***
Johnny Tuesday had only just gone to sleep, but he was awakened by the sound of scratching on the floor underneath his bed. He rolled over on the old, stained mattress and sighed. He had no blanket, just the shabby coat he usually wore, but he wrapped his arms tighter around himself and tried to fall back asleep. The scratching sound continued, more urgent than before, and he finally gave in and sat up in bed.
He walked over to the edge of the loading dock and flipped a switch on the wall, turning the large overhead lights on. He didn’t like using the lights, because he was worried the building owners would know someone was there if they saw the electric bill go up. Of course, Johnny had been staying there for over eight months now, since the company went bankrupt and the building became abandoned, and no one had shown up to evict him yet. He hoped no one ever would, because he had nowhere else to go.
The loading dock was empty except for a stack of old wooden pallets and some metal racks, empty now. The only other piece of furniture was an old mattress on a plain metal frame, which Johnny found leaning against a dumpster a few months before. He brought it here and it was the nicest bed he had ever owned. It was much better than the pallets he previously slept on.
When his eyes became accustomed to the bright lights, he could see a pair of rats running around under the bed. He found rats in the building all the time, and he usually paid them no mind. But they usually did not interrupt his sleep.
“Go away, rats!” he yelled at them, but they did not listen.
He picked up a broken plank of wood from one of the pallets and smacked it against the floor a few times to scare the rats off. Normally, that did the trick, but for some reason, these rats did not seem scared by him.
Johnny got onto his knees and swung the piece of wood under the bed, knocking one of the rats clear out from under it. The small animal slid a few feet away from the bed and scratched at the floor. Johnny went over to it and hit it with the piece of wood.
To his amazement, the rat barely seemed to notice. It just sat there on the floor, scratching over and over like a broken toy. Johnny could see cuts and bite marks along its back and down its tail.
He walked back over to the bed and reached down to swing the plank of wood at the other rat. It squeaked at him angrily and jumped onto the piece of wood, climbing right up to his hand before he could pull away. He shouted in surprise as the rat jumped onto his hand and sunk its teeth into his thumb.
“Ow! Let go!” Johnny shouted, swinging his hand. The plank of wood flew from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He swung his hand left and right frantically as the rat held on, biting deep into his finger. Finally, with a scream of pain, he shook the rat off and it flew across the room, smacking right into the wall.
Blood poured from the torn skin and dripped onto the floor, and Johnny winced in pain, pinching his thumb with his other hand to try and stop the flow. The rat took a piece of his flesh with it when he shook it off. He looked over at the rat, and to his amazement, it was still moving around. In fact, it was scurrying towards him.
When he glanced back at the other rat, he saw that it too was coming in his direction. So were the four other rats that appeared from behind the pallets. Suddenly, Johnny felt very outnumbered. He ran to the door and left the building, not even bothering to turn the lights off after him.
“Stupid rats,” he muttered. He took a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his thumb, wincing again in sharp pain. He would come back in the morning, when the sun was out, and find whatever holes the rats were coming through and fill them up. The stupid rats weren’t going to bother him again.
He walked down an alley adjacent to the building and found a blocked off doorway that he could snuggle down in to catch some sleep.
Resident Evil Legends Part Five - City of the Dead Page 3
