Like Rats

by Adam Watts

  Stan point across the road towards a clutch of larger retail units.

  ‘Bensons for Beds…’ I say, reading the sign.

  ‘Yep. Good old Bensons for Beds. Unless you’d rather sleep in Pizza Hut or Sports Direct?’

  ‘I was thinking of somewhere a bit more fun. Or at least somewhere fortified. You know, like a DIY shop. Somewhere with lots of weapons close at hand in case shit goes down in the middle of the night.’

  ‘But Bensons for Beds has beds. Lots of beds. You want a good night’s sleep, don’t you? Busy day tomorrow, searching for Eve and all that.’

  ‘Yeah… it’s just…’ It’s hard to build a convincing case against sleeping in the bed shop.

  ‘Don’t worry, Pres,’ Stan says, putting an arm across my shoulders. ‘No weapons required. Promise. And I wouldn’t be saying that unless I was one-hundred percent confident, because I fucking love weapons.’

  ‘Is that where you slept last time?’ I ask.

  ‘Nope. Wish I had, though. Come on, let’s find some food. And some beer.’

  Stan and I walk the streets, looking for places that haven’t been burned or looted. We end up in the main square, because somehow, the main square always draws you in.

  ‘What do you reckon that means?’ I say, pointing at the floor.

  Stan reads the letters carefully, each one daubed in red paint. ‘Paradise… No idea, mate.’

  ‘That’s not the first time I’ve seen it. I saw it painted in a few other places too.’

  Stan takes a good long look around us, as if taking in the splendour of an opulent palace. ‘Well it is pretty damn nice here. Good place to raise a family I’d say.’

  ‘Wonder who did it,’ I say.

  ‘Preston. Let’s ignore the graffiti and get on with finding some food. It’ll be dark before you know it and I’m not doing this in the pitch black. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

  ‘The heebie-jeebies? And there was me thinking you were the gutsy one.’

  ‘Mock all you like. You’d still be mithering away in your childhood bedroom if I hadn’t twisted your arm.’

  ‘Or I’d be burning your house to the ground.’

  ‘It’s not my house,’ he shrugs. ‘So long as you don’t burn Frida’s down, I’m all set.’

  ‘Speaking of our lovely Frida. I hope you told her where you were going this time.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I told her. She wasn’t happy, but I promised to bring her back something nice. Between you and me, I think she’s getting itchy feet herself. Women like Frida don’t do well in confinement.’

  ‘Women like Frida?’

  ‘Interesting, clever women,’ he says.

  ‘Not clever enough to have learned that you’re full of shit.’

  ‘You’re a funny boy, Preston. But speak out of turn about Frida again and I’ll smother you in your sleep tonight. Now then… less chatter, more food!’

  ‘Fine. Being smothered by you is no way to go. You know, now that I think about it, I seem to remember there being a little off-licence just down that alley there.’

  ‘That alley?’ he says, freezing to the spot. ‘That dark and narrow alley? What kind of maniac would put a shop down there?’

  ‘He sold cheap fags to kids.’

  ‘Fair enough then… let’s check it out. But you go first,’ he says, positioning himself behind me and poking me in the back. ‘If you’re right about this place, I’ll reconsider the whole smothering thing.’

  ‘I think that’s the very least you can do.’

  Stan responds with another finger in the spine. Vital sustenance beckons.

  SPONGEBOB IS A CRAPPY ROLE-MODEL.

  ‘You’re wrong, Pres. Dead wrong. Wronger than incest. Lois Lane is a proper good role model for girls,’ Stan says, staring intently at his hands, like a script is written there. How we’ve arrived at this topic of conversation is anybody’s guess, but I’m indulging him none the less, because inane conversation is the only means I have of taking my mind away from the more pressing matters at hand.

  ‘But she’s just a love interest,’ I tell him. Again.

  ‘I know she’s a fucking love interest, but she’s not just a love interest. Lois Lane’s a hard-working woman. She works damn hard, right? I mean… she’s got moxie!’

  ‘Moxie?’

  ‘Yeah… she’s a right spunky little bastard,’ Stan says, swatting at thin air with a limp and inebriated hand.

  ‘Something any young lady would be pleased to have on her C.V.’

  ‘Exactly. Now… where was I?’

  ‘Lois Lane is a spunky bastard…’

  ‘That’s it. So… she works hard, she has a career, she wins prizes for her work and she gets… the job… done. No fucking about! So…role model… to young women the world over.’

  ‘That is true. But she is still just a love interest.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is my point. Not only is Lois Lane a prize-winning journalist, she’s also fucking Superman! She’s literally having her cake… and eating it… and fucking a man with laser eyes, freezey breath and the power of flight. This is no mere love interest; this is woman who’s done very well for herself. If I had a daughter who’d done either of those things, I’d be proud.’

  ‘Your daughter getting pounded by an alien would make you proud?’

  ‘Yeah… Superman has a good heart. He’s not just a fucking-machine.’

  ‘That’s hard to dispute, but I’m afraid you might be talking shit, Stan.’

  ‘I am not. I’m saying that people go on about all these bad role-models for girls in comics and films and stuff and half the time they don’t know what they’re going on about. It’s not like the role-models for lads are any better.’ Stan takes a swig of the Mad Dog I lifted from the off licence down the alley. ‘Jesus… I’d forgotten how rank this stuff is.’

  ‘It’s all there was,’ I say. But I’m lying. There was better stuff, but I wanted to punish him with the worst booze in the shop. I’m aware of how pathetically passive-aggressive that is.

  ‘I can taste neither strawberry or kiwi in this.’ He takes another swallow. ‘Hey! You know who my favourite cartoon characters were when I was growing up?’

  ‘I’m too tired to guess.’

  ‘Wolverine and SpongeBob Squarepants. Can you believe that? Compared to Lois Lane, those two are fucking awful role models. A chain-smoking mutant with foot-long metal spikes coming out of his fists, and a fucking yellow square with shoes on its feet. I reckon a journalist who fucks Superman is a cut above either of those bozos…’ Stan takes another drink.

  ‘That tasting any better yet?’ I ask.

  ‘Nope. Tastes like your gran’s arse.’

  ‘Thanks for that image,’ I say.

  ‘You’re welcome. So… you glad we came out here or what?’

  Glad? Now there’s an odd choice of word when you’re having a drunken sleep-over in an abandoned branch of Bensons for Beds whilst knowing full well that in the morning you’ll be mounting a fruitless search for a girl who fucked your best mate whilst under the influence of a drug thought to turn people into rampant flesh-eating savages.

  ‘Very glad,’ I say. ‘Pass the Mad Dog.’ I take a long swig; I want to wash some memories waaaaay downstream.

  ‘We will find her, you know,’ Stan says, taking the bottle back. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll take the whole day and we’ll find her and get this all sorted out.’

  ‘The optimism is appreciated.’

  I’m glad Stan is feeling positive, but somehow I can’t see how we’ll manage it. We don’t even know where she used to live. And what if her house is ruined? Where would she go then? And what would it do to her state of mind to see her home gutted out by fire? A charred shell where there once stood a warm and familiar sanctuary.

  ‘You know what?’ Stan says, giving me an odd look.

  I shake my head. ‘Nope. I don’t know what.’

  ‘I’m happy to be here with you.’

  I blank my expression
and watch him for a moment. ‘Are you taking the piss out of me?’

  ‘No! I’m deadly serious. I’m happy as happy can be. I thought I’d lost my mate, I did. I thought you’d never forgive me for what happened with Eve.’

  There’s that thought again. The thrusting and moaning and clawing and…

  ‘But we’ll be ok, won’t we?’ Stan says, nodding.

  ‘Ask me again when we find Eve.’

  Stan cocks his head a little, like a spaniel who’s heard the lid being peeled from a tin of meat. ‘I notice you said when… not if. That’s the kind of positive thinking we’ll need. We will find her, though.’

  ‘So long as nothing finds us first,’ I tell him.

  Stan splutters on his drink, and only just manages to keep it in his mouth. ‘Thanks for that. I was just starting to forget about the dark and the silence and all that creepy shit.’

  ‘I never knew you were such a scaredy-cat.’

  ‘I’m not a scaredy-cat. Just got a vivid imagination.’

  ‘So all the talk about there not being anything to be scared of out here was just bravado, was it?’

  ‘When I was a kid, I was scared shitless of the Sugar Puff Monster. Proper made me want to mess my underpants. I knew he was just a man in a costume, I knew my chances of encountering him were slim and I knew he was nothing to be afraid of. But none of that stopped me being afraid. Fear is a primal thing, Pres. You can’t shut it out completely.’

  ‘Want to know something stupid?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah!’ Stan sits up straight, attentive, happy.

  ‘I used to be afraid of the chicken on the corn flakes box.’ Stan looks confused, like the booze has gotten into his ears. ‘Sad but true,’ I say. ‘It was the dead eyes. Plus, he looked sharp. A sharp, dead-eyed chicken. Freaked me right out.’

  ‘That’s fucked up,’ Stan says, folding his arms and shaking his head.

  ‘Mum used to refuse to buy any other brand in case it encouraged my ridiculousness.’

  ‘Your mum was fucking right-on there, mate.’

  ‘Maybe. Unless she was just sadistic. Pass the hooch over.’

  Stan takes a drink, sucks in through his teeth then passes it my way before opening up another packet of cheese puffs. Some non-branded type. Super neon. So much so they could probably be used to light up the darkness of Benson’s for Beds should the batteries in our newly acquired torches run out.

  ‘I reckon all women are a bit sadistic,’ Stan says. ‘It’s in their nature. They like to punish. To maim. Men are all about big stupid gestures, getting shit done as quick as possible. But women… Jesus… you fuck a woman over even just a little bit and she’ll turn you mad. In fact, they’ll turn you mad no matter what.’

  ‘It’s probably a chicken and egg thing. Maybe women inflict mental torture on men because we’re a bunch of shit-bags who basically treated them like shit throughout history. So… maybe we deserve the torture. Or maybe… we’d be fucked without it.’

  ‘That’s very philosophical, Pres. Probably why Eve likes you so much. She’s a clever one too.’

  I close my eyes tight, try to press out the bad memories. Force those images from my mind. Push, Preston… Push! Replace them with something better… like how she laughed, how her eyes flickered from side to side just a little when she looked at you. She made something burn so beautifully inside of you. Don’t forget that. Hold all of that front and centre in your mind. Find her. Let her explain. Don’t let yourself fuck it up.

  The urge to punch Stan sets my hands twitching.

  ‘You got lucky with her,’ Stan says.

  I shove a handful of the cheese puffs into my mouth and take a swig of the booze. The neon puffs (with a half-life of a thousand decades) and the Mad Dog create a vomitus slurry in my mouth. I look at Stan and wonder whether I should fire the whole lot in his face. It’s either that or swallow it.

  ‘You may not have made the most of your chances… but at least you didn’t take them and fuck them up.’

  I watch Stan for a moment. Is that remorse on his face? So hard to tell in the dim light. Against every urge in my body, I swallow the mouthful of disgusting gruel. My whole body shudders as it goes down. I imagine the colour draining from my face.

  ‘Did you want to know what happened with me and Tuesday? Because I meant what I said; I’ll tell you if it makes you feel better.’

  And though I’d love to finally understand what turned them from that sickly-sweet pairing into mortal enemies within the space of one magical evening, all I can do is run for the door and open my jaws to the pavement.

  ‘Another time, maybe…’ Stan calls after me.

  After finishing the unpleasant business of emptying the filth from my stomach onto the obliging street, I stagger back into the shop and lay myself down. The whole place is spinning; even fixing my gaze to a particular point on the ceiling does little to steady me. This is not how I want to be feeling. The prospect of night and it’s potential for untold horrors demands a little more self-control than this.

  ‘Pres?’ Stan says through a mouthful of filthy cheese snacks.

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Who’s your favourite artist?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered. Mine’s Giacometti,’ he says, sounding so very sure.

  ‘You’re a very strange person…’ I tell him.

  ‘You’re not going to sleep are you?’

  ‘Doubtful,’ I say, watching the darkness spin around me, hoping it’ll stop soon, hoping Stan is right, and there’s nothing to fear.

  THE WHOLE WORLD IS VIBRATING.

  I’m in the garden again. Mum tells me not to make a mess, not to dig too deep. She says not to bring that muck in the house, not to play with bugs and creepy-crawlies.

  I’m listening, but I’m also ignoring her. The ground is good and wet so it comes up in great dollops that you can force through your fingers like warm plasticine. With a little imagination and the right tools you could fashion this filth into anything. You could make a whole town, you could build cars and roads and towers so tall they block out the sun. I tell Mum my ideas but she tells me it’s late; too late for grand plans. She tells me to clean up and get back inside.

  The ground starts to tremble. It’s like the whole world is vibrating. You can see waves moving through the wet mud.

  I look up and watch the mushroom cloud rise in the distance. I turn to see my mum rushing towards me, her face contorted with horror. Behind her a towering wave of rats surges into the sky, ready to crash down upon us.

  My hands are filthy, they’re covered.

  Mum grabs hold of me and screams at my face in a thousand voices all at once.

  ‘IT… IS… LATER… THAN… YOU… THINK!’

  And then we’re engulfed by the gnawing darkness.

  I wake to the cold bite of the road against my cheek. Disoriented, dry-mouthed and aching, I stagger back to the safety of the shop. I don’t look up, but I feel the dying light of the stars burning down into me.

  THE KEBAB SHOP’S ON FIRE.

  It must have been some childhood Christmas or birthday when I last yearned so badly for the break of dawn. To say that I spent the night (or at least some of it) atop a grand’s worth of NASA-engineered memory foam and air-sprung-pocket-nodules, I barely slept. I lost count of how many times I awoke in the darkness, my heart at full gallop; every silence the herald of a screaming menace, every shadow an aggressor in waiting, every second that ticked past was a second closer to death, or to a dawn that would never come. All so real in the suffocating obscurity of night, but with the break of morning, such fears quickly evaporated. There were no dark figures at the windows, no footsteps on the street, no undead moans caught on the wind. It was only the night making its customary mischief.

  When I was a kid I sometimes used to freak out in the night, utterly convinced that there was a malevolent force watching me, plotting to kill me. My mum and dad used to tell me I was ridiculous, that I should grow up, and
no I could not sleep in their bed with them. In the night the threat seemed so real and I couldn’t see how I’d ever make it to morning. The prospect of day seemed so remote and uncertain, something that would only ever exist in prospect. But without fail, black became blue and the sun chased away the shadow of night; and without fail I would feel ridiculous and promise myself that I would never again let my mind be darkened by such absurd thoughts. In the warming light of day it was easy to forget the threat, but night inevitably brought it back. I don’t remember what eventually broke that cycle. Maybe it just took a different form. That’s what fear does. It twists itself, gathers camouflage, and then lingers in the seldom explored corners of the mind, so that one day it might trick you all over again.

  As much as I hated being in that bed last night, once day broke it was the only place I felt safe. The bed held me in a close embrace, an eiderdown cocoon to conceal me from the looming spectre of impending failure. The prospect of finding Eve alive and well (and perhaps even happy to see me) was but a single point of light in a dismal abyss of horrendous possibilities. I knew that dwelling on the matter would do me no good, but it was such a comfortable place to procrastinate.