the unfortunate experiment of doctor rains

Doctor Clarence Rains was a portly man in his mid-fifties. Although he was a surgeon of good renown his thoughts remained with his private experiments whenever possible. In the basement below his old victorian residence, he maintained a laboratory where he performed various experiments on genetics. His knowledge in the field of inheritance and genetic tinkering had gained him quite a reputation in that area.

I felt very honored when I was told that Dr Rains would not only accept me as a tenant in his home but actually offered me to become his personal assistant. Granted, my grades where quite good but I was nevertheless a bit surprised to be accepted at once by this well-known scientist.

On the day that I visited the doctor's mansion to introduce myself personally, he was not at home. Old Mrs Wortham, his servant maid, bade me welcome and showed me around the house, especially the upper rooms where I would take residence. Dr Rains arrived in the early evening from a lecture on hereditary diseases. I met him as a tall, rather thin man with graying hair and friendly wrinkles near his pale blue eyes. He seemed a little absent minded, as if still pondering over the contents of the scientific essays of the evening, but when Mrs Wortham introduced me to him, his attention was on me, his new assistant.

It turned out that his private studies had gotten quite far, though he was unwilling to spend most of his time working on the numerous solutions and powders while he yearned to focus solely on the important matters, such as the evaluation of the experiments' data or the cryptic formulas he was constantly working on. In fact, he just needed someone to lend him a hand in the lab, watching over the composition of the reagents or recording the development of the experimental animals.

After I had properly moved in the doctor showed me the laboratory. It was one of the most orderly places I have gazed upon in my whole life. Everything was neatly arranged and every tube, glass or vial was carefully labeled in the tiny, spidery handwriting of his. At first I was a bit confused by the arrangement of the different chemical devices, but after he had explained the simple rules and ideas by which he had ordered the objects, I quickly found my way in the laboratory.

He must have noted my surprised and unbelieving look when I found a tome on ancient alchemy lying next to a book on modern genetics, because he smiled knowingly and told me that it was worth at times to search in those leather-bound collections of ancient wisdom. I did not know what to reply in face of this unexpected statement, but my facial expression must have revealed my disbelief, because he insisted and produced some scientific report of his, containing a detailed discussion of various nerve stimulants, of which one of the most effective was a mysterious brew he had learned from one archaic tome. At first I thought that I would just let him try his old books as he wished and concentrate myself on the vast selection of modern works on genetics, but later I would find that indeed some of the old books contained a very distinct knowledge on certain matters that modern science rarely concerns itself with.

I moved to Mr Rains’ house in the late summer and it would still be a few weeks before my courses began, so I could spend much of my time in the lab, helping with his many experiments or studying on my own. Of what the doctor was working on I could barely be certain, but I surmised that it must have something to do with some sort of hereditary disease on rats. Of these he had quite a large stock in the lab, as they where his prime experimental animals. Though he treated them with care it was clearly visible that his long experience had led him to overcome the scruples of performing harmful, sometimes deadly experiments on living animals.

In the last days before the start of my courses after summer, he left the lab early in the afternoon, asking me to keep a watchful eye on the rats in the different cages and note any changes, either physical or with regard to their behavior. He would then withdraw to his study and not be disturbed until late in the evening.

At first I was quite excited, feeling that some important discovery must be close at hand, but when nothing particular happened the next few days, my euphoria gently faded, giving in to a strange, boring period of observation.

When the term at university began, Dr Rains continued the observation of the rats, while I was visiting my courses. I would then relieve him in the late afternoon and I got the distinct feeling that he always waited anxiously for the moment when he could return to his rooms and continue his calculations.

Two weeks into the semester, with autumn stalking stormy Providence with its paws of brown and gold, a strange incident occurred that nearly cost me my sane mind. I was up late, cleaning up the table from today's experiments, when an unhealthy silence befell the room, followed by a piercing shrieking and whining. The rats in the cage with the blue label where writhing in agony, their extremities stretched out at sick angles from their quivering bodies. I cried out in surprise and horror at this sudden and noisy riot, jumping up from my seat and watching helpless, ignorant of what to do. The doctor must have heard the shrieks, too, for his rooms lie directly above the underground laboratory, and sure enough he rushed into the lab shortly after. I still did not know what to say or do about the crazed rats, but the doctor barely noticed me anyway, instead turning to the wincing rats in the blue cage. He peered through the bars, but then turned and regarded a cage with a green label. The rats within were all dead, lying silently on their backs with their paws drawn tight to their bodies and foam dripping from their mouths. He seemed not surprised by the death of those rats, for his attention immediately returned to the rats in the blue cage, whose writhing and whining had ceased a little. I lost all judgment of time then, but we surely stood there for at least half an hour before the rats had calmed down. Though apparently weakened, their pain had obviously subsided, because they were sitting still and exhausted in their cage, breathing shallow but steady. Rains murmured something to himself and then, remembering me standing behind him, turned to face me. He smiled and seemed utterly pleased by the result of this evening, though he did not say a word until the next morning. He then told me that the rats in both cages had been infected with a lethal virus, and while those in the green cage had been left to their fate, those in the cage with the blue label had been vaccinated with a special solution the doctor had been working on in the past weeks. As I had witnessed, all the rats in the green cage had died, while those in the blue cage, though under obvious strain, had survived the last stage of the disease. The formula for the vaccine that had been injected into the blue cage rats could now be used as a basis for a vaccine against a closely related disease on cattle.

The old Mrs Wortham rarely inquired about the shrieking or the other sounds sometimes escaping from the laboratory at hours deep in the night. I believe she did not notice most of those noises anyway, for she was a bit hard of hearing. She cleaned the house, prepared the meals and brought us cups of steaming, black coffee when we were sitting in the lab till late after dusk. Her area of interest ended right at the laboratory door, for she never asked any questions about the happenings therein, nor did she appear to listen when the doctor and I were discussing results from the experiments. The underground laboratory was thus cleansed and maintained by the doctor and me alone, which I deemed to be a bit of a nuisance at first. I later found it very valuable indeed that no one would disturb the things we left on the tables for next days work.

The doctor had written a detailed report on the rat experiments and the vaccine he had devised and had these papers sent to some colleagues of his, who had the resources to continue these experiments on cattle. In fact, he seemed to have half forgotten about the whole matter and turned his attention to new work. One evening, as we began to prepare the lab for the new series of experiments, he explained to me that we would be researching the brain of rats, tinkering with various nerve stimulants and observing the reactions to pain, fear and other stimuli under certain conditions. I nodded uncomfortably for it would be unavoidable that the rats would again emit audible signs of displeasure, which by the last time had nearly driven me insane.

At the beginning we exposed the rats to various gases and solutions, carefully noting their reaction. Later, we examined their response to colors, light and sound, trying to derive from their reactions some sort of distinct pattern. Unto this time we had always watched the animals, taking notes on the way they acted, but then the doctor said that his research in one certain old book had finally proved very fertile and that we would now be able to record more than just their apparent reaction. He had some friend of his construct a strange apparatus, to which the rats were now connected via thin cables and flexible tubes. At first I was mildly bewildered to the nature of the strange device, but the doctor would neither tell me any specific information about it, nor would he let me read in that ancient book from which he obtained the plans for the machine. This tome he must have kept locked in a hidden place somewhere in his study, for I never saw it lying in his room on my seldom visits there.

The new apparatus featured a number of indicators and dials and consumed so much electrical power that the light flickered when the mystical device was switched on. I wondered where the cables and tubes would be connected to the rats and was shocked when the doctor told me that we would open the rats’ skulls and apply the cables directly to their brain. Fortunately this work was done by the doctor himself, for I did not know where to connect the glistening needles that were attached to the cables and tubes. Rains injected some narcotic into the rats before opening their small heads with a shiny scalpel and miniature saw. They did not shriek or whine when they finally awoke but one of the pointers on the mysterious machine quivered at the end of it’s scale, telling us that the rats' brains were induced with extremely strong emotions and that cold, thin rattle of the pointer on its scale was maybe more unnerving than any animal noise could be.

The apparatus told us any changes in the rats’ emotions, and soon we had scribbled a good stack of papers with figures and diagrams, depicting the effect of various stimuli on the rats’ feelings. Though the rattling and buzzing device greatly eased and improved our work I never got accustomed to this unwholesome metallic torture machine, feeling pity for the helpless animals that now could not even express their agony except through the rise of the rightmost pointer on its scale.

We were in the midst of our experiments and the apparatus had been harassing the rats for a good three weeks now, when one morning the doctor burst into the laboratory, seemingly disturbed. He stood in the doorway for a moment, as if pondering over some important decision, then strode up to the table and switched off the buzzing machine. I looked at him as if he had gone insane, for the experiments he ordered me to continue early before sunrise were very important to the progress of our work. But even as I started to inquire about this sudden interruption, he informed me that our experiments were at their end and that we would focus immediately on another topic, namely the improvement of the vaccine against the deadly rat disease. He would not explain his sudden change of mind and ordered me to clean up the laboratory and prepare it for our new research. Then he grabbed his scalpel and quickly put the unconscious rats out of their pain, afterwards grabbing the cages which contained the other, unharmed rats and went out of the door. I stood frozen for a long time, bewildered by this sudden change of mind, but then started to clean up the lab as he had ordered me to. When Dr Rains returned in the early afternoon the cages were now filled with guinea-pigs instead of rats and he told me that we would use these from now on for any harmful experiments, relying on rats only in the last phase of research, when the vaccine could be safely considered painless.

Whatever had upset the doctor so much did not worry him for long, because only two days later he already appeared rather calm and set to the new sequence of experiments with unbridled determination. He would not talk about what had caused his sudden change of mind, nor would he comment on his great care and respect with which he now treated the remaining rats in the lab, for his love or sympathy with the other animals had by no way increased. It became apparent soon, that he had uncovered a new source of vital information on the topic at hand, for he brought strange diagrams and texts to the laboratory, which dealt in great detail with the anatomy and the brain of rats. When I asked him about these stunning documents, he replied to have found them all in one gilded, ancient tome he had acquired lately. As with the book that had inspired the strange device with which we had measured the emotions of the rats and were now exploring those of the guinea-pigs, he would not let me gaze upon this new volume that seemed to be so extensive a study on rats.

I did not mind, because my personal field of interest did not instill me with any unusual interest in rats or guinea-pigs at the moment, but after one special evening I found that there must be more to that vast information on rats than just one archaic tome. It was long after dark when I went upstairs to fetch some book on chemistry from the library when I noticed a faint squeaking coming from the doctor's private study. It occurred to me that Doctor Rains, in his newfound obsession with rats, had taken some of them to his study to examine them more closely, but something about the flow of the sounds made me uneasy. I stopped in front of his door and listened closely. It was clearly the squeaking of rats, but it was not just noises that were produced seemingly at random, only inspired by some momentary feeling. In an awful way these sounds reminded me of the melodious flow of some spoken oriental language. Just as I rose my hand to knock on the door, there was a second noise, one that made me think otherwise and retreat hastily and shaken from this door and which turned my dreams into nightmares as I went to bed much later. Said noise resembled the first one in its spoken quality, though this time it clearly came from a human mouth, and it did not take much to realize that this second ugly whispering came from Doctor Rains in a language unknown to me.

For the following days I concentrated on our studies with grim determination, not wanting to allow my mind to focus on that alarming conversation between Doctor Rains and that unseen whisperer. However, try as I might, my thoughts kept returning to that night and on what to make of what I had witnessed then. I inquired at Mrs Wortham about any friends or colleagues of the doctor, and if any had visited him lately during my absence, but she replied that it had been years since the doctor had invited any guests to his house, except me, of course.

On one gloomy day I decided to search the private study, the doctor being gone to replenish our laboratory supplies. At first I nearly turned away from my plan, because I found the door to the study locked. Then, however, I went to Mrs Wortham's rooms, her being away to buy some meat and vegetables in town. The servant maid had a collection of keys for the house, even one for the laboratory, though she never used it. I hoped that she would own a key to the private study of the doctor, too, and sure enough one of the keys fitted. Anxiously I entered the room, finding it in total darkness, the curtains being drawn tight before the windows. After I had switched on the light, the first thing to catch my eye was the stacks of paper that covered the sturdy oak desk. Without wasting another look around, I stepped up to the table and inspected the writing that lay there, not disturbing any of the papers out of fear that Doctor Rains might notice. I was a little disappointed at first, seeing that nearly all of the writing was in some language I could not read, but after discovering some sheets that contained notes written in English, I found out that they must be some kind of notes from a conversation with a person named Cringer. This Cringer had obviously supplied the doctor with an unimaginable amount of information concerning the anatomy, life and, as the paper stated, thought of rats. After completing these few sheets in English, I noticed that most of the other papers were covered with the handwriting of the doctor, tiny and spidery in style, though the rest had a very disturbing quality, as if drawn, rather than written. Even as I wondered about these small, awkward sigils, I found a book on the desk, covered entirely by sheets of paper. I could only make out some ancient writing on the binding and it appeared to be some translation of an even far older tome written in Arabic.

From said book I have heard, for it is rumored to be locked deeply in the forbidden secret vault of the university, and that it contained only things very unhealthy for the human spirit. I was somehow shaken as I left the room, locking it with Mrs Wortham's key and returning that key to her room afterwards. The real shock, however, came late in the evening, as I lay awake and pondered the doctor's strange connection to this mysterious, hoarse arabic speaker, which I had mistaken to be some animal at first. While I lay that way, thinking, it suddenly came to me that the nasty drawing on those strange papers in the study were done in a manner that they could indeed never come from pen and ink. They were the small, awkward characters, drawn by an animals paw to resemble the letters of human script.

During the following day I could barely feign my total ignorance of the doctor's mysterious dealings and when he inquired about my nervousness I replied that I did not feel very well, having slept badly the last night, which was no lie at all. I decided to have a talk with him, to demand that he enlighten me on his strange connection to this rat-scribe Cringer. When he had left the lab in the early evening, I waited for half an hour, before sneaking up to the door of his study, listening closely for any sounds of inhuman quality. Sure enough I immediately recognized that feeble squealing that had already upset me nearly a week ago. After some short monologue of this voice, Doctor Rains seemed to reply in fluent Arabic, though with clearly low voice, nearly a whisper.

I gathered all my courage, then grasped the handle, trying to enter. It had not occurred to me that the room might be locked with the doctor inside, but nevertheless it was. I hesitated, then knocked. The whispering stopped immediately and a tense silence followed. Uneasy, I knocked again. As Doctor Rains inquired about my concern, I told him that I needed to speak to him immediately. At first he tried to send me away with poorly invented evasions, but I remained firm in my intention to have him tell me about the whole matter. At last he opened the door, standing in the frame and obviously trying to hide the room from my view. I told him that I knew that the information he pretended to have found in ancient books did not come from books alone and that some strange visitor was with him right now. After he learned that I had been to his study and seen the papers we had a bitter argument. In the end, however, he resigned, letting me into the room and telling me the whole story from the beginning.

On the night before he had first ended our experiments on rats he had woken up, finding a rat the size of a cat sitting on his chest and hissing at him in human words. After he had overcome the first shock, the rat had told him of a shadow kingdom below the deepest of human dwellings, hidden forever from any creature unable to see in the dark. In that mushroom forests and plains of ashes live the ratkin, whose roots reach back in time long before the evolution of human beings. In earthen towers and clay domes furry scribes eagerly recorded the history of the kingdom underground in scrolls of skin and hide, telling their horrible tales of kings and peasants, wars and truces of this gruesome race. The technology underground was in some areas far advanced compared to that of humankind, though there were things which lay beyond the rats' minds to understand. That deadly plague we were developing a vaccine for was one of the topics that ratkind had long sought to handle but had failed to the present day. In exchange for his cooperation in the development of such a medicine the rats had offered their superior knowledge in other fields of research. A glorious symbiosis between man and rat was dawning and he would be the one to ensure it would remain a peaceful one. His last words were more than just an explanation or wishful thinking, they were meant as a direct threat to any that would want to disturb his dealings with ratkind, and I was quick to reply that I was likewise dedicated to maintain peaceful contact to this race we had deemed mere animals before.

A rustling sound disturbed our conversation, and though I had been forewarned I was thoroughly shaken by the sight of that malign animal that now climbed nimbly up the desk and sat on the papers, leaning forward and regarding me with sly, intelligent eyes. It addressed me in its hoarse, high-pitched language, and after learning that I could not understand any Arabic, switched to English. Though it spoke as fluent as if it was the thing's mother tongue, I would rather hear it talk in any different language had I known any, for its pronunciation of words was of a very unsettling quality and made me shiver. The beast stood as tall as a cat and was covered by a dark, brownish fur. Down the length of its chin ran a broad line of yellow paint, which I surmised to be some mark of status within rat society. It introduced itself as Cringer, ambassador of the glorious king beneath all earth and sea, him whose name would not be spoken to beings unable to see in the dark. Though it had rather remained unknown to all but Doctor Rains it nevertheless accepted my intrusion in their conversation, hoping that I would remain truthful to my promise to honor peaceful contact.

From this day on my relationship with Doctor Rains improved quite a bit. We could concentrate on our experiments without him having to worry about me knowing too much. Working swiftly and efficiently, bearing in mind the rat's promise to offer valuable information on other topics if the vaccine would prove successful, we were able to finish our research in little more than two weeks. The guinea-pigs that had been artificially infected with the rat-disease lived through it quite well when injected with our improved solution. It now became unavoidable that we performed some last experiments on living rats and both of us barely dared look the ambassador in the eyes as we told Cringer of this. The rat, however, did not take any offense at all and returned on the following night with five smaller rats. These, he assured us, were expendable to rat society and would thus not be too dearly missed if the vaccine would prove useless against the disease. The doctor and I exchanged uneasy glances at this brutal and insensible statement, feeling that the distant kingdom below us was ruled by a moral very alien to that which we lived by.

As we had learned from the various scrolls and sheets that Cringer brought forth from hidden tunnels underneath the house, there were many different kinds of rats, some of them able to speak in any known human language, and even in some forgotten by all sane people. Most rats, however, could not understand any human tongue and some could not even communicate with their fellow kin, being of the lowest social and hereditary order of rats. Of that kind, we were sure, must be those five specimen that were offered to us for use in our experiments. This time, however, the vaccine proved totally painless to the animals and our nervous expectancy gave way to great rejoicing when the final period of the disease had passed and the five animals were still roaming their cage without any apparent sign of displeasure.

When we presented our results to the rat ambassador, he was very pleased with our success, though he did not show any emotion regarding the survival of the five experimental rats. It was decided that we would provide a record of our experiments, containing detailed instructions on how to manufacture the vaccine, and that we would in return receive a special gift of utmost value and rarity. On the following evening we delivered unto Cringer a collection of all our data on the rat disease and the medicine which would cure it. The rat noble was very excited and explained to us that a high ranking member of the royal family had been befallen by the deadly plague and could now be treated with the newfound cure. The kings gratitude would surely be immense and if the sick rat should recover from its malady the king's personal gratitude would be assured. Cringer handed over some scrolls in strange, cryptic letters, which he declared originated from far before the first human writings. The language was one spoken by beings ancient to all humankind, though he had assembled some sort of transcription scale for us, so that we would be able to decipher the prehistoric writing. After translating only the first few sentences, we were both positive that the information contained therein would revolutionize the human view of prehistoric times of our planet. We thanked Cringer dearly and agreed to continue the work on topics of common interest in the future.

Our next few days were filled with excited study of the ancient papers that the ambassador had provided, when one evening we met again with that mysterious envoy. It happened that the ill rat noble had indeed recovered well from the deadly disease and that word had spread quickly in the earthen kingdom that the human allies from beyond had saved the valuable noble's life. As a sign of gratitude, the hidden king from below had offered upon us a gift which had never been offered to any creature unable to see in the dark. It was a collection of scrolls made from rat hide and inscribed with blood and gold. These were, as Cringer excitedly claimed, fragments from the yellow book, the book of kings, the collection of the most secret knowledge of all of ratkind. Few of those under the sewers had ever gazed upon even a single scroll of these and that we were presented with such a vast collection was a sign that the rat king took great interest in our mutual alliance.

We decided that Doctor Rains would study these valuable scrolls first, because he was the one more fluent in that archaic writing, which was the same as that on the papers we had been given before. I continued my studies on these other documents, gaining a somewhat profound knowledge of the life of creatures ancient to even the first human beings, as well as improving my skill in deciphering these cryptic formulas until I could finally read it nearly as fluent as my mother tongue. Meanwhile a terrible fever had befallen the poor doctor and he was forced to lie in bed, sweating and whispering unrecognizable words of no apparent meaning. I worried greatly about his health, finding out, however, that his situation was not critical and that he would recover shortly. With him unable to continue his work I thought it useful for me to begin the study of the yellow book fragments.

In a strange way I can barely remember my learning from these ancient writings, for my mind can now hardly distinguish between what I have read and what I have experienced myself from unknown voyages beyond the wall of sleep. An image of the vast underground cities wells up whenever I think about where those nasty drains from those deepest sewers lead, mushroom gardens and fences made from the bones of animals never beheld by any human, black orchards of poisonous fruit, crippled monasteries grown from gray earth and corroded iron. I recall being invited to an audience with that most terrible of all beings, the brazen king from below, the yellow mind, the supreme ruler, to whom all of earths kings and governments are ignorant servants. By what means I can barely imagine I have traveled through broken drains and dusty caverns, past layers of ancient rock and soil, until I finally gazed upon that horrible palace, all forged from blackened silver, it's archways painted with yellow clay. My feet trod on roads that were made of human coins and brimmed with the silvery teeth of ancient animals. Rat sentinels flanked those doorways, blind guardians of time that bowed their triangular heads upon my approach, all bearing that yellow sigil that marked them as members of the king's ancient family. Of my meeting with that unspeakable ruler I can recall only shadowy images, a swirling, black curtain with a blind, yellow eye within, an ocean of ashes, a dialog in an ancient and forbidden tongue, my name inscribed upon a brazen pedestal with blood from my fingers, unwholesome chants in which I participated, the magnificent library at the center of the earth, all knowledge contained in writings of such differing quality, scribbled by hands and fingers of distant creatures, the memory of an ancient planet.

By what I have learned from Mrs Wortham I must have laid in fever for almost two weeks, never leaving bed, though she whispered fearfully of those ugly scrolls that lay on the table, each day in a different manner as if disturbed by hands, but no one being to my room during that time. The doctor had recovered a day earlier and after inquiring about my condition had gone immediately to the laboratory, preparing for a new series of experiments. When I joined him in that underground chamber, he seemed very relieved that my fever had finally passed and that we could finally resume our work. The rats had provided him with a quantity of small animals, which I remembered from my strange voyages to the dirty kingdom below. These creatures had a life-span of only a few days and thus would be extremely well suited to the exploration of heredity.

Not long after our new research had begun, the rat king sent his ambassador once again. Cringer explained that ratkind had begun a series of tests and experiments on the typhoid epidemic that was holding the land in it's deadly grip. Some of those experiments promised to be quite successful, but like with our research on the rat disease, Cringer in turn asked for living humans to be used in their laboratories for further improvement of their developed cures. Doctor Rains turned pale and denied the request with as much politeness as his trembling voice would allow. After Cringer reassured him that he did not want to deprive human society of any valuable members, but that the rats would be satisfied with any expendable human specimen, the doctor started screaming violently and threatened the rat ambassador not to lay hand upon any human being. Cringer was obviously most displeased with the doctor's sudden and discriminating behavior and tried to calm down the bitter man, leaving with an evil sneer as he failed to.

What followed was a period of terror and intimidation on part of the rats. Tracks of their paws appeared all over the rooms, curtains were torn to shreds, the doctor's wooden desk found to be gnawed on one stormy autumn morning. Doctor Rains had cut short any further attempts of communications on Cringer's behalf and he would not be persuaded by me to refresh peaceful relationships with the rats. Mrs Wortham sadly left the house after being bitten by rats one night in her sleep. She despised those dirty animals and said she could no longer live in a house so plagued by these beasts. During that time I tried to contact the rats on my own, talking to any rat that my eye fell upon, though none responded and I felt that communication was not welcome at this point. One day I found that the doctor had placed traps in most rooms and strewn about a great quantity of poison. When he found me collecting the traps and cleaning up the poison, he started yelling at me and threatened to banish me from his home.

Then the unavoidable happened. One morning I found a rat caught in one of the traps, its head destroyed by the small metal hook of the trap. A tense silence befell the house from that moment on and in the following night I awoke to find the doctor screaming in fear. I ran to his bedroom, only to find him cornered by at least a dozen rats and bashing at them with an iron poker from the nearby fireplace. He demanded that I grab a weapon of some kind and help him defeat these ugly critters, though I only stood in the doorway, watching the scene with cold blood and little sympathy for his situation. He was able to dispatch two or three of the small animals, when suddenly a hoarse coughing welled up from beneath his bed. A giant rat, bearing a circle of brown paint around it's rearing head, emerged from the darkness and rushed into the room, halting midway between the doctor and the doorway that led to his escape. The rat produced a small metal spike which dripped with some unhealthy liquid and emitted a challenging cough. The doctor hesitated then cried out in rage, leaping over the aggressive rat and trying to escape through the door. I did not move and as he tried to force his way past me we both stumbled and went to the floor. Desperately he tried to get up and run, but the coughing rat had already reached him, stabbing the razor needle deep into his lower leg. The doctor roared in pain, thrashing wildly around and grasping at anything that came into sight. Then his movement slowed, his arms crawling tiredly about the floor, his fingers twisting dreamily, until he could not move anymore. By the look of his eyes, however, I could see that he was still fully conscious of his surroundings, his body being paralyzed by that strange toxic of the rat's needle. At first I expected them to tranquilize me, too, but then I noticed a whisper above the squeaking and coughing that I had come to know quite well. Cringer appeared from what fiendish tunnel lay below the doctor's bed and strode up to sit upon my chest. He renewed his will to cooperate with humans that deserved it and reminded me of the secret bindings in which I had participated in the clay kingdom below.

From this day on I remain the loyal friend and ally of the nightly kingdom underground, exchanging knowledge of unknown origin and supplying the ratkin with human specimen, dead and alive.