by Nana Malone
They made him proud. Even the weakest of his Alley Rats would be a strong king in another pack. That’s how the game was played. But no rat alive could outplay him, not even Hilary. The sight of her made his tail twitch.
Not even you, sister. I’d see our idiot brother in charge before turning it over to you.
“Where’s he going?” Hilary asked, as Skit left through the alley tunnel. Her voice was low, and her tone so perfectly casual that she might have been merely curious. He knew better, though.
“What? Don’t you know?” Giles whispered.
“Oh, a secret?” she whispered back. “No, I already know all of your secrets, brother. I really don’t care what your little bug is up to.”
“Of course you do. That’s your weakness. You always have to stick your runny nose into everyone’s business. Every rat in this warren is covered in your snot.”
“Have you noticed where we live? This place is a real rat’s nest. It pays to know what’s going on down here. I know, for instance, that your little crawler stalks Alice through her tunnels. Are you going to raid Jimmy’s fresh human grave, or are you looking for a nice new corpse of your own?”
“You’re slipping, sis. I’ll give you this secret for free. With the stash Skit and I have discovered, we don’t need to bother with Jimmy or his poxy human. We’ve found enough food to fill Alice’s tunnels, preferably while she’s still in them. Skit’s making sure the way is clear right now. Come along, if you want. It’ll be you and me, like old times. Decide now. I can’t wait for you.” He turned away and went up the tunnel after Skit.
She followed, watching him carefully, as if her mere gaze would reveal his angle. “What are you up to? You don’t give anything away without a reason. You need me, or you wouldn’t have said a word. What’s my place in this adventure?”
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “You see too much, sometimes, Hilary. But that’s precisely what I need. I need someone competent at my back. Someone I can trust. But, alas, I’ve already killed all of those rats, so I’m stuck with you. If you are with me, we’ll both come out on top this time, so forget the scheming for one night, and keep your ears open. It’ll be dangerous up there.”
“Up where? Where is this stash of yours? Is it far?”
“No questions. Come find out for yourself, if you want a share. Stay if you don’t. And keep your gnashers closed until I return. I don’t want any unwelcome company.”
“I’m not going to the surface before nightfall without Terry. He’s rather helpful when the fur flies, and if you had any part of the planning, then this will be a dangerous adventure.”
Giles pretended to consider her suggestion. He wanted Terry to come, too. He just didn’t want her to know he wanted it. It would be better if she thought it was her own idea. She trusted no one, least of all Giles, so her bringing their soft-headed brother along was a sure thing. He nodded his approval.
“We’ll meet you at the top,” she said, trying not to look rushed as she went back for her bodyguard.
* * * * *
~Part Two: Pumpkin Day~
It had been ages since Giles had seen the surface world in the burning light of the sun. He hadn’t missed it. It was terrible during the day, but even after the hated sun had abandoned the sky to the stars, pools of light still polluted the world. It bled from the tops of towers on street corners, and from nearly every wall of every building. The light was full of monsters. It was everywhere, and he hated it.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the humans were out in force. Their booming voices and thunderous footfalls were punctuated by occasional screams, laughter, and choruses of “Trick or Treat.” The air was thick with howls and barks of distant, and even not so distant, dogs, and the alley reeked of cats and other animals, all of which would be delighted to eat him. All monsters. Anything that considered rats food, they thought of as a monster.
A crash of plastic, metal, and glass froze Giles in place as an avalanche of debris cascaded across the pavement in front of him. Laughing humans ran past, knocking over three more bins on their way down the alley.
That was quite decent of them.
The chaotic jumble of delicious scents was a siren’s song, wafting lazily through the still air, but he wasn’t here to risk his life for bin food. The debris gave them plenty of hiding places, though, and with Skit signaling to alert them of trouble, Giles reached the end of the alley without incident.
As he waited beneath a dripping drainpipe, Terry ran from beneath an opened pizza box to join him. Neither he nor Giles noticed Skit’s frantic warning. Just out of sight, a chain rattled, a dog barked, and three smaller, giggling humans rounded the corner, bumbling along less than a dozen tail-lengths from Giles.
Carelessly bumping into one another and jostling their brightly colored bags, they dropped two shiny red packages behind them. One of them skittered to a stop at Giles’ feet, but the other bounced and rolled through a sewer grate at the street curb.
As humans tend to do, the three little ones continued on their way, fortunately for Terry, paying no attention to the world below their knees. He sprinted over Giles as soon as they ran by. By the time Hilary reached them, they had torn away the shiny red wrapper and were wiping the remnants of the delicious chocolate candy from their chins and whiskers.
“Nothing left for your sister?” Hilary asked a bit too sweetly.
“There’ll be plenty of sweets for you tonight, Hilary,” Giles answered. “The night hasn’t even begun, yet. If you really want it, another piece rolled through that sewer grate.”
As they watched, another rat, probably from the Road King’s pack, crossed the street from the other side, and climbed down through the grate. Seconds later, it climbed back up with the candy in its mouth, but squeaked in fright as something caught its tail and yanked it back down into the sewer. Brief, but agonized screams echoed up to them, and abruptly stopped.
“Maybe I’ll just wait for the next treat,” Hilary said. They nodded mutely, unable to look away from the grate, even though they couldn’t see inside. Clawed hands grabbed the heavy iron bars from below, pulling a pair of malevolent red eyes up between them. They glowed with an unnatural light, and Giles felt their gaze upon him.
Those eyes were all wrong. Something about them was itchy. It left a nagging bump deep inside his head, where he couldn’t scratch it. Danger bled from those glowing orbs; giving notice that this beast was entirely predator, and knew neither the fear of being prey, nor the hunger of an escaped quarry.
Skit hissed and buzzed his wings, urging them onward. A rat’s best protection was its ability to hide, but they stood still and bare, for all the monsters of the world to see, out in the open. Giles’ mind screamed “Run!” but his body stubbornly refused to obey. He and his siblings were transfixed by the hazy crimson glow of those eyes.
The eyes blinked, the claws let go of the bars, and the monster descended back into the sewer. As one, Giles and his companions exhaled. Somehow, the remaining patches of sunlight had been completely chased away by the deepening dusk while they stood there for what they thought had only been a few seconds.
Giles burst into motion, following Skit to the opposite wall of the alley, and around the corner. No longer in his own territory, he wanted his scout in sight in case they had to move quickly.
They emerged from the alley onto an impossibly wide and busy street. On the near side, grassy gardens with walls that looked like brick latticework lined a row of connected human lairs. On the far side, they saw their target.
“It’s the gates of Hell,” Terry said, in an awestruck whisper. He stared at the bright lights and the glowing images of snakes, lizards, dragons, and monstrous crocodiles that flashed across the glass wall.
Hilary shoved Terry aside. “Shut up and move!” She ducked through one of the gaps in the wall, and hid on the other side. Giles climbed through, too, and then climbed up to a higher row to get a view of the sidewalk. If Terry was going to be squis
hed, he could at least watch.
A pack of humans nearly trampled Terry, but he dove into the garden at the last moment. They must have seen him, because they screamed and backed away, pointing to where he had been.
Two houses down, behind the humans, a pumpkin toppled from the wall and smashed on the sidewalk. The humans spun around and renewed their chorus of screams. Their screams softened into embarrassed laugher as they ran past Giles. Unconcerned with the humans, Giles’ attention was on the top of the wall where the pumpkin once sat.
A chubby tomcat sat on the wall as though he not only owned it, but had designed and built it. The humans must have spooked him into nudging the pumpkin over the wall's edge. The cat nonchalantly cleaned its deadly claws, pretending the whole event had been staged at his command.
Giles grinned. The orange menace was exactly where Skit said it would be. He watched it for a few more heartbeats, admiring its confidence and utter lack of fear, even as an unseen dog barked nearby.
“Well?” Hilary hissed up to him. “Now what? Skit’s gone off without us.”
“You two wait here, that’s what. One of those humans spilled more candy two walls down when your ferocious brother scared the water out of them. Nice job, Terry!”
“Not this time, Giles. It’s my turn, remember?”
“Alright,” Giles said, cutting her off. “You missed out on the last treat, so you can go first this time. Bring as much as you can back here. If Skit returns first, we’ll join you. Now go, before I change my mind.”
Hilary dipped her nose in a slight gesture of acknowledgement, as one might do to recognize an inferior, and walked away at an imperiously slow pace.
“Hurry up!” Giles growled.
As she vanished through the gap into the next garden, Skit flew down from above and landed on the steps beside Giles. “Let’s give her a little head start,” Giles said, grabbing Terry’s tail as he started off after Hilary.
A few seconds later, as Giles and Terry entered the garden on one side, Hilary was leaving on the other. She stopped, looked around, and turned back to them.
“I don’t see any candy,” she hissed across the yard. “Are you sure it was he …”
The orange tom pounced. Giles heard her bones snap, or at least he imagined he did as the cat landed right on her back. Either way, it was a happy sound. Hilary’s face was slack, expressionless. The cat bit into her neck and twisted so violently that her head came off in its mouth, and her body soared into the darkness nearer the house.
Terry surprised Giles by chasing the cat as it ran after Hilary’s corpse. That wasn’t part of the plan. He wasn’t done with Terry, yet.
“Terry!” he called. “Get back here! It’ll kill you, too!”
Terry vanished through the wall to Tom’s garden.
Giles cursed the oaf, and slipped over to the sidewalk while Skit took to the air. There were more humans coming towards him, but they were far enough away that he wasn’t worried about them, yet.
Overruling his survival instincts, he ran towards the humans along the brick wall. When he reached the smashed pumpkin, he looked into the yard. Terry was on the lowest of five steps leading up to the building, standing over Hilary’s body, while Tom sat on the step above, playfully swatting at him. Terry’s right ear was torn, and his shoulder was red with blood.
“You stupid, stupid rat!” Giles whispered.
A tiny squeak answered from beneath a shattered dome of pumpkin rind. He lifted the edge, and drew a surprised breath. The prettiest little whiskered face he’d ever seen, looked up at him beneath perky round ears. It was a mouse.
With the humans almost upon him, Giles left Terry to his own devices and crawled under the pumpkin shell. The little brown mouse scooted away from him, dropping the pumpkin seed she had been nibbling.
“It’s ok, little one. Sit still. I’ll protect you.” He picked up her discarded seed and handed it to her. As she took it, their eyes met, and Giles was lost. Such beauty had never before existed in tiny black orbs. She was utterly beguiling. His only intention had been to keep her quiet until the humans had passed, but looking into her deep, lovely eyes, all he wanted was to keep them safe; to protect this fragile piece of perfection so that he could stare at her forever.
The cat screeched outside, and the dog they heard earlier started barking again. If Skit was right, it was a Yorkshire terrier in the next yard. The terrifying beasts were designed by the devil to kill rats, and Giles liked to keep tabs on such creatures. The mouse looked away when the dog barked, and Giles was free of her spell.
“Don’t be scared,” he said with uncharacteristic bravery. “I have a plan. I’m Giles, King of the Alley Warren. What’s your name, my sweet?”
If his title and bravery impressed her, she gave no sign. She only squeaked in reply.
Suddenly, the world became a whirling blur of confusion. The pumpkin rind had been shoved aside, and he looked down from high above it as the little mouse fled into the cat’s yard. It would kill her with a single swipe of its claw. Giles wanted to help, but he couldn’t get back down to her. Instead, he only went higher.
A giant human face appeared below him as he spun. “You should have hid better, little fella,” it said. “Your tail was poking out from under that pumpkin. Well, you’re gator-bait, now. A guy at the serpentarium pays good money for rats like you.”
The human dangled him by his tail. Giles jerked sideways, lunging at the human’s fat fingers, but he couldn’t reach.
Below, the cat was deciding whether to play with Terry or the new mouse that had just run into its yard. It showed Terry a bit more respect than earlier, so he must have given it that red scratch on its chin. As Tom’s attention turned to the mouse, Terry hopped down from the step, and slipped out of the cat’s yard.
And into the terrier’s.
Without warning, all of the lights around Giles went dark. It was almost warren-dark, which rarely ever happened on the surface world, even in the deepest night. A feeling of peace and safety overcame him as a human stepped out of the swirling blackness behind his captor. Giles had never known humans to feed on each other, but this one lowered his face to the first human’s neck, and sank his pointy teeth into his flesh.
His captor didn’t even cry out. It just dropped Giles, and stood there, letting the darker, friendlier one feed on him. The barking dog whimpered, and fell silent, and the cat cowered near the building’s door. Giles landed pretty hard, but he wasn’t hurt. He felt an odd kinship with the second human. Looking up at its face, he heard it speaking in his mind.
There were no words, but he knew this was no ordinary human. He was a creature of the earth, too; a friend to rats and burrowers. His new friend turned into a dark mist and vanished as he had come, leaving the first human in a daze with blood leaking down its neck.
The lights came back on, and shadows leapt away from them in all directions down the deathly silent street. No dogs barked, no humans laughed or screamed. It was utterly still for several seconds. Giles hoped the mouse was using this opportunity to get away. Tom was coming out of his stupor, and next door, the dog whimpered. Maybe his plan wasn’t going so well, after all.
He raced through the wall and saw his mouse sneaking along the base of the steps, unknowingly watched by the cat from the step above. A strange feeling overcame Giles, and he raced through the grass to the paved walkway and leapt at the cat, teeth bared and ready for action. The cat was quick, though, and swatted him with its paw, knocking him sideways. Luckily, its claws were retracted. It wanted to play.
“Run!” he yelled at the mouse, and of course, she ran towards the dog’s yard.
As she approached the wall to pass through, the dog on the other side resumed its yapping. Terry bowled through the gap, barely noticing as he knocked her flat and trampled her on his way towards the cat. Right behind him, the rat terrier squeezed through, saw Terry, and gave chase, a freshly gnawed leather leash dragging behind.
The cat arched its back
and hissed (rather rat-like, Giles thought), the dog crouched and growled at the cat, and Terry stood on his back legs, looking very large and fierce as he gnashed his teeth. Giles saw the mouse on the opposite side of the garden, with the dog, the cat, and Terry between them. He fought the urge to go get her and carry her away. He knew nothing about her, but with a face like that she had to be as sweet as bakery trash.
But too much was riding on his success to throw it all away for a girl.
Or was it? He pictured the two of them in a tiny den on a farm, as he had imagined earlier, but the thought vanished as the fur started flying. Terry maneuvered to keep the cat between himself and the dog, and it seemed to work. The two surface beasts fought each other for the privilege of killing him.
Terry seized Hilary’s severed head, and slipped away from the battle, but the cat wasn’t giving up its prize so easily. It bit hard and deep into Terry’s leg, opening up an opportunity for the dog to attack. The terrier bit the cat’s tail, tugging, and shaking ferociously. The cat yowled and spun to claw the dog, but Terry was lodged in its mouth, dangling from its fangs. The tip of the cat’s tail came away in the dog’s mouth, and Terry fell as it jumped back to the top of the wall.
The terrier gave chase, forgetting about Terry, to run back and forth beneath the cat. Terry limped over to Giles, his bloody leg dragging behind him, but he still had Hilary’s head. The barking continued as they made their way slowly through the maze of potted plants and garden gnomes in the last yard, to the drainage grate where Skit patiently waited.
“You are a true beast, Terry,” Giles said, full of brotherly pride. “What kind of rat squares off against a dog and a cat? It just isn’t done, you know. Now look at you. Covered in your own blood, and limping like a three legged spider.”
