It was mid-July, and the night was obscenely hot and humid. The Meteorological Institute of Massachusetts stated that it was 15-20 degrees above the historical average, a weather phenomenon never before recorded. The bedroom felt and smelled like an unwashed armpit. The building’s air conditioning was barely holding on since the dawn of summer, and now it was completely dead. The caretaker had stopped caring long ago, and sleeping on the top floor of this cursed concrete oven only added to the experience.

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       Lying in his bed was Mort Brooks, retired bus driver for the Arkham Public Transportation Office, APTO for short. He’d moved into this place after his pension failed to cover rent for his previous accommodation, and his life savings were enough for a magazine subscription. He got out of bed and opened the window. That was even worse. No sign of a breeze, just moisture, heat and noise. It felt like the sky spat in his face. Honking cars, homeless men exchanging genital-based insults and cats fighting over yesterday's garbage. It was all garbage. The cats can have the world. He closed the window and turned on the TV. Putting his head on his pillow, he groaned; it was warm and wet. He flipped it. The other side was equally wet, but colder; gross in its own unique way. The TV was showing the usual old junk, only populated by new faces now. Some girl was yelling at another girl because of reasons, the camera was shaky, then ads. Lower your blood sugar, increase your libido, eat at Joe's, but don't forget to lower your blood sugar. He turned it off, turned on a light and grabbed one of the two books that he owned. Some fantastic nonsense; a gift from a girlfriend from three decades ago. He kept it because he couldn't keep her. It was boring. He made it to chapter six; not bad for thirty years. He skipped words, sentences, yawned dramatically… then he heard it: the scratching. It was coming from someplace behind the drywall. A little bit here, then quiet. A little bit over there. Quiet. Then, suddenly, from the ceiling. Mice? Rats? One? A family of five? He threw the book at the ceiling and wiped his forehead on an old towel that was hanging from the headboard. It had absorbed enough sweat to make soup. The scratching had stopped. He turned off the light and listened. Nothing. He tried to sleep. It took a while. Doze off, doze in, until the snoring covered the newly resumed scratching from the ceiling.

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