VAMPIRE TUBE MICE
A crisp packet blows down the platform on Victoria underground station. With a bit of luck there’ll be a few crumbs left but is it worth the risk? I’ve seen too many of my mates flattened under someone’s shoe. I’m not even sure the passengers were aware that they stepped on them.
A year ago I would have said it was worth it but we tube mice that have turned vampire know better.
Underground station tube mice that is, we don’t like above ground platforms – too many things can go wrong like being eaten by the station cat or swooped up by a hawk whereas underground all we have to worry about is dodging silly passengers as they participate in the stampede they call rush hour.
I guess for normal mice it must be hard – always worrying about humans not to mention the food they find in cute green containers tucked away in nooks on the platform. I’ve seen hungry mice eat those grains and then watched them die horrible agonising deaths as they bled internally. An agony that had them begging for a human to end their life with a quick merciful stamp. You might laugh that some of us would fall for those poison traps but for us life revolves around food – sex is just something that has to be done when and where and the chances of getting eaten by something when you’re having a bit of nookie are high.
However when it comes to food we vampire mice are different. We’ve evolved and are not only smarter but our diet is not the same. Our blood meals mean we can last a long time without food. For us chasing after crisp packets is more a sport than desperation. Ok if we’re really starving we might drain a scrawny mouse to get some meagre nutrition.
So, I hear you ask, where do we get most of our blood from? Well from rats which is a little tricky as rats like to eat mice but there’s a certain frisson when the meal becomes the eater! Of course rat’s blood is a poor substitute for human blood, I mean look at their diet ugh, like sticking your head down a human’s toilet bowl! But they keep us going when there’s no tasty human blood around. If their diet wasn’t bad enough they’ve often got nasty diseases and you never know if they’ve eaten rat poison. Stupid animals, and they say rats are so clever – what a laugh – you’d never catch a vampire mouse eating poisoned food! However there are times we have to take our chances with rats and sadly a few vampire mice have met their ends when feasting on a semi comatose rat.
So, yes human blood is tops but I hear you asking how on earth can we feast off humans, wouldn’t they feel it? Of course they would, silly. However there are ways around that which I’ll tell you about now.
For some reason passengers get stupid when they’re travelling. They seem to check in their brains at the ticket office and then by some mysterious process they collect said brains at their arrival station. When they are brainless they lose their temper at the drop of a hat, get drunk, get stuck in closing train doors, ask the station staff daft questions – the list is endless.
However the most serious thing that happens to them (from their point of view) is they fall on the track or under trains. Sometimes they’re pushed by one of their fellow species. Why this happens is beyond me.
It’s best when they fall under trains then we can have a feast before the spoilsport Emergency Rescue crews arrive. It’s a bit of a rushed meal but the blood is delicious and sometimes we get quite dizzy and reckless. Fortunately the crew are usually too focused on removing the body to bother about some mice scampering about. I often wonder if they notice the little puncture wounds made from our specially evolved teeth.
However there’s another fun way we get our sustenance and this shows how cunning we are.
There are passengers even more brainless than most, that like to lean forward to watch the lights of a train approaching and then step back as the train thunders into the station.
And that’s how my granpa got his brilliant idea.
Humans either love mice or hate them. They hate them when they’re in their homes weeing and pooing all over the place but love them in tube stations. There, we’re cute little balls of fur and sometimes if we’re lucky they throw us nuts and things. So the knack is to exploit this human weakness and this is how Granpa found out how to do it.
It all started one evening – it was that time of year when passengers stagger around and the air is full of alcohol and they’re going home in a merry mood. One of them stared down at the track and said,
‘Oh look, there’s two mice playing with each other!’
‘Looks more like one is trying to shag the other,’ said his companion. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever watched live mouse porn ha ha.’ He threw his now empty crisp packet on the platform but Granpa ignored it. He had bigger game in mind.
Granpa heard an approaching train but decided to put on an act for said stupid humans. He and his mates ran around and squeaked and climbed on each other whilst being careful to avoid the live electric rail.
‘Aw aren’t they cute! How could people kill them?’
‘Cos they’re not veggie like you,’ said his mate, ‘you cant beat mouse on toast.’
He ignored him and leaned over to see if the mice had gone under the platform parapet.
‘Look, Geoff, I think those two want to make little….’ The roar of the train drowned out everything and there was a sickening hollow thud as the train hit his head in a splodge of red and flung his body into the suicide pit or “gourmet restaurant” as Granpa calls it.
I and the rest of the tribe rushed into the pit to lap up blood from the shattered remains of the man’s head At least we wouldn’t have to bite into the skin. We had to work quick as it’s sometimes difficult to suck blood out of a corpse even if our saliva has evolved to contain anti coagulants like our vampire bat cousins. The blood was delicious. My Granpa said the man had been drinking wine but not any cheap old plonk. He said vodka infused blood was the nicest – a sort of rodent version of Bloody Mary.
Granpa’s dead now but we still harvest those humans when we can.
So next time you see fluffy little mice cavorting and gambolling and looking so mousey- be careful they might be vampire tube mice headhunting you!