Rats with Wings

"Rat! Rat! Skraar! Got the cheese! Splat the rat! Rat got the cheese!"

Simon sighed as he struggled with the key in the door. He wasn't expecting an alarm quite so early as stepping over the threshold. Rats with wings, these horrible birds, Simon cursed.

"Okay! Okay, I hear you, Barbs!"

"Rat has the cheese! Rat has the cheese! Skraaaa! Splat the rat!"

Geeing himself to move quicker, Simon barely succeeded in his less than nimble retrieval of the keys from the lock, dropping them through his legs and scuffing them under the console table with his foot as he tried to catch them mid-fall.

"Damn it!"

"Re-aaar, missed it! Missed the rat!"

He sighed, grumbled, and tried to reassure his late aunt's African Grey parrot with a tone beyond frustration.

"Okay, well I'm here again, I have more poison, so we're going to be FINE."

Petulant delivery aside, the news seemed to land with Barbs - wherever in the house she'd flown to and spied the rat, from the sounds of it the bedroom. This had been standard procedure from about a fortnight ago. The warbling bird was the new rat-alert system.

Simon had let Barbs have the run of the place while he sorted it for sale. He was aware of the poetics of grief, it's many emotional forms, but not quite for how unorganised it could be. The small detached bungalow had been largely unoccupied for three weeks save for three souls. Barbs, the parrot, who wore a little jingle-bell on a red ribbon about her leg, probably had a more solid claim to the property than Simon, Aunt Julie's own blood and next of kin. Simon, who was here infrequently to sort her belongings, and now a third resident. Invader, Simon thought.

Keys back in hand, Simon turned and surveyed the mess of a hall ending in a galley kitchen, narrow enough for a stack of moving boxes and a squeeze space to access the rest of the house. There were fresh pellets, more gross evidence. The bottom box had a fist sized hole chewed through the corner closest to the wall, and after navigating the precariously heaped tower, Simon noted the matching exit wound.

He wandered into the living space through the hallway's left door, past a wonky lamp as tall as himself that Barbs loved to use as a perch. He followed the wall the best he could between boxes and packaging, papers and old Christmas trees, mostly empty bookshelves and crockery cabinets, eyes down.

Cursing the chewed curtain ends and scratched skirting, he checked each and every rat trap, from spring-loaded to poisoned, baited to barbed, and found, predictably, disappointingly, nothing.

"I hate this rat." He breathed.

Over the last three weeks, Simon felt he only breathed exclusively in sighs now. From death, to funeral planning, to estate agent discovering rat droppings at the valuation meeting, to never actually seeing one himself, to failing visit after visit to tempt Barbs back into her cage, Simon sighed his way ever onward.

Now, stood in a room full of things that only collected dust, bird, and now rat shit, full of things his aunt would never use again, Simon knew what he needed to do.

"I'm gonna make a brew."

He dumped his bag of fresh traps and rodent killing chemicals on the couch and moved back through the mess he'd made of boxes and bags, stopping in the kitchen.

He took in what the estate agent had said, made sure bins were emptied as he left the house, no food was left in cupboards or dirty plates in sinks. This was the cleanest part of the house, and yet the pest persevered. He noted that the skirting along the underneath of the cupboard he'd removed to place traps had fallen down. Probably how the rat moved unseen, while Simon only ever felt watched. The milk in the fridge smelt a little peaky, but with a thimble left, Simon guessed it wouldn't kill him. It looked like the contents of the fridge had been shuffled slightly, and Simon remembered what Barb had cried as he came back today. The rat had somehow managed to get in and out of the fridge, and the remaining cheese had indeed fallen casualty.

Kettle on the boil, the fridge door slamming set Barbs off, though she avoided Simon in the kitchen.

"You'll miss the rat! Stuck on the floor! Stuck on the floor! Skree-ar!"

She was calling from the living room now. She must have flown in as Simon entered the kitchen. This bird had always irked him, her tinkly little bell and wry comments, but she seemed more talkative than ever since Aunt Julie passed.

Simon dropped the milk and ran into the living room, maybe too quickly, or maybe Barbs was startled from her perch, but the result was the same; Simon was struck by the wonky lamp and the pair fell to the floor in a twirl almost elegant and dancelike, until Simon's head bounced off couch in the centre of the room, spilling the contents of his bag.

In a daze, ears rushing with blood, he thought he heard laughter. That bastard bird is bloody laughing at me! he seethed inwardly.

Discarded feathers had been disturbed and thrown upward like dusty confetti.

The kettle clicked.

Sitting, Simon threw his bag back onto the couch and saw some of the poison spill out again, a ridiculous label mocked 'No More Mister Mice Guy!' Simon saw that there were fewer packets than he thought he bought, but guessed that some must still be on the floor under couch or coffee table where he'd landed so gracefully, lamp in tow.

"Skree-ka-kak Skree-raaaar!"

Leaving the light on the floor he returned to the kitchen. Barbs sounded like she was coughing from the bedroom, short, raspy gasps.

"Die quietly, Barbs." Simon spat down the hall. He saw in the kitchen, the milk he'd dropped had landed leaning on it's side against the cupboard, lid undone and on the floor. There wasn't a single drop on the tiles, and Barbs had stopped coughing. A bit of luck, Simon thanked. If she's not squawking or jangling that bell, and hasn't seen the rat, I can at least have a brew in peace. For a minute. He smelt the milk again. It was acrid, oddly chemical, but he reckoned no worse than UHT pots hotels provide.

The first sip made Simon shudder. But he was thirsty, and made sure to glug the rest down quickly. The slight scalding was bearable. He'd have to remember fresh milk with any more rat poison on his next shop.

More rat poison, Simon thought as he remembered the contents of his bag, I definitely bought more rat poison.

The scalding in his throat remained. An odd burning, but not from heat. As Simon looked down into his empty mug, now seeing the slight oily sheen and bluey tinge at its bottom, he noticed the corner of a packet poking out from under the cupboard at his feet. Retrieving it from the floor, next to the fallen milk bottle lid, he saw it was a half empty sachet of No More Mister Mice Guy.

Simon realised he hadn't seen Barbs. Actually seen her. Now he thought about it, he hadn't heard her bell either. He looked at his mug in dawning shock, and burped.

And then he hiccupped.

The mug shattering on the floor shocked him out of his stupor, as he stumbled out of the kitchen into the hall, overshooting and sending the boxes flying. The second and third hiccups were harder, more breathless and more gulping, he felt as if he was drowning on dry land.

"Skree-raaar! Skreeee-rar! Skreee! Skreee! Skreeeee!"

How can I have drunk..? What's going on?!

Head reeling, he caught himself on the bedroom doorframe, his mouth starting to gurgle as he forced air in past a swelling tongue. He fell forward onto the bed, clutching at his shirt collar, neck strained, eyes wild and staring for something to help, anything to help!

All he could focus on was a bedside table framed photo of his Aunt, now dead - the least helpful to him presently - holding that useless, stupid bird in her left hand and pointing at it with her right. Simon followed the finger beyond the bird, beyond the frame and saw-

PHONE!

Writhing and gasping, Simon thanked his lucky stars or his Aunt's spirit or whatever twist of fate for guiding him to the landline on the bed table. As he crawled and pried a hand from his neck to reach, painfully far to the phone, he kicked in one last push and-

"Skreeee! SKREEEE!"

Going over the bed and thumping to the floor, receiver in hand, dial pad a foot away, Simon lay face to face with the underneath of the bed. The pressure in his chest was reaching crushing. His legs were jelly and they were wobbling something silly now. Above all the panic and pain, Simon felt oddly pathetic.

He had just enough sense to make out the receiver in his hand had already had it's wire cut. Chewed? Letting it fall in front of his face, he stared into the dark underside of the bed. He saw a little shape, and straining, choking still, made out Barbs.

Simon looked at the lifeless little bird, and wondered how she was still squawking when she had clearly been silent a while.

Not squawking. That's... squeaking.

A second shape materialised in the gloom next to Barbs. And then a third, and fourth. Many pairs of eyes started to blink hungrily in the dark.

The squeaking was no match for the ringing in Simon's ears, but then his dying brain began to wondered whether it was one in the same.

His attempts at breathing became less hissing, more gurgled bubbling.

The biggest shape in the dark drew itself up and walked forwards on two hind legs.

"It's not easy impersonating a bird," the shape whispered, all Polly-wants-a-cracker-warble gone. "But we've been listening to you folk a while."

Simon's mind, clocking out, could only rationalise: I've lost my fucking marbles.

Stepping out from under the bed, the rat held a slender, grey feather in his tiny paws like a soldier on parade, and sported a red ribbon, sans jingle bell about his waist. If rats could smile, there was undoubtedly a grin in his eyes. But Simon supposed they could talk now, so why not smile?

"What was it you said a moment ago, Simon? Ah yes." Simon's teeth gnashed as his body shook, all involuntary and wheezing. The rat pointed the feather at Simons glazing, darkening eyes.

"Die quietly."