Swamped

"Let's check my room," Stacy says. It's a little surprising, considering how quiet she's been. "It shouldn't take long, I don't have a lot of things."

"Sounds like as good a plan as any to me. Let's move."

You all go to Stacy's room. It's surprisingly bare - there's nothing here except the bed and the closet door. You didn't bring a lot of personal effects yourself, but Stacy seems to have brought nothing at all.

"No piss in this room," Juliet says, glancing around. "Should we try the bait?"

"Do it," Eighth says, glancing at Ninth. Ninth puts the pouch down and opens it.

The rat starts squeaking, no doubt relieved at being loose. You watch the bed closely, but don't see anything.

But you do suddenly hear a growling in the distance.

"Y'know, they've got real good hearing," Juliet notes, as Tom Ninth grabs the rat again.

"Well, it's not like we counted on surprising the things," Eighth grumbles."Let's check the closet, just to be sure. If there was one under the bed, it would've gone for the rat, right?"

"If it was hungry, for sure. If it found something else to eat, maybe not. We'd been chasing the one on the farm all day by the time we had to bait it out, so it was pretty desperate for food."

"Nah, they pretty much never pass up a chance for a meal," Juliet says. "If there is one there, it's either asleep or wounded, and we'd have heard something if it were wounded. Plus we'd probably be seeing blood on the floor."

"We'll leave it for now, then. I'm opening the closet, everyone get ready."

Tom Eighth opens the closet, but there's nothing in there except some spare clothes. It seems Stacy has a very simple lifestyle.

"Seems to me the thing to do next is figure out where that growling came from," Mark says. "Or maybe we can just drop the rat out in the corridor and wait."

"No way," Eighth says sternly. "If we fight in the corridor, it's sure to escape. We want to corner it in a room to make sure it's dealt with. But you've got a good point - which room did that growl come from?"