.
Slowly, a rat’s head swam into view, looking down on them. A giant rat’s head. Bigger than a human head. More like the size of a horse’s head. Damn, that looks real, Ted thought.
He fired, but the shot went wide and missed. The recoil screamed through his back and he damn near fainted from the pain.
The rat’s head opened its mouth. Wide. Wider. Its incisors like yellow swords.
Ted was confused. How the hell did the guy get the mouth to open like that? How’d he get the tongue and teeth to move? How—
EEEEEEEEEEE!
The rat head shrieked, the nose twitching rapidly, the whiskers dancing, the eyes blinking.
George was crying.
And Ted’s mind went a bit numb, because he was putting it all together now.
Not fake, he realized. Real. Oh God. Real. Dear God. How?
The drag marks and claw prints, the squealing noises: a giant rat with giant rat feet, dragging its tail behind. The pieces fell in place. But why the trench coat?
He heard his nephew’s bratty voice: Because, stupid, when you’re a giant rat in suburbia, survival is all about camouflage. How do you think it’s lasted this long? Duh!
The treetops turned blue and red. The rat head looked up, hissed at the lights.
The police cruiser must be here, thought Ted. Oh Christ, hurry.
The giant rat looked back down at them, opened its mouth wide. Wider. As wide as it could go. And from its mouth, like projectile vomit, spilled forth a rush of brown rats, tumbling over one another as they fell. They poured into the pit and rose like water. Their sharp little nails zoomed over the two detectives lying prone on the ground. Ted Screamed. George screamed. The rats kept coming. One big family spawned from something unexplainable and evil.
Ted’s scream became a shriek of sheer terror. The bites came quick. Too quick, according to what Julia Green had said. Uncharacteristically fast. His body lost control and flailed uselessly as it tried to deal with the pain. Where were the damn Cruiser Jockeys? Couldn’t they hear the screams? Didn’t they see his car? Or had they parked somewhere else?
Crunching sounds shot up from George’s body. He cried incoherently, something that sounded like Mandy. Then his grunting and moaning stopped and only the crunching noises came.
The rats kept biting Ted. Tiny piercing stabs, shredding his flesh. Quick. But not quickly enough. How he envied George’s silence.
Through the blood-thirsty frenzy of putrid pelts on his face, he saw the giant rat above tear off into the woods…right before a pair of one inch yellow incisors sank into his eyeballs.
He felt hot fluid run down his cheek as his vision darkened. He was mad at how wrong they’d been this time. He had so many questions. But the pain was everything now.
It took a long time to die.
THE RUNNER AND THE BEAST
Paul couldn’t eat; he was too nervous. The potatoes and chicken on his plate were growing colder by the minute, and even though his stomach rumbled, he could not bring himself to touch the food. Instead, he looked out the window to the street, saw two men passing by in a horse-drawn cab. They held hands over their mouths, whispering cautiously, little
clouds of warm breath pluming in the cold air.
Rising from the table, he moved to the fireplace and stoked the small flames. Night was falling and the temperature would only continue to drop. When would the land warm up, he wondered. It was almost spring and yet the maple trees and juniper bushes were still brown and bare. He could not remember a winter so grim. His neighbor had died from pneumonia just last week, a sweet old woman who’d called him Sir; she’d shivered like a flag whipping in a tempest breeze as he sat by her bed and prayed for her soul’s wellbeing. The image burned in his mind as he rubbed his hands in front of the flames.
Tensions were high tonight. While out walking earlier he had seen people bolting their doors. Through their windows, they could be seen armed with stolen rifles and muskets. Their whispers were uniform: the British boats had left the docks, the roadblocks were increasing, the troops were amassing. England was unhappy with the colonies.
Again, he thought of the December snow and how cold it had been against his head in New Hampshire three months ago. The trek through the dense woods to the resistance had been arduous and exhausting, but it had been necessary to raid the garrison for ammunition. The law couldn’t prove it was him, but they had their suspicions, and he knew it. He was being watched.
Satisfied with the fire’s heat, he picked his hide coat up off the bed. It was good against the wind, if not a tad restricting, and when he donned it he felt the weight of the night rest on his shoulders. His tricorn hat lay next to it; he placed it on his head. Next, he slipped on a pair of cracked leather gloves, stained with the soil of numerous New England towns. He lit a candle on the dresser near his bed, watched the flame grow and lick. Such a small flame, he thought, and yet were it to fall to the floor, the house would burn to cinders. Could he be like that flame tonight, he asked himself.
Bang bang! He jumped. Someone was knocking at the door. The rifle on the table was in his hand in a flash. “Who is it?”
“Sir, it’s me, Richard.” The voice belonged to a young boy.
Richard, Paul thought, Dr. Warren’s stable boy from the next town. When he opened the door, the boy spilled into the room with pluming breath, his cheeks flushed with blood. “Sir,” he said, “they’re on the move.”
“Are you sure? You must be sure.”
“Yes, sir. A whole army, coming this way. Close behind. More than we thought.”
Paul grabbed the boy’s shoulders and dragged him to the table. “Here, sit, eat.”
“But I have to get back—”
“You’ll go back when you’re rested and full. Warm yourself by the fire.”
“Won’t they come here?”
“No, they’re watching me. They’ll see me leave.”
Paul buttoned up his collar, gave the boy a squeeze on the shoulder. “You did well.”
He turned to leave, his hand on the door handle, when the boy spoke again. “Sir?”
“Yes, Richard.”
“Sir, stay out of the woods by the stream. I cut through and was followed. I heard footsteps following me the whole time. They may have set a trap.”
“Good job, boy. Now eat.”
Paul left.
***
Paul’s instincts had been correct, as they often were; something was happening tonight. He briskly walked away from his home, staying in the center of the street, knowing he was being watched, hoping to draw any officials away from his house, away from the boy.
A wide loop brought him around the back of his neighbor’s houses to a nearby church rectory where he rapped on the door.
An old sexton answered wearing a thick coat and hat, his aged face weathered and cracked like shale. Beyond him, inside the rectory, a full plate of food sat on a table. It was untouched, the same as Paul’s dinner had been. Next to the table stood a rifle.
The sexton nodded. “I knew you were coming.”
“It’s happening tonight, the soldiers have grouped,” Paul replied. “The King’s army will arrive shortly. You know what to do?”
“Please, Paul, it’s been playing through my mind for days. How could I forget?”
“Yes, well, I’ve seen you play chess…I can only blame senility for some of those moves.”
The two men smiled at each other, an attempt to add levity to the moment.
“I will be in touch,” Paul said, turning to leave.
“Paul, wait, I…something feels wrong.”
“Yes, the enemy is coming—”
“No, I mean, there have been occurrences of late…ever since you got back from New Hampshire. Missing livestock, blood on the flagstones. One of the stable boys said he saw red eyes in the woods on the way to Charleston. I may have seen something myself.”
“Relax. The enemy would have us afraid,” replied Paul, “with trickery and deceit. But they are the ones who will know fear. I must hurry. I await your signal.”
With a tip of his hat, Paul turned and headed for the river docks.
***
The sexton closed the door. The food on the table was of no more interest to him, so he took it out back and left it for the stray cats—though it had been days since he’d seen the cute creatures. Next, he took up his gun, left the rectory and entered the church. It was cold and dark and the timber groaned as he walked to the altar. The moon showed through the window at the front, painting a sallow square on the floor.
Here, the sexton prayed for Paul’s safety, and prayed to quell his apprehension about what the stableboys were reporting about the missing livestock. When he was done, he took the stairs to the top of the steeple and stepped out into the open, bitter air. Close by, the sea was restless, the scent of salt heavy on the breeze. Below him, the town streets were bare. No doubt Paul had already met some locals along the way and warned them of the night’s impending events; everyone would be preparing, waiting at home with guns drawn.
He looked toward the tree line, out toward where he had seen the large black shape lurking the night before. He didn’t see it now. But somehow, before this night was over, he knew he would.
***
Paul ran, keeping to the edge of town. The side streets gave way to a cow trail that led to the river docks. There he stopped, sucking in bitter, frigid air that stung his lungs, checking to make sure he was alone. His coat was just barely keeping him warm, and where there was a piece torn out of the back of the collar, the icy wind bit into his flesh. He’d lost the swatch sometime back in December, back in New Hampshire.
His rest over, he resumed his jog down the path until the river’s brine hit his nose. Then, rounding a section of the trail near the water, he ran right into a roadblock. Four men, dressed in red, carrying guns. The enemy! But they were facing the other way.
Crouching down, he found a large rock at his feet, grabbed it and pitched it into the woods. The guards’ heads snapped toward the noise.
“Wha’s that?” one of them asked, slowly moving toward the surrounding foliage to investigate.
“I don’t like it out ’ere one bit,” another answered.
“There’s noises in these woods what not human. You heard what they found? They say it’s here.”
“I ’ear lots I choose to ignore. Just stay bloody alert.”
Stepping lightly, Paul found an adjoining path, followed it down to the water. A goopy fog hovered over it like a wall of uncertainty, and nearby the bells of a ship chimed in time to the lapping waves. Paul touched his weapon. At that instant, two figures in black stepped from the trees. Paul pulled his gun and aimed.
“Helluva night, aye, Paul?” It was Joshua and Thomas, prepared as always.
“It’s begun,” Paul replied, breathing heavy. His heart was only beginning to slow a beat. Shouldering his gun, he said, “We have to get by the ship. Get north.”
“What word of the arrival,” Joshua asked as he motioned for Paul to follow him to the water’s edge. On the shore sat a small boat loaded with two oars.
“We’ll know as we go,” Paul said, climbing into the
boat.
***
To the north, near the river, the fog was thickening. Whether Paul would see the signal through such a dense barrier, the sexton wondered, was anyone’s guess.
Looking back toward the south bay, searching for signs of movement, the sexton froze. At the end of a thin tree-lined street, two red eyes slipped out of the dark foliage and disappeared behind a small house. Picking up his rifle, he pointed it in the direction of the eyes, but they did not return.
“They’re here!”
The cry came from the center of town. The sexton swung his rifle toward Main Street with shaking arms but lowered it when he saw the troops marching down the street. “My God,” he whispered. There were several thousand of them, dressed in red, with rifles and bayonets pointing toward the sky, the faintest glimmer of moonlight playing on their blades. They marched with the tautness of a lion on the prowl, heading toward the river to cross north.
The signal, the sexton thought, I have to warn everyone! The gun dropped to the floor as he took out his matches, turned back to get the gas lamps off the small table, and came face to face with two red eyes, black slit nostrils, blood-stained fangs, and two small horns sticking out of wiry hair.
“What in the foulest depths of—”
White hot pain roared across his cheek as the creature’s claws opened his face. The stinging gash was unbearable, fiery and itchy. But he dared not scream lest he alert the Regulars of the plan. Paul had to find ground in Charleston first.
With a thud, the creature leapt inside the steeple, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the walls. It was not a large steeple by any means, but enough to momentarily cause the sexton to lose the whereabouts of the monster as it walked around him. Frantically reaching for his fallen gun, he was suddenly yanked backwards by his feet.
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