Orsonville stretches across the crescent of the Stokers, from the foot of the mountain range all the way to the edges of what used to be a sizeable forest range. It stretches out up to a kilometer before Henderson Lake, where the dried out, skeletal remains of old industry are overshadowed by the big hungry hulk that is Leviathan Industry’s fracking facility.

Ellison Road, which runs across Orsonville all the way to the base of the Stokers and through the narrow mountain path, sprouts avenues and side roads all the way across the length of it. Stein Street is the first main artery, populated with two-storey family houses along the length of it, all red slanted roofs and carefully-trimmed green lawns and fancy mailboxes. Further ahead, there’s the business district, set along Etchison Street: quaint little drug stores, shops with rows upon rows of trinkets lined up behind the windowpanes, a radio station with a dingy old antenna to the east. To the West, a stretch of abandoned convenience stores with peeling paintjobs, fading billboard lettering all the way to the Orsonville MegaSave, the concrete monster that’s set shop over where the old graveyard used to be. Only the Eas-E-Mart and Good Sushi remain in business, neon signs and beckoning Sky Guy Dancers contrasting with the grey, dusting storefronts.

Farther along, a half-dozen side streets at regular intervals: Kiernan, Crowther and Lindqvist to the west; Slatter, Hodge and Campbell to the east, their apartment buildings sparsely populated by hard-headed seniors whose work in the now-depleted silver mines built Orsonville to this day. There’s an old, creaking notice board set up on the street corner. I take an Orsonville Town Map from its stand, trying to find my bearings.

In the center of Orsonville, where Bachmann crosses with Elisson, is what the town map I pick up from one of the stands calls ‘THE BEATING HEART OF ORSONVILLE’. I see Golding Elementary and High School (concrete, two-story boxes set back to back), King’s Theater (a two-screening- room cinema that fancies itself a multiplex), the Mayerson County Hospital (rows of cypress trees obscuring the entrance, the Bloch Public Library (a two-story building with an imitation-marble face) and Mister Lansdale’s Pet Shop (a tiny, modest little box with a garish gypsum cat on the roof, beckoning into a storefront stocked all the way up to the ceiling with excitable hamsters and squealing canaries). At the center of it all, the Valente Home for the Elderly, repurposed from the old red brick railway station, from the times of the silver mine itself. Used to be, this was the Exchange: when miners would bring their daily quota to be assessed by grim-faced foremen before being sent off through the highway and across the state-line. Now, there are recliners along the front porch, electric blankets on every bed and coffee pots in every corner.

Follow Ellison Road a little further up and Orsonville will begin to thin out, with houses set at a greater distance to one another, separated by long stretches of dirt road or surrounded by carefully tended gardens. A ways to the West, the map shows an old place that is just called ‘THE MANOR’. It’s a decrepit mansion at the end of a dirt road that reminds me too much of Chancel Road, so I make sure to avoid it.

It takes me all of two hours to walk all the way across Ellison Street and back before I realize that the suitcase feels heavy in my hand. There’s another nagging feeling inside me, something that hisses and tries to make its way into my conscious brain, but I push it back for now.

I reach down into my jacket pocket, where I’ve stashed the money that Mom slipped in my hand a few hours before I left home for good. The roll feels thick and heavy and I can’t help but think that I could probably live off that money forever. Then again, I have never had to use money, what with living on Chancel Road. Goes to show how little I know about everything. How utterly unprepared I was about the world outside.

The terrible, slithering thing is about to rear its ugly head again, rising up out of momentary flashes of Chancel Road, of Home, of Mom and my comfy little bedroom, when I bump into the boy. I’m caught off balance and nearly fall flat on my behind right there on the street. He grabs my hand, lightning-fast, stops me mid-fall.

“Whoa there.” He says and flashes a white-toothed grin and he’s pretty good looking, with almond-shaped eyes and shoulder-length hair. He’s a bit older, his hands are rough (not like Dad’s, but I can feel the calluses rubbing coarsely against my palms and it makes me feel safe and warm). He’s got the kind of face that belongs on a magazine cover, the kind of expression that makes him boy-band lead material.

“I’m sorry, I… um...” I mumble and suddenly I realize that my cheeks feel hot, as he’s pulling me to my feet. I’ve fallen worse, had worse. I’ve been shoved from rooftops and somersaulted on flag poles to catch my fall, landed like a cat, two feet no problem but he…

“You must be new around here.” He tells me, very softly and he’s so close that I can smell engine grease on him. Mechanic, maybe? Figures. He looks the part.

“I just…I just got here.” I tell him and I notice that he’s got one hand wrapped around mine, still. I give him a big, goofy grin. “I’m Finn.”

“Nice to meet you, Finn. Hope you didn't break anything.”

“No, no I…”

“Atta girl. You take care now.” He tells me and he’s gone and I’m just waving goodbye, just staring at him. My God, they exist. Guys like him exist outside of movies and campy romance novels. He’s turned a corner at a trot, probably going off to do something courageous and perfect and…

My hand’s wandered into my pocket and I suddenly realize that the money Mom gave me is gone, just gone. It takes me a whole of ten seconds to realize that he’s swiped it when I wasn’t looking like an idiot and all of a sudden there’s tears in my eyes and the terrible, slithering thing’s nesting in the ridge of my brain and I realize that I want nothing more than to go home, just stomp my feet and walk into Chancel Road and never leave again, because the outside world is cold and cruel and…

No, I’m thinking as I wipe at the tears. No, what I want is to find that guy and break every bone in his body and get my money back. How did that old motto go? Adapt and overcome? Much better than that half-brained What doesn’t kill you. I grit my teeth, close my eyes, take a deep breath. I’m alone and penniless. But I’m going to make it.

My stomach rumbles and suddenly all my righteous fury and determination washes away. Revenge will have to wait just a little bit longer.

***

It takes me all of fifteen minutes to work the nerve to cross the sliding glass doors into the Eas-E-Mart. I pretend to browse through the aisles of comic books, the rows of toys and stickers and the occasional paperback novel that I leaf through just long enough to make it seem like I am going to buy something. The man behind the register is around fifty years old, bald with graying temples and a beer belly that’s barely contained in his Hawaiian shirt. He seems slow, clumsy almost except he isn’t; from his posture and the curve of his shoulders, the way his eyes dart up from the tabloid he’s been pretending to read all this time occasionally turning a page for cover, he’s ready to react. To his credit, he doesn’t bother with addressing me. If he does, I’m just going to make up an excuse and bolt. He takes extra care to seem slow, stupid, unprepared. He’s got a talent when it comes to setting up an ambush. He wants me to slip up so he can chew me out. Shoplifters must have a hell of a time getting anything done in Orsonville. I take a turn and enter the food section. My stomach ties itself into a knot and squeezes.

There’s rows upon rows of candy; chocolate bars with nut-filling, cream filling, hazelnuts and almonds and strawberry. Milk chocolate and dark chocolate, mocha-flavored and cream and cookie filling. Next to those, cookies: Whamm-Os (double and triple-stuff), caramel filled candy sandwiches with chocolate-dough bread, miniature cakes, jell-o burgers with mastic gum and blackcurrant faux-ketchup. On the shelf under those, jelly babies and ropey sugar-worms almost bursting with jam, sugar-frosted eggs with vanilla-flavored baby birds peeking out their shells. A little further along, family-sized super-value corn chips, buckets full of cheddar and BBQ sauce-flavored popcorn, WaffleShreds™ in party-sized bites, ShivChips™ in cans with every salsa dip imaginable (up to and including Texan Standoff). I’m holding on pretty well up until then, containing the sinking feeling in my gut, until I turn the corner, into the next aisle in the foods section. That’s when I know that I’m screwed.

The U-Cook-It aisle seems to stretch out forever, a long corridor of blue tiles and metal shelves, their bounty held behind a glass pane, the microwave and condiment tray at the end of it glinting like something from a fairy tale. My eyes go wide as I try not to show it, staring into every compartment. Buns are lined up first: white bread, rye, wheat bread, pumpernickel, sourdough and 3 different kinds with onion and pepers or olives in the dough. Bagels that seem to glisten in the fluorescent light, pita breads and nan bread. Just a couple of steps farther, teriyaki chicken fillet, bite-sized deep fried chicken and burger patties, their stripes clearly outlined against the brownish-gold background. Hot dogs next, perpetually tumbling on the heater. Bits of gyros, chicken and pork, steaming inside their tray. Vegetable patties, cooked to crispiness. Neatly arranged next to those, a bar filled with toppings. Shredder cheeses (four kinds: edam, gouda, mozzarella and cheddar), some mixed sautéed vegetables, onions (deep-fried or raw), shredded iceberg lettuce. At the end of the row, a modest table draped in a checkered tablecloth, microwave and bottles of Ketchup and mustard at the ready nearby.

I scan the price tags, browse through them while trying to make myself invisible. Checking my pockets, I look for the familiar sensation of coins, hoping that if I fidget long around in there, I’ll find just enough to make myself a plain hotdog and stop that incessant growling in my stomach. After two minutes of this, I give up and my mind begins to wander: I’m quick; stealthy. I’ve known how to hide in plain sight since I was seven years old. If I pulled down my hoodie, tugged at the straps to hide my face, if I bent over just right and kept a close eye on the man behind the register, then maybe I could snatch a few things and bolt before he knew it. Sure, they might be cold and soggy, but at least they’d be lunch, right?

I could do it so fast he won’t notice, I reason with myself. Be out of here before he knows it. It’s not like he’s going to miss a measly dollar, is he?

I glance at the man in the register and I see that he’s making his way across the store aisles. He’s no longer checking the monitors and no matter how fast he might be, I could go around and behind him and out the door before he even spotted me. I scan the shelves, slide one of the glass panes where he keeps the hotdogs, reach out to grab it…

And then I’m out, ducking behind the aisle, slithering through the comic books racks, past the register and out of the door. I’m running away from Etchison Street, make a turn into Lindqvist, keep running with my suitcase in tow until I reach a cul-de sac at the end of it, vault over the wall and land on both feet inside a weed-choked garden. My stomach rumbles again, but I am too scared and angry to care. Patting myself down, I make sure I didn’t take something on the way out from the Ease-E-Mart. Not one single measly bun. How could I, anyway?

It was pretty simple, actually. All you had to do was reach out and grab it. I bet he wouldn’t even notice it was gone says the little voice in my head, but I dismiss it. Mom didn’t raise a shoplifter. Then again, she didn’t raise an oaf, either but here I am, broke and lost in some strange place, digging my heels into the hard, dried dirt as if that helps.

Overhead, clouds begin to gather. There’s the smell of rain-about-to-fall in the air. In a couple of hours, I’m going to be penniless, homeless and soaked. Oh, joy. Then again, I could always just find an old phone, dial home. I could be back in a flash, just long enough to get a decent meal. If I did that, I could be back in Orsonville before the day’s out. Maybe if I spun the story just right I could get Mom and Dad to loan me something extra, pay them back as soon as I got a job. Sure, it would be humiliating and Dad would give me his I knew it look and Mom would probably go it’s alright sweetie, maybe you just weren’t ready yet Mom would say and she wouldn’t be mad or worried anymore. But I’d never forgive myself, would I? I’d never live this down.

I’m halfway through wallowing in my own self-pity when the world around me comes into view and I realize that I’m standing in someone’s property, staring up at a creaking, dusty old house. From the looks of it, it seems like it was prefabricated, with wafer thin walls and aluminum-frame blinds and windows, caked with years’ worth of grime and dust. It isn't crumbling, but it’s been left alone and unprotected for a while now. Still, I crouch near the ground and hold my breath, opening my mouth so I can hear better. Focusing past the sounds of things creeping across the foliage, I try to listen in for anyone that might be still be lingering. When I’ve made sure that the place has been left well enough alone, I move to the back and check the bathroom window. Not even locked.

This isn’t breaking and entering I remind myself. I’m not going to take anything.

The suitcase fits with some jiggering and some creative pushing. When it gets stuck against the frame, I bite my lip and bang it as hard as I can, let it tumble inside, crash against the toilet seat and sink, send something crashing down. Only then does it strike me that I might have just set off some alarm, so I dive for the bushes once again, count to one hundred.

Someone comes around the corner, perhaps a concerned neighbor. They trail the perimeter of the fence, checking inside for signs of movement, make sure that the chain and padlock on the fence is still set in place. From my vantage point at ground-level, I can see that it’s some boy, tall and skinny. My heart jumps in the second it takes to make the connection that it’s not him. I make a mental note to find the thief and get my money back as soon as I’m calm enough to keep myself from cracking his skull open.

When the boy is gone I slide through the window, land inside the bathroom, poke my head out into the tiny corridor leading into the living room. My training instincts kick in as I check the corners first (southwest, southeast) then across the wall and make a quick scan into the living room. Not a soul in sight, but I still take extra care to cross the corridor by stepping on my heels first, easing the weight into the rest of my foot all the way to my toes so I’ll be silent.

I take a good, long look at the living room: there are leopard spot couches wrapped in plastic, a coffee table with bills and notices piled up almost a meter high, the color on the envelopes yellowed and faded. To my right, past the door, a kitchenette with a gas stove and a gutted sink that reaches into what seems like a disassembled RV in the middle of the living room. It looks chipped and battered and the engine along with the front of it is missing. The house was probably built around the RV, instead of the other way around.

“Guess it takes all kinds.” I whisper, tiptoeing around the windows, climbing up the stairs into what’s left of the RV. Out of habit, I try to push the suitcase under the tiny bed but it makes a hollow thumping sound as it collides with the paneling underneath. The mattress creakes and the covers are itchy, but I lie in it anyway and force a little smile.

“Well, Finn, you made it. Orsonville.”

Outside, there’s a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder. To fight back the tears, I bite my lip and close my eyes. I make myself think of the creep that took my money to take my mind off the U-Cook-It aisle. In my head, I enact my bloody revenge. When the torrential rain begins to fall, it makes such a racket on the tin roof that I can barely hear myself think. Using it for cover, I run a quick shower. The water’s cold but at least it washes the grime away.

There’s instant-noodles and packets of dried food and nuts in the pantry, but I won’t touch them; I haven’t sunk that low yet. There’s a toolbox under the sink and a rusted but sturdy old crowbar tucked behind it. I take the crowbar and remind myself that I need to replace it as soon as possible. Who knows when the owners might be back. Then again, I won’t be using it for more than a couple of hours; long enough to find him and put the fear of God in him and then put it back right away.

Nothing left now but to wait for nightfall. I lie down on the bed, over the covers and close my eyes. I’ve slept in worse places; when we were in the Amazon, Dad taught me how to nestle myself between tree branches and use my knapsack as a makeshift pillow. Up in the Himalayas, we slept inside a tent that hung three kilometers over the earth, dangling on a spike.

This is nothing. I’m not scared. I’m not even crying I lie to myself. It helps a little.

***

In the dream, I’m lying in my bed, wrapped tightly in the sheets. The linen feels coarse and grimmy, as if it hasn’t been washed for days. My mattress is old and crusty and it creaks. I’m alone in an empty house with a hundred thousand rooms and all around me, I can hear the subtle creaking noises that dishes make when they fidget in their racks at 4 o' clock in the morning. Under the floorboards, there’s the faintest sound of someone snoring.

I struggle to sleep, wrapping myself more tightly around the covers. I don’t know how I know it, but there’s something under my bed. I haven’t seen it and it hasn’t made a sound yet, but it’s there; all eyes and sharp teeth and a tongue with the texture of sandpaper that it uses to keep its talons nice and sharp. It’s waiting for me to get up.

This is the sixth hour of our standoff. If I can hold on and not scream, if I can make myself not peek my head out from the covers and look down, it won’t be able to get me. This would have been easy, except my stomach is rumbling and the mattress keeps heaving as if it’s filled with bugs and there’s a skittering sound inside the walls that’s getting louder; skittering, chittering teeth and claws. Getting closer.

I grit my teeth and curl myself up into a ball. I’m scared out of my wits, I’m hungry and I want to go home but more than anything else, I’m angry.

Angry at the boy who stole my money.

Angry at the man in the Eas-E-Mart, who couldn’t just leave me alone.

Angry at Dad, with his stupid fixation.

Angry at Mom, who let me go.

But really I am mad at myself. So mad I could spew black bile for an entire week and still not be done with it at how naïve and unprepared I was, how stupid and vulnerable and trusting. How weak.

The hubbub wakes me up, closer now. The skittering, maddening noise gets louder, closer. I hear it moving. There are things creeping in the walls, crawling. A hundred thousand furry bodies with long lashing tails and claws grasping at the plaster, soft and pliable that squeeze through the narrowest openings. Whiskers that wriggle and long, pointed ears. The faintest trace of speech, seeping through that maddening noise.

“Slimy tongues and pointy teeth

Meat and cheese and rot to eat”

I know what they are before that first, inquisitive little creature has dropped down from the hole that they’ve chewed from the ceiling, its lips still forming the words to their marching song.

By the time it’s turned its round, hairless face just before its huge sickly-yellow eyes have had time to take me in, I’ve kicked at the rat-thing and slammed it against the wall. It leaves a dark red splotch on the wallpaper.

“Thank God for rat-things.” I say to no-one in particular.

There’s a small hush for a half-minute. Faces peer down from the hole at the dead forward scout, take in the sight of the disheveled, insomniac little girl with the messed up hair. Unlike other creepy-crawlies, the only advantage rat-things have over people are their sheer numbers and their smarts. Rat-things never risk being seen by people because they know that they’d probably all be dead the next day, killed in the thousands by poisons pumped into the sewage ducts or hounded out of town by swarms of cats. They only chance attacking someone if they know they can take them as quietly and discreetly as possible, perhaps securing dinner in the process.

A fourteen-year-old girl alone in an abandoned house shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. After all, she’s only killed one and that must have just been a lucky blow. She can’t be able to deal with an entire swarm now, can she?

“Come on, come on” I mutter under my breath, making sure not to clench my fists, not to seem too eager for it. I’m shivering, every fiber of my being ready for this. They must have mistaken this for fear, which is why they come pouring down into the living room, crashing into the floorboards like a big furry wave.

“Yes.” I say through gritted teeth, grab the crowbar out of the sheets to use as a makeshift club. One swing and a half-dozen rat-things go flying against the windowpanes, the sink, the walls. The swarm pauses in its attack. They weren’t expecting that. I strike a pose.

“My name is Finn of the Don. I’m a Helfwir. And you aren’t welcome here.” I proclaim, in my best action-movie star voice, as I go in for another couple of swings, send more of the rat-things flying. They back down and a part of the swarm breaks off. A dozen rat-thing braves try to climb up my pants legs, but I stomp them off me before I brain a couple more. By the time I have realized that the swarm is leading me into a trap, they have me surrounded and some are already grasping at my jacket, tearing long thing strips of fabric off my back with their teeth.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I scream at myself, fighting back the urge to do a flip and crash into the floor, crushing those on my back. While I’d get rid of them, that would put me in the swarm’s level and I’d be choked with their bodies and have my bones picked clean in less than a minute. So I switch hands with the crowbar, still swinging. I slip one hand out a long sleeve, tug the other down with a couple sharp jerks. The rat-things trapped inside the fabric turn it into a very basic sort of sling that I use to fling them far away from me. When the rest of the swarm reacts, going for my jacket, I’ve already jumped clear away from them and started retreating back toward the corridor and into the bathroom. The tight quarters make it worse for me to swing, my crowbar striking the sides of the walls even as the rat-things pile on top of one another and roll toward me.

In that instant, as I watch the wall of bloated faces with their full cheeks and their gnashing teeth, as I hear their tiny voices chanting, looking at the thousands of tiny black grasping claws, I realize that I am probably about to die.

“Lap the blood and tear the meat

Little girl flesh we will eat!”

Rolling into the bathroom. I shut the door behind me and put my weight against it. The mass of rat-things slams against it and I know that it’s not going to hold for long and that there is no way that I’ll make it out of the bathroom window in time, before the rat-things swarm up my legs and nibble them down to nothing. I remember Dad’s old-fashioned, awkward advice.

Be PRISSY. Proper Research and Investigation Secure Successful Yields.

Sure, the motto needed work, but at least it explained everything that I had done wrong, every single mistake that was about to get me killed. I’d thought I could take the rat-things on my own with nothing but a crowbar. I’d thought I could be a Helfwir again for a while, as if Dad could pop up at any moment and save me. I wanted something familiar and dangerous and stupid and now I am going to get killed for it.

“Shut up.” I tell myself. The rat-things chant:

“Plywood doors and plaster walls

Chew through girl-flesh one and all!”

They got me scared, or at least they think they do. That’s good. That means they’ll get confident and slip up. I look around for anything that can be used against them when I notice the medicine cabinet, just out of reach. Pushing one leg against the door, I reach one hand out, pop the door open with the tips of my fingers, find a bottle of rubbing alcohol, stuffed among the rows of prescription pills and band-aids. Without thinking, I throw everything around, my leg slipping away from the door, leaving a tiny opening that one of the rat-things uses to squeeze through. It clamps its teeth down on my jeans. I feel it biting through the fabric, grazing the skin. I bring down the crowbar, crush its skull as I grasp the fabric. I’ve got the alchohol in my hand and reach the crowbar out as far as I can to hook the roll of toilet paper beside the bowl, bring it closer. A makeshift torch will save me, buy me a little bit of time. Just enough to get out of here, anyway.

I don’t realize that I’m praying, not until I’ve wrapped halfway through an entire roll around the head of the crowbar to blot out the rat-thing blood. I feel like I’m slowing down, the entire world a stop-motion parade of terror. Nothing about the situation I’m in feels real, but I know enough to be perfectly aware that this is happening and that if I just slow down, if I pause for even a heartbeat I’ll be dead.

One of the rat-things peeks its head out of a hole in the door frame. It hisses at me so I splash rubbing alcohol into its face, watch its sensitive little nose and eyes go wide. It squeals in pain and backs down. I splash the rest alcohol on the toilet paper wrapped around the crowbar's edge until it’s good and dripping and my nostrils sting with the stench of it. Only then do I realize that I don’t have a lighter, or a flint or even a pack of matches to light it up and I’m stuck with a wet bunch of toilet paper at the end of a stick, with certain death making its way through five centimeters of plywood at a steady pace just behind my back.

“No, not like this no way, no no no!” I mutter, looking around the bathroom. Behind me, the door begins to disintegrate, eaten away in layers. It’s going to be over in half a minute tops. I don’t know how I know it, but at least it won’t hurt too much.

That doesn’t mean I won’t make sure they remember me, though. With one leg braced against what’s left of the door, I turn to face them, alcohol dribbling down the club, seeping into my fingers. I take a step back to give myself some room when the floor rises up from under me and I grasp the sink to hold myself from falling down.

“What the hell are you doing?” The balding Japanese middle-aged man in the camo gear tells me, as his head peeks from the secret trapdoor on the bathroom floorboards. I stare at the man, unbelieving. “Get down here, for God’s sake!”

“My…my torch…” I mumble, as if that explains anything.

“Yes, it’s a very nice torch. Now move!” he says, disappearing under the trapdoor, motioning for me to follow him in the narrow tunnel that leads under the house. I jump down right after him, making sure the trapdoor is firmly set in place. Above, the rat-thing swarm crashes into the bedroom, begins tearing everything up to look for me.

“Thank you…”I mutter to the Japanese man. The way he’s looking at me right now reminds me of Dad after one of my more memorable slip-ups.

“You are a very stupid little squatter, do you know that?” he whispers.

“I didn’t know, I just...”

The Japanese man motions for me to stay quiet, leads me through the tunnel. We shuffle across it in the darkness for a while, take a few turns seemingly at random.

“You tried to make a torch. Maybe you aren’t too stupid.” The Japanese man tells me after two left turns in a row.

“Well, they are rats, after all. Figured I could scare them.” I lie. “I didn’t have anything to light it up, though.”

“It is good that you didn’t have a lighter, or you’d have gone up in flames. Your little brawl gave me just enough time to rig that nest. The way you were screaming covered up the hiss from the propane tanks, too.” he says, matter-of-factly.

“Propane tanks? You were…”

“What? You think I should have gone in there with a crowbar too? But enough heads to make them leave Orsonville?”

“Wait, you can’t blow it up! All my things are in there!” I protest, knowing exactly how stupid that sounds. But the andrenaline rush is dissipating, I’m shaking and I’m cold and scared out of my wits so I choose to grasp at straws instead of asking questions. The man doesn’t dignify my protest with an answer. Instead, he slips into a small opening and pushes up at a sewer gratingthatleads him back out into Cussler Street, just outside the rat-thing infested house.

“Wait here.” he tells me, fording the wall in a couple of strides. Looking at him right now, I can see that he’s older than Dad, wrapped from head to toe in camo gear, a travel bag strapped to his back. He disappears into the mess of weeds that is the garden, reaches the house. I follow suit after him, making sure I’m as quiet as possible. The man reaches up, cracks one of the windows open slightly. There’s the umistakable stench of propane gas spilling out. He notices me just as he’s reaching for the box of matches in his front pocket.

“I thought I told you to wait.” he whispers. I barely have enough time to warn him, when two of the rat-things climb up to the window and sink their teeth into this fingers. The man cusses, drops the matches. “No!” he cries.

The rat-things swarm the window, rushing for the opening. the Japanese man bites his lip, trieS not to scream even as the rat-things that bit into his hands claw at his finger. He tries to grab the matches, but the things are swept up in a frenzy, won’t let go. The rest of the swarm is about to push their way out into the garden, choke him. I take a deep breath, blink, inhale. Everything slows down as I…

-Run toward the man, bob past him, grasp a handful of matches, look for the box.

-Find the box, in a puddle of muddy water, soaked and useless.

-Look around me for anything I can use to light them up, notice a smashed bit of brick jutting out of the ground in the garden, used as a makeshift border for a garden that’s long since been left to rot and whither.

Strike the match across the bricks, watch them sizzle and pop, as the water evaporates over the wet heads, see the entire bunch light up.

In a single motion, I bring the half-dozen matches to the head of the torch, watch it light up and throw it across the yard, through the window. It smashes the glass, landing in the middle of the living room like a makeshift missile. There’s a soft, hissing sound and then everything goes up in flames, sends us both flying against the wall. The man curses as the rat-things let go and run away, disappearing into garden. The house bursts open, consumed in flames and I know that everything I own is gone: my books, my clothes, my toothbrush. Everything has long since been fused into a congealed ashy mess along with a hundred thousand rat-things.

“Help me!” the man says and I reach out to help him up, give him a hand to climb over the wall. He looks so small, the way he’s got his hand tucked under his armpit, breathing through clenched teeth as he slips into the sewer grating. “Come on!” he hisses at me and I follow suit into the darkness, through the sewage tunnels into the dark network that runs under Orsonville, not once stopping to question what is going on.

“This way” the man keeps muttering, as we go left, up, left again then straight ahead for a while then down. He fumbles in the darkness and we’re in a basement somewhere that’s been repurposed as a makeshift home. The man stumbles toward his medicine cabinet, fumbles with a first-aid kit, drops everything. He’s shaking real bad, worse than me so I reach my hand out to help him. “Thank you” he manages, as I clean up the mess on his wounds.

“I am Hideo Nomura.” he says, while I’m wrapping his fingers in gauze. Ring finger and index. The sight of the stumps makes my heart skip a beat.

“I’m Finn Don.”

“I know, I heard you shouting your name at the rats.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“You kids watch too many cartoons these days. They rot your brain, make you do stupid things.” Mister Nomura says. “I am sorry you lost your things.”

“I am sorry you lost your fingers because of me.”

“The plan wouldn’t have worked, if you hadn’t distracted them. Besides, you saved me. I don’t think any other child your age would have had the brains to do that.” he says. His remark calms me down a bit, makes me smile despite myself. “You can stay here, if you want.”

“I can’t impose, Mister Nomura.”

“It will be a temporary arrangement, until you find some other rat-infested place to squat in. Besides, you won’t be staying for free. I need an aide these days. I can’t pay much, however.”

“You’re giving me a job?”

“I am giving you an internship as aide to Orsonville’s first and only monster-hunter. The hours are terrible and there’s no health care, but you’ll have three square meals a day and a place to stay. How does that sound?”

“It sounds divine.”

Mister Nomura flashes me a grin. “It is good, then. Tonight, you sleep in the bed. Tomorrow, you start work.”

“Yes, sir.” I say and take a clumsy, but earnest bow. Mister Nomura smiles and waves me away. The sheets aren’t too clean and the bed is too small, but the pillow is soft and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep the second I lay down on the mattress.