Erl is a young man from Voidview down on his luck, after a months long job search he finds himself working in small corner store called Crapola Convenience, trying not to let the odd customers drive him crazy.
For a change of pace from the older stories, here's one from last year: In most places, Spring is beautiful, green and bright, not in VoidView. Probably due to the complete lack of nature outside of lakeside park. I personally find Spring rather depressing, there's nothing going on, no holidays, no special events. Anyway getting sidetracked, it was a spring morning as I walked to work, as I made it to Crapola Convenience Sparkplug popped out of his shed in the nearby alley (a fixture John Dealer and I built for him the previous summer after John couldn't handle sharing his van with him) and joined me inside. As I worked the register that day I kept hearing this sound, this squeaky, chippy noise, incredibly aggravating. To distract myself I just watched Mrs. Boneshrew, not unlike an animal in a zoo, as she pressed 3 of the buttons on the soda machine creating a sticky brown puddle faster than Sparkplug could mop it up.
The hours ticked by and we had 2 Kreeg deaths and Scratch and Tall-Skinny trashed the place pretty bad when Mrs. Boneshrew called them some slurs, I had to stay late to clean up, whilst scrubbing up left over soda between the floor tiles a bright light caught my attention, it was a spark under the counter the soda machine was nailed to, I took a peak back there and saw a small section of the cord was more stripped than usual, weird, I wrapped it with duct tape and made a mental note to talk to Doug about it in the morning. I in fact did not talk to Doug about it as I was hungover and forgot, Sparkplug did most of the work that day while I laid in the freezer. Around the end of the day when I did leave my cold heaven and join the world of the living, I heard that damn squeaking again, and the soda machine was sparking again. I checked the cord and the duct tape was gone, and the stripping was worse, whatever, I just unplugged the machine for now and started preparing the place to close.
There were a couple other weird incidents in the next couple days: Chewed countertops, missing food stuffs, lotsa messed up wires, Doug really didn't seem to care much, so I tried not to either. But I couldn't ignore it anymore when it began to effect me personally. I was cleaning up a cereal spill caused by some kid when I felt something land on the back of my head, I shot up and shook my head, my ear immediately felt a horrible sting followed by piercing pain, I swatted at the back of my head with with the dust pan and felt the thing fall off but by the time I turned around there was nothing there. I rushed to the men's room, pushing past the yellow tape and looked in the mirror to see a chunk of my ear missing, that was it. I went to the register and picked up the landline, as I dialed pest control the floor under me began to feel unstable, and a sound arose that was similar to a chainsaw, just as I looked down, I fell.
When I came to, I was in the pitch black darkness, the only lights were the hole leading up to the store above and a small spark of flame far off in a distant tunnel ahead of me, slowly getting closer. I tried to get up off my side but I was tied, wonderful. As the flame got up to the entrance of the tunnel I could see now it was a torch, at the end of a little hairy arm, it was a rat, it's gross little black eyes stared at me with pure hatred and rage, it wore a small golden crown on its head, now that it's torch was out in the open I could see I was completely surrounded by hundreds of rats, an army. It began to speak in unintelligible squeaks and chirps, after I let him finish I blinked a few times "What?" He stared at me for a moment before coughing and clearing his throat,
"Apologies."
He spoke now in a deep booming voice, the kind that commands respect, "I am the Rat King, and these," he gestured around with his free hand, "Are my people. You large ones have wronged us." He pointed at my nose with his grimy little fingers, "What?" I responded, "QUITE YOU!" His finger poked my nose now, "You build your temples on OUR sacred land. This vast field belonged to my ancestors, NOT YOURS!" he swept the torch along to gesture the area, "YET YOU BUILD YOUR MONUMENTS TO YOUR STICKY LIQUID GODS UPON IT. Disgusting." I licked some of the dirt off my lips "You mean soda?" He looked furious, "SILENCE HIM!" rats swarmed my face, scratching at my eyes and skin flesh, when they finally pulled away the Rat King laughed with his arms in the air.
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"It our turn, the rats will inherit the earth! We are Rat-God's chosen people!" He screamed into the air before he pointed up to the hole into the store "MOVE MEN!!" and the rats flooded up through the hole, and there I was, laying in darkness, listening to them ransack the store, I wondered if this is finally how I die, and as that thought sunk in, the more I was honestly okay with it. "Woah.. hole." I heard Sparkplug as he peered into the hole, "Lil homie?" I called up to him "Haii!" He called back down, "What's going on up there?" His head disappeared from the light above me, but came back shortly "there's a buncha rats chewing the foundations!" I let the silence fill my ears as I thought, "Can you call the exterminator?" Again his head disappeared and came back "Nope! They split the phone cord!" My head hit the dirt, "Great..." after a second he called down "Don't worry! I've got an idea!" I looked up at the hole as the silence was filled with almost musical animal sounds, and the chaos above was suddenly gone.
Although I didn't see Sparkplug lead the rats out into sewer single file, I'm told it was quite the pied piper display, eventually John and Scratch pulled me out with a fishing pole and Merl took me to get a couple dozen rabies shots. I got Sparkplug some ice cream for a job well done and I fixed all the damages out of pocket, anywho, next time. The register calls.
