Monday
To Do:
- Buy tea
- Renew GQ subscription (although screw it, now Sophie’s gone I might as well get Nuts instead)
- Tidy sock-drawer
- Buy humane trap
8.45am
I never can find a matching pair of socks.
Normally it doesn’t matter because really, who at work ever notices anything I wear? I could turn up in nothing but a white coat and boxers and nobody would twitch an eyebrow. People never see beyond the labcoat, even lab people.
I own one black suit, one white shirt and one pair of decent shoes: all I need is a pair of non-Simpsons socks to go with them and I have my ensemble for if I ever get back in the dating game.
3.47pm
Gorgeous French Michelle is hovering by the chocolate machine outside the mouse-house, looking jubilant.
“Hey Steve, how's your rats?” she asks, politely. I shrug.
“Fine. And your mice?”
“Dead!” She looks like a little girl on Christmas morning.
Now, this is news. Michelle's been trying to perfect the ultimate mouse poison (safe, cheap, quick and 100% lethal) for some time now.
“Congratulations! All of them?”
“100% mortality, near instant, no resistance or nothing!”
Michelle's accent can even make poisoning rodents seem cute. I high-five her.
“Result!” She blushes and grins.
Back in the office, I can’t face paperwork so I replay the rats running a maze while checking Facebook (me, that is, not the rats). Then I turn out my filing cabinets looking for a spare pair of socks.
6.45pm
I still can’t scrape together a single pair. My so-called sock-drawer is actually an old fruit-box under the bed, from which I usually select the day’s winning pair by touch. Time to get thorough. I yank the drawer out, and spot the missing pair immediately.
Unfortunately it’s now a nest for two loved-up mice, who stare at me in frozen horror for a second before getting the hell out of my socks with a speed I can’t help admiring. There's squeaking, most of it mine, as we Tom-and-Jerry it round the bedroom, me swatting camply at them with an old GQ, while swearing. We've been down this road before, however, and the mice and I both know that in the end they'll outrun me.
Collie slinks fatly in and stares, deadpan, at me panting in my boxers, shredded socks dangling from my fingers like dead party-streamers.
“What’s the point of a cat who doesn't catch frigging mice?” I demand. She yawns vastly, her teeth like bone-splinters. You’d think she’d use those fangs on something livelier than packets of Sheba, but Collie's a lazy beast. I listen intently for the scamper-whisper of mice in the secret places between furniture and walls: nothing. I think dark, aspirational thoughts about breakback mousetraps. Scoffing my pizza crusts is one thing; nesting in my socks quite another. No more Mr. Humane Guy, I vow.
Tuesday
To Do:
- Buy milk
- Renew GQ subscription
- By new socks
- Buy inhumane trap
2.15pm
I’m swearing at the Nescafe machine when Michelle skips by. She looks like she’s just cruised a five-mile run before showering in the Timotei waterfall. She smiles at me. Twice in two days! She must be stoked about this toxin.
“Hey Michelle,”
“Steve! Want to see something?
“Sure.”
She pulls me towards the mouse-house, my coffee slaloming in its styrene. She indicates some impressively spiky graphs. I ooh admiringly.
“Looks promising.”
“I know I shouldn't count my hens, but I think we’ve nailed it.”
“Well done!” It certainly beats the hell out of my rats.
She pushes a plastic box towards me as though offering me a chocolate. Inside is a dead white mouse, almost invisible against its cotton-wool bed.
“Peaceful, isn’t he?”
I lift Mr. Mouse with a spatula: he’s unmarked, no laceration, discolouration or even rigor mortis. Must be fresh.
“Wish mine at home looked like that.”
She frowns interestedly. “You have mice?”
“Came with the flat.”
“Get a cat.”
“Got one. It’s scared of mice.”
“Humane traps? No mess, no fuss.”
“No mice, either. Don't work.”
Michelle's expression is comically disappointed. Looking at her, I have two thoughts: firstly, that I need to solve my mouse problem ASAP, and secondly, that I’d love an excuse to buy her a drink.
She gives me that excuse.
“You know, I really should field-test this toxin. Just to check it’s equally lethal to all breeds.”
“It’s not toxic to other animals?” I ask, thinking of Collie, the feline hoover.
Michelle smiles a reassuring saleswoman’s smile.
“It’s very specific. Even hamsters are fine. Certainly it won’t hurt a cat.” She produces a little brown bottle bearing the yellow poison symbol, and hands it to me.
“In the name of science,” I say.
“On the house,” she says.
“I’ll buy you a drink if it works,” I say.
“OK.” Michelle smiles.
6.10pm
Poison the bait, sit and wait. I set the saucer down and slope off to watch the Simpsons.
6.42pm
Bait still there. Beer in fridge. Thirsty.
7.20pm
Bait gone. Beer gone.
7.22pm
Mouse can’t have got far, but I can’t see a damn thing in the shadows behind the fridge. Then I spot it, curled peacefully on the vinyl, humble paws crossed over its brown chest like the dead Juliet. I lift it gingerly with Sophie's salad-tongs. It’s still floppy: I half-expect it to make a break for freedom. I shine the torch into its open eyes and squint at its ribcage. Nothing.
The bin seems disrespectful, so I drop it into the ashtray. I can toss it in the garden when I go out. Michelle’s working late tonight so I call her with the good news. We arrange to meet at the Surgeon’s Arms, opposite the lab. I tip the dead mouse a grateful wink as I swing out of the door, wearing my new socks.
11.47pm
Michelle’s so great. I didn’t let her buy a drink all night and got a bit more drunk than I thought and then realised I hadn’t eaten so I got a kebab. Don’t remember taking the dead mouse out but must’ve done because the ashtray’s empty. Hope Collie didn’t find it and hoard it somewhere. Last thing I need is the aroma of dead mouse coming from behind the bookshelf if Michelle ever comes round.
Wednesday
To Do:
- Buy sugar
- Renew GQ subscription (actually might switch to Men’s Health; I feel rough today)
- Buy flowers for Michelle
- Poison remaining mice
11.33am
Michelle's not about, so I fill a conical flask with distilled water, write a note, and stick the flowers in the mouse-house atrium where I hope she'll see it.
5.50pm
Home early for once. I’ve put down poison in every non-cat-accessible spot in the house. It’s too nice a day to stay indoors. Pub, I think.
6.53pm
Result! Five empty saucers, five ex-mice: a perfect score. Collie sniffs at one of the corpses and I bat her away. She takes a half-hearted swipe at me and stalks off. I put the mice in an old shoebox and leave it by the front door. I celebrate Michelle’s achievement with a beer and a pizza.
Thursday
To Do:
- Buy new shirt
- Renew GQ subscription (maybe it should be New Scientist)?
- Ask Michelle if she fancies a drink tomorrow
- Chuck away rest of mice
- Tidy flat in case Michelle wants to come back after drink
10.17am
The coffee-machine rendezvous never fails. All lab-rats need regular injections of coffee. But Michelle’s in a foul mood this morning.
“What’s up?” I say. I want to ask if she got my flowers but think better of it. She frowns, then sighs.
“Stupid setbacks. The first toxin subjects have disappeared along with some of the control group and now I’ve got to do everything again and have the new stats ready for Friday.”
“Gutted. At least you’ve got your miracle poison, though.”
“Hmmm. I’m not so sure.”
“Well, there’s five dead mice at home who say you do.”
“But where's the lab-mice? The cleaners didn't chuck them. What if someone compromised the experiment and got rid of the evidence?”
“Unlikely. But hey, I’ll look out for escapees.”
Perhaps now would be a good time to ask her out again? She looks like she needs cheering up. Then her face changes as a guy from her lab passes. She looks cold, hard and wild all at once, like a berserking Simone de Beauvoir. She stalks him down the corridor, labcoat cracking like albatross wings.
“Jimmy? Wait up. You know those dead mice-”
Maybe I’ll ask her tomorrow.
5.52pm
When I get home Collie's lying on the bed looking smug. There's no blood on her claws or mouth, and no mess to indicate she’s just decimated a shoebox full of mousy treats. But the box is shredded and the mice are gone, and I’m bloody sure they didn’t gnaw their way out.
I’m livid with my cat. (My ex-girlfriend’s cat, actually: cheers, Soph). She’s obviously already eaten, so I ignore her faux-hungry whining, and put down more poison bait. I reckon I’ve got most of the mice now, but I keep thinking I hear scratching behind the bookshelf, and whispery rustling, just audible, under the bed. I drag the desecrated sock drawer out. Nowhere to hide.
7.13pm
As I enter the kitchen a brown blur shoots across the floor, wriggling under the sink.
“Hard to kill, aren’t you?” I growl.
As I’m in the newsagent's buying Stella, I notice some dusty but vicious-looking breakback mousetraps. I buy the lot, load them with bait, and sit down to wait. Better safe than sorry.
10.49pm
Four traps, four dead mice, though three managed to get the poison bait without springing the traps, for which they have my grudging respect. The other’s a horrible mess. I toss them into the bin, where Collie can’t get them. Then I down my Stella and christen the corpses with the dregs.
“Good riddance,” I tell them. Collie tries to follow me into bed, but she’s still in disgrace. She can sleep downstairs.
Friday
To Do:
- Have a piss
- Drink water
- Call a vermin professional
1.22am
Stumbling back from the toilet in the dark, I trip over the bin, which Collie must have upended looking for food. As I hop around cursing, I can hear the bloody mice in the walls, scratching and squeaking like they’re digging for victory
“Bloody cat!” I yell, and stamp into the lounge. But she’s not there. There’s a mess of black fur and blood on the floor. I wonder, crazily, if a fox or tomcat could have got in through a window and savaged her, but there's no major wound, just a multitude of little ones like she’s been stabbed by dozens of tiny daggers. Like she’s been nibbled, almost.
I’m still in shock, I suppose, when I flip the light-switch and a dozen tiny brown bodies scamper under the sofa and the table. The bastards are getting slower; but there seem to be more of them. I lift Collie, cradling her in my arms. She’s still warm, but her eyes are glassy and her chest unmoving. Poor Collie. She wasn’t much of a mouser, but she was a good cat.
A mouse makes a break for it. I’m beyond squeamishness now, but as I go to stomp it, I see it’s carrying something on its back: in its back, almost. It’s so horribly mangled it can’t possibly still be alive, but it’s dragging itself and its trap slowly across the floor. Blood-smeared vertebrae stick out of its crushed spine like smashed ivory buttons.
This is not a new mouse. This is an old mouse. A dead mouse. One of the dead mice I binned. The dead mice who are back; who are slowly, horribly too slow, and not slowly enough, emerging from under the table and sofa, from behind the radiator and inside the walls.
I think I’ll stay in a hotel tonight. Just got to get into the hall and grab my coat with my keys and wallet, and get to a hotel where I can have a very large drink and convince myself that I’m neither drunk nor insane. That’s what I’ll do.
I back out of the lounge, watching the mice dragging themselves across the floor. I can smell the dead, gamy stench of them. What's made them this way? It must be Michelle's poison. I think of the escaped lab-mice. Shit, I've got to warn Michelle. I make to get past the mice, but hesitate, half-remembered bits of zombie films flickering through my head. My feet are bare. Couldn’t a bite, even a mouse bite, infect me? Could it cross to humans? Or even – I look down at Collie in my arms – to cats?
I get my answer as she twitches and convulses, her yellow eyes flicking wide. I scream and drop her; she twists horribly midair and lands on her feet, hissing through torn lips.
An undead cat to catch zombie mice? At last she can make herself useful! The mice scatter at her bubbling meow. I'm sure Collie can take it from here, so I reach over to grab my coat and leap back as she takes a vicious swipe at my leg, slashing my pyjama bottoms. A hot wave of sweat breaks over me. Collie spits and hisses. She’s between me and the door. The mice squeak and skitter at my back. I'm trapped.
Zombies are a loyalty-free zone, of course. They just want to feed, and they don’t feed on each other, only living flesh.
“Oh fuck,” I say.
Two thoughts flash across my mind as I go down screaming: the first is to wonder how long it will take Collie and the mice to strip the meat from my bones, and the second is to really, really wish I’d fed the cat last night.
Diane Payne writes serious journalism and curious fiction. She lives in Manchester and has worked in the media for far too long. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in several US and UK magazines, including the Triangulation sci-fi anthology, Creeping Horror, and Dead Good. Diane Payne is a pseudonym.
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