Victor Lavalle - Lucretia and the Kroons

Pigeon’s wings. Loochie had always found New York City pigeons’ wings to be quite pretty. The blend of dark gray feathers with nearly white ones, the iridescent rainbow flashes, made patterns that she marveled at. So it only horrified her more to see the rats bobbing on such beautiful wings. Each time the wings flapped the rat’s claws scrambled in the air, as if they were galloping through the air.

Loochie hurried along the fence line again but she couldn’t find the second set of gates. Instead she found herself slowing down. She kept looking over her shoulder as the cloud of rats drew nearer. As she ran she ducked down and threw her hands up over her head.

The rats were almost directly overhead now. Under the flapping of their impossible wings, she heard them squeaking, high-pitched shrieks volleying back and forth. A sound that burrowed under Loochie’s skin and made the sides of her face itch. New York City rats could chew through sewer pipes and industrial wiring in record time, so how hard would it be for a flock of them to tear through a twelve-year-old girl? To chomp through her clothes and even her skin until they were left to gnaw on her bones.

Loochie lost a sense of what she was looking for and ran around the perimeter of the playground wildly, trying to get away. She ran toward the jungle gym, thinking she might climb into one of its tunnels, but then thought better of it (the two sides of the tunnels were completely open) and broke for the metal awning instead. But this wasn’t any better. The rats could certainly fly right underneath.

The rats flew in circles above the playground. They squeaked in high-pitched choruses as their wings flapped. She headed back to the gates she’d first come through. Maybe the Kroons really would be there waiting for her, but she didn’t know what else to do.

She didn’t even make it halfway to the open gates before the rats attacked. She felt them approaching. Their wings sent gusts of air downward. The winds shook her mother’s wig and almost knocked it right off her head.

The cloud of rats descended. They slammed into Loochie’s back and sent her facedown on the playground’s plastic mats. The cloud passed over her prone body. She felt claws scrambling across her back. Her sweater and T-shirt were no protection. She screamed but couldn’t hear herself over the beating of those wings.

She was too dazed to do anything but watch them come for her. The flock of rats spread their wings as one, which made the cloud seem to expand to twice its size. Each rat slowed, gliding down.

Some of the rats landed on top of her head, on her mother’s wig. They landed on her shoulders. They grasped on to her arms, digging their claws into her sweater, through the cotton, cutting into her skin. Ten rats settled on her back. It was like being trampled on by a panicked crowd. They wriggled and clawed at her. And before she could even register her disgust all those rats started flapping their wings again, furiously.

If she shut her eyes she might’ve thought she was standing up, by her own power. But she didn’t shut them so she saw what was happening. The rats had pulled her up. The rats on her head snatched off the wig. They looked down and squealed when they realized they hadn’t caught her scalp. They dropped the wig and it fell to the ground, then they dug into her real hair. They pulled and Loochie cried out. The rest of the flock had gone to the air a second time and came back at her again.

Now that Loochie was upright another dozen rats clamped on to each of her legs. They crawled on her thighs, her shins, her butt. They dug their claws into her jeans and she felt their weight tugging at her. She watched their wings expand.

They lifted her into the air.

She was flying.

Floating, really, and only a few inches, but the rats kept beating their wings and her body rose. She was three feet high and rising. They were taking her somewhere. Whatever they were going to do to her, they weren’t going to do it here. Maybe they’d drag her back to that darkened bedroom, with the door hanging off its hinges. Maybe that was where they’d taken the all children who’d once played with the abandoned toys in the playground. It wasn’t the Kroons that got them, but the flying rats. Loochie imagined a room the size of her bedroom empty except for mounds of children’s clothes, torn through and bloody. In one corner lay all the bones.

Loochie didn’t have any fight left in her. She’d finally accepted it. Horrors come for kids. Louis had said so. Well, now it had come for her. And she couldn’t fight it alone anymore. In fact, Loochie was so busy giving up that she didn’t see a small girl charging toward her.

“You get the fuck off Loochie!”

Loochie was so startled by the voice that she didn’t know which direction she should turn. She looked up before she looked down.

Someone had a torch, bright fire, and was swatting it at the rats. One of the rats, down near her ankle, burst into flames. Its fur flared and it screeched and let go of Loochie’s pants and flew off. The girl swung again and again. One by one the rats were singed and they screeched and they flapped off to safety. After three or four let go of Loochie, she was no longer rising. Her body descended. The ground came closer. The remaining rats struggled to hold her up. The ones on her head were pulling out strands of her hair as she fell from their grip and she screamed.

“Kick them off, you dummy!” yelled the girl holding the flaming torch.

Loochie knew that voice. Loochie knew that voice!

She kicked her legs and twisted her arms. On the ground the torch swatted at the rats some more. One after another tore away terrified. Loochie’s weight became too much for the rats grasping her sweater. Now Loochie wriggled and struggled. She found new strength. And the rats lost theirs. They tore away pieces of her sweater, a little more hair from her scalp, but they let the girl go.

Loochie landed on the ground, on her butt. Standing over her was her friend. Her best friend. That was no torch in her hand; it was a tennis racket set on fire.

“Sunny!” Loochie shouted.

But this wasn’t the time for a teary reunion. The rats circled above them. A small group of them broke off from the others and shot down at the girls, a first salvo. More followed behind in waves. Sunny swatted them back, singing their wings. But she couldn’t stand there doing that forever.

She looked at Loochie and screamed, “We have got to run !”

Loochie had found Sunny. Or, really, Sunny had found her. Sunny had saved her . Which would have been kind of funny, ironic really, if there’d been any time to sit around and chuckle about it. But the flock of rats had only been pushed back, not scared off. As Sunny and Loochie booked across the playground the rats swarmed in the air, a cloud of fury.

“This way,” Sunny said. Her voice was raspy; she sounded nearly breathless. She was so small beside Loochie. Her bald head bobbed up and down as she ran. She held the racket up, its head still burning but starting to die down. Some of the racket strings had already melted. Loochie surprised herself by scurrying over and picking up her mother’s wig. Somehow, even in the midst of all this, she didn’t want to get in trouble for losing it. After she picked it up Sunny led Loochie toward the jungle gym.

“We can’t hide in there!” Loochie shouted. She pulled the wig back on her head just to have her hands free.

But Sunny wasn’t listening, only leading. For a sick girl she moved pretty fast. Fear had charged her engines. Loochie had to rush to keep up. The girls reached the jungle gym as the column of rats bombed down at them again. Sunny ducked under a little wooden bridge and Loochie followed after. Under here Loochie could see a hole in the fence. A tear. Three of the thick black iron bars had been pulled up like the top of a sardine can. Sunny scrambled through the hole in the fence and Loochie dove after her just as the horde of rats smashed into the jungle gym. Loochie heard the little bridge shatter. The jungle gym exploded into pieces — the slides and the stairs and the walkways and the tunnels, all of it came apart. The rats clawed their way through the rubble but Sunny and Loochie had escaped.