Creepypastas

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Of course his first approach was to lay down traps to catch them, but while the thought of their fur blackened with dirt and faeces – their hairless claws and coiled tails crawling over his face while he slept – provoked disgust, he hoped to avoid blood on his hands, for Bill was a kind hearted individual.

At first he procured a large number of humane traps which would entice the little pests into a metallic tube with bait, holding them there during the night to be released into a nearby field the next day alive and well; at least that was the plan. A little research online revealed that chocolate was a favourite of most rodents and an exceptionally effective lure, so he bought a substantial amount from a local newsagents, with the owner jokingly asking Bill if he were setting up his own shop.

A garage clung to the side of the house, cluttered by boxes and loose belongings which he had yet to sort through, and he considered it the prime means of entry for any mice into his property. But on placing the traps around the damp corners of the interior, trying to avoid getting hit on the head by some of his tools which hung from the ceiling, he found no trace of unwelcome visitors. No droppings, no scratch marks, in fact there was no evidence of anything living there at all. It seemed odd to him that he saw not one single spider or insect since it was clearly a place where both would thrive, and the garage itself had seen better days with several small holes in the wall allowing easy entry to unwanted vermin.

Once back inside he placed the rest of the traps, baiting them carefully with the chocolate around the house – under the bath, in the kitchen, and even in his bedroom. After an hour or so he felt confident that he would verify what type of animal was causing all the noise by morning.

Yet that night the knocking came, faintly at first and then more pronounced; traveling through unseen spaces and amongst hidden cavities. Lying there awake for several hours, sleep was a struggle as he tried to block out the banging, scratching, and moving sounds which made the very structure of his home seem to pulsate and shudder as if alive. As sleep finally took him, his last conscious thoughts of the night were for a hopeful catch in the morning.

Before going to work the following day, each trap was checked carefully. Dejected, Bill found that none within the house had been touched, each metallic tube still housing a slab of chocolate. But those in the garage were a different proposition. They were not only empty of bait, but two of them had been broken open, the metal container cracked and bent as if crushed under a substantial weight.

All day at work Bill contemplated the force required to break those traps. He concluded that he must surely be dealing with something bigger than he had hoped, perhaps an infestation of rats rather than some local wood mice. While he did not wish any animal harm, he shuddered at the thought of something larger writhing around his house while he slept.

Knowing that he might have to concede defeat and call in pest control to poison the creatures, he stopped by a hardware store for one last attempt of his own. That night, Bill lay in the darkness as the shuffling and knocking sounds continued once more, hopeful that the two large metallic rat cage traps he had baited in the garage would produce a catch. But all was not well. For in the morning, he pulled up the garage door, climbed over some junk towards the rear wall and found both cages torn apart, the thick metal which should have contained even the most powerful of rodent, bent backwards with the chocolate inside removed. The thought began to cross his mind: What was living in his house?

Reluctantly Bill conceded, placing an abrupt call to a local pest control company. Within hours three men pulled up outside in a white van, sporting a vulgar and distasteful depiction of a dead rat on its side. They efficiently baited the entire house with traps and poison, and before long were almost ready to leave. One of the men, a slightly overweight individual with a clear loathing for his job, looked at the rat cages Bill had placed the day before, inquiring as to whether he lived alone – quite clearly implying that he held doubts that an animal could have broken open the traps by themselves. The implication was not welcomed.