1 Week BZAD (Gallion, Ohio):

Georgette:  "Damn...  I hope they made it safely...  Looking like a hospice out in the halls."

Francine:  "At least the snow from the roof works just fine on the cloth Ron and I put on everyone's foreheads.  I know it's just treating symptoms, but, their fevers seem to not be as severe."

Ron:  "Lotta....  Lotta ninjas on the cots."

Georgette:  "Right, right.  That reminds me...  What was the name of the guy with the chunk out of his ear?  Will?  Phil?"

Francine:  "Phil.  Phil Barker."

Georgette:  "Yeah, him.  Did the swelling around his ear settle at all with the ice?  We used a lot of antibiotics on everyone to help out with symptoms and the like...  Everything in the apartment complex really...  But I'm worried about him.  It took four men to hold him down on that table for us to strap him in and force feed him the pills."

Francine:  "Truth be told...  I've had one of the others checking on him.  He frightens me something fierce.  Melinda said that Mr. Barker keeps grimacing and trying to get off the table, but he screamed his voice hoarse before."

Georgette:  "Geeze..."

Ron:  "Mean mouse whisperer is scary."

Georgette:  "What?"

Ron:  "The mean mouse whisperer is scary.  Always growling."

Francine:  "Oh that...  Ron saw Mr. Barker hitting one of the rats with his flute and mumbling to himself.  Something about it being broken but it looked fine to me."

Georgette:  "When was this?  Before or after he started screaming?"

Francine:  "After his ear had a bite taken out of it, but before he started screaming?  Why?"

Georgette:  "The rats are attracted to food like most animals.  These in particular seem to be beyond any sense of self-preservation.  They're also supposed to hate high pitched sounds, hence the original Pied Piper of Hamelin story.  It's just that it doesn't carry very far and they get used to the sound to the point of ignoring it.  Now...  Has our Mr. Barker or anyone else tried playing the flute at them or other high pitched noises?"

Ron:  "Very shrill lady across hall.  U-Used to ask to not yell a-at television.  Screamed at mean mice, throwing pans.  Mean mice chased her in snow.  She made a snow angel."

Francine:  "Ron...  When...  When did you see that?"

Georgette:  "Crap on a stick..."

Ron:  "Bad words, bad words..."

Georgette:  "Sorry Ron."

Ron:  "Shrill lady tried running in snow yesterday.  Fell and made a snow angel before going quiet."

Francine:  "How didn't we hear her?  How?"

Ron:  "Sleepytime, shut your eyes and go to bed, wake up early, toast from bread."

Georgette:  "Rotten way to go...  But, it means that either the rats are accustomed to noise or they don't care anymore...  There goes that idea."

Francine:  "What idea?"

Georgette:  "Adjusting the flute's pitch, trying to drive the rats into a corner to kill them easier.  Still...  Ron, why'd you call Mr. Barker the 'mean mouse whisperer'?"

Ron:  "Be-Because after he screamed and screamed till he couldn't at them, the railing gave way and he fell.  He tried to scream, but only whispered for the mean mice to go away and they did.  I saw it, I did.  His friend Huck and I, we threw him a rope and Huck said a lot of bad words, but the mean mouse whisperer got back up."

Georgette:  "And no one thought to tell everyone else about this?"

Francine:  "Ron?  Why didn't you say anything to me?"

Ron:  "Huck said it was a dream, and to go to back to bed.  But I told him it wasn't and I was going to tell everyone the mean mouse whisperer could make the mean mice go away...  And he said that if I said anything you'd be mad at me for lying and that you'd stop visiting."

Francine:  "Oh Ron...  Ron, I'd never leave you over something like that."

Georgette:  "That's...  That's impossible.  Rats and humans don't even...  Wait.  Stupid stupid stupid!"

Francine:  "Georgette!  Stop hitting yourself, you're scaring Ron."

Georgette:  "Sorry, it's just...  Scent!  Rats in the same pack share the same scent and won't attack each other unless desperately hungry, or they're still infants.  These rats are...  Insane is the best way to put it.  Driven to attack humans by something.  Ravenous, but they wouldn't eat the dead rat someone threw back at them.  Why?  Because they smell the same!  Now, I know we all smell from lack of proper showering and whatnot, but even so, humans don't smell the same as rats.  Ever.  Not naturally at least.  So there has to be something else...  Something the rats have that they've associated with one another.  Mr. Barker was bit by one...  Something in the bite?  Bacteria?  Not the bubonic plague itself...  We've definitely got the symptoms of that in Jana and the others, but...  There's something else alongside it.  At least in the rats themselves.  It might be why Mr. Barker is so agitated and violently trying to get free.  If I had the right equipment...  We might be able to mark ourselves as one of them and just march right out."