This post is kind of a cop out, but something is better than nothing. I wrote this short story several years ago, and found it today on an old zip drive. It's not very good, but it's at least good for a quick laugh. Just an FYI, Jason Vaughan is one of the pen names I use.
RAT POISON
By Jason Vaughan
The box sat
there, from across the garage, taunting me. I tried to ignore it, tried to
forget about it, but in my mind’s eye I knew those two words would be forever
etched in my brain. RAT POISON.
How could I
have been living in this house for six months and never realized what a hostile
environment I had walked into? Taking
another drag from my half burned cigarette, my eyes quickly scanned the room.
Cigarette butts. Leaves. Oil stains. But no sign of rats. Had the situation
already been resolved? Or was the war
still raging?
Silently I
thought of the many nights I had spent slumbering in the bedroom downstairs.
All those nights I had heard the house talking to me. Countless times I had
rolled over in my bed hearing the walls creak and the foundation shift. Was
that merely the normal sounds of a house in winter or were the rats
infiltrating the walls, taking stock of all our positions, waiting for their
chance to attack?
I should
make a quick sweep of the house. Check the bathroom cabinets and the kitchen.
Every nook and cranny should be evaluated for weaknesses before I could rest in
the knowledge that me and my housemates were safe. What about the other
bedrooms? There are a million places for rodentia to hide in the stacks of
clothing the resided my housemates floor. How could they sleep knowing that in
every abandoned pair of pants a filthy, beadied-eyed little monster could be
hiding in a pocket?
Quickly I
worked out a game plan. Obviously, my first step should be in arming myself. My
eyes swept over the garage looking for a weapon. A hammer. No, a hammer would be too short. The little
devils would be on my before I could defend myself. A shovel. Perhaps, but
could I wield a shovel with speed and and precision? A broom. It would have to
do.
I thought
about what I would do if they were to attack. Just like a golf club, I would
smack the disgusting creatures into the next time zone as they scurried across
the floor. Maybe they’d be slowed by the leaves and oil slicks in the garage,
but that was not a bet I was willing to make. If they got inside range of my
trusty broom I would have to switch to hand-to-hand combat. Foot-to-hand
combat. Foot-to-paw combat? How do you refer to rodent appendages? No matter. I
could boot them just as easily as I could sweep them. Their small, mushy bodies
compressing on the toe of my slipper…
Slipper??!!
What was I thinking. I quickly mashed out my cigarette and stepped inside to
put on more appropriate shoes for combat. Taking one last look at the garage I
knew that my cigarette breaks were at an end. At least until I could be sure
that the rat situation had been completely eliminated.
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