by Tim Curran
I was very happy that I hadn’t.
9
There was no way in hell I wanted any part of Trog-hunting. You couldn’t have paid me to go after those monsters. They lived down in the sewers mostly, Sean told me, and I was content to let them stay there. But something happened that changed my mind.
We left the building, got out into the sunshine-Sean had promised us he had an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels back at his apartment and I was all for that-and right away we saw carnage. Scabs. About a dozen of them were lying dead in the streets. Their blood was very bright, very red spilled over the rubble. They had been dismembered, hacked and slit, disemboweled. Their entrails were strewn everywhere. One particular set was hung from a STOP sign. They had all been decapitated, the heads set neatly next to one another on the curb.
“Hell’s going on?” I said.
Sean went down to a low crouch right away like he was back in the Army, a recon scout sneaking through enemy territory. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“Who killed ‘em?” Specs wanted to know.
“Shut the hell up, both of you,” Sean told us and meant it.
He moved towards the bodies, eyes scanning the terrain in all directions. He went over to one and pulled something free of an abdomen. It looked like a broken stick. But when he brought it over, I saw it was a spearhead of all things.
“Hatchet Clans,” he said. “Must’ve swept through while we were inside. Get back in the building.”
“I’m not going back in there,” Specs said.
“Then you can die out here, little man,” Sean said. “Because you will die. The Clans leave nothing alive when they sweep an area.”
I went back into the building. I decided to err on the side of caution. It was the second time Sean had mentioned these Hatchet Clans. I didn’t know what they were, but if they scared Sean they must have been some real bad boys.
We got inside and Sean told us to stay away from the windows. He stayed by them, watching the streets.
“What are these clans?” Specs asked.
Sean let out a long, low sigh. “They’re fucking dangerous, that’s what,” he said. “Scabs are psychotic, but they’re disorganized. Half the time when there’s no game-people, I mean-they’re killing each other. But the Hatchet Clans are organized into large units. They kill anything they see. Those they don’t kill, they rape, torture, or enslave. You don’t want to fuck with ‘em. They’re…savage, primeval. That’s the best I can do. They don’t use guns. They use axes, spears, hammers…whatever. Let’s put it this way: you ever seen those shows on TV…when there was TV…about army ants marching through the jungle and fucking devastating everything in their path? That’s what the Hatchet Clans do. They’re raiders for the most part. They like to scalp people, cut trophies off ‘em.”
I had a lot of questions, but I didn’t ask them. I was scared. Specs was, too. Sean was a badass. I didn’t think there was anything he couldn’t handle, but the Clans had him spooked and that was enough for me.
After about ten minutes of silence, he motioned us over. “Look,” he said.
I saw two or three men come over a heap of rubble. They wore filthy old Army overcoats. One of them had a machete. One was carrying a length of chain in his hand. The other had a fireman’s axe balanced atop one shoulder. They were looking around. The most amazing thing was that they had gas masks on like soldiers from the trenches of World War I.
“What are those masks for?” Specs whispered.
Sean shook his head. “Fuck if I know. But they all wear ‘em. Must’ve looted ‘em from an Army depot or a National Guard Armory, Army-Navy surplus or something. I’ve never seen what’s under the masks, but I heard their faces are eaten by some kind of fungi.”
I’d seen and heard enough.
Sean kept watching them. “You see two or three like this, you can bet there’s thirty more. These are scouts. Hate to tell you, brothers, but we’re in some real shit here. They swept through before. Now they’ll start hunting building to building.”
Specs looked at me. His eyes were bulging. “Oh, that’s fucking great. Now what?”
“Calm down,” Sean said. “We best get down in the cellar.”
Specs looked close to a panic attack. “With the Trogs? Are you nuts? I been down there. There’s a hole in the wall. That’s where that Trog came from.”
Sean grinned. “Damn right there’s a hole in the wall. It leads into the sewers. And that’s where we’re going.”
10
Under the circumstances, we didn’t have a choice.
Our helmet lights on, we entered the jagged hole in the wall. I didn’t know if the Trogs tunneled their way out or if it had been hit by a bomb. Regardless, we went into it and emerged in the shadowy labyrinth of the sewers. As far as our lights could see, nothing but a brick tunnel that looked to be crumbling in spots. It was about seven feet in diameter. It was roomy enough, but it was still a sewer. A foot of water washed past us, carrying debris and occasional rat corpses.
“This is nice,” Specs said.
Sean stepped down into the water and we did the same. It was warm. Almost unpleasantly so like standing in a stream of urine.
“This is a main rainwater drain,” he told us. “It cuts for miles under the city. There’s hundreds of lines branching off it. Some like this and some you gotta crawl through on your hands and knees. Okay, let’s go.”
I didn’t even ask him where we were going.
We splashed along, our lights bouncing with each step, huge sliding shadows moving over the tunnel walls. The smell down there was awful. Just dank and polluted, the stink of moist rot and stagnant water, other things I didn’t want to contemplate. Water dripped and bits of masonry fell now and again. We saw huge colonies of corpse-white toadstools that grew from cracks in the tunnel. I swear they were pulsing almost like they were breathing. A fetid mist came off the water.
“How far do we have to go?” Specs asked.
“Quite a bit. At the very least I want to get a good five, six blocks away from here.”
“And how are we gonna know when we’re that far?”
“I’ll know.”
“But-”
“Just shut the fuck up for awhile,” Sean said.
I suppressed a smile. Specs was like that. He got nervous and he’d talk your head right off. It was his way. Pouting, he walked along at my side, casting sidelong looks at me, maybe waiting for me to rise to his defense. I had no intention; what we needed now was quiet.
We came to places where the tunnel was nearly blocked by fallen rubble. Many times it was because of a collapsed building whose blasted cellar had opened right up into the tunnels below. There was moss growing everywhere, some kind of green mildew that was luminous.
We’d gone about a block when we saw our first living rats. They were immense and filthy, eyes lit like red Christmas bulbs. They let us pass, but they kept a tight eye on us.
I kept hearing things behind us. Subtle sounds like scratching. It might have been our echo because everything echoed down there, even our voices. But the farther we went the more certain I was it was no echo.
Finally, Sean stopped. “You hear something?” he said.
“Yeah.”
We all heard it plainly: a scratching and squeaking as of many, many rats. The sound was getting louder. I had dealt with the rats before. They were bad enough when there was only a few, but when they came in numbers you were in trouble.
“Move it,” Sean said.
We hurried down the tunnel which sounds easy in the telling, but splashing through a foot of water gets hard going after awhile. Sean knew his way-or I hoped he did-leading us down side tunnels and then into the mainline again, back and forth until I had no idea where we were. We came to a cave-in and stepped around it into a flooded cellar. There was no building above it; it had been blasted away. The sun sure looked inviting. But there was no way to get up to it. Back into the tunnels, this way and that.
We charged into another offshoot and Sean stopped. “Trog,” he said, then relaxed. “Shit, it’s a dead one.”
It was stuck in a little ell, standing up. It was gray and withered looking, near-mummified. Even its hands were folded over its bosom. A fine plaiting of green mildew grew over it like a caul.
We came into another cellar. It was black in there, the water up to our knees by this point. Dead things were floating in the leaves. Broken beams and shattered sections of concrete rose around us like dock pilings. I saw human bones sticking up out of the water. A ribcage here, a yellowing femur there. The air smelled like blood and meat. I didn’t like it in the least.
We came around a rubble pile and right into a nest of rats.
11
“Shit,” Sean said, his light playing over them.
We all had our lights on them and our guns. Behind us, I could hear the squeaking and scratching of the rat pack that was tailing us. I started thinking the Hatchet Clans didn’t sound so bad.
“Kill ‘em!” Specs said.
“No,” I told him. “Not unless we don’t have a choice. No sense riling them if we don’t have to. You shoot them, they’ll be forced to fight.”
“Good thinking, brother,” Sean said.
There were eight or ten of them sitting on a section of collapsed wall, huge, fat-bellied rats with glistening red eyes. Several of them were chewing on something white and bloated. It was a human arm. There were maggots on it. One of them looked right at me, wormy growths coming out of its belly making obscene slithering sounds. Its teeth were bared, claws splayed out like it was ready to jump. Its greasy black fur seemed to flutter and bristle as if it was infested with lice. And as I watched in disgust and amazement, a grub-white parasite the size of a jelly bean hopped off the rat’s back.
“Good ratties,” Sean said, moving around them. “We’re just passing on by. No harm in us.”
We moved around a pile of wreckage and the cellar opened up into a cavernous hollow. I could see tree roots dangling from the ceiling. All sorts of junk was rising from the water, even several badly rusted metal beams. There were bones everywhere, human bones. All polished white and licked clean. I saw several skulls that were riddled with teeth marks.
“Nash,” Specs. “Nash…”
I saw.
There were literally hundreds of mutant rats. Armies of hump-backed things waiting with sharp teeth and shining scarlet eyes. I saw one that was blubbery and shapeless, almost hairless. There were several stubby, blind fetal heads rising from it. The mouths were opening and closing. And the stink…dear God. Where before it had been a high, hot smell of rot and blood and dampness, now it was a seething, noisome envelope of putrid decay.
Nothing nature had birthed could smell like that.
The rats began to inch closer, crowding us. They were behind us now and in front of us, to all sides. Wherever our lights played, we could see rows of shining, hungry eyes.
Sean took a green cylinder from the pouch around his shoulder. It was one of the white phosphorus grenades. He kept it ready.
Some of the rats were the size of beagles and terriers. Big, mutated things, some almost completely hairless, others lost in a storm of writhing, twitching growths. Many did not have the usual compliment of limbs, but three or sometimes two gigantic clawed appendages. They were so large you could hear them breathing. Many were covered with tumorous, jutting humps and open sores. Some had too many eyes, others not enough, a few were blind, squeaking things.
The rats were clustered around us, mutants, abominations of every sort, pushing in closer and closer. Hosts in this black, stinking nightmare world. Closing in, pushing us forward, leading us towards something, it seemed.
We splashed on, ready to fire our guns at any moment…but to what end? The rats would have buried us alive in seconds. There were that many.
Specs came around a section of floor fallen from above and he screamed. I’ll never forget the caliber of that scream. It sounded like his mind was venting itself, blowing everything clear so it could look upon this new thing and make room for the immensity of its horror.
He fell into me, clutching at me, pulling at me, trying, it seemed, to wrap himself around me. “Nash, Nash, Nash…it’s there, Nash! It’s right there I tell you! I saw it…I fucking saw it looking at me-”
Then my light found it, too, and something in me sank, submerged forever. I looked right at it and to this day I know I saw it, but I couldn’t have. For there are mutants and then there are mutants.
It was a rat the size of a pick-up truck.
Maybe not one rat, but two or three that had grown into a single flaccid nightmare mass that was horribly puckered, hairless, and fish belly white. That’s what I saw. It reposed on a filthy, stinking pile of debris, cannibalized human bodies, and bones in a huge oblong cavity in the wall. It was like some kind of fucking altar. That clownwhite flesh was nearly transparent like some kind of pulsating jelly and you could see the bones beneath it. The skin seemed to move, to writhe, vibrate with a slick, boneless motion as if everything beneath it was in constant, sickly motion. Two bobbing heads sprouted from trunklike necks, jaws of yellow knifeblade teeth gnashing together. But the worst part were the eyes. One head had three oozing, red orbs the size of softballs. The other had but one, filmed and pustulant. There was a third head that was limp, dangling on a stalk of neck
And I swear to you, that growing out of that body were a dozen other smaller fetal heads like on that other rat, each filled with an unnatural, atavistic life that would not die.
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 an
d 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.