An Unwelcome House Guest

I had never had much trouble sleeping. My bedroom sat at the end of a long, carpeted hallway and was complete with dandelion-yellow walls arrayed with tie-dye posters and stick-on flower petals—vibrant yet peaceful. At the other end of the hall, a door opened into our large, wood-paneled living room. No one had ever accused my mother of being a minimalist as our wall-to-wall built-ins were littered with ceramic knickknacks and frames holding our family’s church directory photos through the years—alternating with matching jean jackets, then turtlenecks, then jackets again.

I had pointed out more than once that more knickknacks meant more dusting. Apparently, in 1992, the number of tiny cherubs and painted roosters you had lining your shelves was in direct proportion to your status in small-town, Southern society.

In front of the roosters and the crystal figurine of a cat playing the piano sat my mother’s newest addition. It had occupied the space for almost a week and stood a head taller than me. Why my parents thought it was a good idea to bring a statue of a giant rat inside our home was beyond me. I mean, those teenage turtle guys had their wise mutant rat sensei friend, but that didn’t make this bizarre home adornment any easier on the eyes.

At first, he only haunted my waking hours. He was there in the morning on my way out the door for school. He welcomed me home again with his sneering, beady eyes.

The first night I heard the scratching, I ignored it and went back to sleep. Probably my little brother sneaking into the kitchen for a late-night snack cake.

The next morning, the unwelcome house guest nearly knocked me down on my way out the door.

“Mom, why did you move this thing right in front of the door?”

“Huh? I didn’t, honey. Maybe someone just bumped it.”

Bumped it? It weighed at least a hundred pounds. But I swear it was a good six inches from where it had sat the day before.

That night, I awoke again to the faint scratching, this time right outside my room. My door jiggled in its frame but never opened. “Brothers,” I sighed, rolling over and pulling the comforter over my head. If he thought he could get away with throwing water balloons in my room again, he had another thing coming.

At breakfast the next morning, I punched my little brother on the arm as I sat down with my plate of waffles.

“What’s your problem? Why do you keep getting up in the middle of the night? Were you trying to sneak into my room?”

“Huh? What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything! You’re gonna get me in trouble again. Mom!”

“Shut up, tattletale. Whatever. Just don’t do it again.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

The scratching came again the next night. But this time, I watched in horror as my bedroom door slowly opened a few inches. The shadow crept in as the long, hairless toes wrapped around the door frame. Do rats have fingers or toes? It didn’t matter—whatever they were, they were in my room. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut.

“It’s a dream. It’s a dream. It’s just a dream.”

When I opened my eyes again, he was gone.

The next night, I collapsed hard on my bed after volleyball practice. No shower, no pajamas; I don’t even remember if I ate dinner. Next week was our first playoff game.

Had I been asleep for minutes or hours? I couldn’t tell as the scratching at my door grew louder. The hinges creaked, and I saw more than a shadow this time. The long snout protruded into the doorway. Then I heard it. A chorus of squeaks and chirps, tiny toenails snagging the carpet. Tonight, he had brought friends. I heard sniffs and whiffs as the rat army searched for sustenance—cracker crumbs or a forgotten fruit snack. They found my toes instead.

I screamed, and my dad appeared at the doorway.

“Honey, is everything okay?”

“What?” I frantically scanned the room for the invading minions. “Oh, sure. Just a bad dream.”

“Okay. Sleep tight,” my dad said as the door clicked shut.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, making sure my toes were securely tucked under my blankets.

The following night, I awoke to the sounds of squealing, chirping, and hissing. I crawled out of my bed and slid my toes into a pair of fuzzy slippers. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon and snatched a purple tennis racket propped up in the corner.

The door was already open. I’m not sure if it was the giant rat leader or his swarm of furry monsters that did it. I pulled it open the rest of the way with the top of the tennis racket. I didn’t want to risk anything nibbling my fingers.

The sight was horrifying. Hundreds of the creatures crawled in every direction. They were going in and out of my brother’s room, in and out of the bathroom, and starting to make their way into the living room. I swatted with the racket and then kicked one, sending him flying into a wall. They started to scurry toward the statue—the king rat. I sensed that I was now the intruder. They poured out of the hallway into our living room, piling onto couches and chairs, taking over every inch of the place. They seemed to be multiplying. If there were hundreds before, now there were thousands. Maybe if I can get rid of the king rat, the rest will follow. I ran past my brother’s bedroom and out the door at the end of the hall. The king rat was gone. I screamed.

“Honey, what are you doing out of bed?”

I stood in the living room, heart racing, fingers tingling, tennis racket still in hand.

I was no longer convinced it was a dream, but there he stood by the front door. Quiet. Menacing. Sneering.

I spent the entire school day ruminating on his evil schemes and how to coerce my mother to remove him. Enough was enough. I hopped off the bus and threw the front door open, ready to make my case. But the king rat was gone.

“Mom! Where did the statue go?”

“Oh, the new one? Isn’t it lovely? Have you ever seen anything so elegant?”

Elegant? I thought. It couldn’t be any less elegant if it were a statue of Bozo the Clown.

“Don’t worry, honey, it’ll be back. I noticed some marks on its hands. I took it to the trophy shop to get them buffed out.”

Marks on his hands couldn’t be a coincidence, I thought.

“Were they there when you bought it?” I asked.

“I’m sure they were, honey; I just didn’t notice. How would they have just appeared?”

From sticking his paws under my door, trying to claw his way in, that’s how, I thought.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back on Friday,” my mother said.

Friday. Two nights of blissful sleep awaited.

Returning home from school on Friday, he greeted me again. I inspected his bony toes. They were free from any scratches. All evidence of his crimes had been removed.

I was sure I would not get any sleep that night. I lay in bed, staring intently at the popcorn ceiling. Under better circumstances, I may have turned this sleepless night into a fun game—finding shapes in the bumps, like spotting rabbits and dinosaurs in the clouds. But all I could see were rats. In my mind, I saw them circling their king. I saw them making their way down the hall. I saw them waiting at my door.

A shadow slid under the closed door, stretching across my bedroom floor, inch by inch, until it touched a spot of carpet no more than a foot from my bed. The long snout, the protruding whiskers. He had come again. My heart raced, and I pinched my arm.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

The door hinges creaked.

“Just wanted to say goodnight, honey.” My dad patted the comforter that protected my toes from a blast of air conditioning and tiny, chomping teeth.

I was awake.

“Goodnight, Dad. Could you leave the hall light on?”

I knew it wasn’t a real solution. Light or no light, the rat king would come for me tonight. I forced my eyes to stay open as long as possible, though he haunted me awake or asleep. I stared at the sliver of light seeping in between the door and its frame, waiting to catch the slightest shadow. I don’t remember falling asleep. But I saw the moment the light flickered. Someone—something—was in the hall. I lay motionless.

The door burst open. His silhouette fit perfectly inside the door frame. Around his legs, his fiendish battalion flooded in, piles and piles of them, tripping over each other to get to me. There was no time to react, no time to grab any useless weapon. I braced myself to feel hair and nails and teeth against my skin. That’s not what they had planned.

They moved in, filling all the space under my bed until it lifted right off the carpet. I was in motion, propelled forward by the screeching horde. Before I knew it, they had pushed me down the hall, through the living room, and right out the front door—gliding on a wake of slithering, squeaking rodents. The bed gained momentum, speeding across the circular driveway and through the yard, heading straight for the ditch and then the street. Suddenly, those thousands of hairless toes screeched to a halt, jolting me into the air toward the ditch. I clutched the edges of the mattress, but those doggone eight-hundred-thread count sheets my mother snagged from an infomercial gave me no traction. My fingers may as well have grabbed onto last night’s Jello pudding dessert.

As the bed lunged toward the street, my head spun, spots swirling all around. I closed my eyes a second before crashing onto the black asphalt. When I opened them again, the only spots I saw were the blue, coagulated orbs of the incandescent Lava lamp on my bedside table.

I was drenched in sweat but unharmed. My bedroom door remained closed.

The statue sat still and quiet in the living room. Or did it?