The man wriggled, squeezing his body in between the ground and the elevated floor of the house. His stomach scraped on the packed gravel, some of it coming loose and rolling with him. The crawlspace was oppressively dark, the air dank and sickly sweet with rot and mold.

  Halfway into the crawlspace, the man reached down for his flashlight and pulled it up in front of him. He turned it on and saw it sputter, but light up the darkness nonetheless.

  As he continued to shimmy his portly body into the crevice, his stomach became lodged and he had to suck in his fat to barely shimmy his full body inside. Once inside, the space became considerably larger, enough so that he could crawl somewhat quickly.

  The light from his flashlight flickered and dimmed, to which he smacked it with his other hand and it lit up fully again. Shadows danced along the support beams of the house, making the area seem to go on forever. The man shivered despite the mid summer heat and moved quickly to his quarry, the electrical unit at the back of the house; unfortunately the crawlspace only opened from the front porch.

  The call from the house had been because of semi frequent power failure followed by a complete outage. He was to find the cause and fix it, possibly to make sure the problem didn’t return. Simple. Quick and easy. Home before lunch.

  Deeper into the houses internals, deeper into the dark. Each crunch of dried leaves and shift of loose dirt and random bits of gravel set his teeth on edge. He never was a fan of the dark.

  Briefly, he shone his flashlight down, catching a glimpse of pale white beneath the brown of decomposing leaves. Brushing the detritus aside gently, it revealed an incomplete skeleton of a mouse, most of its bones gnawed on or simply missing. The silence of his pause filled the air, a silent wail of despair. He shuddered and moved around it.

  A wall of cracked concrete lay before him, signs of weakness, weathered and failing to keep the important components of the house safe. He pushed his way through the thicker copse of leaves, unable to hear the crunch of bones hinder his body for all the noise his movements made.

  He arrived at the rusted metal door, red paint chips hinting at its original color. He inspected it for a moment, noting how little it did to actually create a separate area from the rest of the crawlspace. Sighing, he resigned himself to having an uncomfortable conversation with the owners of the house as to why he wouldn’t be able to fully fix the problem.

  His hand pushed on the door, slipping on the edge of it and cutting his hand on a sharp protrusion. Cursing, he shone his light on the cut and saw that it wouldn’t need stitches, but that it was bleeding and he would definitely be needing a tetanus shot. More carefully now opening the door, he worked his way inside the room, seeing the horrible state of the place.

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  Nearly every wire was chewed on. Not a single one had been spared. But more than that, rat skeletons littered the floor, creating a carpet of brittle white bones.

  Feeling deeply unsettled, the man made to leave, only to come face to face with a small rodent right outside the door. He attempted to shoo it away with his hand, but when his hand was close enough, the rat bit into it, hard. It drew blood and scampered away. Spewing profanities, the man added rabies to his list of things to get checked for.

  The bite was a small thing, but it bled enough that his hand was rapidly becoming as slick as his other damaged hand. With renewed vigor, he began moving towards the distant light of the sun when he felt another similar sharp pain on his ankle. He kicked out in surprise and anger, granting him the crunching feeling of breaking bones and a squeak of pain from the offending rodent.

  He snickered, happy with his small win and continued on, quickly. A glint in the darkness ahead of him, a pair of eyes, more, many more pairs of eyes joined them. His flashlight shining bright, reflecting some primal feeling from all of them.

  Suddenly stopping, he looked behind him, turning his flashlight in tandem. Cold sweat ran down his brow. They were many. He turned back and saw that as he had been looking behind himself, more had joined their ranks. A muttered curse and prayer. He moved forwards, towards the light. The rats he saw made no moves backwards.

  He pressed forward, hopeful that they would leave. They didn’t. Soon, he was upon them, their beady eyes glowering at him. He knew what they wanted, he had been leaking it for some time now. Crying out, the man swung his flashlight like a baton, clipping one of the rats and crushing its skull. The rats moved on the fallen like a tidal wave, consuming it. The man could only watch in horror as flesh was stripped from bone. The only gap that was created in the small feeding frenzy vanished instantly.

  Hyperventilating, eyes wide, blood pounding in his head, he started seeing spots in his increasingly blurry vision. Pinpricks of pain seemed distant now, tunnel vision. He felt light headed, searing pain on his back snapped him out of it.

  One of the rats had climbed onto his back and began attempting to burrow its way to his organs, tearing at flesh and gnawing at the bone. He mustered some of his strength to slam his back into the low ceiling of the crawlspace, crushing the rat into his open wound.

  The space around him was a wave of black fur and gnashing teeth, each finding purchase in his soft skin, pulling him apart but by bit. He cried out in pain and dragged himself forwards slowly, crushing the rats beneath him.

  Faltering, he came crashing down, suffocating more of the rodents, but unable to keep moving, he had lost too much blood. The rats could smell it on him, the desperation, the fear, sweet, sweet blood.

  The rats found their way inside him now, burrowing and digging new tunnels throughout his body. Blessedly, he had slipped into unconsciousness soon after the blood loss had robbed him of his ability to move.

  Chitters of delight filled the crawlspace, fresh meat finally delivered. The rats feasted. All that remained were pale white bones.