Lord of the Rats

            " Lord of the Rats"



  As a small child I remember watching the fire burn my parent's house and hearing the screams as the fire consumed them. I don't recall feeling anything about it.

My next memory is of a long room, with two row of beds. Very mean children lived in that long room, they beat me the first night. I made a note in my head as to where the oldest and meanest boy slept.

  On the second night I crept to the oldest boy's bed, I wrapped my hands into his hair and quickly rushed him to the window where I gave him a lesson in flight. He failed the attempt. He was only fourteen.

  The next day I discovered that I had moved up in rank. There were still older and meaner boys but it seems that they had a new found respect for me.

  There was a lady Matron who, at mid-day would open a small trap in the door and slide through a vat full of yellow white mush. All the children would rush forward and scoop handfuls of the mush, cramming it into their hungry mouths. The children were starving. That night I would go hunting.

  In the late of night, I crept under my bed and using a metal bed slat that I had pried loose, I begun to work on the nails that held the floor boards in place. Before long, I was into the crawl space beneath the floor. Soon I made access to the entire building.

  In the early morning hours, the old grey building was a sleeping giant. Nothing moved. There were no guards, There were heavy doors with heavy locks. No need for guards. We were all alone.

  I made my way to the cellar where the boilers warmed the building. And here, is where I found the rats. Hundreds of rats. This would become my killing ground. Wielding my bed slat, as if I were a Roman Centurion I began to slaughter. Slashing and stabbing, the rats piled at my feet. I had become, the slayer of rats.

  After killing twenty or more of the vile little creatures, I sharpened my metal slat on the hard, stone floor then I set about preparing the meat. I stripped off the hides and carefully picked the bones clean.

  I built a fire using wood from the furnace and cooked my night's kill right there on the floor. I knew the Matrons would come soon so I stowed the meat in an old laundry bag and quietly made my way back to the long room.

  As the sun rose, the children begun to awake to a sweet smell that was unknown to them. Bewildered, they got up and at the foot of each bed, they found a small pile of cooked meat. The children cheered as they gorged.

  At mid-day the Matron came with the mush filled vat and slid it through the trap, she screamed with surprise when the vat came flying back through the trap and overturned her cart, spilling the contents on to the floor.

  She tore open the heavy door and ranted like a mad woman, the children laughed and taunted the old, fat bag. The Matron spit and swore that she would starve us to death, and with that, she slammed shut the heavy door.

  The rest of the afternoon the smaller children played with new found spirit while I instructed the older boys on how to turn bed slats to swords. Then I slept.

  Once again, long after the children were sleeping soundly, I crept under the bed and repeated the process of the previous night. I returned to the cellar and again I slayed, then cooked the meat.

  This night's kill was more than forty, while the meat cooked I begun to construct a coat from the rat hides as a way to pass the time. On my return I decided to explore the inner works of the old grey building. There were many heavy doors. Behind those doors, many more starving children.

  I scurried along the beams and crept through the crawl spaces learning every nook of the old grey building. I was fast becoming like the rodents I killed.

  The next morning the children cheered my name as they feasted on the rat meat I provided. The older boys drilled and sparred with their finely honed swords. I appointed my lieutenants and assigned groups of children to each one.

  Day after day, the process repeated and the children grew stronger. Night after night, I crept out and went about my business.
Every afternoon my army trained and became tight with military precision.

  The Matrons couldn't understand how this thing could be happening. For days on end they had starved the children, but the children grew stronger, the cheers grew louder. The Matrons no longer attempted to open the heavy door for fear of the taunts and debris hurled towards them.

  On the next nightly outing, I found the key to the heavy doors. I went down to the grand entrance and out to the wide marble steps that led to the street below.

  I stood at the bottom of the wide marble steps and looked up at the old grey building. On either side of the steps was a stone grey lion. The building towered in the night sky, it was majestic in it beauty, giving no hint to the wickedness that go’s on within its walls.

  I returned to the long room, this time entering through the heavy door for the first time. In the early morning I stood before the children, clad in my coat of a thousand rat hides and rallied my troops. We had our morning feast and then waited in silence.

  At mid-day we heard the Matron walking down the hall, she paused and stood for a moment when all off a sudden the door flung wide open and dozens of small children poured out and set upon her. They clawed and bit like the hordes of rats down below, then they took her to the floor.

  The second wave charged forth with their finely honed steel as the onslaught continued. They stabbed and hacked at the old Matron as she screamed in agony.  They cleaved off her hands and feet, then disemboweled her.

  I stepped out into the hall as the children danced in the blood of their oppressor. It was time to move down to the lower floors of the old grey building. As the children began to move to the lower floors,  I unlocked the remaining doors and let the others go free.

  My lieutenants commanded their squads and together we moved down, floor after floor hacking and maiming as the Matrons attempted to flee in terror. When we reached the great hall on the first floor, hundreds of the starving children poured out to the streets, down the wide marble steps.

  The last remaining Matrons were dragged out and forced to their knees. The lieutenants executed the old women by slitting their throats, the blood and entrails flowed like a river down the wide marble steps.

  I stepped out into the bright mid-day sun and surveyed the results of the uprising. The children danced and played in the streets, many of the newly freed scattered about into the surrounding neighborhoods. I climbed up on the back of one of the stone grey lions. In my left hand, I held aloft my sword. In my right, the severed head of our evil tormentor. The children sang praises to my name.