Year of the Rat
I wrote this short story today based on actual events that happened in the house I'm living in.
‘Year of the Rat’
A Short Story by:
Douglas W. Nyback
In the movies when blood drips from the wall something creepy always happens first. Walls just don’t bleed on their own, they need help. They need a monster. They need a ghost.
My wall is bleeding but it’s not because of a ghost.
My wall is bleeding but something creepy did happen first.
The house I’m living in isn’t home. It’s an actor’s convent. It’s an unscrupulous god-send to the theatre world allowing men to sleep with men, women to sleep with women, and men to sleep with women-if they’re so inclined-which often they aren’t.
It’s an archaic being left over from the day’s of settlers. It’s an old New England swan-dive-home that used to be so nice it was worthy of the American Dream, back when that dream was worth fighting for. Now the foundation in the basement is crumbling causing the house to tilt on a fulcrum with one half of the house leaning towards the street, and the other half in a slow decline toward the backyard. The rooms are carpeted with relics that existed before the days of shag. The beds have seen more sex than I ever will and they’re covered loosely by sheets that can’t decide if they’re warm or moth-ridden.
Because of an artistic grant the outside of the house was re-done. Its haunting visage was replaced with a healthy yellow with white trim and shingles that actually keep the rain out. The fact that the ceiling above my bed is molding because of when the roof wasn’t fixed skipped the contractors mind when they were screwing us with our pants on. Every so often the water heater just shuts off and you have to go down to the basement which is still made of dirt. The heater rests right beside an abandoned well which was the cause of no fewer than thirteen child deaths over this home’s long existence.
Oh yeah, tons of people have died in this house.
In the kitchen the original occupant-an old hag whom wore nothing but black dresses and stockings-slit her wrists, but because she believed it would be revealing to roll up her sleeves, even while alone, they found her dress cut and re-surged all along the place where her closed arteries used to be. In the dining room the second occupant hung himself in the closet with his tie so now only an empty dresser is allowed in there. Right after the War of 1812 a soldier came home only to find his wife in bed with his best friend in the master bedroom, so he stabbed them both with his bayonet then left them in the bed until a neighbor reported a certain stink coming from the window, the soldier was sent to jail and lived a long full life behind bars until six weeks into his sentence his throat was slit by a British Loyalist. In the early fifties three teenage triplet brothers died of strangulation when they simultaneously had the same idea-in their own separate rooms-to masturbate while utilizing asphyxiation.
The real doozy though goes back to that damn well.
In the house’s early days, just after the woman slit her perfectly hemmed wrists, there was a tenant that had caused no troubles with any neighbors, and was a seemingly nice woman whenever anyone saw her around town. This woman’s name was Doris McFurty.
Now Doris was a great gal. She was a school teacher; she was pretty and took many a young man into her bed. But at night, and we’re talking the wee small hours here, we’re talking like two hours before dawn-Ms. McFurty would kidnap little babies from their cribs and thrown them down the well underneath her house. Most of the time they died on impact but every now and then it took a couple of days.
The well was connected to the neighboring house to the south so more than one person could tap into the abundance of water underneath their little neighborhood.
Everyone wondered why Doris always got water from the town well. But no one said anything. She was such a nice upstanding citizen Doris McFurty.
Really, who trusts anyone named McFurty?
It wasn’t until ten years after the killings started that Doris was found out. Her neighbor got deathly ill after drinking a cool, clean, ridden with disease glass of water and after she was off her deathbed by some miracle of God she made her husband go down into the well and see what it was that nearly killed his wife.
It was hard for him to count the exact number of baby corpses that had upset his wife’s stomach because there were so many of them. He just climbed out of his well and rounded up a mob.
When the mob approached the home of Doris McFurty with pitchforks and muskets she did what any self respecting homicidal maniac would do. She went down into the basement with her own musket, stood over that famous well, and blew the left side of her head clean off. She fell down and-like the wee one’s corpses-was never unearthed.
The well was sealed off in the basement, and it was sealed off at the neighbor’s house. The town didn’t tell the next occupants, and life went on as usual.
Until now when that old decrepit house that used to be the neighbor’s is being destroyed because it can no longer support its own weight.
Our cast is so tight. Like really, we’re doing five Shakespearian plays in repertory succession so we know each other backwards and forwards…or at least we’re acting like we do.
The thing that no one thought about was rats. The house beside us was infested with them. I know this because now our house is infested with the furry little rodents.
It was so cool the way the wrecking ball bashed the hell out of the windows and the whole thing crumbled like an old dinosaur being hit by a cruise missile. It was such a triumph for humanity. We didn’t even notice the blocked well open up in the basement because all that cool rubble fell on top of it as it opened into our house. We didn’t know the well in our house should be covered because the old covering had long since deteriorated.
All those rats. Hundreds of them. They all found their way so quickly into our basement. And when the hot water heater stopped working and one of the girls in the cast screamed because she was so cold I grabbed the flashlight and opened the basement door.
The flood of rats would have looked like a wave if it weren’t for all that fur and squeaking.
In a second they were all over me and I was so scared I could do nothing but close my mouth and thrash as wildly as I could. I threw those furry little fuckers all over the hallway. I was bashing them with my flashlight for several minutes until I realized they had all moved on to terrorize everyone else in the house and all that was left around me was about twenty corpses and the blood in my hair.
Upstairs there was gunfire because we had a cast member from Texas with us and it snapped me back into the moment.
In the living room there was the screaming of gay men and the sound of women squishing rats with shovels. In the bedrooms were vats of water and the Production Manager was methodically drowning rat after rat. Just picking them up with his bare hands…rat after rat after rat after rat after rat…
The poor girl in the shower-Cindy-had been left alone and when I went up to check on her I found her in the bath tub naked standing in an ever moving sea of multicolored earth tone fur. She couldn’t move but I could tell by the look in her eyes it would be a long time before she danced point again. I picked her up and ripped the shower curtain down laying it down over the bathtub covering everything but the nozzle. In the end I had to lay down on it because those damn rats kept trying to get out. I turned on the nozzle and just laid there on the ever moving water bed until all those fucking little rodents were drown.
Really, and let’s be honest here, most of them had died trying to chew through each other. I wasn’t really a hero, I could be accredited with maybe half.
The day’s shows were canceled because we spent all afternoon and evening fighting a war. Everyone out of the sixteen cast members is still alive but about one hundred and fifty rats are dead. Those beady eyed little bastards.
Poor Cindy’s feet are all bandaged and she’s spending the night in the hospital because they’re not sure what diseases the rats have. I’m guessing because they built their nests in the bones of several small corpses that it was a wise decision.
My wall is bleeding because right now-before we can clear it out-it’s a graveyard for about fifty five rats and a few fledgling babies we killed with a team of sledgehammers. You’d be surprised how many rats stuck in a wall will die with just one pound.
Still there weren’t any ghosts. They all got the hell outta dodge.
The big thing to remember is that we only got a hundred and fifty. The one thing we know is there were way more.
That’s why right now I’m feeling this little bit of furry movement at the foot of my bed under my covers.
With this and the walls bleeding it’s a good thing I’m sleeping with a knife and fork…
The story i was told was very similar to this, so I embellished the hell out of it, and made up a history...still it's interesting I think.
Cheers,
D.
‘Year of the Rat’
A Short Story by:
Douglas W. Nyback
In the movies when blood drips from the wall something creepy always happens first. Walls just don’t bleed on their own, they need help. They need a monster. They need a ghost.
My wall is bleeding but it’s not because of a ghost.
My wall is bleeding but something creepy did happen first.
The house I’m living in isn’t home. It’s an actor’s convent. It’s an unscrupulous god-send to the theatre world allowing men to sleep with men, women to sleep with women, and men to sleep with women-if they’re so inclined-which often they aren’t.
It’s an archaic being left over from the day’s of settlers. It’s an old New England swan-dive-home that used to be so nice it was worthy of the American Dream, back when that dream was worth fighting for. Now the foundation in the basement is crumbling causing the house to tilt on a fulcrum with one half of the house leaning towards the street, and the other half in a slow decline toward the backyard. The rooms are carpeted with relics that existed before the days of shag. The beds have seen more sex than I ever will and they’re covered loosely by sheets that can’t decide if they’re warm or moth-ridden.
Because of an artistic grant the outside of the house was re-done. Its haunting visage was replaced with a healthy yellow with white trim and shingles that actually keep the rain out. The fact that the ceiling above my bed is molding because of when the roof wasn’t fixed skipped the contractors mind when they were screwing us with our pants on. Every so often the water heater just shuts off and you have to go down to the basement which is still made of dirt. The heater rests right beside an abandoned well which was the cause of no fewer than thirteen child deaths over this home’s long existence.
Oh yeah, tons of people have died in this house.
In the kitchen the original occupant-an old hag whom wore nothing but black dresses and stockings-slit her wrists, but because she believed it would be revealing to roll up her sleeves, even while alone, they found her dress cut and re-surged all along the place where her closed arteries used to be. In the dining room the second occupant hung himself in the closet with his tie so now only an empty dresser is allowed in there. Right after the War of 1812 a soldier came home only to find his wife in bed with his best friend in the master bedroom, so he stabbed them both with his bayonet then left them in the bed until a neighbor reported a certain stink coming from the window, the soldier was sent to jail and lived a long full life behind bars until six weeks into his sentence his throat was slit by a British Loyalist. In the early fifties three teenage triplet brothers died of strangulation when they simultaneously had the same idea-in their own separate rooms-to masturbate while utilizing asphyxiation.
The real doozy though goes back to that damn well.
In the house’s early days, just after the woman slit her perfectly hemmed wrists, there was a tenant that had caused no troubles with any neighbors, and was a seemingly nice woman whenever anyone saw her around town. This woman’s name was Doris McFurty.
Now Doris was a great gal. She was a school teacher; she was pretty and took many a young man into her bed. But at night, and we’re talking the wee small hours here, we’re talking like two hours before dawn-Ms. McFurty would kidnap little babies from their cribs and thrown them down the well underneath her house. Most of the time they died on impact but every now and then it took a couple of days.
The well was connected to the neighboring house to the south so more than one person could tap into the abundance of water underneath their little neighborhood.
Everyone wondered why Doris always got water from the town well. But no one said anything. She was such a nice upstanding citizen Doris McFurty.
Really, who trusts anyone named McFurty?
It wasn’t until ten years after the killings started that Doris was found out. Her neighbor got deathly ill after drinking a cool, clean, ridden with disease glass of water and after she was off her deathbed by some miracle of God she made her husband go down into the well and see what it was that nearly killed his wife.
It was hard for him to count the exact number of baby corpses that had upset his wife’s stomach because there were so many of them. He just climbed out of his well and rounded up a mob.
When the mob approached the home of Doris McFurty with pitchforks and muskets she did what any self respecting homicidal maniac would do. She went down into the basement with her own musket, stood over that famous well, and blew the left side of her head clean off. She fell down and-like the wee one’s corpses-was never unearthed.
The well was sealed off in the basement, and it was sealed off at the neighbor’s house. The town didn’t tell the next occupants, and life went on as usual.
Until now when that old decrepit house that used to be the neighbor’s is being destroyed because it can no longer support its own weight.
Our cast is so tight. Like really, we’re doing five Shakespearian plays in repertory succession so we know each other backwards and forwards…or at least we’re acting like we do.
The thing that no one thought about was rats. The house beside us was infested with them. I know this because now our house is infested with the furry little rodents.
It was so cool the way the wrecking ball bashed the hell out of the windows and the whole thing crumbled like an old dinosaur being hit by a cruise missile. It was such a triumph for humanity. We didn’t even notice the blocked well open up in the basement because all that cool rubble fell on top of it as it opened into our house. We didn’t know the well in our house should be covered because the old covering had long since deteriorated.
All those rats. Hundreds of them. They all found their way so quickly into our basement. And when the hot water heater stopped working and one of the girls in the cast screamed because she was so cold I grabbed the flashlight and opened the basement door.
The flood of rats would have looked like a wave if it weren’t for all that fur and squeaking.
In a second they were all over me and I was so scared I could do nothing but close my mouth and thrash as wildly as I could. I threw those furry little fuckers all over the hallway. I was bashing them with my flashlight for several minutes until I realized they had all moved on to terrorize everyone else in the house and all that was left around me was about twenty corpses and the blood in my hair.
Upstairs there was gunfire because we had a cast member from Texas with us and it snapped me back into the moment.
In the living room there was the screaming of gay men and the sound of women squishing rats with shovels. In the bedrooms were vats of water and the Production Manager was methodically drowning rat after rat. Just picking them up with his bare hands…rat after rat after rat after rat after rat…
The poor girl in the shower-Cindy-had been left alone and when I went up to check on her I found her in the bath tub naked standing in an ever moving sea of multicolored earth tone fur. She couldn’t move but I could tell by the look in her eyes it would be a long time before she danced point again. I picked her up and ripped the shower curtain down laying it down over the bathtub covering everything but the nozzle. In the end I had to lay down on it because those damn rats kept trying to get out. I turned on the nozzle and just laid there on the ever moving water bed until all those fucking little rodents were drown.
Really, and let’s be honest here, most of them had died trying to chew through each other. I wasn’t really a hero, I could be accredited with maybe half.
The day’s shows were canceled because we spent all afternoon and evening fighting a war. Everyone out of the sixteen cast members is still alive but about one hundred and fifty rats are dead. Those beady eyed little bastards.
Poor Cindy’s feet are all bandaged and she’s spending the night in the hospital because they’re not sure what diseases the rats have. I’m guessing because they built their nests in the bones of several small corpses that it was a wise decision.
My wall is bleeding because right now-before we can clear it out-it’s a graveyard for about fifty five rats and a few fledgling babies we killed with a team of sledgehammers. You’d be surprised how many rats stuck in a wall will die with just one pound.
Still there weren’t any ghosts. They all got the hell outta dodge.
The big thing to remember is that we only got a hundred and fifty. The one thing we know is there were way more.
That’s why right now I’m feeling this little bit of furry movement at the foot of my bed under my covers.
With this and the walls bleeding it’s a good thing I’m sleeping with a knife and fork…
The story i was told was very similar to this, so I embellished the hell out of it, and made up a history...still it's interesting I think.
Cheers,
D.