Sean was panning his light over it, making gasping sounds in his throat. Its underbelly was set with roping, snakelike growths. I think I saw eyes…yellow, mucus-filled eyes…opening amongst them.
I was floored, sickened, offended…it’s hard to put into words. But terror belongs there, too, for never have I set my eyes upon anything as revolting, as perfectly loathsome as that gigantic grub-like rat.
The other rats had backed off.
It was all too obvious why: we had been led to this hideous mutation, unharmed, as food. We were living sacrifices laid down at the feet of this deformed, nightmare mother. They had offered her only scraps…until now.
And she wanted more.
Unfurling her glistening claws from the leathery sheaths of her paws, she moved forward. It was almost a hopping, slinking motion, a slithering. Everything seemed to move at once, a biological shuddering profusion.
A ribcage vacuumed free of meat tumbled down from the heap in her pulsing wake. At her feet, wriggling in the human carnage of bone and limb, were her young. Hundreds of hairless, squealing things with transparent hides. Misshapen like deformed fetuses, they wormed through the cadavers and skinless husks like maggots in pork.
This maybe is what put us into action.
The mother hopped down, her clawed, spade-feet slapping the wet timbers. Her lips pulled back from blackened gums, fence-post teeth licked by whipping tongues. A freight train roar of hissing anger vomited from those throats as she came on, her huge, pendulous teats swinging back and forth like sacks of grain.
Sean started shooting.
Something like this…something degenerate and perverse and evil…it had to be killed, it had to be crushed.
The first of Sean’s rounds from his shotgun pulverized one of the eyes like a rotten grape, the next blew a snout apart. Specs and I started firing, too. Bullets thudded into throats and clawing limbs. They snapped off teeth and bisected teats in sprays of foul milk.
“Run!” he told us. “Over there! Get into that pipe!”
There was a small junction pipe coming out of the wall. It was big enough to crawl through on our hands and knees. Specs and I splashed our way over there, tripping over things and pulling each other up out of the water. We fired at the other rats. Specs slid into the pipe.
I turned back and saw Sean empty his shotgun at the mother rat and then pull the pin on his phosphorus grenade. He tossed it right at her and dove into the water. There was a blinding explosion of white light and flames engulfed her, they spread over the water and up the jutting beams. Rats scattered.
Sean emerged a few feet away, shouting, “Into the pipe! Go! Go!”
Everywhere there was the awful, nauseating stink of cremated flesh and hair. The squealing, mewling mother and her legions as they were roasted alive.
On hands and knees I went through the pipe as fast as I could. I could hear Sean swearing behind me. Specs was way ahead of us. I could see the bobbing light of his helmet. Behind us there was nothing but the roaring of the mother rat and the shrill, angry squeaking and squealing of her pack. I figured we’d never make it. We’d be devoured alive in that narrow, claustrophobic pipe. But eventually it opened up into another main drainline. It must have been some sort of overflow.
I climbed out and Specs was waiting there, his grime-streaked face pulled tight, his eyes huge. Sean got out after me and led us through the water to a ladder. He went up first and handled the manhole cover. I doubted I would have been strong enough to do it. Then up went Specs. Then me, leaving the subterranean world of echoing scratching and screeching behind.
Sean pushed the cover back on and it clattered into place.
We were all sitting on the pavement in the broad daylight, nothing but rusting cars on an empty street around us.
Sean was breathing hard. With his helmet on, face dirty and sweating, he looked like a coal miner just up out of the shafts. He saw us looking at him and he grinned. Then he laughed under his breath. “Dammit,” he said. “I lost my damn Trog head.”
12
Sean was crazy.
Make no mistakes about it. After our adventure in the sewer, I was strung out: shaking, sweating, my guts tied in knots. Part of me wanted to scream and another part wanted to laugh uncontrollably. But I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“We couldn’t have seen that,” I said after a time. I was drawing off a stale cigarette, smoking it with both hands because I couldn’t keep it steady with one.
“Oh, we saw it, all right, brother,” Sean said, slapping my shoulder. “All kinds of crazy shit down below. Things that caught a good dose of radiation and then crawled down there to breed. There’s shit down there that’ll never see the light of day and we can be thankful for that.”
Specs hadn’t said anything. He just stared at us, his eyes glassy and fixed. Mostly he stared at Sean. Wouldn’t stop staring at him, in fact. Finally, Sean said, “Hell’s your problem, bitch?”
Specs was pissed. I could see that. “We could have been killed down there hunting for your fucking Trogs!” he said, letting it all out. “You’re a fucking maniac! Worse, you’re a fucking inconsiderate, reckless maniac who doesn’t give a shit about anybody else! Fuck you and your Trogs! You hear me? Fuck the both of you.”
At which point, he stood up and just started walking down the street. We followed him and I calmed him down bit by bit. Of course, Sean kept laughing about it and that only made matters worse.
“Don’t worry, little brother,” Sean finally told him. “I won’t ask you to go down below again. It ain’t your thing.”
He led us through the streets, keeping an eye out for the Hatchet Clans. About a block from his apartment I saw someone standing in the street. It was a girl. And she looked normal. She stood there, seeing us, and did not move, did not speak. I called out to her, but she didn’t answer. I motioned the others to hang back.
“Well don’t dirty her up too much, Nash,” Sean said.
As I got closer I saw that she was probably around college age, nineteen or twenty, no more than that, girl-next-door pretty with high cheekbones and big blue eyes, a honey-blonde ponytail down the middle of her back. She was dirty and ragged, but you couldn’t get around the fact that she was very stunning.
I held my hands out. “I’m normal,” I said. “So are they. It’s okay. Really.”
Her eyes were glacial, emotionless. When I got up close to her she came alive and there was a knife in her hand. I wrestled with her for it while Sean laughed and Specs panicked. Finally, I pinned her and it wasn’t easy: she was strong, determined.
“Knock it off,” I told her. “Nobody’s going to hurt you! Nobody’s going to kill you or beat you or rape you!”
“Speak for yourself,” Sean said.
“Shut up,” I told him.
I could see in the girl’s eyes she wanted to believe me, but there was doubt and who could blame her?
“I’m gonna let you up now,” I said. “You wanna run away, go ahead. We’re not coming after you. You wanna come with us, that’s fine. We have shelter and food.”
She gave me a hard look. “And what will that cost me?”
“Not a damn thing. You have my word.”
I let her up and she ran off, stopped, watched us. We just went on our way and paid no attention to her, but we knew she was following us.
“Well?” I finally said, turning around.
“My name’s Janie,” she said, offering me a sliver of smile.
13
We hung around for a few more weeks. I’m not sure why. I needed to go west. That’s what The Shape wanted. But I was in no hurry then. That didn’t come until later. Life in Cleveland wasn’t exactly fun and games, but I liked being with Sean. I’d never met a guy who was more resourceful. He knew where everything was. He had stashes of food, survival gear, and weapons all over the city. Later I learned all that stuff had been hidden away by the Cleveland chapter of the Hell’s Angels who’d been friends of his. They’d been preparing for war.