In the old town of Salem, where witches and perverse cults were once hunted down to be burned at the stake, there are dark secrets, so dark that the oldest residents quake in fear when someone brings up the often rat infested abandoned houses sprinkled throughout the city.

Old Masson is a gravedigger, and though the rats are incredibly large in his little section of the world, he puts no stock in such foolish stories. But the miserable creatures keep stealing bodies from coffins, dragging them down tunnels just big enough for a man to go through! This is particularly frustrating for Old Masson, because those bodies often have valuables on them which he could definitely put to better use than the rats!

Originally published in Weird Tales, March 1936.