After a dry spell of nearly six months came this happy occasion. I knew that some rats had come back to make their home in my attic. I had heard them for days, scratching around and moving furniture up there. I even saw them a few times in the garage. I came into the garage prepared with my gun one time but the extension cord to the rat detector was right in my eye and I missed the shot. So, the other night, I decided to run in there and do it "old school". I hit the light switch on my way in and jumped up the ladder. A little rat ran across the rafter right into "the corner of death" where so many of its hapless cousins have died before. So I let one go right into its back. It laid down sideways on the rafter and proceeded to "scream" over and over. I jumped down to reload when it fell off the rafter into a pile of junk behind the doghouse. After I had reloaded, I started searching through the junk, moving stuff around, and pulling the doghouse away from the wall. I didn't see a trace of the rat. Finally, out of nowhere, the little wounded soldier began to make its way to the other side of the garage using only its front two legs. Its rear legs had been paralyzed by the first blow and they just dragged through the thick garage dust all the way to the other side of the garage. By the time I got there, it was trying to climb into the wall underneath the drywall. This is very hard to do when your back legs don't work. However, its head was not visible as it attempted to pull itself in. I stuck the barrel of the gun on its back at point blank range and fired. Believe it or not, it motivated the rat enough that it made it into the wall with only its tail sticking out. I reloaded before going over to my toolbox to find some needle nose pliers. I'm one of those guys whose tools are always in the last place I used them so I picked up the next best thing; forceps. I reached into the hole with the forceps and clamped down on the dying rats tail. It was a fighter, clawing at the wood as I slowly dragged it out. I let go of the forceps and readied my gun. By the time I made the switch, the rat had dragged itself behind a plastic crate. So I pulled the crate out of the way. The rat stopped. I looked into its eyes. I really believed it was trying to communicate to me... "Just do it, I'm too tired and this hurts like a *$%&@!" I sweetly placed a pellet into its head and watched as its forehead swelled with blood. I've got to practice shooting more because if I had made a head shot on this guy, my story would have been about four sentences long.
There is some sweet rat blood.
That's the trail it made in the dust while dragging itself across the garage with two legs.
That's where it died nobly after a good fight.
Its a shame isn't it?