I wish I had more of a lead up to this, some kind of keystone moment that I can point to where I stepped in a cosmic pile of shit, but, to be honest, I don’t have one.
For all intents and purposes I’m Joe Asshole from, Who cares, Nova Scotia. But, for the sake of this, you can call me Remi.
Refineries need programmers, and in 2023 doing this from home makes me enough money to see a house somewhere half decent later in life, if I keep up long hours and penny pinching for a decade or two.
Maybe one of the best examples of said penny pinching is the apartment building I choose to live in.
6 floors of slum with ten units per, those that aren’t laying vacant and growing mildew, are filled with folks too old to afford anything better, or just plain desperate enough to live in a place with semi functioning everything, and landlords that I only assume are alive because they demand rent.
But, I don’t mind, I don’t need to know my neighbors, or like them. I’m living in this place at age 25 so I don’t have to at age 50.
But as I look out my third floor window, I see something that takes my mind off of the fact my shower has the water pressure of an 80 year old man.
We have lots of wildlife out here, and it’s not unknown for one or two of them to wander into town, but the undulating carpet of fur, teeth and blood red eyes I saw milling about the cracked glass doorway was unlike anything I’ve seen before.
It was, rats, hundreds of them, massive, densely packed, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like they were trying to get in.
I close my blinds, then take a large breath in, it’s getting close to nightfall, and I’ve been working for about 20 hours straight. What I saw, couldn’t have been anything stranger than the effects of no sleep or food in nearly a day.
I start to open the blinds, but everything in me says not to, that whatever is out there will notice me, and draw me into some situation beyond my grasp.
I laugh and shake my head, promising myself to get some food and sleep immediately.
And just like I thought, there is no massive, sprawling pile of vermin, just the collection of broken couches and trash that usually litter the parking lot.
Two microwave dinners and a shower later I’m getting into bed, still chuckling to myself about what I thought I saw.
My apartment is on the second floor, and combined with paper thin walls, I get to hear a decent amount of the comings and goings of this place. After a couple of years, it’s background noise, nothing that keeps me up, or ruins my day.
That being said, experience has taught me the difference between a loud drunk and someone who actually needs help. And the brief scream I heard woke me from a dead sleep, cold sweat beginning to bead on my body.
I know, already all of you are calling me an idiot, but let me ask you this, how many strange noises, in your day to day life do you check out? Even if you are the type that answered that with “Every damn one. “, I stake my life on the fact, you ignore 2 out of 3.
And that’s what I successfully managed to do, for about an hour.
I put on some jeans, an undershirt, an old housecoat, and make my slipper footed way down the cigarette butt littered stairwell to the first floor.
I hesitate for a moment before I work the rusted handle of the door, feeling my heart hammering hard enough to make me feel light headed. I try to laugh it off, and think of me rolling my eyes at myself in the morning, finding nothing more than one of the motley crew of tenants, on some bender or other.
But as the oilless hinges screech, I don’t see a junkie, or wino, what I see makes me close the door till nothing but a small crack is open.
Rats, not the hundreds from before, but at least dozens, massive, covered in sores and lesions, with twitching, black pupiled, red eyes.
Of course I brought my phone, but something about the scene unfolding enthralls me.
Of all the things they could be doing, each rat is slowly, quietly chewing away at an apartment door. If I didn’t know better I would think they were trying not to get caught.
I notice the bulky, raccoon sized rodent too late, we lock eyes, and with a hiss that spews stringy yellow saliva it launches itself at the door. I close it just in time, dialing 911 as I run up the stairs, not even slowing as I lose a slipper.
There is no dial tone, no recording, nothing. I hang up and try again, still, no connection at all.
I push down panic as I try for a third time, and now I hear something on the other line, “One thousand to go… “ the thin, soft voice says.
I hang up and try to get through to any number, nothing.
As you can probably notice, I’m easily able to post online, but you know, hell of a lot of good that’s going to do me. I refer back to my observation about people not investigating strange noises, for all of the crazy journals you’ve read on here, have you ever really tried to help?
I have a terrible feeling about the situation, but panic is a great motivator, and I urgently begin knocking on the closest door.
“Go, fuck, yourself. “ The gruff voice within yells.
“I get it man, but there is a bunch of rats or something downstairs, lots of them, and my phone is dead. Don’t even need you to open the door, just call 911.” I’m keeping my tone level, and I don’t feel the story is too outrageous.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize.
Go, fuck yourself, meth head. “ The voice says, clarifying his opinion on my situation, and punctuating this by turning the volume up on his television.
“God damn it! “ I curse, the second door I choose, whether vacant, or callous, has no response whatsoever.
Trapped between some odd wildlife and human passivity, I figure my best option is to get the hell out of here and try to contact police, or animal control from somewhere else.
Armed with a pair of running shoes, jacket, and butcher’s knife I feel more than capable of getting past a few handfuls of angry vermin.
I creep toward the door, opening it inch by inch, and surveying the scene, planning the quickest route past the strangely coordinated pests.
I’ve just about decided my course of action when I see something by the lobby doors. Or, to be more accurate, someone.
I think back to the noise I heard earlier, the one that I knew was just an overactive imagination and an underactive sleep schedule.
This, must have been them.
Man or woman, old or young, I have no idea. The body, while still weakly thrashing, is torn apart beyond recognition. Flayed, and chewed to the point of helplessness.
It seems, purposeful, but I push that thought out of my mind. These are rats, regardless of what kind of creepy interference my phone was picking up, the issue at hand is something humanity has solved a long time ago, animals in places we don’t want them.
I throw open the door, hoping to make enough noise to rouse a few people from their beds, or, if not, at least startle a few of the nearby rodents.
The closest to me is a half football worth of muscle and greasy fur, I stomp down, intent on breaking it’s spine and shaking myself out of this feeling of Impending Doom that is slowly falling over me.
But it doesn’t just stand there, letting me kill it to sooth this creeping dread, it twists and rolls, my foot no more than grazes it, as it takes a piece of flesh from my leg, right above the ankle.
It takes another bite out of me before I can react, I try to dodge around it, but it moves, well, like a fucking rat.
I try and stab it with the knife, and I realize how useless the massive, unwieldy blade, in my untrained, shaking hand, is. I have to lunge at the ground, nearly toppling myself, trying to connect with the rat.
It’s teeth narrowly miss my eye, but tear a massive strip out of my cheek, bright pain flares through my face as I overcorrect, slamming myself into a wall as I try and back my way to the lobby doors.
I realize, that out of all the other rats around, none have joined in, or scattered, none of the others have so much as turned my way. Done anything you would expect a normal God damned animal to do.
A human, pound for pound, bare handed, can pretty much deal with most of the animal kingdom. And a human at a tenfold or so weight advantage has a much higher chance.
Hypothetically, I could just fall on this thing, grab it and start breaking bones till it died.
But how many scratches, and bites am I going to take in the process? How many diseases and parasites am I going to be exposed too? And how long before the rest of the pack decides to join in.
A vice grip on my ankle, I feel cold wet blood, and I look into the person’s face. One eye is a mangled mess, but the other is panicked and lucid. Their lipless mouth moves, the twisted mess of their throat gives no volume to the words, but whatever they are they set an adrenaline spike through me that launches me forward, back toward the door to the stairwell.
I jump over the rat, but it manages to grab a mouthful of jeans and flesh, it hangs from my thigh like the words worst piercing.
I slam the door shut, spinning my body to dislodge the rat. It slams into the industrial brick of the wall, hitting the ground stunned and dazed.
I give a harsh bark of laughter, something in me expected the thing to bounce off, unharmed.
I’ve dropped the knife in my half-mad scramble, but I’m operating on instinct. My body is a growing web of pain, and I don’t want this thing getting it’s bearings again.
I fall to my knees, grabbing the puss stained creature under the neck. I squeeze as hard as I can, knowing one slip in my grip, and this twelve pound blender will remove my thumb.
It’s scab laden tail is slick, but long enough I can loop it almost all the way around my hand. I want to close my eyes, but I know I have to stay aware.
I swing the rat like a mace, slamming it into the ground, I can’t tell you exactly how many times it took, but by the end of it, my hand was covered in minor scratches, and my shoulder burned.
I limp back to my apartment, dragging a nightstand out into the hallway, and wedging it in front of the door. I don’t know how much good it’s going to do, but it has to be better than nothing.
I scream for help, I pound on the walls, and while I do see a handful of peepholes darken, not one person comes to my aid.
I lock my door, and push everything I can move without tearing open my rapidly swelling wounds in front of it.
I turn on the television, I switch to any local stations, hoping to see some explanation of the small scale, but lethal situation I find myself in.
More nothing, the only functioning channel is the CCTV of the front lobby.
I see the person I abandoned, blood seems to be rapidly pooling around them now, and their movements have stopped. I feel my heart sink, but can’t help but think they are lucky it’s over.
I see smaller rats almost able to get their shoulders through the chewed gaps in the doors, and I see the plaster of the walls honeycombed with ragged, circular holes.
This can’t be happening, I mean it can, it’s just a shit load of rats, but the way it’s going down, there is something uncanny about it.
I can’t access any online news, or useful information. And as I find myself blocked from more and more specific things I start to come to a conclusion, insane as it may be.
This has to be planned, this has to be the work of, someone. The fact that I’m free to act as a billboard for whatever is going on alone is proof of that.
The weight of this realization feels like a lead blanket. I can’t breathe, my head spins, I try to make sense out of the utter cosmic cluster fuck around me.
I’m in shock, I stare at the screen in front of me, and the bloody, twisted drama that unfolds.
The feed has no sound, but as I watch this disaster unfold, I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
I can hear the gunshots as almost inaudible pops, from the floor below, but on the screen they appear as six tiny holes in a door. The gun was by no means a hand cannon, and as it’s owner comes out, I can see it’s tiny, almost toy like size.
The man is big, fit, and looks intimidating. I’ve seen him around, and kept my distance as much as possible.
But he staggers and falls, a dozen rats, face deep into him. He kills a few as he gets back to his feet crushing them with his knees and bare hands, but blood loss slows him quickly.
His gun fires two more times before running out of ammunition. One round hitting the cheap linoleum floor, the other blowing a leg off of an advancing rat.
They attack like a pack of wolves, nothing I knew rats were capable of, they disable and kill the man, gorging on his body immediately.
A couple comes bolting out of their apartment, the man is injured, but his wife or girlfriend is keeping him moving.
She trips, dropping him, but before she can reach down, and likely get herself killed, he throws up a hand. I know what he says, and she listens, sprinting toward the glass doors and making it outside of the building.
My eyes widen, a small spark of hope in this wildlife themed torture chamber.
One apartment never opens, but a pool of blood begins to seep from under the door, reaching like a panicked hand to the dwelling across the hall, and stopping just short.
Four old people, three women and a surprisingly fit man of about 65 dash to the apartment beside them, the door opening and closing for the briefest of moments to let them in.
Then, for an hour or so, nothing. Just the mindless milling and destruction of the rats. I find myself hoping against hope, that maybe they will just leave. Some case of mass rabies, maybe with a side order of screwed up underground cable?
But, what breaks the monotony of the outdated video footage is nothing hopeful.
Rabid or not, rats don’t drag a body back somewhere, as if to hid it. They don’t work together in a group of twenty, and wait till it is out of view to begin distending their stomachs on it’s vital organs and muscle.
I shut the television off, feeling like a child, wanting to do nothing more than put a blanket over my head when I know the monster in the closet is coming.
The silence in the apartment makes everything seem normal, makes the wounds covering my legs and face seem surreal, like, maybe they never really happened.
I close my eyes and breathe, I have no hope of opening them, and finding all of this just a dream, but I need to think of what is really going on, not the nightmare scenarios my brain is jumping to.
My brain is joined by my body, as my phone begins to ring. I nearly fall off of my couch, before grabbing it, and answering.
“985 left to go. “ That same ghostly, almost inhuman voice.
I resist the urge throw it out of the window, and hang up instead.
I strip in front of my bathroom mirror, expired first aid kit splayed open on my bathroom counter.
I clean and remove everything that looks suspect from the wounds, but, while not life threatening, a lot of them are deep, and the edges are turning a deep red that can’t mean anything good.
I try to help things by taking a double dose of antibiotics I failed to finish sometime last year. But expired antibiotics are not going to do shit for my face.
The butterfly bandages are barely holding the ragged cut together. I layer gauze over it, but every time I move my cheek I can feel slight dampness.
I look myself over and come to what I’m sure is the first of many shitty realizations about myself and my situation.
I can take a hell of a lot less punishment that I assumed.
I’ve never claimed, nor wanted to be a tough guy. But, everyone has thought about how much crap they could go through. What could you do on a deserted island? Could you cut off your leg to get out of a bear trap? All of that bored car ride conversation bullshit.
But as I feel my skin become tight, and see the poorly applied bandages already tinting red, my fantasies or taking out a bullet with tweezers, or swimming to shore after a shark attack are destroyed.
I dress myself, and have a very real internal debate as if to if I want to go on.
Glimpses of the only television station broadcasting to what feels like my own deserted island, do nothing to make me yearn for survival.
I hear scratching noises in the floor, there has to be plenty of material between me and whatever is making them, but for how long? And if things are truly as messed up as they seem, does that even matter?
I can’t tell what is a legitimate plan, and what is just A-Team fantasy bullshit, every idea I come up with seems stupid or impossible.
I can’t say I have any special level of grit, or tenacity. But there is a small flame of survival instinct left in me, I steel myself and turn on the television, trying to see what information the low resolution terror might have.
The rats seem to be having trouble chewing through the steel door to the stairway, but as I watch them problem solve their way to the largest among them, forty pound monsters the size of bull terriers, launching themselves into the sheet metal, that flame goes out.
I cry, no, more accurately, I bawl, screaming into the night, and violence infested apartment building.
In a fit I throw a glass toward the wall, but the fact that I don’t hear the cheap mock crystal shatter stops my fog of self pity.
The glass, hangs in mid air. The remaining couple of mouthfuls of water suspended behind it in fat drops, like the tail of a poorly drawn comet.
The air in the apartment feels stale and heavy, my skin begins to crawl, and I find my gaze drawn to a figure suddenly standing in the doorway to my kitchen.
He’s about six feet, and in a suit that probably costs a year of my wages, 80 hour weeks or no.
He looks human, but his features, and proportions are all slightly off. It’s off putting and intimidating, it begs the question of what is hiding behind his CEO from hell façade.
“Okay boss, flag on the fucking play here, crying?
I mean, christ on the fucking rack, I was thinking this was going to be some kind of berserker thing, you cry before you kill, the hell is this? “ Whoever this is, is angry, I stand and he towers over me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, seriously, I don’t know what any of this is. “ I plead, I notice dust motes, unmoving, suspended like the universes tiniest stars.
The well dressed thing paces, lighting a cigar, waving it emphatically . It’s gait is creeping, and unnatural, but full of skin crawling dexterity.
“I get it, I didn’t come at you officially, that’s on me.
But I hate all that, have my cult call your cult bullshit.
So maybe I set up a little something that would get you to showcase what you do. Kill a bunch of rats, kill a bunch of people. You had to know it was me, and if you did, you know you’d be well compensated.
So what the hell is with the quiet quitting here? “ The man, or entity, looks to me expectantly, his cigar smelling like rotten flesh and burnt tires.
I have no answer for him, there is no twist to this story where I’m some navy seal, or supervillain in hiding. Nor do I know anyone who could fit the bill.
He gets angry, and with one arm, shoves me, nothing intended to hurt I’m sure, just part of a heated conversation.
I’m sent over my couch, and into a solid stud in my wall, dazed, I try to stand, fail, and can see a sharp corner of a coffee table rapidly approaching.
The entity grabs me before I split my head open on IKEA furniture, and effortlessly places me on my couch.
“Oh for fuck sakes, you are actually not him. This isn’t some act.
Oh fuck my very existence.
This is what I’ve been worried about. Shit like this, it just isn’t supposed to happen. Void damned rituals are not supposed to result in a maybe.
But, reality is breaking down, I can’t stop it, I can only deal with it.
Seeing as you don’t know me, lots of people call me, Art.
And you my friend, Woo boy, you are pretty fucked.
See, this whole set up was supposed to be for a really scary son of a Bitch. Urban legend with a dozen names.
But I got fed some sour milk, and got… you. “ Art says.
“I’ve honestly never even been in a fist fight.
I won’t say anything, you can just call this off right? I mean, it can’t be worth it without the scary guy you were talking about, you were just saying that. “ I’m babbling, but I think I see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, finally.
Art chuckles dismissively.
“This isn’t some red room where you can cut the feed and say the heat got too heavy. I appeared out of thin air in your kitchen, this is a little more in depth than a pay per view beheading.
No, the show must go on there, Remi, is it?
Just, a different kind of show I guess.
Probably just have to play up the kid angle or something. He’s a bit more interesting.
Anyway Frenchie, I’m not heartless, I’ll give you a little advice.
You’re not getting through this alone, probably not at all, but certainly not without getting some other peons together and finding some pitchforks and torches, or whatever it is people use now. “
And with that, just as quick as he appeared, he was gone.
And this is my life. For the foreseeable future anyway, trapped in a crumbling housing complex, caged with rats I’m thinking were dredged up from Satan’s basement. Only able to talk or get advice from places like this.
If I can survive another day, I’ll keep you guys updated.
But for now, just, watch out for yourselves.
Link to part 2
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/134d739/one_thousand_rats_part_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button