Rats in the Attic

By Luke Ramos | Grade 10

Excerpts from the diary of Herman Norovic, Holmbridge County, dating between 1937 and 1938, and relating to his hospitalization in January of 1938. Some of the information sheds light on his later account.

April 18, 1937

I don’t like the word quiet, nor a feeling. The stillness, the dead tranquility, gives me a chill to my bones. I’ve never known why.

I live in a grand estate out in the countryside, but I don’t have a perfect life, far from it. My parents were both only children, so my relatives are few and far apart. I am keeping this journal of my thoughts in the rare event that I have children and they question my solitary life before they were born. I live in a twenty acre lot alone. I inherited at sixteen, quite young for an heir to inherit, but my parents were taken by the Spanish flu of 1918. Since then I have always lived alone.

April 20, 1937

I notice now that I play music often. I think that I do this to take the place of speaking. I notice my habits growing stronger with an increase in my reclusiveness. I barely stray from a certain path around the house, and there are entire floors that I never frequent. Last night there was a rat in the kitchen. I killed it with a broom and threw it outside. I’ll let the weasels and the nightly animals dispose of it. It is the first rat I’ve ever seen in this house. A cat may be in order.

The following days have been removed from the excerpt for lack of pertinence. The next information of import is found months later, in August.

August 3, 1937

I didn’t sleep well last night. I feel like an old man, but I’m only thirty five years of age. No matter. I didn’t sleep well last night. I heard scuttling throughout the halls, at least I think I did. Are my ears deceiving me? What could possibly be creeping and scurrying around my house, dirty little feet on my carpets? I haven’t the foggiest idea of what it could be, but I can’t sleep with things in my house. I don’t want foreign creatures in my sanctuary.

On another note, my habits are on a steady increase. I don’t use half of the house anymore, and I tried to light a fire last night, but the flue wouldn’t let out the smoke. I haven’t cleaned it in two decades, not since I was a boy, so I’m not surprised. 

August 5, 1937

The scuttling continues. I went out into the hallway in the wee hours of the morning, but there was nothing there. I can’t sleep. I won’t sleep, not until I find out more. I won’t allow others to be in my home.

August 16, 1937

Sleep isn’t a necessity, I’ve found. I have been deprived for almost eight nights now, but I’m fine. I really am. The noises are all around my bedroom now. They’re all around and they won’t stop. Underneath, above, on all sides. I can’t escape. 

Throughout the day I stay in. I’m paler than usual, since the sun hasn’t alighted on my skin in many days. I haven’t spoken to a human in longer, but I worry not. You are here. You are here and I can pour my mind into your pages. I’m fine. I really am, but these noises, they’re draining me. Draining me of all of my life. I’m fine. It’ll all be fine in the end.

It is here that the submissions stop for a long time. They only return in one last submission, on the 12th of January, 1938. This last excerpt is the most disturbing of them all and supports Mr. Norovic’s statement pending his hospitalization.

12 January, 1938

I have finally seen the source of the noise. Rats. Thousands of them, everywhere. I have no doubt in my mind. They watched me this evening as I ran to my room from the kitchen, beady eyes staring with a red glow. They want revenge. I killed their brethren and they want revenge. They’re coming for me. As I ran through the living room, they poured from every crack and crevice. The flue had been open, but blocked by bodies, bodies which now slide out in a viscous motion and follow me. I was swarmed at the top of the landing. I’m bleeding, but I’m alive. I locked myself in my room. I am no longer alone. I have company, but only you are my friend. Only you I can trust. My mind is a blur, and I’m losing my sense of myself. You must understand. You must understand. I have no doubt. No doubt at all.

They scratch at the door. If they can get through they’ll have me, but I can’t let them. Thousands of scratching, prying fingers, searching for my flesh and awaiting the moment they will rend me to bits. I have no doubt in my mind. No doubt that they search for me, hunger for me. I must protect you of all the things that I must protect, you are of the utmost importance. I forget who I am now. Only you remember me. Only you will remember me when the rats get me. Goodbye. Goodbye. We’ll meet again.

Here the submission ends. Mr. Norovic was found in his house eight days later by tax collectors who were coming to speak to him about missing payments. He was found curled up in his bedroom, eyes wide, with the diary clutched tightly in the middle. He hadn’t eaten for 13 days and he hadn’t slept almost at all from months before. He had lacerations all over his body, but the item that had  caused these couldn’t be found. Mr. Norovic was taken to the hospital where his body healed slowly. His mind was gone, however. He told an account of what happened to him, although it only covered the last evening in the house. Included below is his statement:

January 14, 1938

Righam Psychiatric Facility

Patient: Herman Norovic, case on file

Digital Artwork by Thomas Price | Grade 10

“I can…can still see it. I can see it all, can’t you? I was swarmed at the top of the stair, right…right before my bedroom. I think on it now…and I realize that it was entirely silent as they descended upon me. No noise at all. Just silence. The only noise was my…my scream as they bit me and scratched me. I was able to shake them….to shake them off and get into the room. My room. One had sliced me…got me right across the chest. My heart. They…they were going for my heart. I know it. I just…just know it. But it was him who was the most frightening….right before I fainted. I heard…heard something from right outside my window. Something dark. I looked out and he was standing there. A man. He had….a shawl, or something around him and he was looking straight at me. His eyes….dead eyes, cold eyes. The rats were falling….falling from his shawl and scurrying towards the house. He said something, a…a chant of sorts,  and I heard it in my…..in my mind. He kept saying,

‘Come, child. Follow. Follow the dark’ And then he was gone.”

In the reading, the person he addresses wasn’t a staff member. He had apparently been speaking to his diary. Mr. Norovic did not speak coherently again until the moment of his death, in April of 1940. He had been going downhill, and the nurse who was with him upon his death said he turned to her, his eyes cold, and said something, after which he fell over, dead. What the nurse repeated upon questioning made no sense to her, however it makes all too much sense upon his statement in 1938. He had apparently turned to her and whispered, 

“He calls. He calls out to me. ‘Follow.’”