I ran a pork stall at the East Street market and kept a ginger tabby named Marmalade to deal with the rats.
But over the past two weeks, the rats around my stall hadn't thinned out. If anything, there were more of them than ever.
They weren't stealing food or gnawing through anything. They were lining up single-file and running right past the stall toward the exit.
One after another, like refugees fleeing a war zone.
The strangest part was that every single one of them carried a pup clamped between its teeth.
Yolanda Lambert, who ran the meat stall across the aisle, laughed at me. "That cat of yours is useless. The rats are literally packing up and moving out."
I crouched down to get a closer look and realized every last rat was heading the same direction: west.
That night, I posted about it on a local forum. Some people said I was making up stories for clicks. Others called me a superstitious nutjob.
My wife told me I "had too much time on my hands" and to focus on selling pork.
The next morning, just before dawn, I was cleaning up when the last rat stopped and looked back at me.
Its eyes caught the streetlight for a split second, then it whipped around and bolted into the darkness to the west.
That look in its eyes was deeply unsettling.
——
Kathy Matthews slammed her palm down on the chopping block.
"Have you lost your mind? It's the middle of the night and you're up staring at a bunch of rats?"
I ignored her. All I could see was the way that last rat had stared at me under the streetlight.
That look was deeply unsettling.
It had a hairless pink pup clamped in its jaws.
When it reached the threshold of the stall, it stopped and turned, locking its eyes on me like it was trying to tell me something.
"I'm talking to you! Are you deaf?" Kathy snatched the rag out of my hand.
I pointed at the empty corner by the wall. "Kathy, are you blind? Have you not noticed what's been going on at this stall for the past two weeks?"
"Rats lining up and running west. Every single one of them, carrying their newborns."
"These are the greediest animals alive, and right now they won't even glance at scraps of meat on the floor."
"That is not normal."
Kathy looked at me like I belonged in an asylum. "So what? The rats aren't stealing your food and you're complaining about it?"
"You got some kind of masochistic streak?"
"Even Yolanda said it's because that lazy cat of yours is so useless the rats moved out on their own."
"And here you are, bored out of your skull, cooking up ghost stories."
Right on cue, Yolanda strolled over from her stall across the aisle.
She cut in with that singsong tone of hers: "Oh, Job Fox, still haven't closed up?"
"No offense, but that tabby of yours really needs to go."
"I saw it with my own eyes earlier. A rat walked right under its nose and it didn't so much as twitch."
"What's the point of feeding a useless animal like that? Waste of money."
I turned to look at Marmalade, huddled under the chopping block.
Normally he was the liveliest cat you'd ever seen, a born mouser.
But for three days straight, he hadn't touched water. He wouldn't even sniff the treats he usually went crazy for.
He was staring fixedly toward the west, every hair on his body standing on end like a porcupine's.
"Mrroooww!"
Marmalade let out a piercing, agonized wail.
Yolanda flinched hard. "Good Lord, is that cat possessed?"
The noise scraped Kathy's last nerve raw.
"Shut that thing up! I'm tossing that mangy cat tomorrow!"
"Touch him and see what happens." I stepped between her and Marmalade.
"He's terrified. The rats are terrified."
"Something is wrong out west. I'm closing the stall for a few days to go check it out."
The stall went dead silent.
Then Kathy burst out laughing.
She jabbed a finger at my face, practically doubled over. "Close the stall? Job, did you get kicked in the head by a mule?"
"Tomorrow's the weekend, our best sales day, and you want to shut down so you can follow a bunch of rats?"
Yolanda chimed right in: "Come on, Job, that's just wrong. A man's out here trying to put food on the table, and you're going to throw that away on a whim?"
