“Almost.. there...” You watch the long ladder swing round. Lines of helmeted workers stand poised up and down its length, buckets and shovels in hand, all waiting for a chance at the prize.
The jar is a mountain, but what drips down its side is neither lava nor mudslide but gold, liquid gold. The junior workers clumsily mine what has pooled on the ground as a fleet of loading trucks back into view. All is quiet save for the 'beep beep beep' of their safety meters as you watch the ladder touch home on a gooey ledge far above. Beyond lay a sea of honey, sweet for the taking, enough to make your multi-million dollar cooperation into a multi-trillion dollar cooperation. But, reasons are many why other entrepreneurs hadn't attempted the gamble before. One chief amongst them is that none of them are as crazy as you, Adrion Moxley.
You started out as a small time hustler, women, gambling, drugs (even cane sugar), anything that seemed hot at the time. By the time you made your first mill the heat was on you like a giant's oven. You decided to go legit, and let your wife think it was her ceaseless whining that won you over, 'the stupid bitch.' When you were still a brat you dreamed about one day being a scavenger. You'd even read some books, Adventures in Cabinet Climbing by Lawrence Gillinger, My Time Amongst the Giants by Tommy Schull. It seemed like an exciting life and one that, like the hustle, could pay off big to someone with the required wits. So you bought the fleet, the crane, and hired your first crew. On their next pay check you go bankrupt. 'But that's no worry anymore,' you uses binoculars to watch the first shovel strike nectar. You bite your lip in anticipation. For anxiety's sake you turn your scope on the spotters camped out on the far cliff. Knowing they also watch you, you give a wave. A moment passes like a truck in low gear and then a white flag goes up. You hide your sigh of relief from the nearby workers. The chumps actually believed your hype about knowing the Therians' routines. It was the only way, really. If you'd run with the truth you'd never have been able to afford a crew big enough to gather the stash quickly: 'which is the real key to foiling the giants.'
You're watching the first ceremonial bucket traverse the ladder hand to hand, when a tremor throws the current tender and his precious load into the air. His blood curdling scream reaches even his employer's ears far below. You shift your scope around looking for the source. It couldn't be the Therians, the spotters had an eagle eye on the kitchen...'or did they,' a very real tremor shakes the ground and Adrion sees the ladder start to teeter. Workers hang to it for dear life like fleas to a hair in the wind. A wave of fleeing trucks and personnel pulls your scoped eye down to the source of all this chaos. Where your $400,000 crane once stood there is now only a paw with the arm of the device, the only unsmashed section, extending out between the toes.
The scope falls from your hands. The shattering of its lenses is a distant chime. At the corner of your vision you barely see the spotters madly waving their red flag. The twisting shearing sound of snapping metal spiced with screams is all you hear. All you see is the scaling ladder and its hundreds of ill fated workmen carried up and up past curving heights of gray fur. Paws provide the lift, their grip smashing many men into pulp in the process. Some throw themselves into the void rather than meet whatever awaits above – they are the lucky ones. Your eyes only break from the scene to follow these unfortunate few as they fall screaming to their deaths.
Now you see its...her face... 'a Mouse?' You'd spent all your time worrying about the home owners forgetting that they had other parasites beyond man. 'But in all those books they never mentioned carnivorous rats?' As the female Mouse looks the ladder of hanging workers up in down, there's no doubt what's going through her Animal mind.
Forcing your vision to pan out from the doomed men, you take in the whole mayhem that surrounds you. The first thing you notice is – she is not alone. Screams from over your shoulder spin you around in time to see a paw crush two of your loading trucks at once. Toes and claws wrinkle around the remains obliterating one survivor wriggling toward escape. The Mouse snatches another vehicle up in his forepaw playing at its roof with a claw in an attempt to get at the juicy and no doubt terrified insides.
Near the base of the bowl the junior employees, many of them underage workers (teenagers and younger with badly forged paperwork), stand quaking in their boots. A rumble announces the approach of yet another giant and a big eared shadow confirms its species. You blare at them through the megaphone, “for God's sake get the Hell out of there!!” Nothing moves them, however, until the source of the shadow, a young girl mouse steps out into view. Her green eyes, lay claim to them all like a wolf surveying a herd of lambs. Terror stricken, the rookies run according to their instincts, away from Her, but towards the honey. Most wind up stuck and immobilized, a kicking screaming mass of arms and legs immersed in sucrose. The Mouse with her hair done up in a pony tail and a checkered dress down to her knobby knees, looks almost like one of your daughters. When she bends down over the young men and boys giggling the resemblance becomes disturbing – 'it could be Betty playing with some toys she found..except for the ears, and whiskers... and tail.' The face she makes when she licks her lips, however, is decidedly not human. The only time you'd ever seen your daughter make a face like that was maybe... before desert.
A new round of screams from on high pulls your eyes up against your will. There the first Mouse runs her red tongue along the ladder licking up multitudes as others fall, some by their own choice. Her saliva sheathed muscle is nearly coated in a second layer of writhing workmen when she retracts it. As they disappear into the void between her fangs, their screams reach their zenith. Surely all are wishing they'd thrown themselves to their deaths when they had the chance.
You watch transfixed as the giant Mouse chews. You can no longer hear their screams but you can imagine their plight, tossed about in a dark cave full of mashing and slashing rocks. Any who managed to dodge those horrible teeth would only wind up mashed into a ball of his ground up comrades and the Mouse's spit, waiting to meet a much worser and slower death in her stomach. You succeed in turning away only after she swallows. On the opposite side of the jar the Mouse which could be the other's younger sister, licks up both men and honey at once, laying upon her chest and swaying her legs in leisure as she does. Behind you, the male Mouse who sports a round belly of gray fur, is adding to it. He up-ends one of your fleet trucks over his mouth, one he's sliced open like a tin can and dumps dozens of survivors down his gullet. You decide it's time to get out of here.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author