by Laura Watson
Not what was she doing, Ralph reminded himself, it's what she's done, past tense. Past...leave it there Ralph, his mind whispered softly.
Ralph drove the few short miles down I-64 West to his small office. The further away he traveled from Leslie, the better he felt. By the time he reached his office, he was thinking clearly again. “Back to the grind,” he said aloud, softly, as he parked his car. He looked down at the small Trendie's bag he'd tossed onto the passenger side seat. He had completely forgotten about it after seeing Leslie.
Inside of the bag was a small gift wrapped box that contained a blue sapphire pendant. He had ordered it over a month ago. The small oval pendant hung from a long, fine, gold chain. The stone was a crystal clear, and a melting, blue that had instantly caught his eye. He had wanted to surprise her with it, knowing that she had a pair of earrings exactly the same color. Ralph wanted her to have it even if they weren't going to be together.
After what had just happened, however, he wasn't sure if he still did.
As he walked to his office, the small gift bag with the pendant inside, clasped in his hand, he passed a trash can. Ralph hesitated there a moment. He looked at the sky, and thought about Leslie's cold reaction to him.
He tossed the bag with it's contents into the trash can.
That one final gesture made him feel better than he had felt since the breakup three weeks ago. He walked briskly to his office. Back to the grind.
The afternoon wore on steady and long as Ralph immersed himself into the daily routine of his office. He had seven different patients to treat today, and by five o'clock, as he was finishing up with the last patient, his encounter with Leslie seemed like a distant memory.
Ralph left the office at six o'clock after writing out the last prescriptions for the day, and as he walked past the trashcan he had deposited the sapphire pendant in, he looked inside and fished it back out. There was no sense in wasting his money, he thought, he would return it to Trendie's. Eight Hundred bucks, after all, was a lot of money for him. He put the Subaru into gear and headed back into the city.
He passed by Starters again, but avoided looking at the restaurant’s large front window...for Leslie. A figure in the alley caught his eye as he drove past, and Ralph thought, isn't that the busboy from Starters? The kid's brown greasy hair fell messily across his forehead as he leaned over and offered a scrap of food to a small black and white puppy in the alley. Ralph smiled to himself as he parked his car along the busy street and got out. You just never know about people, he thought, and whistled as he walked in the door of Trendie's.
Rat Boy
Kevin had been feeding the rats scraps from the tables he bussed for a good month now, wrapping the treats in a napkin and placing them carefully in his apron pocket when no one was watching, no one except for the rats.
Charlie sat looking up through the grates of the sewer. “Is he there yet?” his friend Billy asked timidly.
“Shhh,” Charlie said impatiently, “the cats will hear us.” “but I'm hungry,” Billy whined pitifully. Charlie peered out of the grate, his black whiskers twitching, his nose crinkling as he sniffed the air.
The back alley of Starters was a dangerous place for a rat during the daylight. It wasn't until the dead of night that they dared to creep out from beneath the streets to look for food in the dumpster. The cats prowled that area and usually got all of the good stuff the human girls tossed out for them. The rats had no choice but to wait to go dumpster diving after they crept out of the alley on their silent padded feet. “At least they're not waiting for us to come out anymore,” Alex remarked cheerfully as their large group watched them one night,waiting for them to leave.
“You're such a dope Alex,” Charlie replied. “ If they weren't there we could be eating right now.” “I'm not the dope, he shot back, you're the dope.”
“Shut up the both of you.” Tom, their leader broke in.
“You'll go to the back of the pack if I hear another word. It is not the time or place to be carrying on like that, wait until we're back in the nest.” Billy and Charlie dropped their heads as Tom talked, then nodded slowly to let him know they understood. Neither of them wanted to go to the back of the pack. That space was reserved for the weakest rats. They had to eat last. They had fought and clawed their way to the front of the pack, to be the leader some day.
The cats are taking their own sweet time feasting tonight, Tom noticed, eying the scrap pile hungrily. He wanted to yell out at them, “Hey fatsos, leave some for the rest of us,” but to make even one squeak, he knew, would invite a barrage of feline teeth and claws, reaching through the grates, feeling around for them, hissing and biting at them and scratching at the grate for hours while the group of rats hid, just out of reach of their deadly claws, stuck against the side of the sewer tunnel. Or worse, he thought, they would pretend to leave and sit just out of sight waiting for them to emerge from the their underground haven. Then they would pounce on them like they were spring loaded, ripping into their rugged hides with their needle sharp incisors. They always went for the neck, too. The most vulnerable part. They sunk their teeth into their jugular veins and bled them out or shook them like a rag doll until they eventually succumbed.
Tom shivered violently, he had seen them do it many, many times. It was the most horrible death that he could imagine, being trapped in between the teeth of one of those cats in the alley, crushed alive.
Charlie held his breath. He heard footsteps in the alley approaching the grate. “Hey, how's it going boys?”
Kevin whispered. Charlie tentatively stuck his nose out of the grate, smelling the now familiar smell of the boy who had been bringing them food for the last month.
“It's okay guys, look I brought you some good treats today,” Kevin pulled the napkin covered treats from his apron and held one of them out to Charlie.
“Chicken!” Charlie squeaked in delight. He squeezed his fat sleek black and white body out of the grate and walked quickly to Kevin's outstretched hand.
Charlie reached up with his long slender paws and took the half eaten chicken bone from Kevin's hand.
“I'm next,” Billy shouted back to the jostling rats behind of him. He wiggled happily out of the grate and held his brown paws out expectantly. Kevin dropped another chicken bone into them. It wasn't as plump as the one Charlie had, but Billy wasn't complaining one bit. It wasn't everyday he got chicken!
Each rat, in turn got a treat from Kevin. He always made sure he had enough food to give all fifteen of them. Even if he had to break the portions into two or three pieces, they all got something.
Charlie ate his chicken slowly, relishing the savory chicken flesh in his mouth. He suddenly thought about Tom, their former leader, and blinked quickly.
Hot tears stung his small black eyes. If only I hadn't had to see it, he thought miserably, the enjoyment he'd just felt over the chicken, replaced now by a hollow pain as he thought about Tom.
“Are they gone yet?” Charlie whispered hungrily behind Tom. They peered out of the sewer grate at the large pile of fresh spaghetti and meatballs the human girls had just thrown out for the alley cats.
The cats were nowhere to be seen. Tom sniffed the air cautiously, his small black whiskers twitching, but all he could smell was the glorious smell of that scrap pile.
The smell from the scrap pile tonight was
excruciatingly delicious and Charlie could hear the stomachs of all fifteen of their group growling noisily.
“Shhhhhhh...” Billy whispered, elbowing Charlie roughly in his small forearm.
Tom turned to tell them to shut their holes and just as he turned his head, a thickly clawed paw reached in and snagged the loose skin of his neck. Tom's face was a mask of startled fear and dawning horror as the clawed feline paw pulled him through the grate close enough to get the long fanged teeth of it's owner in reach.
Tom closed his eyes and recognized his worst nightmare. He felt his bones crack between the forceful jaws of the alley cat
. He heard the snapping sound they made as white pain flared behind his closed lids. Tom felt the warm gush of blood spurt from his neck and he heard the spattering of his life's blood falling on the cobble stoned alley's surface.
Charlie watched from behind the safety of the sewer grate, in fascinated horror, as the alley cat crushed Tom's slender body between his large teeth. He stood frozen where he was, unable to look away while Tom's blood spattered noisily on the ground in front of him. He looked at Tom's eyes. Tom kept them closed.
He couldn't bear to see the pity he was sure would be on the faces of those watching the grisly ordeal.
Charlie watched until the cat noisily chewed Tom's head off of his torso and devoured it. He ran then, wildly, back into the sewer pipe back to their nest, the thirteen other rats following closely on his heels.
Charlie was their leader now.
Kevin loved rats. He begged his mother for a pet rat after he had read about them in his science book.
Rats were supposed to be super intelligent, he told his mother, trying his best to convince her to buy one for him at the pet store in the strip mall beside of their apartment.
“I am not buying one of those filthy rodents Kevin and stop asking me,” she replied firmly. “They carry all kinds of diseases. They're nasty, filthy, rats and you are not getting one. Do you understand young man?”
Kevin never won any argument with his mother.
Once her mind was made up about something, it was impossible to get her to change it.
There had always been rats for Kevin though, whether his mother liked them or not. The dumpster beside of their apartment building always had rats that came out after dark. He had seen them one night as he and his mother came in from their, once monthly, movie night.
When he first saw them, he thought that they were puppies. They were large and brown and looked just like puppies, except for their tails.
He looked at them as they were walking to the flight of steps that led to their second floor apartment.
“Puppies!” Kevin exclaimed and pointed to the dumpster. His mother looked in the direction he was pointing and screamed. “Those are rats!!” “Ughhh!! she yelped and took the steps two at a time to get away from them as fast as she could. She shuddered in revulsion as she pushed the door open with her shoulder and pushed Kevin into the two bedroom apartment.
Kevin's mother cast a last, frightened, look back down the flight of steps and slammed the door. “Damn apartments,” she shouted. “Damned rats everywhere!”
She got on the phone to the apartment manager and as Kevin peeked out of the living room window, searching for the rats, he heard her complaining loudly about the rats.
The following day was Saturday and Kevin saw the red exterminator van with a faded yellow logo that read We stamp out pests! parked outside of their building. The exterminators had placed baited traps all around the dumpster and tacked a note on each apartment door warning the residents not to bother the traps, that the food in them was poisoned.
Kevin got the note off of the front door of their apartment on his way back in from his bike ride and stuffed it into his pocket before his mother had a chance to see it. He sat in the apartment eating and watching television all that day.
“Kevin, you sure do have a good appetite today,”
his mother remarked happily, handing him an egg salad sandwich with potato chips on a faded yellow plate. She always worried that he didn't eat enough for his size.
“I'm just hungry today, I guess,” Kevin replied and shrugged his shoulders, a winning smile on his face.
Evening approached and as the sun settled low on the horizon, Kevin's mother started towards the door with a bag of trash clasped firmly in each hand. “Leave those at the door, Mom,” Kevin said in his sweetest voice, “I'll take them out for you.”
“Well!” his mother exclaimed, “That's a nice surprise, Kevin! Thank you!” She walked over to where he sat on the couch in front of the television and kissed his cheek. “I'm going to take a shower then.” She walked down the hall towards the bathroom, holding her hands against the small part of her back, “Make that a bath,” she called back ruefully.
Kevin waited until he heard the bathroom door close and then pulled out the bag of scraps that he had collected throughout the day. It was packed full of mostly uneaten snacks, most of the egg salad sandwich his mother had made him for lunch, two apples, and a half of a moon pie. He closed the bag and went to the front door.
He picked up the two hefty sized bags of trash, sticking the smaller bag of treats down the front of his hoodie and walked quickly down the steps. He hoped he wasn't too late.
Kevin tossed the two large trash bags into the dumpster, hearing the tinkling sound of breaking glass as the bags crashed against the rest of the trash bags in there. He looked around him. He felt a rush of excitement as he slipped behind of the dumpster, looking cautiously around him first to make sure he wasn't seen.
The traps had been set out neatly around the dumpster, on every side except for the very front to allow access to it by the residents. There were eight large traps that Kevin could see. There were two on each side and four that lined the back of the large green dumpster.
Kevin found a stick and sprung each of the hideous looking contraptions and then tossed the stick aside. He pulled the bag of treats from the front of his hoodie and poured them onto the ground beside of him.
With the plastic bag wrapped on his hand like a glove, he picked the poison bait off of the traps and placed them into a pile. When he had all of the poisoned bait off of the traps, he used the plastic bag to scoop them up. He turned the bag with the handful of poisoned bait inside out and tied it tightly. He tossed it into the dumpster. He left the pile of treats for the rats and went back up the flight of steps to wait.
Thirty minutes passed before the first rat came into sight. From where Kevin sat, high up on the flight of steps that led up the side of the apartment building, he could see the back of the dumpster clearly.
The rat sniffed around the pile of snacks and grabbed the half eaten moon pie. “That would've been my first choice, too, buddy,” Kevin whispered aloud and smiled. Three more rats slowly crept into Kevin's view and the small pile of food quickly vanished.
Kevin smiled to himself. He didn't know why feeding those rats made him so damned happy. All that he knew was that it did. With one last look down at the dumpster, and his new friends, Kevin walked back into the apartment.
The Harvest
Day 1-
Leslie walked up the driveway to her house. A newspaper lay in her yard. Every yard had one today.
The Journal had made sure to canvass the entire city with a free copy of the paper. She picked up the paper and unlocked the front door. Her cat, Mystery, greeted her. She was perched atop the small end table that sat near the door. “Hey bunky,” Leslie said and scratched her chin affectionately. She tossed the newspaper on the table and picked the small gray Himalayan cat up. She hugged her gently.
The wail of sirens in the distance registered only momentarily in the back of her mind as she walked into the kitchen, still holding Mystery,“Who wants a snack?” she called out. Two more cats came racing in from the bedroom where they had been enjoying their afternoon naps, shaking their sleepy heads as they lithely ran. They stood, looking up at her expectantly, as she pulled the bag of cat treats down from the cupboard. The sirens wailed, sounding a little closer than they had just a moment ago. Leslie listened to their approach. She smelled something that she didn't immediately identify. It was an electric smell. The air seemed suddenly charged with electricity and a bolt of electricity shot out of the wall socket in the kitchen. It leapt out three feet, singing the roll of paper towels that she kept on the counter. W hat the hell was that? She thought looking around her wildly. She smelled hair burning, one of the cats?
She looked for the cats but they had bolted into the bedroom after the electricity shot out of the wall.
She felt of
her head. Her hand fell on a hot smoldering patch of hair. She smacked at it and ran to the sink.
She still smelled something burning. Her hair had been soaked down in the sink. She knew it wasn't her.
She ran into the living room. The wall socket had been blown off. The wires sizzled and smoked in the square insert in the wall. “Fuck!” She shouted. Grabbing a towel, she went to smother the smoldering wiring. Just before she made the fatal mistake of touching those sizzling wires, Bene, one of her cats, ran under her feet, and he tripped her. The towel flew from her hands and landed on the couch. The wiring smoldered for a second more and then a flame erupted. It was enough to remind Leslie that those were live wires.
She ran quickly into the pantry where the breaker box hung on the wall. She cut the main power and grabbed the small fire extinguisher that had hung in there, unused, since she bought that house. She only hoped the fucking thing was still charged.
Leslie read the instructions on the extinguisher quickly, and pulled the pin. She aimed at the wall socket and squeezed the handle. A fine white foam covered the wall, coating the exposed wires. She quickly checked the rest of the house, finding a fire just beginning to burn steadily in her bedroom. She aimed the extinguisher's hood low and squeezed until the last few bursts of foam were expelled. She hoped that was the last fire she'd have to deal with because that extinguisher was useless now. She walked back into the pantry and placed it on the floor against the wall. The sirens blared out into the afternoon. It would seem, she thought, I'm not the only one with a fire.
Leslie surveyed the damage in the bedroom and living room from the small fires, then flipped the breaker to restore power to the rest of the house, leaving the two areas switched to the off position until she could get an electrician to repair the wiring. The radio blared into life with an urgent message on the emergency broadcast system. “This is not a test.” It blared over and over. “Remain in your homes, do not go outside, do not, I repeat, do not go outside. Alien ships have appeared in the sky in this area. Do not go outside. Remain calm, remain in your homes. Do not attempt to contact the alien ships. For your own safety, remain indoors.