{"sf1_id":775168,"sf2_id":null,"title":"Rat Prince: Act I","author":"Aux Chiens","words":3486,"posted_at":"2014-10-29T18:02:00.000Z","tags":["Florida","Forest","Horror","Human","Rat","Transformation","bite","blood","creepy","jungle","monster","saliva","spit","spooky","teen"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/775168-rat-prince-act-i","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/775168","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=775168\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"Rat PrinceAct IAffirmant quidam inueniri\naliquando rattum cæteris\nmaiorem,\nprocerior \u0026 latiore corpora qui à cæteris otiofus alatur. Rattorum regem,\nappellant._________ Konrad Gesner, Historiæ Animalium            It was just to take his mind off stuff, just to be\nsomewhere else, anywhere else, except his house, empty and loveless, except his\nlife, also empty, also loveless - somewhere to go, to smoke, to be alone and\nyet not alone, to feel alive amidst nature.\n            This was all because he had\nbeen really high when a quote by John Muir on a Tumblr he followed made him\ndecide yes, sure, the nature reserve by his house well after dark was a\nperfectly sane choice. Why the Hell not?\n            He was alone out here, but it\nwas an alone that felt far better than the alone he usually felt, all his\nfriends off to college at places like Gainesville and Tallahassee and Miami and\nNew Orleans, but he was alone back in Tampa, alienated amidst the horrifying\nBrutalist architecture of Hillsborough Community College. Getting high and\nsleeping and his best friend Hampton were his only pleasures in life anymore,\nbut he'd been out of high school five months, there was no reason he should\nalready be this much of a nihilist. \n            A pack of cigarettes came out\nof his pocket, a Zippo from the other, and he stopped to light it: for a moment\nhis face, the boyishness and the perfection that was being eighteen, untainted\nby the coming ravages of weed, nicotine, booze, was framed gorgeous against the\nomniscient darkness, and a glimpse could be seen, of his bright red toboggan drooping\ndown to his neck, and the grey shirt with the near-illegible band name splayed\nacross it.\n            And then the flame went out,\nand the darkness swallowed him again, one gulp.            The woods are lovely, dark and deep he remembered from his English\nclass.\n            Deep - perhaps - lovely\nonly in the way that a funeral is lovely, a loveliness that was also\nconsumptive, also grotesque. \n            Dark - there was nothing darker. \n            There is no dark side in the Moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all\ndark, that Pink Floyd vinyl Hampton played for them when they had done\nshrooms together.\n            The sky was cornflower blue,\nthe Moon was made of crystal, but a sliver, not shining, most of the stars\nobscured in the violet skyglow of Tampa even as far as here in Rocky Creek, the\nOctober cool-down causing the crickets to ease off the endless chorus of their\nown names, and from nowhere a constant breeze rustled the canopies of palms and\nlive oaks and creeping vines.\n            He took his first puff of the\ncigarette, hands in his pockets as he watched the crescent Moon above him. Ghastly,\nspooky, creepy - tonight was some good shit. Coming out here was the best idea\nhe'd had all week.\n            The weather fit the mood, fit\nthe place: he used to hear all the time that, out here, back when he was in\njunior high and he had started getting wise to just how weird people really\nwere, people way older than him would come out here and do occult stuff, light\na fire and drink cat's blood and make crazy backwoods altars - inherited, he\ndid not know for sure but could guess from the context, from the first Cracker\nsettlers, who took their nighted practices that had been crushed into obscurity\nunder the heel of Christianity out of Europe and into America, where, far from\nthe prying eyes of the divines that kept them orderly and submissive for so\nmany centuries, they could once again pray to their weird gods and say their\nweird words and slit the neck of cats and drink from them like the juice of the\noranges they planted.\n            He exhaled a long plume of\nsmoke that he watched disappear before him, a ghost for the coming Halloween.\n            Could have been all rumors...could\nhave been. Teenagers like to talk - he wanted to believe, too many shrooms and\ntoo much pot had probably left him with the incurable necessity to believe, that there was some root\ncause to everything in the cosmos and what he was seeing and feeling and\nhearing was only a taste of what was truly real...that witches still rode the\nnightwind in the same day and age that a black man was President of the United\nStates.\n            Stupid of him, he was too\nsmart for that - he was smart, he was a smart boy, he kept getting told that,\nso why had he done no better than community college? \n            Back went the cigarette into\nhis mouth, the tiny ember-cherry the only illumination in the crawling pitch of\nthe jungle-forest that closed upon him like a slow-springing trap. \n            His buzz was wearing off - he\nslapped his pockets to check if he had brought his bag and his pipe with him\nand no, no of course he hadn't.\n            He was about to curse about it\nand turn around, the sudden irritability at being so forgetful killing the mood\n- he spun on his heel and went back the way he came, down the trail, toward the\nroad a mile away, perhaps longer, he had forgotten being in this delicious\nautumnal haze how long he'd been out here, how far he had walked. \n            The leaves and grass crunched\nbeneath his feet, dry and dead from the cessation of the summer rains, and the\nunseasonable chill that had afflicted Tampa earlier that month.\n            He paused for a minute to put\nhis cigarette out, extinguishing it with his foot so that it wouldn't catch\nfire. He was cognizant enough to think of it, that tired old poster at his high\nschool with the admonition from Smoky to prevent forest fires that had been hanging\nthere since probably his dad, wherever the fuck he was now, had gone there--\n            Cameron.\n            His head came up slowly.\n            He had heard it, the sound,\nthe hissing swish that could have been too-dense sabal palms rubbing against\neach other, that could have been the wind coming through the canopy and his\nmind, too active from too much THC - there's\na reason they call it dope! - playing unfair tricks on him.\n            Cameron...\n            No. \n            He heard it. \n            He heard his name whispered at\nhim, from oblivion, from the darkness, from the dried-up creek beds that were\ncovered in shadows.\n            \"What - what the fuck?\nWh-who's there?\" he asked the darkness.\n            He crept along cautiously, his\nhead jerking from one side to the other - he was sure this was a freakout, he\nwas sure of it, he was sure that there was no way, no way in Hell, that\nsomething all the way out here had followed him, or knew him by name...or\nsight...or smell...\n            ...smelling his blood, that\nraced, cold, fearful.\n            Cameron - Cameron.\n            He heard it again. \n            His name, whispered, whistled,\nout of teeth, out of a mouth, that he could not see, that was somewhere near\nhim - around him - following him...Every\nfootstep that crunched on the dried undergrowth seemed to fuck with his ears, and\nagain that whisper, relentless, noisome even when it was so quiet, so deathly,\nmaliciously quiet--\n            Cameron...Cameron...This\ntime there was no question, his head whipped back and forth over his shoulder,\ntoo soon and too sudden so that his toboggan flew off at his feet as he broke\ninto a jog.             The trees waggled\ntheir inky tendrils in the nightwind as he passed under them, stalks of dead flowering\ndaisy hit against his jeans leg, as if, in the weakly-lit darkness of this\nnightmare-forest, everything had come alive at once to watch his impending doom.\n            How far would it be to the road? How far, beyond it, to his house? He\ncouldn't be sure - the sound of his heart pounding in his heart rose in a din,\nturning what should have been a serene October night, around him, into a\ncacophony of horror, for amidst it, amidst the deafening blankness inside his\nown head of the flight-or-fight response that basic biology commanded, he heard\nsomething else, something that turned his jog into a tearing run:Behind\nhim, in a parting and shifting of the underbrush, came a rustling, hesitant,\nbut insistent - until it was not a rustle at all but something matching his\nsteps, something behind him,\nsomething close, that padded on the\ngrass and dirt even as his own shoes did the same.             He stopped - his legs had finally given out,\nand he stumbled forward, tripping over a raised root, catching himself on his\nhands, the ache on each palm making him swear aloud. \n            He tried to suck in as much as air as he could, hunching over,\nclutching his knees. \n            The Moon held the entire forest in the same dark glimmer as before -\nthe rustling had ceased, at last, whatever he had thought pursuing him was gone.\n            As he stood back up, the panting, the ache in his lungs that came from\nhaving exerted himself too much too fast, gave way to a peal of broken\nlaughter.             Jesus Christ,\nHampton was gonna bust his balls over this one - thinking something was chasing\nhim in the reserve, serves his stupid ass right for being out here alone, high\nas a motherfucker, what kind of dumbass was he? This was the kind of shit\nCreepypasta was made of, that quality post in the thread on 4chan when people\nwere talking about skinwalkers or some shit - and that was all it was, that's\nall the fuck it was, he freaked himself off so badly he didn't realize--\n            Cameron!            This time it was loud - a\nnear-shout, no longer a whisper, it came forth ragged and hoarse. \n            His laugh was cut short,\nwarped mid-sound into a terrified yelp. \n            He jerked back with such force\nthat he landed square on his ass - as he winced, he saw something...a shape, moving through the darkness, a liquid shadow. A dim roar from somewhere\nahead of him came to his ears, with a glare that almost blinded him even at this\ndistance as it passed - a car! \n            He could barely contain his\nelation - the road, he was so close, he was so very close - he leapt up to make\nhis escape, to leave behind whatever heinous things he was probably just\nimagining...\n            ...a stray glance over his\nshoulder, and he felt his blood run cold.\n            There it was, not twenty feet\nback. \n            The light from the car did not\nbring any clarity to its shape, but it did light up - its eyes. \n            They were amber, luminous in the\nreflection of the passing electric light, flickering like candles caught in a\nbreeze.They were moving, they were\ngetting larger - they were catching up.He tried to run again, he\ntried to will his body to move, to do something, anything, to keep moving...but another step, and his heels slipped on\nground, and he tumbled, and as he came to the ground the cold certainty that\nthis is where he would die swept over him, he half-curled into a fetal position\nand gave a strangled cry for help that left his lips as little more than a quavering\nwhimper, the loping stride of the thing's feet overtaking him in a rising\nclimax. \n            He could hear breath that was\nlower, deeper, slower than his, in spare seconds that passed as agonized\neternities, as the sound of the padded footfalls slowed...and then stopped.\n            On his neck, still crouched to\nthe ground, hot tears coming to his eyes in the most complete terror he had\never felt in his life, he could feel the thing's breath, moist, flamelessly\nburning his skin.           It was close\nnow - achingly close. \n            His nose picked up something, a\nwhiff of fetid, nauseating horror, of unwashed fur, clumped blood and pus,\ngarbage that had been reeking in the Sun for months, a plethora of the most\nacrid and execrable smells. \n            He felt his throat tighten in\nan abrupt gag of nausea but he suppressed it, not wanting to move, his mind\nlatently consumed with the idea of playing dead to whatever predator was now\nabout to claim him. \n            His body aquiver, he felt the\nthing come over top of him, the harsh breath, the snuffling of what surely had\nto be the thing's nostrils - it seemed to be examining him - and in the plunging fright of the moment he took in\nan involuntarily sharp breath...the stink of the thing hit him again, with\nanother requisite gag. \n            And then came the long,\nhissing whisper he recognized from the sounds of the trees, what he had thought\nwas the wind, what he had literally laughed off as nothing but what he now knew\nto be true, hideously true, the three syllables drawn out into a trill of\nblackest nightmare:\n            Cameron...\n            The masquerade of playing\npossum fell apart as it reached his ears. \n            He let out a sob, his muscles\nreleasing him so that he was prostrate to the forest floor, amidst the dried-up\nmud and the grass and the leaves: \n            \"Wha-what - what - what do you w-want - what do y-you want?!\"\n            Want...? \n            Atop him the beast seemed to\nfreeze in space. \n            The silence rose like a wave -\nthere were no other sounds in his ears other than that of his own beating\nheart, other than that of his own convulsing lungs as adrenaline surged into\nevery nerve, and he began to quietly whimper, yet more tears forcing\nthemselves, thick and helpless, down his cheeks.\n            Want...you!His chest heaved as he shook\nhis head rapidly, a repeated mantra burst from him, a repeated no that he spat over and over again,\neven as his body tensed against feeling something like claws dig into his shirt\nand tear a hole, and he felt the thing pull on his back, forcing him upright,\nwith his eyes shut as tight as he could make them, supplicating a god he had\nnever seen and never really believed in to make it stop, make it stop, no, please - please--            Taste - you...\n            He felt the thing's teeth sink\nslowly, agonizingly into his shoulder - there was a desperate, vain struggle,\nweak against the beast's grip, its digits holding fast against him even as pain\nburnt into his brain in a cataclysm of agony. In that moment his being seemed\nto swim, awash in that moment of complete and unyielding pain. \n            His eyes twitched at the shock\nthat numbed the rest of his body even as the bite threatened to extinguish his\nlife then and there, a gust of wind driving against the flicker of a candle.\n            The grip that had held him\nunmerciful relinquished, and he fell forward to the ground, nose and mouth\nsmack into leaves, grass, and dirt. \n            There he stayed, sobbing,\nshamelessly weeping in agony and terror...for how long, he did not know.\n            At a length which was\nimpossible to tell, he rolled over.   Above\nhim was the same ebony canopy of oak and palm and palmetto, around him was the\nsame half-silence of dying crickets and dull roars from the nearby road. The\nweight that had pressed him, the claws that had gripped him, the breath that\nhad nauseated him...was nowhere to be seen.\n            The beast was gone. \n            He sprung to his feet again,\ntearing off out of this accursed nature reserve, high as a motherfucker from an\nadrenaline that possessed every corridor of blood that pumped out of his\nstill-wildly beating heart. \n            Only vaguely was he aware of a\nwetness building under the fingers clasped to his shoulder - only\nabsentmindedly did he wonder if was what he feared, a bloody gash, or just that\n- that thing's spit, saliva, all over\nhim.Cameron...The voice echoed behind him\nagain as he tripped a third time, very nearly losing his balance yet again as\nhe saw the streetlights of the road, the song of the cars traversing it, tire\non pavement, even closer...\n            Another\nsharp gasp tore through him - turning quickly he looked back, back into the nighted\njungle.         \n            Nothing.\n            He shook his head, slowly at\nfirst, then rapidly, another sob breaking from his throat, his mind, a mess of\nhormones, endorphins, fear, panic, anguish, and shock, could not be sure, could\nnot be sure if he heard something, actually heard something, if it came from\nhis own head, or from the shadowy recesses of the forest he had left behind...\n            Cameron...see you soon...Cameron...\n            The road before him was lit by the orange-yellow streetlights and the\nimpassive leprous sickle of the Moon as his footsteps passed onto the hard\ntarmac of the road. \n            His lungs ached, his right side ached, his arm still held the wet and\npained side of himself as he walked on, dazed - his left hand clenched and\nreleased, trying to do something, anything, to alleviate the pain that seemed\nto grow stronger for every second the hormones ebbed. \n            It took him a moment to realize the source of the wetness that was\nstarting to flow around his hand and trickle into his shirt - blood.\n            Blood. \nThere was blood - so much blood, it was soaking the fibers, it wafted up to his\nnose mixed with the acridity, the nauseous miasma, of - yes, that's what it was\n- saliva, what had clung to that awful thing's mouth.\n            Hospital? Should he go? Call 911? His phone was still in his pocket...\n            Even in the dark he could feel his head getting lighter. \n            He couldn't believe what had just happened, attacked...by something in the woods, that nature\nreserve, what was wrong with him, he was retarded the fuck enough to venture\ninto near Halloween and at night, pitch black.\n            A hospital - no, not 911 either, no one would believe him, they'd laugh\nat him, and what did it matter, no insurance, and Tampa General was too far\naway. \n            What would he say to the dispatcher? That a monster had tried to eat\nhim? For fuck's sake...\n            He couldn't stop running - he couldn't stop running. \n            He was alive, for now, that was all that mattered, he could make it, he\ncould make it if he just tried, if he just kept going, kept going down this\nstreet, and turned a corner - how empty everything looked this time of night,\nno one to see him, no one to hear him moan under his breath, no one to watch\nhim bleed...A\nquick glance behind him...nothing.             There was nothing behind\nhim, nothing around him, just the same noises, the same lights that were -\ngrowing bleary... \n            His house, third one on the left if you turned right, loomed in front\nof him, and he let out a gravelly breaths, mid-pant against the endless wind\nout of his lungs, before he made for the door. \n            He pounded the concrete sidewalk that led from the driveway as he\nreached his unwounded side-hand for his keys. He grasped, nervously, at the\nfull ring, before pulling them out, in his haste dropping them and letting out\na delirious, startled cry.\n            Whirling around in panic he saw, still, nothing there. \n            Still - still...\n            His hand quavered in an unsteady tremor that made him falter twice\nbefore finally grasping the keys again, he plunged the housekey into the knob\nand turned it hard...the door opened, carrying him inside with it. \n            The faintness he had been feeling had become a crushing lassitude that\nhe could no longer fight, and, spinning around the door to threw his body\nagainst it, he nearly all but fell into the closed door as he twisted both the\nknob lock and the dead bolt. \nThat\nwas all he could do.             There\nwas a fleeting moment of safety, euphoric and perfect, and then a chilling fear\nthat he might die...and then a spark, a strange and sinister spark that made his\nstomach clench in revolt, that no, this was not it, he would not die at all.\n            The last words inside his own head, he heard, were the strange voice of\nthe creature that maimed him - see you\nsoon. \n            He slid down against the door and collapsed, prostrate, before it, his\neyes closing at last, the voice echoing over and over, wordlessly, in his\nnow-comatose ears."}