Rats in Plastic Palaces

It's not much fun growing up in a town that only exists because of a garbage dump. Wirthing township is sort of a joke to the rest of the county. We've got the largest landfill in the entire state, and it's surrounded by five cemeteries within five miles of it. The insults write themselves. We've also got a truck stop, a junkyard, a taxidermist, a gun shop, a barber, a florist, a funeral parlor, a bowling alley, and a liquor store. But no one ever thinks to mention them. No, it's always about the dump, or the cemeteries, or the similarities between the two. They call us the town of Worthless, where everything goes to be buried. I guess that I don't really disagree.

The dump was my first summer job, like it was for a lot of folks around here. I'm one of the ones who just sort of went back after high school and stuck around. Now I get to be the one to boss around the summer help, and make sure they don't fool around with the compactors.

Recently, we had a weird incident at one of the back lots. The landfill is over three hundred acres, containing eight million tons of garbage. The back lots are pits that have been filled to capacity, and covered with dirt to keep the trash from escaping. The pits are laced through with pipes that control ground water and gas flow as the decomposing garbage settles, and those systems need to be monitored. On this particular day, I got a report that the readings from one of those systems had changed drastically from previous readings. Usually, if this happened, it indicated a collapse that would need to be dealt with. It seemed like mere coincidence that this was in the same area that some of our grounds crew had reported seeing larger than normal rats carrying around pieces of plastic trash.

We have an on site engineer whose job it is to maintain the pipes. His name is Mike. He's a pretty decent guy and most of the workers like him. Once I told him what was in that report, he insisted on going out to investigate immediately. I went along with him, as per our normal safety protocols. After we rode out to the back lot in Mike's truck, he set up a special camera on a long flexible tube that he could run down into the pipes to check for blockages or breaks. I watched as Mike threaded the camera into an open valve. The image captured by the camera was shown on a small screen that was attached by cables. At first, we saw only the grimy insides of the pipes. It was several minutes before the camera showed us anything unusual. But, then, the camera passed through the open end of one of the pipes, and revealed to us the strangest thing I had ever seen. There were about twenty large rats aranged around a pit. Each rat had a pile of plastic scraps that they were pulling pieces from, before putting those pieces into their mouths and chewing into tiny shreds. Then they were spitting the shreds into paint cans. We watched as one of the rats finished filling it's paint can, which it then tipped over, spilling it's soggy contents into the pit. Suddenly, one of the rats noticed the camera, and let loose a blood curdling squeal. The rats swarmed the pipe, and Mike started rapidly pulling the camera tube back to the surface amid a litany of curses.

Mike said it was the damnedest thing he'd ever seen. Then he said it three more times, just for good measure. We decided right there to make a call to the exterminator. We had internal methods of vermin control in place, of course, but it seemed like those methods weren't working. We needed professional help. The call was made as soon as we got back to the hub, and we were told that it would be four days before the exterminator could come out to the dump. I gave an order to all of the laborers to stay out of the area, for their own safety. Those next four days turned out to be long and harrowing.

The morning after our strange discovery, I made an early trip out to the back lot by myself. It was against protocol, but I just needed to have a look around. I noticed right away that things had changed. The pit now had an opening in the end facing the path. Twenty yards behind that was a mound of trash and dirt, four feet high and ten feet in diameter. The rats were reshaping the lot!

Later, when I told Mike about it, he almost couldn't believe me. He insisted on seeing it for himself, so we rode out together again. Before he had even brought the truck to a full stop, he was letting out a long low whistle of amazement. It wasn't just a mound anymore. Now there were structures in place. Towers and walls in a state of mid- construction, with steel cans, plastic bottles, scraps of aluminum, and various other trash items. It was like a miniature medieval city was taking shape on top of the garbage mound. We stood staring at the thing in awe for several minutes. I told Mike that it reminded me of a children's animated movie I had once seen, featuring a secret colony of genetically altered rodents who escaped from a lab and settled on a farm. I asked him if he thought this could be something like that. He replied that it reminded him of a movie where evolutionarily advanced apes had conquered the Earth. He was shaking with fear as he said it. Suddenly we noticed that we were being watched. Several rats were eyeing us suspiciously over the walls. Evidently they were a new group of builders just coming on to their shift, and discovering us in the vicinity had them worried. They had good reason to worry.

About thirty much larger, and meaner looking, rats emerged from openings in the trash city, and began to slowly and deliberately converge on us. Mike bolted for the truck, yelling something about needing to stop the invasion before we lost everything. I followed suit. I saw him reach behind the driver's seat and pull out a shiny pistol with a pearl handle. He then swung back around to face the rats, who were now arranged in an evenly spaced line on the border of the lot, between us and their little city. They stood up on their haunches, forelegs spread and claws in a scratching posture. Their eyes were all turned toward us, and their mouths gaped, exposing their sharp teeth menacingly. Mike pointed his gun and shot one, then another. The rats screeched and scampered toward Mike, but he managed to shoot three more before booting one away, and then stomping the heads of two others. A high pitched squeal emanated from one of the towers, and the rats retreated all the way back. Mike kept firing at them until they disappeared. I yelled at Mike to get in the truck. It was time for us to make our own retreat, before the rats could rally again.

Neither Mike nor I spoke about what had happened for the rest of the workday. In fact, he went home early without saying anything to me about it. We were both in shock, I think, and clinging irrationally to the hope that the exterminator would know just what to do about our unusual infestation, when he arrived in a few days' time.

The following day, I brought in a pair of binoculars. I wanted to keep an eye on the rats, but I wasn't planning to get close enough for them to spot me. I drove myself down to the back lot. Mike had called in sick. I stopped my truck about a hundred yards away from the rat city, and spent about an hour watching them. They were building again. Their previous constructions had been completed, and were now covered in a glistening plastic coating. Hundreds of them now labored on a much larger edifice, which was positioned in front of the mound from the vantage point of the path. The main body of the thing was roughly cube shaped, and maybe two meters to a side. It had four solid, upright, tubular constructs along the vertical corners, and these were topped by crenulated platforms. There were metal tubes with bulbs at the posterior ends propped up on the platforms. There was something eerily familiar to me about those shapes, but I couldn't yet remember why. I continued to watch, nervously, as the builders worked on the front facade. They raised paint buckets using strong twine and what looked like cranes made of tinker toys. The rats were dipping their claws into the buckets and pulling out large wads of some moist substance, which they smeared onto the wall and molded to some design only they could comprehend. After a while, it began to take a definite shape, and I realized that it was the image of an enormous rat skull, with its jaws surrounding a portcullis. Something clicked in my brain, and I knew that the rats had copied this design from a plastic toy playset, and it was one that I myself had played with as a child. The toy version was much smaller, of course, but I remembered that it had had guns behind it's tower parapets. Guns! That was what the rats were making on the platforms. They were preparing for a war. I became rather worried that the exterminator would not be able to handle this situation after all. I thought that maybe I should call the Marines instead.

I went back to the hub and called my boss. This was so far beyond anything covered by standard protocols, I had to be sure the higher ups were aprised. I was told to hang tight until the exterminator did his job, and to let them know how it went, afterward. When the call ended, I sat in the office and disassociated out of fear. I have no memory of anything I did for the rest of the work shift.

On the day before the exterminator came, I went back out to check up on the rat civilization. As before, I selected a vantage point from a safe distance, and used binoculars. There was now a six foot high wall of metal trash around the entire lot. There were eight defense towers positioned along the wall, each with it's own set of guns. I climbed up on the back of the truck and looked down into the interior of the rat city. What I saw was a bustling metropolis of rodents, most standing upright and wearing clothes that must have once been scavenged doll's clothes, now altered to fit rat bodies. There were also other rats that were going about naked and on all four legs. These seemed to be more like domesticated animals used for transportation and labor, as well as some that were smaller and seemed to be pets. They had many houses made of plastic debris and that weird paste that they made. There seemed to be a large factory near the center that was pouring out smoke through a chimney. I had seen enough.

Just as I was clambering down from the truck, I heard the rumble of another truck's engine approaching. In a few seconds, Mike was driving past me at breakneck speed. I saw his face for a split second, and he had a wild look that I had never seen on him before. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't let Mike do whatever damn fool thing he was planning. At least, I couldn't let him do it alone. I drove my truck after his, and pulled up behind it just in time to see Mike shoulder an AR-15 and fire multiple rounds at the rats in the towers. His shots were immediately answered with a deadly volley of rat made bullets from four directions, all of which struck the side of Mike's truck, leaving holes and deep dents. Mike let loose with an enraged string of profanities, and jumped into his truck. Before I even knew what was happening, he drove at full speed toward a part of the wall that had a small doorway at ground level. The first impact caused the wall to buckle some, but it did not break or fall. Mike backed up his truck and went at it again, this time keeping his foot on the accelerator until he was pushing the wall inward. The wall tipped, it's aluminum and plastic moorings tearing loose, as Mike drove his truck over the collapsing edifice. The rats were scrambling to reposition their guns to repel Mike's onslaught. An army of rats with swords and battle axes emerged from the plastic buildings of the city, and began to rush toward Mike. He made his way to the rear of his truck, and pulled a tarp off of a pile of propane canisters. He started kicking the canisters into the oncoming horde, and then, with the AR-15, fired at them. First one, then a second and third propane canister exploded with devastating results. The flames and metal shrapnel engulfed the rat army, blowing them into the air in all directions. Mike chucked another canister into the portcullis of Castle Ratskull, and shot it the same way. The front of the little building was completely destroyed, and the interior was instantly aflame.

Mike didn't stop there. He hefted another canister to his side, and brandished the rifle one handed, as he marched deeper into the rat kingdom. I lost sight of him as I realized I had just been standing there, too stunned to think of a way to help. I called after Mike, but he either didn't hear me, or was too involved in rodent warfare to pay attention to me. While I had failed to gain Mike's notice, I had succeeded in gaining the scrutiny of a large number of rats. About thirty of them were slowly advancing on me, squeaking questions and instructions to each other in what now seemed to be an advanced language. A few of them were half burned members of the army, but most seemed to be mere civilians. Although I was unarmed, they were exersizing a good deal of caution concerning me. They seemed most interested in keeping me out of their territory. They massed together and took up a position on the other side of the path, between me and the flaming wreckage of their civilization. Rivulets of burning molten plastic were worming their way through tiny streets littered with chunks of rubble. The painstakingly reclaimed materials were all reduced back to rubbish. It was almost a shame.

Suddenly there was another explosion, much bigger than previous ones. A column of black smoke rapidly poured up into the sky above us. Hot air blasted over us from an epicenter somewhere in the ruined city, and the rats scattered, squealing in terror and despair. I screamed for Mike, fearing the worst. There was no reply. I carefully tread into the desolation, avoiding the burning wreckage as much as possible. The only rats I encountered were cooked corpses and horrific statues made of contorted rats coated in molten plastic. The fumes made me gag and gasp for breath. I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt, and pressed onward. I came to a deep burnt out pit, and at the bottom, spied a soot blackened shape hanging from a pipe by one withered hand. Mike had apparently found a way to destroy the rats' factory, whatever it was for, and himself along with it. He was obviously dead.

Other workers at the dump saw the smoke, and heard the explosions, so of course they made the appropriate phone calls. Soon the area was swarming with firemen, police, and eventually someone from the nearest coroner's office. I sat huddled in the back of an ambulance with a blanket over my shoulders, and breathing oxygen from a mask. I told my story a dozen times, to a lot of people. After a while, I asked the EMTs to let me take a nap in the ambulance, and they obliged, although they insisted I keep the oxygen mask on. I lay there in the relative quiet, with my eyes closed, hoping that the horrors of that week would seep away. Instead, it just sort of settled into me, like trash in the ground.

The next day, the exterminator showed up just as I was watching one of our bulldozers level out the back lot and former rat kingdom. He demanded to know what was going on, so I told him every gruesome detail. He listened, incredulous, scoffing all the while. I told him that he didn't have to believe me, but that he should do what he was hired for anyway. Meanwhile, I went back to the hub and practiced breathing slowly. Several hours later, the exterminator came up to the station house with some papers on a clipboard. I saw him set down a large hazmat bag outside the door. It was probably full of dead rats, but I didn't ask. He had a worried look to him, as he handed me the paperwork for a signature. I wondered what all he had seen, but I knew it couldn't have been worse than what I had, so again I let him keep it to himself. I looked over the papers, and saw that he had charged us for the maximum amount of rat poison allowed by law. I just nodded and signed, and handed back the papers. The exterminator took them, then handed me a receipt and left without a word.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about where the rats came from, and what made them the way that they were. Had they spawned in the dump itself, from some toxic mess that someone had illegally put out in their garbage, or had they come from elsewhere, like one of the cemeteries? I have no way of knowing, and I haven't heard of anything similar happening in the area. I am thinking of moving to another town, though.