Ratcatcher

It was coming from the cupboard under the stairs, a faint scratching as if something was trying to get out.

They were watching Traitors when Laura heard it. It was coming from the cupboard under the stairs, a faint scratching as if something was trying to get out.

‘Can you hear that?’

She turned the TV down, and the scratching stopped.

‘No.’

Johnathan lunged for the remote, but Laura held it out of reach. She was bored with Traitors. Dull people bitching about other dull people and Claudia Winkleman looking like the love child of Noel Fielding and Princess Anne in a tweed jacket and riding boots.

‘I think there’s an animal in there. A rat or a mouse.’

The scratching resumed, and Johnathan reluctantly heaved himself off the sofa.

‘Fine. I’ll have a look.’

He opened the cupboard door and quickly recoiled, pinching his nose. Laura peered over his shoulder. The cupboard reeked of ammonia, and there were droppings on her suitcase and in Johnathan’s ski helmet. The droppings were the size of a Tic Tac, too large for a mouse.

‘You’ll have to do something.’

‘Like what?’’

Johnathan closed the door.

‘I don’t know, invite them in for a cup of tea?’ Laura sighed. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘Get rid of them before they destroy everything in there.’

Johnathan spent the next morning researching rat traps on Amazon, eventually deciding on a plastic contraption called Rat-no-more that claimed to kill the animals instantly. He ordered two, which arrived the next day.

‘Couldn’t we just catch them alive and take them somewhere’ Laura said as he was baiting the traps with peanut butter (irresistible to rats, apparently).

Although Laura wasn’t a fan of rats (those tails…) she didn’t like the idea of murdering them. It was freezing outside and she could hardly blame them for wanting to come into the warmth. She would have done the same in their place.

‘They’ll only come back. Anyway, it says on the box it’s humane.’

Laura thought this was unlikely, but she had given up arguing with Johnathan. Once he set his mind on something, it was impossible to dissuade him. That night, he caught two rats and two more the following night and the night after that. Laura felt guilty as he tipped their sad, broken little corpses into a bag. This was her fault. She should have kept quiet and removed the animals herself.

‘Hopefully, that’s the last of them.’ Johnathan said peeling off his gloves.

That night, there was no sound from the cupboard as they watched a hairdresser persuade an insurance salesman that a blameless dog-groomer was a traitor and when Johnathan checked the traps at ten, they were empty. Thank God, Laura thought as she clambered into bed beside him.

She was dreaming about a castle populated by hairdressers when she was woken by gnawing. It sounded like a dog chewing on a bone and, at first, she thought it was part of the dream. Except… she sat up, suddenly wide awake. Except it was coming from under the bed. She prodded Johnathan in the ribs.

‘What’s that noise?’

He didn’t move. Johnathan could sleep through a nuclear explosion. Laura switched on the lamp. The cream rug beside the bed was smeared with blood. Annoyed, she prodded him again.

‘Did you…?’ She was about to say, ‘cut yourself’, when the light went off and wouldn’t come on again. A power cut, presumably.

The noise was louder now. A scrabbling sound had replaced the gnawing as Laura searched for the torch on her phone. The battery was low, but in the faltering beam she saw there was blood on the duvet as well, small bloody footprints circling Johnathan’s earlobe, or rather the tattered remnants of flesh where his earlobe had once been. His pillow was saturated with blood, and she covered her mouth to suppress a scream.

‘Johnathan.’ She shook him frantically as twelve curious eyes watched from the linen chest at the end of the bed. ‘Johnathan, wake up.’

Finally, she rolled him over, and this time, she couldn’t help herself. She screamed so loudly the owners of the eyes flinched. Then, with perfect karmic timing, the torch went out too.

All my stories are free, but if you would like to buy me a coffee I will donate any money raised in January and February to Zante Strays a charity that rescues stray and abandoned cats and dogs on the Greek island of Zante.