Too Many Humans

by Jacob Rayne

  A hole appeared, instantly filled by the pale, panting head of a Pug dog.

  He tore the plastic a bit more, revealing another, smaller, head on the right side of the stubby neck.

  The dog jumped onto him, catching him off guard and sending him arse over tit into the rubbish.

  The feel of the rotting garbage on his skin made him gag a little.

  The dog was on his chest, panting, a glazed look in its eyes.

  Its weight crushed the breath from him.

  He reckoned it must have weighed at least five stone.

  It was muscly, but wasted.

  It had a hungry look in its eyes as it bent down.

  Its dark jaws opened, revealing twin rows of razor sharp teeth.

  The stench of decaying flesh assailed his nostrils.

  He did his best to roll it off him, but it was much too heavy, even in its emaciated state.

  There was nothing he could do to stop it as its open jaws drew ever closer to his throat.

  Davey threw his hands up in a vain attempt to stop the dog’s razor teeth taking out his throat, but there was no need; the dog seemed to give him a smile that went all the way up to its eyes, then a blackened tongue flopped out, flaccid and stinking and dripping with foul-smelling fluids, and rasped up his left cheek.

  Before he could do anything – his first reaction was to let out a nervous laugh at the realisation that the dog had wanted to merely thank him for his help – the sorry creature had lifted its weight from him and darted off into the darkness.

  He winced as he caught scent of the slaver it had left on his face – it stunk worse than the garbage, arguably worse than an open grave.

  ‘Hey, wait,’ he called out, temporarily forgetting that he was meant to be creeping his way through the twilight. He whistled. ‘Here, boy. Here, boy.’

  But the oversized Pug, with its second head and bizarre, mottled flesh, had disappeared.

  Davey continued trudging through the garbage for what felt like an eternity.

  He found things more disturbing than ever among the garbage – the remains of a dog, charred and half-eaten, in a burst bin bag.

  A few yards later, he found a dead child in the same state.

  The world was fucked now, no doubt about it.

  Maybe the dead are the lucky ones, he reflected idly.

  At least they’re free from this hell now.

  A rustling among the garbage jolted him out of his thoughts.

  He looked across to see a rat perched on top of a pile of bin bags.

  He felt sure it was the same one he had scared off earlier.

  It looked pissed, its hackles up, hissing through its curved, knifelike teeth.

  Its jaundiced eyes seemed to stare through his skin as if already savouring the delicacies concealed within.

  With startling speed, it jumped at him.

  He fired, his shot going wild as it hit his chest with the force of a hammer blow.

  Razor sharp claws grasped his shirt, easily tearing the thick fabric and scoring bloody furrows in his torso.

  Blood plastered the garment to his skin.

  The rat seemed to become revitalised by the smell of his blood.

  Davey put one hand on its matted, gore-streaked fur and shoved with all his might.

  He succeeded only in making its claws skid across his skin, liberating more blood.

  It squealed, seemingly in glee, probably at the thought of finally getting a live meal.

  As its dirty grey tongue – forked too, he noticed – flicked out, lapping hungrily at the blood on his t-shirt, he found he was suddenly furious.

  His right hand came across, slamming the gun butt into the side of its ribs.

  It let out a horrid cry that made it seem like his ear drums had been ignited and fell from him, tearing off a few small chunks of flesh as its claws came loose.

  It landed hard on its back, hissing and snarling.

  Blood sprayed from its jaws in a fine mist.

  It rolled onto its belly and reared back, hissing like a hundred snakes.

  Before it had chance to pounce, he ran.

  He prayed his footsteps were sure, that he didn’t slip and land on his back among the garbage, ready for the rat to dive on him and begin its feast.

  His legs and lungs already blazed.

  It felt like he’d endured far too much even in this short time.

  He was already sick of running.

  Sick of fighting.

  Sick of being scared and hungry and in danger.

  The rat hissed, seemingly only a few feet behind him.

  He could hear its claws clacking across the burst garbage bags and the picked-clean carcasses of whatever poor wretches had ended up out here in the wastelands.

  He didn’t dare turn round, in case his lead was suddenly gone.

  The way the rat was chasing him was beginning to unnerve him.

  He tried to veer to the right and found that the rat moved towards him, but when he went left, it didn’t seem to mind.

  In his terror-induced state – he had never really been scared of rats, but these things were big and vicious and scared the shit out of him – he didn’t realise what was going on until it was too late.

  The rat went for him, knocking him to the left.

  And he finally realised that it knew exactly where it wanted him to go.

  He was being shepherded.

  But by the time he figured this out it was too late as he was already falling down a steep slope of garbage bags.

  Davey had no idea how long he fell, but it felt like an eternity.

  He landed, stunned and disoriented, in a heap at the bottom.

  At least the bags were soft enough to break my fall.

  All of the bags around here had been torn open, presumably in a quest for food.

  He aimed carefully as the rat raced down the slope towards him.

  The bullet thudded into the bin bag just beneath the rat, sending a plume of rotten garbage into the air.

  The rat didn’t seem fazed by the gunshot, just hissed again and kept on coming.

  He could tell it was thinking about tearing the flesh from his bones and slurping it down.

  The thought sickened and terrified him.

  He backed away from it until his heels hit something hard.

  He looked down to see a human skull.

  It was sun-bleached, long picked clean.

  A few trails were scored into the bone, making it obvious the rats had dragged their teeth across it in an attempt to remove every scrap of flesh.

  Vast piles of bones were scattered all around.

  He reckoned there were at least fifty skeletons here.

  The sound of bones knocking against each other made him spin and he saw another rat, even bigger than the first, emerging from between the ribs of one of the skeletons.

  It was joined by another.

  And another.

  And a fourth.

  They kept on coming.

  Black, obese things that seemed to melt out of the darkness.

  They were foul, stinking creatures, with murder in their eyes and death on their tongues.

  Painfully aware of his lack of bullets, he took his time lining up a shot on the nearest one.

  He pulled the trigger, blowing a fist-sized portion of its skull away in a dark cloud of blood and splintered bone.

  He felt a grim satisfaction but knew that this battle was not going to be won easily, if at all.

  Some of the other rats had flinched a little at the gunshot, but they were undeterred.

  Hunger was seemingly a greater motivator than fear.

  The dying rat fell away, gushing blood all over the bin bags beneath it.

  It sounded like heavy rain falling on a window pane.

  It slowly fell still, its jaws twitching.

  It seemed food was on its mind right up until its dying breath.

  While he watched it, the others crept in.

  He lined up a
nother shot, but felt a sharp pain behind him.

  He looked down to see a rat merrily sinking its teeth into his right calf.

  The pain was instantaneous, like having serrated blades thrust deep enough into his flesh to scrape the bone.

  He cursed, turned, and whacked down at it with the gun butt.

  It fell back, stunned.

  Keep attacking while it’s hurt.

  He continued hitting it until it fell still, blood pouring from its boil-covered mouth and the rents in its misshapen skull.

  But before he could celebrate this small victory, two more of the vile creatures were sinking their teeth into him.

  One hit him at groin level, sinking claws and fangs into his right thigh.

  The other sucked greedily at his wounded calf.

  While he frantically tried to swat them away, a third latched onto his other ankle.

  He realised that they were trying to sever his Achilles, so he couldn’t walk.

  Despite the horror of the situation, he couldn’t help but marvel at their ingenuity.

  He pulled the trigger, sending the one on his chest to rat heaven, and spun to fire at the two on his legs.

  One saw his intent and pulled its teeth free.

  The teeth must have been barbed, as it tore a large chunk of his calf loose.

  The other dived for his gun hand, its teeth seeking to sever his thumb and eliminate the problem of his weapon.

  He thought fast, pulling free his knife with his left hand.

  His blade opened its throat.

  Diseased blood showered him.

  It stunk and seemed to cling to him like a shadow.

  He shot another point blank in the face, further spraying himself with reeking gore.

  It hit the floor with a wet splat, but there were already a dozen more appearing from among the piles of bones.

  4.3

  Davey was mentally and physically exhausted, and losing a lot of blood from his manifold wounds.

  He had no idea how long he could maintain this frantic pace, but he vowed he would fight the vile rats until his dying breath.

  Not like that’s going to be long from now.

  You’re fucked.

  His arms were like lead as he swung the knife.

  He felt too weak to even lift the gun now.

  And still the rats came.

  No matter how many he put down, another dozen seemed to appear.

  Finally a strange sound seemed to press pause on the confrontation.

  He looked up and saw the dog he’d rescued standing on top of the garbage mountain high above him.

  It barrelled down the slope, head-butting one of the rats in the side.

  The sickening sound of splintering ribs echoed, and the rat fell, blood seeping out of its mouth.

  The dog went full force into the rats, snapping the largest one between its biggest set of jaws and clamping down hard enough to bite its squealing head clean off.

  It shook it from side to side like a stinking chew toy then threw it to the floor in a hail of blood.

  Some of the rats abandoned Davey and went for the dog.

  The smaller head on its back helped to keep an eye out for the rats that approached from behind.

  Both mouths tore into the rats, shredding them and spitting out bloody chunks.

  A huge, black rat hit the dog’s side with an ear-splitting slap.

  The dog growled, dropping the rat that hung limp in its blood-smeared jaws.

  The rodent’s teeth dug deep into the dog’s flank, drawing twin streams of blood.

  A sickly grin was on its lips, as it took greedy pulls on the wound.

  Davey watched all of this in a trance.

  Until a second rat thrust its scimitar teeth towards the fleshy jowls beneath the dog’s throat.

  They sunk in just enough to draw blood, but the dog’s cry of anguish jolted Davey into action.

  He picked up a skull from beside him – a finger in each eye socket and his thumb in the nose, like an ivory bowling ball – and hurled it at the rat.

  It gave up its attempts to open the dog’s throat and instead turned towards him, hissing.

  ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ he scowled, wishing desperately that this boast was true.

  It stood its ground, up on its hackles, veins standing out like worms beneath its skin.

  Davey made the first move, but only by a split second.

  It began to dive for him, but he was ready and hit it in mid-air with another skull from the pile.

  There was a meaty thud and a thick spray of blood from the rat’s jaws.

  It landed in a twitching heap on the carpet of garbage bags.

  Eager to prove a point, Davey moved in.

  He had no idea where he got his courage and strength from, but he found himself raising the skull high and mashing it into the rat’s head until it was a mangled ruin.

  The skull was coated with a dripping slick of gore that ran down his hands.

  He was splattered in it from head to toe.

  The other rats eyed him a little more warily now.

  He had just re-established the food chain.

  The dog drew heart from this and began to tear into the rats with renewed savagery.

  Davey threw the skull at another of the rats, making it run away from him with a shrill cry.

  He grabbed one of the long leg bones and began whacking it menacingly into the floor.

  Finally, the rats seemed to realise they were on the losing end of this battle and began to back away, hissing and snarling through bloody teeth.

  A few of them dragged away their fallen kin, no doubt as a consolation prize for that night’s supper.

  When they had gone, Davey sunk to his knees, his chest heaving in anguished breaths.

  It felt as though his ribs were slowly crushing in on his lungs, making breathing impossible.

  Adrenaline had deserted him, leaving him like a puppet without a master.

  He sucked in the foul air, trying in vain to regain his composure.

  The dog watched him, a curious expression on its faces, its bigger head tilted slightly to the right.

  It limped over to him – he noticed it had a nasty bite in its rear left leg – and began to nuzzle his wounds.

  The effect was soothing, but still, he was lost, weak and bleeding.

  And no doubt in for a nasty infection from the rat bites.

  Out here in the Garbage Mountains there was no pharmacy to call upon.

  At this rate, blood poisoning would claim him long before he had chance to even meet Reverend Cross.

  When it sunk in that this was just the start of his journey, everything – the death of his family and especially his baby sister – hit him like a plane plummeting out of the sky, and he broke down.

  The dog muzzled him affectionately, which helped a little, but he couldn’t help but feel like he had made a serious error in judgement coming out here.

  Some time later, he jolted awake after a particularly vivid dream of rats squirming around his innards trying to eat their way out.

  He hadn’t had the sense to bring a watch on his journey so he wasn’t sure how long it had been, but it was still dark.

  It seemed he’d had a decent sleep though so reckoned it was more likely hours than minutes.

  The dog was watching, its shoulders hunched, as though it was ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

  It slowly walked round in a circle around him, its big head moving from side to side.

  Davey knew that it had been doing this to protect him while he slept.

  He stretched and rolled over, making the garbage bag beneath him creak a little.

  The dog spun fast, seemed to smile when it realised it was Davey who had made the noise.

  It came over to him, muzzled into him, its tongue rasping his cheek.

  He saw love in its eyes, glowing deep within the bloodshot orbs.

  It was something to cling to, something to keep him pressing
on.

  This pitiful creature was beautiful in its soul and he could sense the loyalty and love emanating from it.

  He had saved its life and he knew it would return the favour many times over without question or hesitation.

  He hugged it, being careful not to squeeze too hard for fear of hurting it.

  ‘Thank you, boy,’ he said, feeling utterly grateful for this clumsy-looking beast. ‘Thank you so much.’

  He cupped the top of its head, staring in its eyes and smiling.

  It seemed to copy his smile.

  ‘Say, we need to give you a name,’ he said.

  He noticed there was no collar on it.

  After all, there was no need to identify a dog you were planning on letting suffocate in a garbage bag.

  ‘Duke,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘You look a hell of a lot like a duke.’

  Duke seemed to smile at this.

  ‘Right, Duke. Where the fuck do we go now?’

  Duke moved round in a tight circle, sniffing the air, then set off.

  Davey followed him through the vast mountains of rubbish and the occasional scattered piles of bones.

  The Garbage Mountains stretched away further than his eyes could see.

  It all looked the same; immense floodlit piles of black plastic, riddled with rats, death and decay.

  There didn’t seem to be an end to it.

  He saw a few fresh rat carcasses, already stripped to the bone.

  The rats watched them intently, but seemed too scared to approach.

  Duke growled, just to be on the safe side.

  They watched intently but didn’t come any closer.

  Davey was puzzled when he saw Duke stop and look round at the massive slope of rubbish bags to their right.

  He stopped, craning his neck to look up.

  He couldn’t see why Duke was so enrapt, or indeed why he started to bark at the top of his lungs, but figured there must be some reason.

  After a few minutes, Duke relaxed and continued walking.

  They walked for what seemed like miles, following the valley along mindlessly without any end in sight.

  Duke had stopped at least half a dozen times and started barking, looking up the hill of garbage bags.

  Davey still had been puzzled as to what he was barking at, but figured it was probably a rat.

  He saw them everywhere he looked, on the ground feasting on fallen bodies or burst bin bags, or on outcrops of garbage among the vast mountains, or scurrying across the floor, their claws nicking holes in the bin bags with little fluttering sounds.