Detective Amaral had never seen anything quite like it, even after fifteen years in the Providence Police Department. He knew that his recent promotion from patrol would come with consequences, and visceral displays of vivid violence put on full display by the sickest of minds, but this was next level. The victim had apparently been singled out, cornered, and killed by nothing more than a swarm of angry rats. This was based on eye witness testimony; a pair of highschoolers were making out in the shadows of a nearby park and claimed to have seen every gory detail of the attack. They tore him apart, one excruciating bite at a time. Amaral spoke to them at great length on scene; both were visibly shaken.
“It didn’t seem real,” the girl said.
“Like a horror movie,” the boy was quick to add.
“All of the squealing, and his screaming was the worst part,” she admitted through tears.
“There was another person,” the boy blurted out nervously.
“Another witness?” Amaral was intrigued. “Where?”
The boy pointed towards a nearby streetlight, directly across from the alleyway where the victim had been found.
“What did he look like?”
“Some guy,” the girl offered. “He was tall and skinny.”
The boy urgently added, “and his clothes were all torn up, like he had been on the streets for weeks.”
“And he just stood there?”
The girl nodded vigorously, “Watching the whole thing, like he enjoyed it.”
While there may not have been a rat left in sight, they’d clearly caused carnage. The victim was male, but unrecognizable beyond that; nearly all of his flesh had been torn off, leaving only exposed muscle and tissue. A driver’s license was recovered from the man’s pocket, identifying him as Francisco N., age thirty-seven, from an address just two blocks over. A run of his name through the database would find him linked to a successive series of domestic violence violations dating back four years.
Amaral’s next stop was the deceased’s wife at the home. Her husband hadn’t been there all day; Fridays he was known to go bar hopping immediately after work, drifting in well past midnight, after she was asleep. Admittedly, he always came home angry for a plethora of concocted reasons. In fact, she was somewhat grateful when he hadn’t arrived, thinking that maybe he’d met a woman. She was unusually stoic throughout the interaction with Amaral, as if relieved to be in the victim’s absence.
The press ran wild with the story. Killer rats in the capital city became the prevailing headline. Every local agency felt the need to counter. Animal Control claimed to know nothing about more rats than usual in South Providence, nor had an infestation been reported. The RI Department of Health rushed to assure residents that rabies played no role, nor any disease that they could identify, for that matter. Providence Public Works was steadfast that they had been keeping up with regular infestation control throughout the city as a whole. Providence Police could attest that there was nothing that they could compare it to. The public was in panic mode; even the Mayor made an announcement that there was no evident risk to the people of the city.
It would go in the books as a horrific, but ultimately accidental death. No foul play could be determined, and Detective Amaral would be ushered on to his next case, a suspected gang shooting in front of a Cranston Street laundromat. The rat attack would have been buried in the headlines if it were not for an eerily similar occurrence two weeks later. The victim was another male, this one in his sixties. It appeared that he’d been exiting a bodega when he was suddenly, and viciously attacked by a flock of frantic and furious pigeons: at least a hundred, the store owner claimed.
Security camera footage of the building’s exterior displayed the death in grainy black-and-white that proved gruesome despite the poor quality. He was swarmed by a sea of flailing feathers, and almost entirely consumed amid a barrage of violent pecks and claw jabs. Shreds of skin, exposed bone and patches of clothing were all that remained. A search of the victim’s fingerprints would label him as a registered sex offender, and current suspect in three separate child molestation cases. Amaral followed that case to a dead end as well. That many pigeons flying around at night was odd enough, but there was no evidence of diseased birds or danger to the public as far as the police were concerned.
One week later, a twenty-two year old woman was found devoured to death by her own German Shepherd in her West End apartment. A search of her name would reveal her history of animal cruelty charges, dating back several years. When EMTs forced her door open initially, the dog slipped out and ran off, never to be seen again. The Providence Police were baffled; Amaral was racking up unexplainable cases. The people of the city were frantic. What is wrong with the animals of PVD? Who will be next? Is it in the water?
There was no closure, no valid explanation until the day that Amaral’s desk phone rang randomly. It was a woman’s voice, “Detective Amaral?”
“Yes.”
“I have some back story about your animal attack cases,” she offered timidly in a trembling tone.
“I am listening.”
“Tell me, have you ever heard the story of Guarionex?”
Amaral was suspicious as to the validity of the call and came off as cynical. “Enlighten me.”
“The indigenous Tainos believed that he could control animals with his mind to do his bidding.”
“Is that right?”
“Are you seated, Detective? This could take awhile.”