For the love of Writing 2

This week I am continuing my "for the love of writing" exercise that I started last week. What I've chosen to do is write a list of 100 random words, and each week I will have random.org chose a number.  Whatever word wins is what i must write about that day.  This way I can't go into any day with preconceived notions about what I'm going to write about.  I'll just have to let the ideas flow.
This weeks word is mouse.


I've never been one of those girls that screeched at the site of a mouse scurrying through the room. While I've never wanted to keep them as a pet, I had some fond memories of cartoon mice from my childhood, and I always stopped to look at them at the pet store.   All of that changed after the "incident." 

I had just moved to Kelmore with my boyfriend, who had gotten a job at the local hospital.  Not having a job yet I had a lot of time to explore the town, and I became obsessed with discovering the secrets of the "old neighborhood" as the locals called it.  Kelmore was a small town, so I couldn't understand why there was a whole four block radius on the west side of town, where no one went, not even the cops.  I heard the locals whisper about it, but whenever I tried to ask them what had happened there, they clammed up immediately. 
A search of the papers, showed nothing.  One year there were pictures of a block party there, and then suddenly it was as though it didn't exist anymore.  I had to find out for myself.

Finally, my curiosity got the better of me.  Joe left for work late in the afternoon, and I was forced with the thought of another evening spent alone.  I didn't allow myself to think on it long, I just got my coat and left.  In only five minutes I found myself facing the blackened, abandoned houses on the west site, and kept going.  I walked around for long minutes and saw nothing unusual in the neighborhood.  My disappointment was almost overwhelming; my only source of entertainment for weeks, and it all ended as nothing. 

Slowly, I began to walk back home, my mind so focused on my disappointment, that at first I didn't hear the sound.  By the time I finally noticed, it was too late, I was surrounded.  Looking around, there were thousands of tiny little rodent faces staring up at me, their little noses twitching.  My mind screamed at me to run, but I couldn't move.  Something about those faces had me memorized.  And then, my chance to run was gone; in a wave the mice were upon me, and I fell to the ground beneath the mass of them. 

Two days later I woke up in the hospital, and I told Joe that I didn't remember what happened, but an image kept going through my head of a dark man covered in mice, carrying me out of that neighborhood.  We'll be in Kelmore for years, and I vow before we leave I will find out what really happened in that neighborhood.  And I'll never trust another mouse, ever again.