It was late one evening when she first heard the scratching.
She put the TV on mute and wandered into the kitchen. She felt sure it had come from here. At first she saw nothing. Everything was in its place; nothing fallen, nothing disturbed. She was turning to go back to her show when she saw it.
It sat, perched on the fridge. Small shiny black eyes, little pink ears and nose and a great spread of white whiskers. She could hardly believe it. It was a rat! In her kitchen! The one part of her house that she kept scrupulously clean. A great, plump, evil-looking creature that just sat staring at her with what she saw as an impudent expression.
She stood very still, considering her next move. She became aware of her trembling. No, she would have to get a grip if she was going to deal with it. It would have to go, that was for sure. She would have to catch it and throw it out somewhere or…or just kill it. Hit it with something hard; drop it in the rubbish bin or flush it down the toilet. She stood like this for some time before deciding that she should start by clobbering it. It was going to get messy, but she could always clean up after the deed was done.
Eyeing her small, heavy skillet, hanging on the rack, she moved slowly across to it, while watching that the thing didn’t move. It didn’t. It just sat watching her moving across the kitchen with a gentle turn of its head. With the pan gripped tightly, she crept forward, raising it above her head. Suddenly, it was gone. All she saw was its disgustingly long tail flip out of sight over the back of the fridge. Summoning up her courage, she found a torch and peered behind the fridge, but there was no sign of it. Maybe it had a hole down there or maybe it managed to get under the fridge.
The remainder of the evening was not spent with any sense of pleasure. It was however, used to come up with a solution. She went out to the shed and found a tin of rat poison. She laced a piece of cheese with a liberal dose of it and placed it on the kitchen floor, in front of the fridge. Having accomplished all this, and feeling rather pleased with herself, she went to bed.
In the morning she went into the kitchen and to her great delight found the cheese gone, save for a few messy crumbs. Her plan had worked. Although she knew there would be a dead creature somewhere, probably at the back of the fridge, she would find it later and consign it to the bin. She would celebrate with a cup of tea first. In fact, although trying to cut down on her sugar, she would give herself an extra spoonful as a reward for a job well done.
She had been sitting for a while, quietly sipping her drink, when she saw a small head appear from below the door of the fridge.
At the same time she felt a griping pain in her stomach that quickly became an agonising, burning sensation that had her tumble off her chair. Writhing in agony on the floor, she watched as the rat came out from under the fridge.
After several long minutes the rat approached her as she lay on the kitchen floor twitching violently. It came and sat very close to her contorted face and peered into her eyes.
As she drew her final breath she considered the fact that the demonic possession of animals had never before been part of her world view.
The rat giggled.