Whispers From The Dark Read Online Free PDF

a tail flopped out of it.  It was unmistakably a rodent tail: pink, segmented, hairless…and incredibly large.
    Liz barely had time to register what she was seeing when the rest of the box burst open to reveal the biggest rat she’d ever seen.  The nasty rodent was so large it seemed impossible that it had even fit inside the container.  There was no cereal left, or even the plastic bag that was usually inside the box.  Just the rat, which immediately devoured the cardboard remains of the box.  As soon as it had finished with that it scurried across the table and bit into the cheap plastic salt shaker, shattering it into pieces and gulping it down in five quick bites before doing the same to the pepper.
    As the rat swallowed up the pepper shaker Liz’s mind began to play tricks on her.  The rodent seemed to grow right in front of her; a steady swelling that overtook its entire body, doubling its size. The whole process looked like some Hollywood trick created by a computer.
    Pookie let loose a deep growl and then barked once at the rat.  The rodent turned to face Liz and the two stared at one another for a moment before the rat leaped off the table and dashed across the kitchen floor towards her. She screamed and threw the jug of milk at the rat; it exploded in a spray of white on the floor a foot in front of the creature.
    Liz ran out of the kitchen and across the living room towards her bedroom door.  Once she crossed the threshold into the bedroom she froze. In her panic she had ran past
    the only door in or out of her apartment.
    Idiot, She thought to herself as she spun around.  She hoped that the rat was still in the kitchen and that she could make it back to the apartment door.
    Pookie had followed Liz out of the kitchen but was now standing in front of the couch barking furiously at the rat, which didn’t seem to be intimidated by the dog at all.  In fact, it was charging towards the dachshund.  As it neared Pookie, Liz realized that the rat was still growing; the damn thing was as large as the dog now.
    Pookie let loose a sharp yelp as the rodent pounced forwards and bit into his throat.  Liz cried out in horror and slammed the bedroom door shut as the rat began to feast on her dog.
    Tears streaming down her face, Liz scanned the bedroom for her cordless phone.  The receiver was empty, and it took only a split-second for her to remember where the phone itself was: the kitchen.  She didn’t have a cell phone; she’d never needed one until now.
    Outside, she could hear wood snapping, glass shattering, and more crunching noises.
    Shuddering, she pushed the sounds from her mind and considered her options, collapsing against the wall and sliding down it into a sitting position.
    The bedroom was a prison, obviously.  Her apartment was on the fourth floor, so going out the window wasn’t an option.  Most of the other residents would be at work by now, and the walls of the building seemed to be fairly thick, so the odds of anybody
    hearing her screaming were slim.   She had to make it back to the apartment door, or at least get to the phone and back into a closed room.
    Which meant she had to get past the rat.
    Which meant she had to be calm.
    It took her fifteen minutes to stifle her tears and gain the courage to move, although it felt more like several hours.
    Finally, she stood up, tiptoed to the door, and pressed her ear against it.  The crunching was still there but sounded more distant, in another room.  She took a deep breath and turned the doorknob.  The sounds didn’t change.  She cracked the door and peered out into her apartment.
    The couch had been ripped to shreds.  All of the leather and the cushions were gone.  A few tufts of the foam stuffing were scattered around the room.  The wooden frame had been chewed apart; at least a fourth of it was missing.  Her coffee table was reduced to a few splinters.  Books, candles, picture frames, she noticed dozens of things that had been