Dave: The Mouse Who Wouldn't Stay Down
Dave the Little Detective had been jumped before, but never like this.
He was tailing a lead on the super-corn pipeline — a mid-level distributor moving glowing kernels through a back-alley warehouse in the industrial district. The job was supposed to be simple: slip in, photograph the manifests, slip out. No heroics.
He never saw the boot coming.
Four thugs — two of them raccoons from the old crew Rico used to run with, the other two human muscle working for the network — grabbed him mid-sneak. They knew exactly who he was.
“Little detective thinks he can keep poking around,” one of the raccoons sneered, dangling Dave by the tail. “Time to teach the mouse a lesson.”
They worked him over good.
Fists the size of wrecking balls. Boots that felt like freight trains. They cracked his tiny ribs, split his lip, and smashed his magnifying glass under a heel. Dave fought back — biting, scratching, squeaking defiance — but size is size. When they finally tossed him into a dumpster behind the warehouse, he was a bloody, broken mess, barely conscious, his fedora crushed beside him.
He lay there for hours, rain mixing with blood, listening to the city breathe around him.
But Dave didn’t stay down.
He dragged himself out of the trash, one eye swollen shut, every breath a knife in his side. He crawled three blocks on his belly until he found a storm drain and collapsed inside it, leaving a tiny trail of blood that only someone looking for a mouse would notice.
The Rusty Nail crew found him at dawn.
Marmalade smelled the blood first. Brogan and Big Mike were right behind him. Major Rush arrived ten minutes later, silent and already armed. Vinny “The Weasel” showed up last, face carefully turned away, but his gold pinky ring was clenched so tight it left marks.
Dave was barely breathing when they pulled him out.
Brogan’s voice was low and deadly. “Who?”
Dave coughed blood and managed one word: “Raccoons… and the network. Warehouse on 5th… they’re moving the new human-grade batch tonight.”
The crew didn’t ask questions. They didn’t hesitate.
Brogan and Rush went in first — two old soldiers moving like they were back in the jungle. Big Mike and Frankie “Knuckles” provided the muscle. Marmalade slipped through the vents like liquid fury. Dave — bandaged, stitched, and against doctor’s orders — insisted on riding in Brogan’s pocket with his broken magnifying glass clutched in one paw.
They hit the warehouse like judgment day.
The raccoons never saw it coming. The human muscle put up more fight, but not enough. Brogan put two of them down clean. Rush handled the rest with the cold efficiency that made men disappear without a trace. Marmalade clawed the face off the lead raccoon who had stomped Dave’s magnifying glass. Big Mike broke the last one over his knee like kindling.
When the dust settled, the warehouse was quiet except for the low hum of the super-corn processing equipment.
Dave crawled out of Brogan’s pocket and stood on a crate, swaying but upright. His voice was small but steady.
“They thought hurting the little guy would make us back off.”
Brogan looked down at the broken mouse, then at the bodies on the floor.
“No,” he said quietly. “Hurt one of us… you pay the price.”
The crew didn’t leave any loose ends.
By sunrise, the warehouse was burning — a “tragic industrial accident” that conveniently destroyed the entire next batch of human-grade super-corn and every record tying it back to the network. The raccoons and their human partners would never be seen again.
Dave sat on the bar at the Rusty Nail that night, ribs taped, one eye still black, but his new fedora (a gift from Marmalade) tilted at the old confident angle.
He raised his tiny glass of milk.
“To the boys,” he said. “Small or tall… hurt one of us, you pay in blood.”
Brogan clinked his beer against the thimble.
“And in the long sleep.”
Marmalade flicked an ear, almost smiling. “Next time they come for the little guy, they’ll learn the whole crew bites back.”
Dave took a sip, winced at the pain in his ribs, and grinned anyway.
Because no matter how hard they hit him, no matter how many boots came down…
Dave the Little Detective always got back up.
And the boys always made sure the ones who put him down never got the chance to do it again.
