She was eight years old with jet black hair and eyes. Tears were streaming from those eyes, and she did her best to stifle a sob as she looked out at nothing in particular from her room's window.
This was her grandma's house. Her parents had left her here for the holidays despite her ferocious protests. Dad acted like he didn't believe but she was sure he did. He knew. This house...
"Haley?" It was grams calling from the dining room downstairs, "Supper is ready dear."
"Coming grandma." As for grams, she had heard her downstairs late at night talking in muffled tones, sometimes with vehement emotions. They were the only two in a house with no phones and she knew her grandmother was not crazy.
"Grandma," she said in a voice that revealed too much of her sorrow and made her feel immediately more peevish, "why do the rats look at me so?"
The orange glow of a sun getting ready to set was streaming in and warm fresh air from an open window was drifting through, but Pearl Reynolds instantly felt choked and chilled as her granddaughter took her seat before the hot callaloo soup she had prepared for her. She resisted the urge to talk casually and dismissive, forcing herself to be silent for just couple of seconds as she took a good look at the child.
"When did this happen Haley? Are you sure you didn't dream it?" Carefully, she spooned some of the spicy soup from her own dish.
Haley looked up at her grandma and felt comforted that the old lady was as pale as her own reflection had been in her dresser's mirror the first time it had happened.
"No grandma, they just looked at me before I came down and I haven't been in bed all day."
Her grams stood and left the table with a speed that didn't seem possible. She was halfway up the slightly creaking wooden stairs when she stopped. What was she doing? Only frightening the child more than she already was.
"Okay Haley," she said without turning around. "You're sleeping with me tonight. I'll set some rat poison in your room before I go to bed." She just stood there, halfway up the stairs, and Haley had a very uncomfortable feeling watching her. She was holding to the banister with both hands and staring at the foot of the room door.
She held on tight to keep from falling as she stared into those shiny black eyes. There was just one rat in the open doorway, standing on its hind legs and looking back quite calmly into her eyes. She would set the poison as soon as she had the strength to move from this spot. These were new rats who had recently slipped in, maybe for shelter from coming rain.
She had killed the last set and burned the carcasses. There were no nests in the room; she had cleaned it thoroughly before Haley's arrival. These must have grown up elsewhere, grown up without the fear of humans. It was that simple.
A second came and joined the first rat. Then a third. Soon the entire doorway was filled with rats all standing on their hind legs and staring at her. "No. No, no, no," she mumbled under her breath. Just rats who had grown up without the fear of humans. Grew up as a family. Acted as a family. Nothing strange here Pearl Reynolds. "The ghosts in this house are bad enough."
Okay, so this is the beginning of a work of fiction I've just started for the fun of it. One more thing to occupy my time that I like doing. So if it feels good enough and you'd like to make suggestions every now and then, please feel free to do so. Who knows what might happen with collaborative effort. It, or any other story I start here, might become truly readable.
And no, it's not unlikely for rats to behave like this. I've experienced it in my own grandmother's house when she was alive. Creepy but true.
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