The Visitor

One

There is a faint green mist hanging in the air above the streets of Merseyside this particular evening.

Not quite enough to cause alarm, that would come later. But enough that every now and again, a couple on their evening walk would pause and admire the wonders of the night sky. The human mind is very good at keeping itself safe.

But safety was not Oscar’s concern tonight. Why would it be. He was sitting in his home office, as he always was on Wednesday evening. As he worked on the latest piece his editor had convinced him was worth pursuing - a thankless, and truthfully, quite boring quest to uncover the mystery behind the increasing number of dead mice showing up around Birkenhead Park - the only thing that was competing for his attention was Julia, as it had been for the past three weeks.

Julia was an artist he had met at a bar, which considering he hadn’t had a beer in almost 600 days, had felt important. But Oscar had always liked attaching meaning to things.

Oscar typed out three messages he deemed not casual enough before finding the confidence to send “Hey, I’m sure you’re living the dream right now, but I’m about to go check out some dead mice in the dark. Can I interest you in a midnight stroll?”.

Oscar waited.

One minute.

His phone pinged.

“I already couldn’t sleep. Dead stuff sounds great. I’ll meet you there in half an hour”.

Oscar scolded himself for smiling. He’d spent a lot of time with Julia since they met. She brought with her this incredible ability to make him feel comfortable. He had decided not to tell her about his fear of mice.

Two

“A midnight walk around Birkenhead Park to find dead mice. It’s not quite bringing down the government is it?”

Oscar felt the tension in his shoulders drop at the sound of her voice. Even if she was making fun of him.

“Somebody has gotta look out for these mice. I think it’s noble.” Oscar poked back.

“And I think you’re an idiot” Julia said before she kissed him on the cheek.

Oscar hoped he hadn’t gone red.

“So. Theories? What is that brain of yours thinking it is? Poison? Foxes? Birkenhead Park’s very own Loch Ness Monster?”.

Oscar heard himself start talking, this was the park of the job he enjoyed. “I actually have no idea. I don’t think it’s poison because nothing else is dying. I’d be surprised if it was foxes. They’re dead but they haven’t been attacked. I’d assume foxes are eating at least some of the dead ones and we don’t seem to be stumbling across dead foxes everywhere, so again, I don’t think poison”.

He hesitated.

“There seems to be a lot of them showing up by the lake. A policemen told me they found fifteen almost gathered together like a crowd. Except they were all dead, obviously.”

Julia took a step forward. “So to the lake then?”.

He was going to have to tell her was afraid soon. But not yet. “To the lake”.

Three

Neither of them had noticed the man in the black suit stood just behind the entrance. He’s was glad of that. They were both wearing the rose tinted glasses that came with the early stages of courtship. A local journalist and his date were the least of concerns. But he was grateful he didn’t have anything else to worry about tonight.

The man swooped around the corner and walked straight ahead. The couple had turned right and would arrive at the lake before him. But the man had calculated that raising suspicion was unnecessary. Nobody knew what they were dealing with yet.

Three weeks and the public hadn’t noticed yet. Or perhaps they had.

Perhaps the human mind simply chooses to ignore what it cannot explain.

A helpful flaw, the man thought. Every wildcard complicated the equation.

Four

As he watched her walk ahead of him, Oscar let himself accept how much he liked Julia.

He’d spent the past two minutes in blissful ignorance about the mice all because he’d noticed Julia’s hair swaying across her back as she walked. He knew himself well enough to know that if he had forgotten his fear, she was becoming important.

That scared him too.

“Oi. There’s two of them here” Julia shouted a little too loudly.

“And here I was enjoying the walk” Oscar said only half jokingly.

She was about to find out.

“Come on then, they’re just here, look”.

“I…”. Oscar shifted.

“Fuck sake… I’m afraid of mice”. He shook his head as he said it before taking a deep breath. “When I was a kid, we lived next door to a shop that became abandoned and infested with mice. So our house became full of mouse traffic. They would run up the curtains. They died under the floor boards. I can still remember the smell”. He finally breathed.

“I’ve never liked them since”. He finished with a splutter.

He looked up, waiting to see the disappointment in her face. Julia burst out laughing.

Julia strode over and wrapped her arm around Oscar’s. “It’s a good job you’re cute. These two are definitely dead. Come on soldier”.

Julia led Oscar to the foot of a bench over looking the bridge across the lake. For a split second Oscar thought there was a green tinge to the water. But they were in Birkenhead Park after all.

“Here”. Julia said simply, pointing at what was definitely two dead mice on the floor.

“Okay”. Oscar took a calming breath as he approached.

“They definitely haven’t been attacked. There’s no foam around their mouths. Do they look almost, scared to you?… Julia?”.

Five

The woman had spotted him across the lake. For a second she had paused. Most likely because it was odd to see somebody alone at this time of night. He could tell by her body language as she approached the journalist that she was not going to be a problem. But he decided he would not stay for too long.

They were looking at the same thing he was. The dead mice. But he knew that they could not know as much as he did. And he didn’t know much.

A green mist had hit the atmosphere three weeks ago.

It was concentrated in the Merseyside region.

Mice had been found dead here for three weeks.

They all appeared to have died of cardiac arrest.

The mist was getting thicker.

The man could not do a lot with these variables. But they were enough that his team had been camped around the park twenty fours a day for the last three weeks.

He was irritated at their lack of progress. Tonight’s visitors had made it impossible for them to bring out their equipment.

He took another look at the journalist and the girl. They were huddled in deep conversation. They were not leaving soon.

And with that, he turned around and traced his way back to the black Mercedes Sprinter parked on Park Road East. Nothing good could come from staying out in the open.

Six

Oscar suddenly realised he’d been looking at dead mice for thirty minutes. The thought made him shudder. “Okay, so we’ve established they’re still dying. We’re no closer to knowing why. How about I tell my editor this is a non-starter and we go back to my place where we can exist mouse free?”.

“Tempting” Julia nodded. She was too deep in thought to appreciate the humour. “You’re really not going to like this. But I know somebody who could do a post mortem on the mice. We could at least find out how they died. I think we should take them with us.”

Oscar’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t how he had hoped the evening would go.

“I think you are a very sick person, Julia. Very sick indeed”. Oscar took off his jacket and scooped up the dead mice. “But I also think that’s a good idea”. He handed the mouse filled jacket over to her. “I’d much prefer it if you put them in your bag though”.

A grin broke out across Julia’s face. “Mr Romantic aren’t you. Give me the bloody mice”. She dropped them into her bag and clasped it shut. Oscar looked to calm a little. “Right, I’ll call my guy in the morning. Let’s go back to your place soldier”.

Oscar looked rather more pleased as he held out his hand for Julia. “Did I ever tell you, you’re fucking great”.

“You did and I know. Let’s go”