The house had been boarded up six days earlier.

The house had been boarded up six days earlier. The other two cats had run off when the construction workers showed up, but the tabby, Vincent, had stayed under the bed because

this scientist. He'd worked too long in labs and had come to understand the secrets of dead mice. His entire desk was stuffed with dead mice. They were molding and stinky but

deep down, he had become attached to the rotting corpses and didn't have the will to throw his preciouses away. So he kept the rats on top of his desk, sometimes talking to them.

They were my sleeping subjects. I was their Ratgod & the Ratgod was I. At night I sent a swarm of flies to reanimate my preciouses. Their whiskers twitched & my naked-tailed minion

spread out, strategically dispersed among the predesignated entry points to the city. The humans were weak, ripe for the taking. This was the year of the Rat! And I, the Ratgod,

Would gather the rats and have a rat army in a little rat mansion with a rat feast of rat roast and a side of rat potatoes and rat gravy. Rat rat rat rat rat rat rat rat rat rat!

But what I didn't account for was the neighbor, Mr. Cat, who came knocking at my door one evening "Say, I've noticed a lot of fine looking rats coming and going recently, could

be that I could take care of this infestation...problem." Mr Cat's ears twitched around his fedora--he's no fool, he could smell a rat. I wondered, could train the rats to kill?

Not knowing who would be training the rats, I thought it best to err on the side of caution and make sure I had the dough to hire Mr. Cat and his services. Ruthless exterminators.