The Chucking Mice of Morton Place

My story begins when I moved into the house at 3 Morton Place, Rosewood, North Carolina. It was a small house that gave off the feeling of warmth, comfort, and homeliness.  It was built in 1923 or so I was told by the realtor. It was a single floor with the living spa
ce connecting to the bedroom and kitchen. The kitchen connected to a room that I planed to use as an office, and to the mud room which connected to the bathroom and the rear porch. The house had a cellar, which was accessible from the backyard.

It was after the first week I had begun to notice them. Late one night I was awoken by what sounded like laughter. Nervous that someone had broken into my home, I found the oaken walking stick that leaned in the corner next to my door or stepped into the living room. I could hear the laughter more clearly now. It was coming from the kitchen. I peered inside and flipped on the lights. Sitting the center of the round table I ate my meals at was a grey mouse. Strangely, the giggling had stopped when I made the discovery.
He sat on his haunches, standing erect. Having grown up on a farm with a father who kept rats as pets, the sight of the rodent did not make me squeal and recoil. He rubbed his front paws together, like a villain plotting a hero’s demise. I scooped him up and set him outside.
Over the course of the next month I began to see more and more mice; scurrying about the wood floor, skittering through holes in the walls. Every now and again I would hear the disembodied laughter.
Not wanting to hire an exterminator, I adopted a tomcat from the local shelter. He was an orange tabby with emerald eyes and he took to hunting the mice rather quickly; making a game of hunting them, and leaving their torn corpses in front my door as some sort of morbid offering. The tom helped with the problem, and I saw less and less of the rodents.
But one day the tabby disappeared. I searched the neighborhood and called for him with no avail. Slowly the rats returned and I began to set out traps baited with cheese. Every morning I found each and every one with a mouse who’s neck had been broken by the iron arm.
The laughter continued, and were joined by whispers. I searched and searched for the source, thinking that a radio must be on, or someone was playing a prank on me and had hid a walkie talkie somewhere. But no matter how hard I searched, I found nothing.

One dreary afternoon, I found myself in the cellar moving boxes, when I found a pile of bones. They were small, to big to be a rat. I inspected them curiously, and that’s when I saw it. A tuft of orange fur. Standing in horror, I felt someone watching me. A pair of rats sat atop a shelf. Looking down at me with their beady black eyes. Their noses twitched. They began to laugh, quietly at first. Their eyes glistened. I pinched myself, certain that this was a dream. A dream. But I did not wake from a slumber as I had expected. I sprinted from the cellar and to my car, refusing to look back. I squealed out of the driveway, never to return.

Even to this day, I still wonder… What sinister things the mice had to laugh about. But what man would be able to decipher their high-pitched language. Who knows the business of the chuckling mice of Morton Place?

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This story was inspired by a strange wrought iron mouse statue that Snowflake told me about, that appeared outside her mother's work. She said it appeared a few months ago, and no one knows where it came from. I jokingly said, "Maybe it serves some eldritch purpose". She mentioned that sometimes when the wind would blow it looked like the statue was laughing, and I came up with a line, "Who knows the business of chuckling mice?"

The house it's self is based on my friends place. But I promise he doesn't have a mice problem.