by Douglas Draa
The rat’s eyes popped open. It sensed something amiss. Another fish jumped and the rat knew it and its corpse were not alone. Suddenly protective of its vessel and food, it peered into the water with a shrewd eye. Small silver glimmers darted in and out, back and amongst each other. They bounced their snub noses off the corpse, taking small bits of the tattered flesh with them. The rat growled a sound that turned to bubbles as it lashed its sharp snout into the water and snatched a writhing silver thing. With a gulp it swallowed the thing and lashed at another. The fish were gone then, fleeing with the same instinct that had preserved them through the nightmare that turned the sky red.
The rat relished the taste of victory and flesh, and only then noticed that the bank was littered with shiny silver things like the one it’d just eaten, blistered and shriveled, but bigger. But they were too far away, and its appetite had just been piqued, so it took another chunk of flesh from the corpse and resumed its dreamy daze.
The night did not bring cold. Whatever had once been normal of heat and cold was no more. The rain persisted, a slow burning drizzle. The sharp edges of concrete and delicate details of antiquity’s marble memories had already begun to soften, melt away in the strange rain. The horizon was pocked with spots of light, like many suns that would take ten thousand years to set.
The rat once again looked into the face of the corpse, peered deep into its eyes. It smelled the mouth, nuzzled aside the lips with its snout. Its ears pricked at the smell of sweet meat. With its almost human hand, the rat scratched at the porcelain teeth until the jaw pried open. It creaked with rictus, and spoke to the rat, a long low moan. The rat didn’t notice the corpse sink a little lower into the water as it chewed away the swollen tongue. If it understood gratitude it would have thanked the corpse, and the corpse would have nodded and smiled ever so slightly as it did in life, always embarrassed by a compliment.
Suddenly, the river began to flow faster, more chaotic. Froth churned from the jagged edges of boulders. The banks became smooth concrete, narrowing, constricting the path through a flow gate, burst open in the nightmare. Waves bustled and pushed past each other to get through the broken dam like Christmas shoppers used to. The corpse was caught by one of these waves and pushed along with it. The rat dug its claws into the flesh as speed increased, for the first time afraid of something it couldn’t quite define. Death, perhaps. It hunkered down and braced against the crashing waves, too chaotic to even leap across when the banks neared.
With sturdy arms outstretched like pontoons, the corpse braved the rapids and fought its way through the center of the channel. A strip of pink tore away from its left arm against gnarled rebar, but it otherwise remained afloat and undamaged until it was spewed out the other side of the break and down a steep, rippled gradient of concrete. Here it caught on the grade’s textured latice that agitated the water into a wide canal, and the rat was thrown into the froth, scrabbling, panicking against gravity and current.
Several of the little silvery fish flopped down the grade as well, and the rat snapped at one despite itself. It missed, and was plunged into a deep, swirling eddy at the diversion’s base. Several drowned rats swirled with it. The threat of what that meant was lost on its panicking mind as it floundered.
A larger splash sent a gush of water that pushed the rat and several of its dead kind back into the current and it began to drift down the canal again. The source of the splash, its savior, followed after it, milky white eyes now looking towards the distant horizon as it listed in the water. Its sturdy pontoons had broken and were dragging behind it like a trail of tin cans tied to the bumper of a newlywed couple’s car. The rat swam towards it.
Partially submerged, but still swollen enough in the middle to provide a comfortable place to rest and dry off, the corpse continued its final journey. The rat climbed aboard and quickly went about forgetting its cruel tumble down the dam. Buildings began to rise again, in fractured bits and pieces, then fell away to become erstwhile farmland, now fields of skeletal crops. The heat faded a little, a cooler breeze drifted from the distant mountains that still had the ability to get dark at night. No one had lived there, and so they survived. The rat looked into those distant mountains, scenting the breeze that wasn’t quite fresh, but as close as breeze would ever get to being called fresh again. It climbed to the head of the corpse. Little waves rippling outward from the body as it did. Something unknown but familiar drifted in on that breeze.
Night came again, and the rat chased off the fish before its one eyed sleep. It was unable to eat any, so had some cheek meat instead. It woke some time later with a jostle. The canal had begun twisting in earnest through the countryside, like something that used to be a snake. The corpse bounced off the banks, but refused to be snagged by them. What were once trees and bramble had become brittle and black, unable to find purchase against the sodden flesh without crumbing into dust.
The rat got up. The familiar scent had returned, stronger. With a sense keened by a lifetime of darkness, it honed in on the direction of the scent in an instant. It hadn’t smelled anything like this for a long time, but knew exactly what it was. Another rat—and still alive.
Two reflective eyes glinted across the canal, watching the corpse and its rider. The rat became agitated with excitement, but was wary of swimming across the tepid water. The corpse continued on, leaving the eyes in the darkness. If the rat had not known loss before that point, it would have learned it then. It nestled close to the face of the corpse and took solace in it.
Morning brought hunger. Rats are always hungry, and it had been a long time since it ate. By some new, or perhaps very old, instinct the rat knew not to eat the corpse while it floated on the water. If mankind’s evolution had developed sentimentality to prevent the destruction of needed things, then this rat’s genetics taken that fortunate leap forward in understanding. However, as the day wore on, and no more fish were forthcoming, the hunger grew. As with all living things, old instincts run the deepest, hunger precedes prudence, just as it had for those whose hunger for destruction had preceded the nightmare. The rat grew impatient and resentful towards its own better judgment. Compulsion always wins against learning in the end, and so the rat acted against its own good and began chewing again on the soft flesh of the corpse.
The silence of the end of the world was breached by a sucking pop, followed by the slow hissing of gas from the sodden gut. This time the rat did notice the corpse sinking, but it was too late. As it found itself floundering again in the current of the canal, swimming for the far side, its nascent sense of sentimentality felt sorry for betraying the corpse. If it had been alive, the corpse would have forgiven the rat—it always forgave if it could.
The corpse disappeared beneath the current, finding neutral buoyancy just a few inches under the surface . It continued drifting, now staring at the red sky through a shallow lens of murky water. The corpse would have felt like it was floating in a womb, if it could have.
It was once more alone. Long ago it had left the other corpses behind and had reentered solitary country. Every few miles a car could be seen overturned on the banks with maybe the black silhouette or white bones of someone else who’d made an admirable attempt to get away. But those corpses were too far away, to alien to the river corpse to offer any companionship that the corpse wouldn’t feel, but may have, once.
Many lonely days passed. More dams were breached, more flesh was lost. Once the corpse snagged on the debris of what used to be a recognizable thing, but it broke free eventually. Fish made good work of its back and legs, soon nibbled down to yellow bone. One night after the left hip had lost too much of itself, it drifted free of the corpse, like a ship cutting lose a dragging life boat, and sank into the black. The corpse bobbed back above the surface ever so slightly, and would have breathed deeply with a wide smile if it could have.
All around the canal were glowing remains of things. The rain had turned black with ash. Som
e of the ash managed to dodge all the raindrops and stuck wetly to the tarnished paint of once bright things. A black patina struggled to cling to the shattered world between rivulets of burning rain.
The breadth of the canal became much wider. It quickly turned into a large pool that flooded over the streets of what was once a country town. Eddies and currents pushed the corpse on a scenic journey between cars and lamp posts, mail boxes and old, brittle shrubs. It was a quaint stroll through a small piece of human nostalgia. Still, the corpse went on drifting until it came to the cause of the flood. It was another dam, but this one wasn’t built by mankind. It was, instead, built of mankind. Sometime ago, during the nightmare, a narrow spot in the canal’s path had become obstructed by something. What that thing was couldn’t be told, because it had soon been joined by another something, then another, until there was a dam of debris, including not a few of the bodies of the people who’d preceded the corpse on this journey. Many white faces of many former people piled up against all of the things they once held dear. The corpse drifted through the reservoir, languidly taking one last meandering diversion before finally joining everyone else. If it could still have felt, it would have been glad to be home, it would have wondered why it had ever run from its people to begin with.
From far away, two sets of glimmering eyes watched the corpse return to its people. They stared for no longer than they had to, then, with a nascent sense of satisfaction, headed toward the dark mountains where no one had ever lived.
▲
GETTING THIN, by DJ Tyrer
It was the same worry that seemed to afflict everyone: was she fat?
If Ellie was honest, then the answer to that niggling thought had to be ‘yes’. She wasn’t morbidly obese, nor even as fat as a lot of people seemed to be, but she certainly had some flab.
“Am I fat?” she asked her boyfriend.
Jack winced. “Darling…”
“Well?”
Taking a deep breath, he said, “I suppose you could stand to lose a pound or two.” He glanced away and hunched slightly as if expecting an outburst.
She sighed. “Yes…”
“I mean, we all could,” he said hastily, reaching down to pat his stomach. “See, a couple of pounds more than I need.” He gave her a hopeful grin. “It’s the modern way of life: too much snacking and not enough exercise. Not that you’re bad or anything. You’re barely fat at all.”
She nodded. “I know. But, still…” She felt her own stomach. “What should I do?”
“Take up jogging?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t do running.”
“Um… aerobics?”
“Also too sweaty.”
Jack opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Then, he said, “You could always join one of those diet clubs. You know, count calories and stuff.”
“Hmm.” She chewed her lip and mulled it over. “Yes, that would work. I could do that, and I might make some new friends.”
“Yeah, it could be good.”
She nodded. “Yes. I think I’ll go online and look for one, right now.”
He let out a sigh of relief. “Good idea.”
* * * *
It had been easy to find a club. In fact, there had been plenty to choose from. In the end, Ellie took the obvious course and chose the one that was nearest to her home.
“No sense having to walk further than I need to,” she told Jack, who refrained from saying anything.
Flabbattle met three times a week, so Ellie didn’t have to wait long to join up. She’d already signed-up online.
“Hi,” said a woman several dress sizes larger than Ellie as she entered the hall, “I’m Ange and you must be Ellie.”
“Yes. How—?”
“Did I know your name? Simone told me. Simone runs the club,” she quickly added, then smiled widely and said, “Welcome aboard.”
“I want to lose a few pounds,” Ellie said, pointlessly.
“Don’t we all, dearie?” called a voice that flowed and cloyed like treacle.
Ellie turned to see an enormous woman. The newcomer wasn’t just fat; she was immense. Yet, despite her girth, she moved with a peculiar grace.
“Hello,” she said, her voice as heavy and agile as her body, “my name is Simone.”
“Oh, hi. Ange just mentioned you.”
“All bad, I trust,” she tittered. “As she said, welcome aboard. It’s always good to see some fresh meat.” She burped, a deep and unpleasantly wet sound. “’Scusee!”
Other members of Flabbattle were beginning to arrive and Simone moved to greet them.
“No Henrietta?” Simone asked when everyone was assembled. “Dear, dear, what a shame—I do hope she hasn’t fallen off the wagon.” She cast her gaze over the assembled ladies. “Remember, overeating is an addiction, fatness is a disease, and dieting is a battle to overcome your demons and restore the real you.”
Then came the weighings and the rejoicing at weight lost and grief at weight stubbornly clinging or even gained, followed by confessions of bad habits and barriers to weight loss, or tips for success. Finally, Simone stood before them and lectured them for a while. Ellie wasn’t too keen on her haranguing style, but the fact that no chairs were provided and they all had to stand like acolytes surely burnt a lot of calories.
“I’ll see you all in a couple of days,” called Simone as they filed out. “Oh, Ange, a quick word, if I may.”
Ellie waved goodbye to Ange and followed the others out.
* * * *
“How did it go, darling?” Jack asked when Ellie arrived home. There was a cup of tea waiting for her.
“Well, to be honest, I’m in two minds,” she said. She took a sip, considering. “Simone, who runs it, is a bit too much, but I think I got a couple of decent tips out of it, and it’s motivation, so it’s probably worth it.”
She took another sip, then said, “Hey, how about some biscuits?”
* * * *
The next session went much as Ellie’s first had, although there was no sign of Ange. Spotting Simone, she thought the woman seemed even larger than ever.
“What a shame,” Simone said, multiple chins wobbling, “I do hope she isn’t ill—or back on the biscuits.”
Ellie forgot all about Ange in her annoyance at finding she’d gained half-a-pound in just two days.
“Never mind dearie,” Simone cooed, “time will tell.”
“Well, I did have a couple of biscuits with my tea,” Ellie admitted when it came to the confessions. The others commiserated her for her weakness in the face of temptation, except Simone who tutted at her. Ellie listened intently to the tips, in the hope of learning something useful.
Then came the lecture, slightly marred when Simone belched in midflow. “’Scusee,” she chuckled, then went on.
Concluding, she called, “I’ll see you all on Friday,” as they began to shuffle away.
Catching Ellie’s eye, Simone waved and said, “A quick word, if I may?”
Allowing the others to leave without her, Ellie walked over to her. “Yes?”
Simone smiled, glutinously, and said, “I like to tailor our assistance to each individual member’s specific needs.”
“Oh, that would be useful.”
“Well,” Simone continued, “I don’t have time now, but maybe you could come in an hour early on Friday.”
“Sure. That’d be great.”
“Right, I’ll see you then.” She burped loudly, chins wobbling. “Oops! ’Scusee!”
* * * *
“Biscuit?” Jack asked, holding out the packet.
Ellie started to reach for one, then retracted her hand. “Uh, no thanks.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’m watching my weight,” she told him, firmly.
* * * *
“Hello?” Ellie called. The hall was empty. She glanced at her watch; she was well over an hour early. Maybe Simone wasn’t in yet.
Then, she noticed the dress, lying in the corner of the room. It was a ghastly floral tent that she remembered one of the other women wearing. She racked the brain. Mary, she thought the woman was called. Why she would be here so early and wandering about without a dress on, she had no idea.
“Mary? Simone?” she called, bemused, wondering what she might have stumbled upon.
Ellie was just about to turn and leave when she heard a great rumbling belch, one that actually made the windows rattle in their frames. It had come from somewhere in the back of the community building.
Ellie laughed nervously at the noise. She wondered what to do, whether to stay or go. Curiosity got the better of her and she crossed to the rear door of the hall and she eased it open.
“Hello?” she called, but softly, uncertain if she wanted a response. The doorway opened into a wide hallway with flaking beige paint and damp patches on the walls. There was a wet smear along the cracked and scratched lino that she immediately thought must be blood; but it wasn’t, she realised; it was something else, dark and viscous, like grease or bile.
She followed the smear along the corridor, ignoring the various doors, save for that at the end, which she threw open.
The door led into an office which, under normal circumstances, was probably quite spacious, but which, today, was extremely crowded. The reason it was crowded was because Simone was in it and she practically filled the entire room. The rolls of flab that surrounded her and which rippled as she craned her neck to look at Ellie were far more than any person had any right to possess. Her skin was glossy with the greasy liquid. The effect was monstrous.
