King of Rats

Pumpkin Day: Part 1

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.