Reddit Challenege #32

From Reddit user Papie:

"A story from the perspective of a mouse living in a house where a violent crime happens."

For Jack Combs this was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary. Like any other mouse, he knew there were things to do, places to go, cheese to snatch. Specifically a piece of cheddar on the counter in the kitchen. He had seen it earlier while scurrying across the floor to snatch a piece of dried onion that he spotted the day before.

Jack wasn't quite your average mouse, mind you. He had the capacity for sentient thought and reasoning, rather unusual in a rodent. Though he could not articulate his thoughts he certainly had them. His thoughts however, rarely ventured past the thoughts that a normal mouse would have, rather he simply took about his mously duties in a far more calculating manner than most. Instead of scurrying where his nose directed him he would plan out his capers into the wee hours of the night and execute them with blinding speed and precision.

Today was just another day to execute another one of his grand plans. The cheddar was in plan sight, he had an entrance and exit strategy and his family sure as hell needed the food. That damn cat, he thought. The feisty feline had eaten his best friend and partner in crime Terry McDonaugh, leaving Jack alone to provide for not only his own family, but Terry's as well. All in all there were 12 tiny mouths to feed. Expletives passed through Jack's mind as he cursed that wretched cat.

He knew the cat would be napping at 6:00, so he planned to make his move then. As the hour approached, Jack pumped himself up by listening to some Jay-Z on the world's tiniest ipod. He still could not believe he had gotten Steve Jobs to make the thing for him- it had been his greatest con yet- and he could not understand how they fit 32 gigabytes of storage into something so small. Nonetheless as he mouthed along to the lyrics of '99 problems' and replaced 'bitch' with 'cat' he prepared to make his run.

After carefully wrapping up his headphones to prevent them from getting tangled, he set down his ipod and burst out of his mouse hole with blinding speed. Getting to the cheese was a breeze and as he prepared to pick it up, something gleaned from the corner of his eyes that made him freeze. It was that fucking cat. Wide awake and standing in the doorway with a wicked smile on his face, Jack knew his only option was a mad dash to his hole. Both of them still perfectly still, Jack counted to three in his head and then made a run for it. Jack jumped off the table and the cat lunged forward, 5 feet separated them when it happened.

BANG!

It was the loudest noise either of the animals had ever heard in their short lives and even though they were so close together, and the car just moments from a meal of his own, neither one moved a muscle.

THUMP!

The thump wasn't as loud as the bang, but as both creatures turned in the direction of the noise, the next thing they saw rang as loudly in their mind as any noise. It was the owner of the house. His head and chest, bloody and lifeless, were sticking out of the doorway where the cat had just been. Jack Cursed his maker and the cat did too. Suddenly they were a team.

The two rival animals looked at each other and nodded, the cat knew that Jack's family was important. Jack ran as fast as he could toward the mouse hole in the kitchen and the cat followed close behind. Without any explanation, Jack demanded that the whole group exit the hole. None of them understood what he was saying or why they would ever ride on the cat's back like he suggested, but the look on his face was one of truth.

The mice and Jack all scurried out of the hole and climbed up. As soon as everyone was grabbing on tight, the cat made a break for the door of the house.

Running as fast as he could, the cat didn't even bother to look at his owner or the man standing over him a gun who was at present witnessing the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life: 12 mice riding on the back of a cat running out of a drug dealer's apartment.