The Rats in the Walls
Lorenzo Onrubia for Ambrose Delapore
A wealthy American industrialist from Virginia, moved to Massachusetts at age 8. Speaks with a faint Southern accent, though his years among “Yankees” show through. Type-A, domineering, used to getting his way. Haunted by the loss of his son Alfred, his grief feeds a growing instability. He carries a bitter grudge over the Civil War’s destruction of his family’s fortune. Bluster with moments of real vulnerability.
- american (new york)
- american
- male senior
- american (southern)
AMBROSE (hesitant, grief under the surface): Yes, Alfred… (slight pause) my son. He wrote to me about the Priory—about learning it had belonged to our ancestors. He became fascinated with our history, macabre stories and all. Truth be told, I had little knowledge of our line. There were some family documents once, but they were destroyed when the Yankees burned down our plantation, Carfax.
AMBROSE (hoarse, trembling): Christ! Not again… not again… Damn them, they’re in the walls… I can hear them.
AMBROSE (mad, panting, insane): me of a hideous thing, but they must know that I did not do it. They must know it was the rats; the slithering, scurrying rats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls.
