Rey de la Rata

My name is Caroline Florence Donnel. On January the sixth of 1894, this year; I accompanied Dr. Franklin G. Welles to the city of Leon Hidalgo, Mexico; to assist in treatment and research on the rare and exceptional disease known as 'la muerte roja,' the red death. If you are reading this journal now, you know that the endeavor was a failure. In this journal I have left the accounts of exactly what has happened and why I and Dr. Franklin will never return. If this journal has been turned over to the authorities, I urge you not to try and take action as no evidence will ever be found.


Upon our arrival to Leon Hidalgo, I and Dr. Franklin had set up our operations out of an old mission, owned by Maria and Alejandro Lopez. We were given the run of the mission, and Maria proved to be a most generous hostess. This was surprising, as their fellow residents of the city had received us coldly. Dr. Franklin had objected to the mission, saying he could hear rats in the walls. We set to work that night.


The first case was a young man, who had been suffering a case of 'la muerte roja' for the past two nights. The disease had progressed rapidly and his ravaged body was covered in red marks, like open sores or small cuts. He was highly anemic, to the point where Dr. Franklin was unable to get a blood sample. The young man died that night.


We were present for the funeral the following morning. The family was adamant that he be buried as soon as possible, refusing any further observation. The family plot was deep in the city's labyrinthine park of mausoleums. They pulled the door off one old mud-brick shack and laid him inside, leaving quickly without further ceremony.


That night, I had a dream. Looking back, it was a warning, but at the time it was a common nightmare. I dreamed I was in the center of the cemetery and I was lost. I wandered that maze of graves for what seemed like hours until I came to a stone building, like a mausoleum but without a door. The entrance seemed to stretch inwards forever into darkness, and as I drew closer sounds of squeaking and scratching like a million rats rang in my ears, and tiny red eyes glowed all around me. Something inside knew my name and called out to me and it was then that I awoke.


The next morning there was another case, this time a young woman. She was anemic, but active, and had come to us begging for treatment. Her family had turned her out of the house, presumably fearing contamination. She was given water and put to rest in the back bedroom of the mission. She had the same red marks displayed by the young man. Dr. Franklin had concluded that they were small bites. This seemed to point at the disease being spread by some parasite, but the patient couldn't recall where or how she had been so completely covered in bites or what had bitten her.


That night was restless. The girl cried out several times in her sleep, but nothing was found to be wrong. She awakened us several times with cries of "Las ratas! Las ratas!" Dr. Franklin was right, it seemed, about the rats. Despite our efforts at treatment, the girl died late the next morning.


She was laid to rest the following morning, quickly and without ceremony, as had been the young man.  I had another nightmare that very night. I was back in the cemetery, wandering amongst the graves as I had been before. I remembered the way and soon found myself back at the stone building with the open door. Rats were pouring out of it like a fountain, their tiny red eyes sparkling like sunlight on a crested wave. They flew past my feet like a river, crawling over me but I was unafraid. Deep within the stone building another pair of red eyes shone in the darkness. These were not rat's eyes, they were larger, hungrier. I awoke in a cold sweat to a rat on the foot of my bed. I kicked the awful thing across the room, and it died. I had been bitten in my sleep. Dr. Franklin cleaned the bite, and noted that it was similar to bites found on the patients. The disease was being spread by them.


The next case was a small child, a boy of about seven. He was covered in those same red rat-bites as the others.  Now that we were aware of the cause, we set to work dispatching the rats. For three nights we would stay awake with the boy, fighting off the rats, which attacked with awful, almost organized intent. Dr. Franklin became adept at target-practice by shooting them with a small pistol, I and Maria held them at bay with broomsticks.


At the end of the third day, the mysterious and deadly onslaught of the rats had ended. The boy appeared to make a full recovery and was returned to the care of his parents. Dr. Franklin began to order traps and poisons to prevent the spread of the disease, and our work finally seemed to be making progress.


The next morning Maria brought us the news. The boy had relapsed into sickness and died in the night. Franklin requested to examine the body but we were told he had already been buried. Franklin was furious. All of our hard work and treatment had failed.


Franklin came to me that night in a frenzy, and told me he intended to break into the tomb and examine the body of the child. I had refused, but he would not relent. He threatened my career and my livelihood, promising to make me an outcast in my field if I would not help him. He looked like a man possessed by demons, his friendly and calculating demeanor replaced by wild eyes and furious energy. I went with him, God help me, I went with him to the grave of the child.


I found myself again in the cemetery in the dead of night, as if in a dream but Dr. Franklin was there. He began pulling at a wooden door on the stone crypt of the young child. The rotten wood caved in with a wet snapping sound. The blackness within the tomb seemed alive and moving, red eye-lights glinted in the black and we realized the tomb was filled with rats. Crying out, Franklin lobbed clods of dirt at the hateful creatures which scattered into the night.


The carpet of rats had cleared and revealed the body, a small and crumpled shadow of a child on the grave floor. The eyes had sunken deep into the skull, the skin clung to the bones with paper-thinness. The lips had dried and peeled away, leaving long yellow teeth in the tiny skull. Around the neck was a gash, hanging open and horribly dry like a piece of torn fabric. It looked as if he had been interred in the desert for months. Franklin had begun to shake, and then shout into the night "No! It isn't possible! It can't be possible! No!" He descended into gibberish.


I stumbled backwards and began to run through the graves. I didn't know why I was running but I knew where. I ran alongside a river of rats, a black stream with red specks hurtling towards that ancient and terrible place in my dreams.


The rats funneled into the stone building with the open door like water down a drain. I ran down with them, drawn in by an uncontrollable urge. I had passed the threshold and sensed that I was running downwards, down a tunnel. Rats were on every side and above me, drowning out Franklin's cries of my name with their clicks and squeaks.


In the pitch blackness I gained a sort of second sight, I could see without seeing. I sensed the walls of the catacomb around me, sensed every shrieking rat with clarity down to the hairs on its snaking tail. The air was thick and strong with a smell like old books and rotting grass. At the end of the chamber I saw it; I saw it with my second sight.


A black, crumpled body like a stillborn child lay resting in a corner. An arm, emaciated and rail thin reached out and grabbed a rat from the wall. The arm held the struggling animal to the dry, splitting lips. Two fangs, small and sharp as rodent's teeth bit into the rat's belly with a noise like a man biting an apple. Black blood dribbled over the gaping mouth. The rat dropped dead to the floor. The eyes of the figure opened. They were red and hateful, the same hungry wild eyes I'd seen in nightmares. The dizzy feeling became overpowering and I realized I had fallen.


I could feel the rats covering me like a living, hungry blanket. I groaned and tried to pull them off from me, but each rat was soon replaced. The black figure stood over me, and I could feel it staring at me, scowling as much as its dead, papyrus face would allow it to. I felt a hot sickness as my skin popped and stung with each rat bite. An arm was reaching towards me but I pulled away, refusing to let it touch me.


The arm caught me, and I realized it was Franklin. I felt myself lifted and being taken back up with terrible speed. I fainted. I awoke the next morning in my bedroom in the mission. I had thought it all to be a horrible dream, but found myself to be covered in grave-dirt and fresh rat bites. I tried the door and found it locked.


It has remained locked ever since.  There are many different legends concerning vampires, demons and monsters, but no penny novel could have prepared us for this. This hideous creature, lying sleepily in its tomb, had put itself in power over the rats of Leon Hidalgo, and over its people. Once the township was under its spell, it became lazy and no longer wished to hunt for itself. The creature in that tomb, the 'Rey de la Rata,' the king of rats, sent forth hordes of vermin to drink the blood of its victims and then drank its fill from their bellies at its own leisure.


It uses the rats to bleed the victims to death with a thousand bites. When we began to cull the rats, we broke the food chain. It had to hunt again, it had to come out on its own and finish the boy. The people wanted nothing more than to put it back to sleep, and refused to cooperate, refused to let us examine the bodies, and refused to give help to their own relatives like the poor young girl.


Franklin and I have been locked in our rooms since that night. Maria leaves food but refuses to speak with us. I heard Franklin calling out about the rats last night, this morning he was quiet and I fear the worst. My own nightmares have been getting worse, as have my rat-bites and I grow more and more tired every day. If you are reading this letter now it is likely already too late for me. Do not attempt to make any arrests, or investigations, find the thing in the cemetery and end it any way you know how.
Maria, la culpa no es de tu.
Te amo.
Te perdono.
-Caroline