Chapter 9

Grady

Early July

Grady stood behind the Old Mill Restaurant, gripping two smelly trash bags in his hands. The dumpster lid was propped open with a rotting piece of wood and he stared at it, then at the bag in his hand. Could he throw it into the dumpster from where he stood? The last time he tried that, it had hit the side of the dumpster and burst open, strewing trash all over the asphalt. All while Shelley had been watching him through her small office window. No matter how much he insisted he had seen a rat near the dumpster, Shelley angrily insisted he clean his mess, which Grady did reluctantly while cursing his own stupidity the entire time.

Grady needed this job. He hadn’t needed it, that is, until he’d crashed his father’s car while doing donuts in the church parking lot. He needed this job to pay for the damages to the car and to replace the large metal donation bin he had crashed the car into. The bin was used to drop off used clothing and articles by community members trying to help out their fellow islanders. It had been smashed open, spreading its contents all over the asphalt. Clothing, lamps, and dishes had been sprawled out everywhere. The metal box had been bent out of shape, the door detached, and the paint scratched. There had been no way to repair it and so it needed to be replaced. This was why he needed this job, he remembered, as he arched his arm back, ready to throw the bag. The memories of his luck with spreading things all over parking lots and the stench of the garbage bag were the deciding factors against the idea.

“Third time’s the charm, my posterior,” he muttered, thinking himself clever. He walked to the dumpster while dragging his feet. He tossed a bag into the dumpster and winced at the smell as he did. He gagged at the rancid stench as it washed over him.

“What’s in that?” he muttered to himself as he cleverly tossed the second bag into the dumpster in a way that it struck the wood in the process, knocking it into the dumpster and slamming the lid shut in one fell swoop. Pinching his nostrils shut with his fingers, he looked around to see if anyone had seen his really cool toss and lid closing trick. Of course, nobody was around, he thought as he wished someone had seen him. He glanced at the window of Shelley’s office to see if she was watching and felt disappointed when she wasn’t.

A scuffling sound behind him caught Grady’s attention. He turned his focus back to the dumpster. On top of the now closed lid sat the biggest rat he had ever seen. Spooked, he took a single step back as the rat raised itself on its hind legs and hissed at him like a cat. Before he could react, the rat’s neck jutted forward and with its mouth open it sprayed the teen’s face with a hot, sticky, and rancid liquid.

“Fuck!” Grady exclaimed as he stumbled backwards a few steps before falling on his ass. He couldn’t see anything at first, the sticky substance blinding him. He wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt trying to see. He panicked, thinking the rat was going to attack him. Struggling to see, he scurried away from the dumpster backwards. His vision began to clear, specks of light pricking the darkness, but everything was blurry; he couldn’t see the rat anywhere. His eyes began to burn as he struggled to his feet. With one hand outstretched and the other wiping at his eyes, he stumbled to the back door of the restaurant. He made his way to the back room, found the eye wash station near the first aid kit and felt at it blindly, trying to understand how to use it.

Shelley, hearing Grady stumble about came to check on him. She saw him feeling around the eye wash station with his eyes closed and slime on his face. She pulled the cap off the eye wash station and helped Grady place his face on it.

“Keep your eyes open,” Shelley stated firmly at Grady while watching him struggle to flush his eyes. “What is that stuff?” she blurted, thinking this was so typical of Grady to do something stupid like this.

Meanwhile, Grady uttered a series of curse words while he struggled to keep his eyes open to flush them out. The burning sensation still raged inside his lids, but it seemed to dissipate with each flush of the cool eye wash liquid.

Once his eyes were cleaned and the slime seemed to be all gone, they went to the parking lot and got in Shelley’s car. On the drive to the ER, Grady eventually told her the tale of the large rat and how it had spit the slime all over him. Shelley assumed that Grady was lying, trying to cover up something stupid he had done. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he had done that. Besides, who ever heard of a giant rat that spit at you? Grady was definitely lying.

Later that night, with help from his mother, Grady had applied more eye drops prescribed that afternoon by Doctor Kingsley at the ER. His eyes stung still but it was mild now. The redness around his eyes hadn’t gone away. It actually had gotten worse with the constant rubbing. His vision had been fine most of the day; although he had spent most of his time laying in the dark with his eyes closed, listening to music from his cell phone, trying to alleviate the occasional itching without scratching.

He now stood before the mirror in the bathroom, examining the redness around his eyes. Grady tried to blink away the blurred vision and it worked at first. His vision cleared and he saw the redness of the contour of his eyes clearly. His eyes became itchy as his vision blurred again.

His doctor had suggested he could use regular eye drops in between his medication if he needed it as it would help with the itching. Grady put in several drops, hoping for relief.

Sleep wouldn’t come easy to him that night, but it came nonetheless. In a fitful dream, Grady was standing behind the Old Mill Restaurant again, but this time the rat was as big as a horse. It gave chase and eventually caught him, clawing his eyes out of his head as he tried to fight it off.

When he woke, the bed was damp with perspiration and his eyes felt like they were on fire. Grady clumsily grabbed his eye drops off his nightstand, stumbled to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. He leaned back, tilting his head and struggled to get drops into his eyes. Annoyed and in pain, he managed to get relief by emptying half the small bottle in the process, most of it running down his face. With his eyes closed, the cooling sensation of the drops took over, giving him a feeling of relief at last. Still seated, he began urinating while thinking he should have thrown the damn bags like he had wanted to in the first place.