It had been ten years since the closing of the Chuck E. Cheese just outside of Austin, Texas, and one year since I had decided to visit. Having just turned 18 with a penchant for photographing creepy and obscure locations, it only made sense that I paid tribute to the former haven for screaming children and blaring video games, and see how years of isolation and neglect have transformed the classic funhouse. One scorcher of a summer day I got out of school, drove home, and threw my gear into the back of the car: backpack, flashlight, camera, a couple glow sticks (left over from a camping trip, I figured why not take them), and my trusty pocketknife. The bare necessities were for what seemed at the time to be a simple outing. Breaking in could be easily done with a sizeable rock or my knife if no other possibility presents itself, and I didnt plan on spending enough time there to need camping supplies. Like I mentioned, I was really into that weird shit. Previous trips included local sites such as the isolated cabin in the woods a town over, the retired ranch just south of my suburb, and several defunct factories closer to the city. If people hadnt used it for long time, I was into it. These trips for the most part were uneventful and any excitement was usually brought around as a result of my own imagined anxieties and the tenseness of being alone in a desolate place. This time I was hoping things would be different, as this Chuck E. Cheese just so happened to have an interesting history. Closed in 2004 in a whirlwind of closely guarded circumstances, we couldnt help but wonder. Explanations sprouted like weeds in cracked pavement. The owner was part of a child pornography ring, the whole staff quit when they found some kid had snuck in the kitchen freezer, got locked in overnight, and froze to death, or local drug dealers were using the innocent environment to smuggle heroin from down south. As time passed the more ridiculous the conspiracies became and of course none of them were true; in fact the secret of the mysterious closure was brought to the grave along with the owner as he passed away in 2005, a year after the death of the rat as it was known around town. Regardless, I kept my mind open and my spirits high, I didnt want my trip tainted by expectation and in this way I was sure I would not be disappointed. When I arrived it was around 1:30 in the afternoon. Plenty of light filtered through the front, which was composed mostly of dusty windows, the iconic Chuck E. Cheese rat statue, and the usual assortment of debris/trash one finds in places left to the odd wills and desires of whomever may come there. I was pleasantly relieved (though hardly surprised) to find someone had already smashed a hole big enough to crawl through in one of the frontal windows. Peeking through, I saw that the interior for the most part had

remained, as it was when it was closed. But whats the fun in all this if I dont check it out for myself? I could feel my blood starting to warm up along with that tingly sensation that preludes the rush of adrenaline as I prepared to crawl into the dusty lobby. The excitement of the whole hobby gripped my muscles and my mind could hardly concentrate, darting to a million thoughts, fears, and anxieties all at once. Writing this now I can only curse my nave nature and how oblivious I was to so many blaring signs, the likes of which I will recount as best I can. If details are blurry its likely because I was so preoccupied with trying to reimagine the past as if it was present, thinking about what noises the machines used to make, the smell of pizza as it landed in front of a birthday party of laughing children, the usual nostalgic memories. Had I been more aware of my surroundings I would have left right there and then, packed up, and never came back. On the surface it was the same old song and dance that defines so many of these urban exploration stories. Dust covered absolutely everything and I pray now that it wasnt asbestos because God knows the harm that stuff does to your lungs. Random debris was strewn about the cluttered cement floor, presumably from the other visitors that had come to wreak havoc on the now patchy ceiling, the busted up arcade boxes, the pulverized playground, and the battle zone of a lobby. I wandered about a bit and found some of the miscellaneous tools of destruction such as bits of piping taken from the walls and electrical system as well as stones and bricks taken from the very foundation of the building. It was a real shit show and I was getting some great shots. As of last week I have deleted every last trace of these photos in some vain attempt to distance myself from the memory. To give an idea of the layout, I had entered in the lobby that was essentially an open space with a reception desk where people paid to get in, a coat-check where one could store book bags and random things, and a severely busted up sign that had a list of rules. Rule number one: have fun. The first hour or so I can honestly say I was behaving according to the rats standards. The lobby expanded into what I will refer to as the first play room. It was huge enough to fit three rows of arcade machines of all shapes and sizes on the right, and on the left there was the play zone with variety of colorful structures, ball pits, and slides just enticing enough to make me want to try one. There was a double door on the wall to the right that led to the dining hall that was roughly the same size and equipped with tables, chairs, and a stage for the animatronic robots. Connected to that room was the kitchen, an area for backstage, and a door that was marked UTILITY - STAFF ONLY. I spent the initial hour taking and setting up photos around the first room. I messed around with the arcade section, recognizing some titles from my childhood (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being a big one of course), and goofed around in the playground

zone (despite being several sizes to big for most of it). It wasnt until the initial novelty of the whole situation wore off that I began to notice a few things out of place. Having been seasoned in some of the norms of these abandoned buildings I had a decent grip on what to expect. What hit me first was the stench of the place, and I only really picked up on it as I walked past the closed dining hall doors. Messing around on the playground, partly to check it out and partly to put some distance between the stench and myself, I was struck immediately as the smell wafted all the way to my side of the room. I distinctly remember my hands getting clammy as my eyes darted around the room scanning for a possible explanation before landing on the newly opened doors of the dining hall. This is the point where I am willing to concede that I was completely overtaken by stupidity and curiosity, which are often difficult to distinguish. My skin tingled as the odor continued to thicken in my nostrils. I can best describe it as some vile mixture of body odor, sulfur, and that coppery taste of a bloody nose. Awful as it was I tolerated it a lot more than the still unexplained open doors. I tried to rationalize it in order to ease my sinking stomach. I chalked it up to having missed that detail when I first passed them. Beyond them I saw directly into the dining hall. Unfortunately it was nearly completely black as there were no windows within to the outside afternoon sun. Then, focusing my vision, I felt my heart drop to the bottom of my already stomach as I saw the sign painted on the door. Unfortunately I was overtaken by the shock and failed to snap any photos until later on but Ill never forget it. It was an enormous Christian cross and beneath it was the word Plaga, all of which seemed to be smeared on by hand in a substance I couldnt identify. Most of the walls had been covered in graffiti but the writing on the door struck me and I couldnt peel my eyes away from the pitch-black opening that now resembled the mouth of some beast exhaling its rancid breath and awaiting its prey to stroll into its wicked depths. I snapped to and a flood of information I had initially skipped over came flooding over me. Again I gave the room a look over, pointing my flashlight in every shady crevice. In almost every darkened corner of the play zone and beneath most surfaces I could find corpses of long-dead rats piled about, their bodies stacked and neatly set aside in the dark in such a way that it had to have been done by another human. The walls, dusty and dirty, were stained with some sort of long dried liquid. Before I had assumed this to be water from the sprinkler system or rain that penetrated the busted windows, but now I could sense the reddish and yellow shades that had faded with time. Pulling myself together I backed against one of the walls near to the lobby, both to put myself against a solid surface and survey the environment as well as to examine closer the peeling walls. I sniffed and the scent of ammonia and illness crawled deep within me and made my body shiver and my senses retract. It smelled like death, like the room of an elderly hospital

patient whose body aches with some incurable disease and waits for death as if it were a train late to the station. But more than anything, it was the silence that disturbed me; I was constantly waiting for the crackle of someone else walking over glass or the wind to blow through the dusty air, but I hung in suspense. I remember the way more arms stuck to my sides from the sweat that now accumulated everywhere. I was sticky with the afternoon humidity and the adrenaline in my system only made me heat up faster. One labored step after another I approached the dining hall. The following moments have become so painfully seared in my memory that even now its tortuous to put them in words. I clicked the torch on and directed the beam of light towards the double door to illuminate the room as I advanced across. The stench continued to thicken in my nose and it felt like it was coagulating around my brain. The only time I had smelled anything remotely close to this was when I had visited my grandmother in the hospital a day prior to her death. She had come back from a trip abroad in India and despite countless precautions she had contracted a rare flesh eating disease from some contaminated water. If you didnt know, its a pretty shit way to go. By the time I was able to see her, I could hardly recognize the wasted, pockmarked person in the bed. Viewed from behind a strict quarantine, the smell permeated the room in which I stood and nearly made me vomit. It was the smell of death. By the time I made it to the door of the dining hall, I was equally ready to throw up as I was in that hospital room. The dining hall was much too large to light up all at once with my flashlight but I could identify bits and pieces at a time such as where the kitchen door was on the right wall, the empty stage at the far end directly ahead, and what I thought at the time was a utility closet on the left. Tables and chairs littered the floor, thrown about in every direction among other random debris like the previous room. When I got to the door I examined the writing closer and felt my blood turn to ice. The substance with which it was written shimmered and dripped slowly down the surface; shining my flashlight on it revealed its dark red hue. At my feet was a rat, its belly cut open and its eyes still shining bright with life that was escaping from it. Struggling to breath, its crippled body twitched and convulsed until it finally lay still amidst the dirt and refuse. It was fresh, all of it: the cross, the word Plaga, and the dead rat. Now Im convinced that whoever had done this had done it within the time I had entered the place and when the door was opened. Like a dead weight in my throat I quickly realized that I was not alone. Enough was enough so I dashed my camera in my bag, backed slowly away from the door, and with the thudding drum of panic in my head I turned my back on the door just once to crawl through the opening in the window into the outside world. Like a bat out of hell I jumped in my car and sped out.

I would like to say that the story ends here but when I got home that evening I was met with an irresistible curiosity. Even the stench lingered on my body for days afterwards and I couldnt shake the feeling of knowing I had been watched by god knows who. It couldve been some psychotic bum or a fucked up local kid trying to mess with someone. I hadnt told anyone yet because my parents would only worry and since I made it out fine I didnt think it was worth the trouble. I didnt tell my friends either because I needed something solid to share or they would just think I made it up. It was time do some research. Looking up Plaga I found a whole slew of sites that all seemed to confirm that it meant plague in a handful of languages, ancient and modern alike. The cross was easy enough to figure out, but in relation to the plague, I came to understand crosses were often used to mark major burial sites for victims of the black plague in medieval times. From here the dots almost connected themselves; that deathly smell, the piles of dead rats, the writing on the door, all of these related back to the plague. What I couldnt understand was why. Days passed and my desire to unravel the mystery became an obsession. I slept poorly most nights and when I did manage a few hours, I dreamed lucidly of my grandmother and the moments before she died. Often I would wake up in a cold sweat and feel as if I could hear the ever so faint scampering of some small critter running just out of site. I thought my imagination was getting the better of me. At the time the only solution I could come to was a desperate need for closure. I know now how foolish I was to even consider what I did next. I went to Aaron. Aaron is, and has been, my friend from school for almost our entire academic career. Having an equal fascination for the bizarre and creepy made him a suitable partner in these endeavors. Almost two weeks after that day I went to him with everything I knew. I relayed the whole story, detail for detail, and the info I looked up afterwards; then I proposed the next step: a second outing further in. Convinced that I had seen something that wasnt really there given my history, according to him, my history of being a pussy, Aaron was more than game to go on this journey. We packed that night and planned to head out the afternoon after school the next day. Together we had two backpacks, a flashlight in each, the assorted glow sticks from before, the pocket knight, the camera, and a crowbar Aaron had found in his garage. Not being sure what to expect this second time I had hoped we were well prepared. I could feel the lump in my stomach that told me that it wasnt enough, that it would never be enough. We got to the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot just past 3 the next day so the sun was still shining bright and promised to light up the first room sufficiently. The air felt sticky and muddled my thinking, I remember this droning sensation that I could hear in my head but

knew well that it wasnt coming from any external source. My stomach was already in a knot and I could feel the sweat practically dripping from my hands and armpits. I remember the look Aaron had given me that told me if I turned back now he would never let me live it down. For now my pride refused to be swallowed and we made our way towards the entrance I had used the first time. Aaron warmed up the crowbar with a few hefty, unwieldy swings and widened the entrance so that we could easily duck through without having to get on all fours. The shattering of glass smashed the silence in a thousand little pieces and the reality of the situation rushed at me. Two weeks after the fact I had found myself in the same desolate funhouse, already sweating bullets and alert as a deer to potential hunters that may be stalking it. I remember Aaron punched me heartily in the arm and jogged me out of my paranoia for a moment; his presence reassured me as much as it could but in that air heavy with dust and browned by the afternoon sun my spirits remained low and weary. Aaron was hardly impressed by the play zone or the arcade area. To the person who had accompanied me to so many other ruins and barren locales this one barely met the standard for creepy. I quickly noted that the doors to the dining hall had been closed again. I grabbed Aaron and brought him over to the play zone where I had noticed the dead rats for the first time but was rocked by the waves of shock when I realized they were gone. All of them, all those piles of dead, sickly looking rats were gone without a trace. Panic once again made me tremble as I paced from one wall to the other looking for the slightest hint as to what happened to them but there was nothing. At least a hundred rodents, if not more, had been swept clean. I couldnt believe it, shaking my head in disbelief, lips shut tight for fear of acknowledging the implications out loud. Of course this made me look like an idiot to Aaron and only added to his case that I had seen things that werent there. What did remain however was that morbid odor that oozed once more from the dining hall into both our nostrils. Aaron looked at me with confusion at first and then surprise; at last one of my claims had been witness. Then like a gunshot, the doors to the dining hall banged open. We both nearly jumped out of our skin. Startled, we quickly made our way to the entrance but Aaron wasted little time to regain his senses. Grabbing me by the collar of my shirt before I could escape, he pulled me back and tried to tell me that it was just a draft of wind or some kind of mechanical malfunction in the door. Had he heard himself today he would say without a doubt how full of shit he was. We waited for a few minutes, how many I couldnt say but it felt like an hour. We regained our breath, convinced ourselves that this stuff just happens sometimes, and agreed to accomplish what we came here for satisfied with out flimsy reasoning. We turned our flashlights on and moved to the doors. The writing was no longer there either, like the rats it had vanished completely.

I figured it probably wasnt worth bringing up to Aaron as I was already pretty shaken up. Treading lightly, Aaron and I had successfully entered the dining hall. We navigated the spaces between tables and chairs looking for any sign of what may have opened the doors but all we found was that the smell of death was becoming nearly unbearable. We had stopped talking and just listened to the absolute silence of the cavernous room. The only noise we could make out was the crunch of rubble and glass under our feet. Now completely in the dining hall the silence paired horribly with the darkness of the room that engulfed us making us pay far more attention to the ground rather than our surroundings so we didnt trip on anything. Arriving finally at the stage, I broke out a glow stick and left it in the middle in case our batteries died. By this point my nerves were firing like pistons and my paranoia contrasted sharply to Aarons oddly calm demeanor. Its green glow danced on the dusty wooden platform that rose about 3 feet off the ground. It went back towards the wall for about 10 feet where it met a tarnished crimson curtain that rose up into the blackness of the high ceiling. As I was preparing the glow stick Aaron wandered over towards the kitchen in search of the source of the wretched stench. Finding the door unlocked, he entered without me. Alone for the first time since we had came in about I felt incredibly uneasy, unsteady, almost as if I was being watched by something lurking in the countless dark corners that surrounded me. I hustled over to the kitchen the moment before I was sure something was going to grab me from behind. Aaron was taking his time examining the stainless steel surfaces that made up about most of the kitchen, his gaze darting from utensil to fridge to oven to fryer. It took me a minute to realize that the kitchen was spotless. No dust, no graffiti, no bits of debris on the floor, hell even the counters seemed to shine as if they were recently polished. I also noticed the smell of death had been replaced by another smell found equally common in hospitals: sterilization. Someone was keeping the kitchen sterile, devoid of the encroaching ruin that had consumed everything else. Im not sure if it had clicked with Aaron as he continued haphazardly through sets of knives, pots, and pans hanging from magnetic surfaces above. He gripped the handle to the freezer door and gave it a solid tug but it wouldnt budge. Written in black marker in large blocky letters on the metal door was the word OPEN. It was clear that there had been several words before it but they had been wiped away. With a shrug of defeat he walked away and rejoined me near the door to the dining hall. Overall we were excited by the rush of everything once more, and he certainly felt more secure than me, so we decided that we had two more places to check out: backstage and the utility door in the dining hall. Settling on going backstage first we made our way back to the dining hall. At the time I hadnt noticed that the glow stick had vanished as Aaron and I returned and jumped up to

the stage. I braced myself for the almost certain cast of animatronic robots that would be behind the curtain and how awful they were going to look with their long dead eyes and overly exaggerated facial expressions. Its a far too common trope in modern horror movies and games to see these giant costumes so I felt essentially desensitized to any element of intimidation they carried. Regardless, I still couldnt shed my hesitation to go behind the heavy red curtain. Aaron of course led the way and I followed on his heels until we found ourselves in the blackness of the backstage area. The floor was dirtied by the usual trash and towards the back wall we found the set pieces used for the pizza time shows Chuck E. used to put on. I wiped the sweat from my brow in relief as we learned that most of the backstage was vacant except for a door marked CAST MEMBERS ONLY. As the curtain swung closed behind us the claustrophobia caved in around us and the darkness only seemed to thicken. As we were already on a roll, we decided to check out the cast-only section thinking that there had to be something that would make this trip worthwhile. The utility door would have to wait until we got back. With little hesitation, Aaron found the rusted handle to the Cast door and gently turned. Surprisingly it was unlocked like the kitchen and we made our way down a small flight metal stairs that clanged and echoed with every step. The odor had long returned, maybe we were just habituated to it, but now we couldnt ignore it. It was like directly inhaling road kill. My limbs stiffened during our awkward descent and my flashlight shook in my nervous hands. I noticed the same panic sweep over Aaron as he stood at the bottom of the stairs looking into the darkness. Something about this room was different from the back stage and the kitchen. We did our best to shine our flashlights in such a way so that little remained dark but no matter what we did it never seemed enough. The darkness encroached on us, followed us behind our backs, seeped over our shoulders and danced in circles around the meager cone of light we projected. I dont know what came over me but I reached into my backpack and pulled out my pocketknife and handed Aaron the crowbar. Unfortunately being armed did less to put our minds at ease as it did intensify the situation as we now had mentally accepted that we were in danger. But we were in danger. Having spent what felt like an eternity in the break room we moved leftwards, exploring the wall until we came to two doors. One looked like the utility door that potentially led to the dining hall and opposite it on the other wall was another door, slightly ajar, and what looked like a closet. Silence. Dead silence bore its weight on everything like a foot on the chest, squeezing the air from our lungs until we were afraid to even breath and risk making a noise to exhale. The discovery of the slightly ajar door was the final straw for Aaron and he finally let slip an audible gasp at the sheer tension of the situation. With our backs against the utility door, weapons held awkwardly out at arms length by two teenagers just about ready to pee their pants, we

awaited the response from the door. After a second eternity of nothing we let out a subtle sigh of relief. Nothing. Then, probably from all the dust whirling around us, Aaron coughed. And then the door screamed. It banged open, its hinges shrieking. Screaming, Aaron and I turned around immediately and scrambled to open the door behind us. Feet pounded the floor behind as we barely ripped open the door and slammed it behind us, putting every inch of our body against it to keep it shut tight. I remember hearing Aaron let out a little cry. I scanned the room around us rapidly as fists pounded against the door and animalistic shrieks slashed the prior silence. My mouth dropped open and I could feel the tears wet my cheek from the horror that rained down on us. Aaron turned as well and neither of us could recognize what was the dining hall only 15 minutes prior. Everything was bathed now in a red glow that reminded me of the images of hell described by Dante. Dark shadows danced around wildly everything that wasnt bathed in the bloody light. The kitchen door across the room was wide open and the freezer in the back was as well. Nearly gagging us, the smell of death and rotten corpses invaded our senses in its full potential. In the middle of the mess of overturned tables and broken chairs was the rat himself. Or at least the costume and whoever was in it. Its fur was matted with dark fluids; its eyes reflected the red glow that continued to emanate from an unknown source. On the floor he was circled by a growing mound of dead rodents, writhing and rolling as the pile grew, their rotten little bodies seeming to be drawn my some invisible force. His voice was like gargle of a drowning man who didnt seem to care that he was drowning; babbling in a language that seemed to encompass every possible conception of demonic speech. It lifted its oversized, cartoonish head and stared straight at us. Thats when whatever was behind us overpowered our weight on the door, pushed through, and knocked the two of us senseless with what I assume was a lead pipe. Im not sure how long we were out but when I woke up the pain of the blow drummed and thumped like I was being slammed between a c-clamp. I could feel the dried blood on my face but the back of my head was still wet and sticky as flesh blood was rushing profusely. And then I realized I was alone in the dark, paralyzed with fear. The scent of corpse was so thick that I let out the contents of my stomach onto myself. I knew I had to do something, I had to move, I had to run, escape, get out, anything. It wasnt until the low murmured sound of chanting drifted into my prison that I made my first move. Crawling on all fours and almost crippled by the pain in my body from the beating that was continued after I lost consciousness, I hit a wall on the far side of where I had started. I was breathing hard now. It took every ounce of my willpower to silence myself and

listen to the hushed voices, which had gotten louder as I got closer to the wall. Gently moving my hand around in the dark I felt a handle and wrapped myself around it. It was a handle to a door. I gripped it tightly, held my breath, and cracked it open less than a centimeter wide, just enough to peek through. But it was a door straight to hell and suddenly my black room seemed a billion times safer because here I could hide. I was in the freezer of the kitchen. On the stainless steel counter I could see Aaron. His face was covered in blood, dried and fresh alike, dripping on to the sleek metal surface. The fluorescent light above him flickered as it blared its light onto the crowd of hooded figures that stooped over his unconscious body. Oh how they whispered and chanted these inhuman words that bounced off the polished walls and dripped into my ears. Those robes that flowed onto the ground shook with every punctuated sentence, their faces concealed by the shadow of the hood, their hands with nails that were carved into yellowed claws, my eyes throbbed with horror and tears welled up. Then the chanting stopped. One of them grabbed Aarons arm, slammed it on the table, and without hesitation grabbed a carving knife from the table and sawed his hand off. The sound of flesh and muscle tearing followed by the bone cracking underneath the serrated knife was followed by the splash of blood as it splashed onto the spotless floor. I could feel the vomit build in my throat, as my head grew progressively lighter. I include what happened next in order to remain true to the facts. If there is truly mercy in the world, this document will be the final place where these memories are recalled. One by one, the men pulled back their hoods and revealed their pale, spotted skin. Their eyes were globes of veiny yellowish gelatin with pupils black as the night. Flesh dripped from their skull in a rotten state of decay; large, pussy scabs did their best to maintain the integrity of the putrid exterior but where they failed, moldy bits of bone were exposed to the contaminated air. Each then approached Aaron and with their beast like claws, they pried open his mouth. I couldnt watch anymore so I closed the freezer door as gently as possible. The sounds of gagging and retching staggered into my hellish refuge and I refuse to give any more thought to what happened next. With my ear pressed against the door I listened intensely until it sounded like the last of them had shuffled out into the dining hall. I held my breath, counted to three, and snuck out as silently as I could. When I got to Aaron I was too absorbed in making our escape to grieve the loss of his hand or properly evaluate his physical condition. Grabbing his arms and wrapping them around my neck, I slung him onto my back and stood up on my wobbly legs. I was much weaker than I imagined but the adrenaline gave vital life to my desperate and broken body. Having little clue about where I should go I staggered to the

entrance of the kitchen and listened once again for signs of activity on the other side. My heart was about ready to burst when I heard that the chanting had resumed, deep and guttural, like the rhythm of a booming drum. Growing this time, slowly its timber began to increase and vibrate through the floor and shake beneath my feet. If I wanted to get out I had to go now, I had to make a run for it. Again, peeking out as quietly as I could, I was able to glimpse the outermost walls, which were soaked in that hellish red light from before. Opening the door just a crack permitted the chanting to echo into the kitchen and further work their insane sounds deeper into the crevices of my already devastated cranium. Being able to take no more, I heaved Aaron up further on my back, and burst through the door. I locked my vision on the wall that housed the stage and broke into a burdened sprint. Every step was cushioned by some soft debris that covered nearly every surface and only when I looked down did I realized I was wading through rats, dead and alive, writhing in diabolical mountains of organism and corpse. Kicking and screaming through the furry piles, I glanced to my left. Several of the robed men had taken notice of my presence and started to gain on me bearing knives they must have taken from the kitchen. Behind them I know what I saw, I swear to whatever God that still watches over this infernal race of men that we are. There was a rat the size of a man, its bulky limbs twitching insanely and tail thumping the tile floor to produce the beating rhythm I had heard before. In its gnawing jaw was Aarons hand. The EMERGENCY EXIT sign above the door in the back was like a lighthouse on the shores of heaven. The blood flow to my brain had thinned to the point where spots filled my vision and my memory of our traumatic escape is blurry. If you couldnt tell by now that we had survived given that Ive been telling the story myself, we did. When we got in the car, I slammed my keys into the ignition, peeled out, and roared away. I brought Aaron straight to the closest hospital we could find where he was given immediate treatment that saved his life. A moment later and he would have died from blood loss. To this day I can hear the rats crawling in the walls. Every night I dream of the mask of the rat costume and its glowing beady eyes. I can hear the words it said in my head but I dont believe there to be a mortal person on this earth that could make sense of them. The men standing over Aaron, the rip and gush of meat and blood, the smell of putrid little corpses. Aaron was kept in the hospital for some time after the incident when they found symptoms on his body that resembled those of the bubonic plague. When the police arrived to respond to what happened he couldnt muster the strength to respond to their questions. I didnt leave my house for two weeks after I received treatment for my injuries. I spoke with the police and told them everything as best as I could. When they

went to check it out they said there was nothing there. I could overhear them telling my parents they think we were fooling around with something sharp, had an accident, and were too embarrassed to admit it. Its been a year now; Aaron had recovered from his illness and had received a prosthetic hand but was then institutionalized in a psyche ward upstate after a nervous breakdown. Before that it was clear that the nightmare of that day had invaded his mind far deeper than it had mine. I went to visit him last week and was surprised when his attendant gave me a piece of paper at his request. In fact it was the paper that had inspired me to write down what we had experienced there. On it, in scratchy, maddened handwriting, he had written:

PLAGA