The Fucking Rats
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The dark cellar was littered with rats.
The living- the victors- fought for the corpses and then their lives when they were inevitably turned on by their kin. The colony sheltered beneath the ground in a dank stone basement for they had no choice. The outside was dry and burnt by the sun. Predator birds circled any insect that dared breathe air. Both bird and desert were starving and what a meal a cannibal rat would be. The ruins of the old house sat on top of the infestation. It was once an elegant, albeit odd, manor that no longer held even a roof or what one could call walls, much less four. It was the only tombstone that marked the wealth and status of its former occupants. Deep in the ground, inside the footprint of their footprint, held the only cold and only wet for at least 5 miles or so in any direction. Thus the cellar was blessed with the shambles of shelter, drinkable if sickening water, an infestation of despicable life, and the rats that bred in its cool damp air. Accompanying the writhing furry masses in the dark cellar, sat a nest of matted hair resting on top of a patchy head that lay upon crooked points called shoulders on a body sighing with decaying skin and sores. Though it somehow breathed, life itself would be insulted if it was called anything but a Corpse. Still, there it leaned against the wall, tongue to stone to drink the oozing muddied water. It technically qualified. |
Shira Davis
is a poet from Atlanta, Georgia. She has work published in Silent Spark Press, an ebook titled "Astounding Poetry" (2022). She is currently enrolled in Georgia State University pursuing a degree in Anthropology. |
Quiet groans and arrhythmic spasms of its fleshy sandpaper tongue on the wall accompanied the scuttling and screaming rodents, but for the most part the rats left the man Corpse sit. Instead of approaching the unknown disease, they kept to their own meat and festered together as its strangled whines collected in the corner of the cellar.
While the rats would mingle, the Corpse kept its neck strained and twisted to scrape its mouth against the sharp rocky wall, cutting its flesh and any sound that could be cried from its cracked lips without struggling for air. The throaty grunts it gasped struck the stone with a pathetic desperation like a limp angry beast. Occasionally, the sore muscle of its tongue would flick up, stretching to reach for runny brown liquid that dripped down the wall. Now its eyes fixated on a slimy stone just out of reach from the sanded down rock that its mouth called home as it nursed a sore growing on its buttocks.
The Corpse carped sharp whimpers as it lengthened its bruised tongue once more, throat bobbing, reaching for the soothing, warm, grainy water that coated the wall above. It yearned for the feeling of wet in its mouth, but the length of its tongue fell short again, again. Trembling, it started to whine, but its lamenting groans could not pierce unrelenting stone. No matter how loud or violent its cries struck the wall it leaned on, clawing up against the weight of the baking dirt above, it could not sway the water denying its putrid mouth. The Corpse’s shrieks made the basement tremble and pulsate as if its screams were trying to break free of the trap that held them within the earth with the rats and mud.
The Corpse lashed out rabidly, striking and snapping its teeth at the stone wall with sharp cracks that splintered rock and enamel. Crack and startle scattered the runts of the rat colony beyond its feet. They fled from the rat corpses they were feeding on before being mounted and eaten themselves. As the colony began to feast on the cowards who turned their backs from the fray, the rats’ squeals joined the mancorpse’s ballad in a screeching symphony.
The singer's voice warbled and groaned, growing with each bite of the wall, twice, three times, and four as its mouth filled with blood. Tongue wagged over rock, painting the stone and grinding red into the wall as the man wailed and barked. It descended into a frenzy that outshined the rats. Its head thrashed as teeth and tongue were thrown at the wall in a growling fit of yelping, blood, and the last spit it could spare to beg the mucky water to, please, grace its mouth, but the water seemed content to watch and taunt from the wall above.
Even the most well fed, greedy rats abandoned their prey.
Blood clouded one eye as the sour bitter taste of its own teeth spread on their tongue and laughter bubbled like gas from their chest. Its screaming was forgotten in elated hysteria as it flung its head around as if to divorce the body that begged for water but sat in its rot. It took gleeful delight gargling their bloody teeth. A wasteful tear slid down its cheek with blood and spit and the poor man couldn’t even bother to drink it.
It was only when their foot twitched that their hysterics ceased, and it rested. A catatonic stare replaced the craze. They did not drink the mud, but their thirst was quenched for the time being.
While the rats would mingle, the Corpse kept its neck strained and twisted to scrape its mouth against the sharp rocky wall, cutting its flesh and any sound that could be cried from its cracked lips without struggling for air. The throaty grunts it gasped struck the stone with a pathetic desperation like a limp angry beast. Occasionally, the sore muscle of its tongue would flick up, stretching to reach for runny brown liquid that dripped down the wall. Now its eyes fixated on a slimy stone just out of reach from the sanded down rock that its mouth called home as it nursed a sore growing on its buttocks.
The Corpse carped sharp whimpers as it lengthened its bruised tongue once more, throat bobbing, reaching for the soothing, warm, grainy water that coated the wall above. It yearned for the feeling of wet in its mouth, but the length of its tongue fell short again, again. Trembling, it started to whine, but its lamenting groans could not pierce unrelenting stone. No matter how loud or violent its cries struck the wall it leaned on, clawing up against the weight of the baking dirt above, it could not sway the water denying its putrid mouth. The Corpse’s shrieks made the basement tremble and pulsate as if its screams were trying to break free of the trap that held them within the earth with the rats and mud.
The Corpse lashed out rabidly, striking and snapping its teeth at the stone wall with sharp cracks that splintered rock and enamel. Crack and startle scattered the runts of the rat colony beyond its feet. They fled from the rat corpses they were feeding on before being mounted and eaten themselves. As the colony began to feast on the cowards who turned their backs from the fray, the rats’ squeals joined the mancorpse’s ballad in a screeching symphony.
The singer's voice warbled and groaned, growing with each bite of the wall, twice, three times, and four as its mouth filled with blood. Tongue wagged over rock, painting the stone and grinding red into the wall as the man wailed and barked. It descended into a frenzy that outshined the rats. Its head thrashed as teeth and tongue were thrown at the wall in a growling fit of yelping, blood, and the last spit it could spare to beg the mucky water to, please, grace its mouth, but the water seemed content to watch and taunt from the wall above.
Even the most well fed, greedy rats abandoned their prey.
Blood clouded one eye as the sour bitter taste of its own teeth spread on their tongue and laughter bubbled like gas from their chest. Its screaming was forgotten in elated hysteria as it flung its head around as if to divorce the body that begged for water but sat in its rot. It took gleeful delight gargling their bloody teeth. A wasteful tear slid down its cheek with blood and spit and the poor man couldn’t even bother to drink it.
It was only when their foot twitched that their hysterics ceased, and it rested. A catatonic stare replaced the craze. They did not drink the mud, but their thirst was quenched for the time being.
* * *
Little shimmers of sunlight creeped through the cracked earth, waxing and waning 3 times before the Corpse’s eyes focused again. During these hazy days and nights, its lids would stay open against the dirt and fur filled air with little notice until minutes passed, and it would blink, though the itch behind them wasn’t relieved.
The braver, thirstier rats didn’t take nearly as long as the Corpse’s eyelids, less than one night, to slip out from the flaky burrows to scavenge for water and recover the rotting meat they’d left behind in its care. Their scampering paws echoed through the ears of the hollow creature and it sat in silence as the colony began to eke out into the cellar again. The haggard, bony furniture was given a wide berth. For the first day, the rats picked at the leftover corpses, fighting for room to drink from dark trickles and tiny pools of slickness that had been sucked into the basement. The greediest rats guarded the rotting carcasses with vicious warnings, barely daring to leave for drink. It didn’t take long for the bigger scavengers to realize they had skipped their regular meals and start nipping at their brothers and sisters, picking fights to win their food. Some sly, weaker rodents would try to steal a bite of claimed spoils, only to be beaten and flee squealing and bloody but maybe with a taste of food on their slithering tongues. Too quickly, the old meat grew bare. The rats who did not ration were once again hungry. A few desperate vermin would occasionally sniff in the direction of the Corpse, but none lingered. They weren’t hungry enough to get close, deciding they preferred the familiar family menu.
The first feast in the aftermath of the tantrum was a big event. It only took two nights and a day for the colony to tire of stale tastes, remembering too well the feeling of their cousin’s meat between their teeth. The muddy water had begun to dry and without the wet to wash their meals down their longing for thick, iron blood to quench their thirst became all consuming. Beady, greedy eyes lingered on each other, and the beadiest and the greediest began to eye meals that weren’t theirs. These rats would not settle for a bite.
Angst built in the colony once the hungriest cannibals had picked through any fat on the bones of their corpses. All it took was one especially beady eyed rat with a rusty mat of fur to decide he missed the feeling of fresh blood soaking in the dank fur of his chin. Its teeth still had bits of his last rotting meal watering his mouth and his breath had the scent of his brother’s stomach. As he circled his prey, his family clustered and their harsh voices became his chorus. In the corner of the cellar the husk barely stirred at the colony’s meaty squeal. The rat’s claws tittered and scraped as they gathered and pushed against each other until their shrill voices screamed of blood and their hunger almost reached the sunlight waiting to roast them above the ground.
The first rat fell.
The colony’s sore gums had no appetite or reason to fight for a corpse when they remembered the smell of their own fresh meat and blood. As soon as the rusty coated creature sank his teeth into his fresh prey, his kin descended on him. The mass of their bugged dirty bodies clogged his lungs and the blood gurgling in his throat and stomach were returned to the mouths and bodies of his clan. After the massacre the rats enjoyed a feast and once they were fed they fucked, still bloody.
As the colony was busy mutilating and multiplying the mancorpse was just alive enough again to revel in their depravity. It inhaled the smell of blood, still tasting its own shattered teeth. The Corpse swallowed its yearning and the saliva it couldn’t spare as its gut flickered back to life.
The braver, thirstier rats didn’t take nearly as long as the Corpse’s eyelids, less than one night, to slip out from the flaky burrows to scavenge for water and recover the rotting meat they’d left behind in its care. Their scampering paws echoed through the ears of the hollow creature and it sat in silence as the colony began to eke out into the cellar again. The haggard, bony furniture was given a wide berth. For the first day, the rats picked at the leftover corpses, fighting for room to drink from dark trickles and tiny pools of slickness that had been sucked into the basement. The greediest rats guarded the rotting carcasses with vicious warnings, barely daring to leave for drink. It didn’t take long for the bigger scavengers to realize they had skipped their regular meals and start nipping at their brothers and sisters, picking fights to win their food. Some sly, weaker rodents would try to steal a bite of claimed spoils, only to be beaten and flee squealing and bloody but maybe with a taste of food on their slithering tongues. Too quickly, the old meat grew bare. The rats who did not ration were once again hungry. A few desperate vermin would occasionally sniff in the direction of the Corpse, but none lingered. They weren’t hungry enough to get close, deciding they preferred the familiar family menu.
The first feast in the aftermath of the tantrum was a big event. It only took two nights and a day for the colony to tire of stale tastes, remembering too well the feeling of their cousin’s meat between their teeth. The muddy water had begun to dry and without the wet to wash their meals down their longing for thick, iron blood to quench their thirst became all consuming. Beady, greedy eyes lingered on each other, and the beadiest and the greediest began to eye meals that weren’t theirs. These rats would not settle for a bite.
Angst built in the colony once the hungriest cannibals had picked through any fat on the bones of their corpses. All it took was one especially beady eyed rat with a rusty mat of fur to decide he missed the feeling of fresh blood soaking in the dank fur of his chin. Its teeth still had bits of his last rotting meal watering his mouth and his breath had the scent of his brother’s stomach. As he circled his prey, his family clustered and their harsh voices became his chorus. In the corner of the cellar the husk barely stirred at the colony’s meaty squeal. The rat’s claws tittered and scraped as they gathered and pushed against each other until their shrill voices screamed of blood and their hunger almost reached the sunlight waiting to roast them above the ground.
The first rat fell.
The colony’s sore gums had no appetite or reason to fight for a corpse when they remembered the smell of their own fresh meat and blood. As soon as the rusty coated creature sank his teeth into his fresh prey, his kin descended on him. The mass of their bugged dirty bodies clogged his lungs and the blood gurgling in his throat and stomach were returned to the mouths and bodies of his clan. After the massacre the rats enjoyed a feast and once they were fed they fucked, still bloody.
As the colony was busy mutilating and multiplying the mancorpse was just alive enough again to revel in their depravity. It inhaled the smell of blood, still tasting its own shattered teeth. The Corpse swallowed its yearning and the saliva it couldn’t spare as its gut flickered back to life.
* * *
The rats went back to their old routine. The rumor of day whispered, and darkness fell again. Both time and rodents repeated their processes. Meanwhile, the man moved only their neck to gently lick the mud that had finally dripped within reach as it sat in a pile of its own mess and bloody puss. Bit by bit the rats inched closer, reclaiming more of their territory and remembering only stillness and furniture from the vessel lurking in the corner. Nothing alive would let flies perch and feed and nest in its skin. And surely, nothing alive would keep its bile while it seeped in the infectious smell of the rats. They themselves moldered as they stewed in their food and waste.
The Corpse’s empty stare grew longer gaunts as shadows passed another day, but still not a flutter of life, even when the rats began to scurry over to sniff and play in its filth. The first trail of rats were shy, but the body held something to offer, an emergency reserve perhaps. The promise of starvation was enough to goad the rats desperate and unfortunate enough to rely on the risky business of scavenging to consider the taste of its skin. The touch of whiskers on the corpse's foot tickled up its leg. Almost an excitement grew in its gut. The rats’ noses twitched and one by one they pawed at the meat, cautiously caressing the corpse's peeling skin. But the man’s stench of pooling sickness and the cracking of the paper case it was held in, its tearing body, was not enough for the hungry rodents. They had been grown in their mother’s womb from the flesh of their fathers and uncles. The sweet taste of like was just too tantalizing. They all turned away, scuttering back to the outskirts of the pack.
The man was alone again, numb from the gnawing in its stomach.
But the corpse waited for the sweet release of rat claws gripping its bones. They would return eventually. Their fuzzy bodies had the putrid reek of rot as they passed disease to each other merely feet away. To be among filth felt less filthy.
As it goes with cannibals, the rats were only to grow ever bigger and ever more brutal. The survivors of the big and brutal lurked on the outskirts of the colony, hungry and frustrated. In the next night and day, these were the rats that made frequent explorations to the decaying furniture. They went back to scale its limbs and smell its rotten food like smell, taunting them. They fought their yearning with fear, but as shadows changed and its outburst forgotten, what would be worse- their hunger or a nibble?
A skinny, weak rat with a crooked spine was the first too hungry to turn away. It hovered around the Corpse's limp foot. The man surely felt the brush of the rat’s nose. Any blisters earned by those feet had shriveled and begun to rot away. The open abscesses left were covered with ancient grime and a coat of colorful infection. The crooked rat stole its first nip from a chunk of that rotten, flaky skin.
The Corpse barely stirred as the taste of salt and decay chased the creature's flesh into the rat’s stomach. It gripped the man’s ankle, creeping gently through its patchy hair and past its knee. The hum of meat and blood pulsed through its thinning skin and the smell of human waste. It perched on the inside of the man’s thigh, fur against skin, infection on disease. The man gazed into the colony brawling over the meat of a new litter, while the rat's beady eyes and pointed paws began to search for any tissue or veins hidden inside the man’s corpse, caressing and kneading an empty body. The taste of fleshy shell had set fire to the acid tearing away its stomach. Its needle teeth hovered, waiting for any movement, saliva and froth pooling around the crooked rat's gums. Its splintered teeth sunk into the Corpse and the rat tore into the rot on the man’s flesh, pulling away strings of sour tissue and pooling blood.
Screaming- laughter bubbled like poison gas from Corpse lungs. Its claws struck out, tearing the rat from its leg, trapping it in its grasp. It held the squealing rodent to their face, dangling it above their nose as it struggled, dripping pus onto their cheek. They inhaled the scent of its pack’s piss and blood on its coat.
Finally. Finally.
The rat squirmed to claw and bite the man’s bony swollen fingers. Its own blood dribbled from the rats teeth splattering the skin above its mouth. The Corpse giggled and nuzzled the thrashing creature with their cheek, slowly brushing it gently towards their mouth. The rat scraped and tore at its face as they opened their wasting jaws. They held their shattered teeth over the rodent, savoring the squealing and squish and crack of crunching bones as they crushed it, sinking their bleeding gums into its meat. Rotten blood poured into their mouth and down their stomach.
Legs moving from rest and curling up to their chest, the man rocked and shook as they tore the rat in two, leaving a tooth behind in the limp sack of fur.
The rat’s bones scraped their throat. The shuddering man brought the rest of the meal to their mouth and suckled from the creature’s opened insides, stopping only when a gleeful moan interrupted. The sounds of horrid ecstasy filled the emptied basement until the end of the Corpse’s meal.
The man sighed and leaned its head back against the wall. It stretched their legs back out and closed its eyes. When the Corpse opened its weighted lids again, the sandpaper had returned to its tongue. Next to its head, some mud oozed down the dank cellar wall. It twisted its head to press its tongue onto the cool stone as the cannibal rats eked out of the walls where they hid to hunt a pace or two away from its limp feet.
The Corpse’s empty stare grew longer gaunts as shadows passed another day, but still not a flutter of life, even when the rats began to scurry over to sniff and play in its filth. The first trail of rats were shy, but the body held something to offer, an emergency reserve perhaps. The promise of starvation was enough to goad the rats desperate and unfortunate enough to rely on the risky business of scavenging to consider the taste of its skin. The touch of whiskers on the corpse's foot tickled up its leg. Almost an excitement grew in its gut. The rats’ noses twitched and one by one they pawed at the meat, cautiously caressing the corpse's peeling skin. But the man’s stench of pooling sickness and the cracking of the paper case it was held in, its tearing body, was not enough for the hungry rodents. They had been grown in their mother’s womb from the flesh of their fathers and uncles. The sweet taste of like was just too tantalizing. They all turned away, scuttering back to the outskirts of the pack.
The man was alone again, numb from the gnawing in its stomach.
But the corpse waited for the sweet release of rat claws gripping its bones. They would return eventually. Their fuzzy bodies had the putrid reek of rot as they passed disease to each other merely feet away. To be among filth felt less filthy.
As it goes with cannibals, the rats were only to grow ever bigger and ever more brutal. The survivors of the big and brutal lurked on the outskirts of the colony, hungry and frustrated. In the next night and day, these were the rats that made frequent explorations to the decaying furniture. They went back to scale its limbs and smell its rotten food like smell, taunting them. They fought their yearning with fear, but as shadows changed and its outburst forgotten, what would be worse- their hunger or a nibble?
A skinny, weak rat with a crooked spine was the first too hungry to turn away. It hovered around the Corpse's limp foot. The man surely felt the brush of the rat’s nose. Any blisters earned by those feet had shriveled and begun to rot away. The open abscesses left were covered with ancient grime and a coat of colorful infection. The crooked rat stole its first nip from a chunk of that rotten, flaky skin.
The Corpse barely stirred as the taste of salt and decay chased the creature's flesh into the rat’s stomach. It gripped the man’s ankle, creeping gently through its patchy hair and past its knee. The hum of meat and blood pulsed through its thinning skin and the smell of human waste. It perched on the inside of the man’s thigh, fur against skin, infection on disease. The man gazed into the colony brawling over the meat of a new litter, while the rat's beady eyes and pointed paws began to search for any tissue or veins hidden inside the man’s corpse, caressing and kneading an empty body. The taste of fleshy shell had set fire to the acid tearing away its stomach. Its needle teeth hovered, waiting for any movement, saliva and froth pooling around the crooked rat's gums. Its splintered teeth sunk into the Corpse and the rat tore into the rot on the man’s flesh, pulling away strings of sour tissue and pooling blood.
Screaming- laughter bubbled like poison gas from Corpse lungs. Its claws struck out, tearing the rat from its leg, trapping it in its grasp. It held the squealing rodent to their face, dangling it above their nose as it struggled, dripping pus onto their cheek. They inhaled the scent of its pack’s piss and blood on its coat.
Finally. Finally.
The rat squirmed to claw and bite the man’s bony swollen fingers. Its own blood dribbled from the rats teeth splattering the skin above its mouth. The Corpse giggled and nuzzled the thrashing creature with their cheek, slowly brushing it gently towards their mouth. The rat scraped and tore at its face as they opened their wasting jaws. They held their shattered teeth over the rodent, savoring the squealing and squish and crack of crunching bones as they crushed it, sinking their bleeding gums into its meat. Rotten blood poured into their mouth and down their stomach.
Legs moving from rest and curling up to their chest, the man rocked and shook as they tore the rat in two, leaving a tooth behind in the limp sack of fur.
The rat’s bones scraped their throat. The shuddering man brought the rest of the meal to their mouth and suckled from the creature’s opened insides, stopping only when a gleeful moan interrupted. The sounds of horrid ecstasy filled the emptied basement until the end of the Corpse’s meal.
The man sighed and leaned its head back against the wall. It stretched their legs back out and closed its eyes. When the Corpse opened its weighted lids again, the sandpaper had returned to its tongue. Next to its head, some mud oozed down the dank cellar wall. It twisted its head to press its tongue onto the cool stone as the cannibal rats eked out of the walls where they hid to hunt a pace or two away from its limp feet.