Big Bill says he’s our leader but I disagree. He’s big all right, big guy with a big mouth who likes to push us all around, but he aint got no brains and it’ll bite us in the ass some day, mark my words. Once in a while, he corners me at the back of the cave when I’m on water duty, and shakes me until I scream. These days I try hard not to scream, cause I know he’ll let go of me in the end, and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but when he feels me tightening up, he slaps me around. He says I squeak like a rat.

That’s how I got my name.

“Hey, Rat, don’t fall asleep and go tippin into the fire pit. We don’t want no roasted rat for dinner, now, do we.” “Hey, Rat, you should be the one dumpin the shit buckets. Sewage, that’s a rat’s job, ain’it?”

I used to say “my name’s not Rat”. I used to say that and other things, but, tell the truth, I can’t remember what things were like before Big Bill got everyone to call me Rat.

I share a tent with Molly. She doesn’t like me, but she lets me screw her when I got needs as a trade for sentry or cleaning duty. When I get on top of her, I want to kiss her lips so badly. They’re red and juicy like strawberries; but she just looks away while I fumble down there. I wish Molly didn’t call me Rat.

We’ve got upwards of twenty people in this cave, and lucky to find it and no bears in it either. Too many damn people if you ask me, seeing as there’s a few that don’t pull their weight much, like old Ms. Pulaski, who lost her dentures. Somebody has to mash up her food morning day and night. I mean, she’s ancient.

Twenty-three people and none that like me much but hell if I care. I was never popular, and it aint gonna change now. But I got my opinions, and I like to say’em out loud now and then, cause I know a thing or two about survival. Like that business of putting the kids’ tent so close to the opening of the cave so they can see the sunshine.

“It’s not right for children to live in the dark” Miss Durley says. She’s a school teacher, or was, and I reckon she’s got nice book-learning views about life, but not much sense. “They need to see the blue of the sky, and feel the warmth of sunshine on their skin.”

Yeah right. What about the stuff that rains down from the “blue sky” and eats through anything alive? Hell it even eats through plastic, and some metals too. We’ve got a couple of cars and vans parked out there, and the rubber and paint on’em’s all eaten away.

The kids are cute, I’ll give them that. A brother and sister: Wildcat and Coral, not their real names, but names they got to pick. I didn’t get to pick mine. They luuuuuv watching the sunset. What sense does that make, them sitting so close to the edge? We said “three feet back”, but who’s to say what they’re doing when no one’s watching?

Doc Andrews thinks that stuff that rains down and killed most everybody might be man-made. Or a “mutation”, or a “chemical reaction”. He’s a smart guy, and he could be our leader, except he spends a lot of time cooped up in his tent sobbing, and crying out names like Alice and Jeremy. I mean, what grown man does that?

He and I are on exploration duty today. We’ve been hearing funny noises at the back of the cave, where it’s real dark and we haven’t been yet. He thinks it’s just bats. We might find more water back there, so it’s worth a try.

***

“Turn’em on only when you need’em”, Big Bill said when he handed us the flashlights. Fat idiot. Like we’re gonna flash them under our faces and tell creepy stories all day. We were checking the lights when we heard Coral screaming murder. We ran back to the cave opening and saw the front half of the kids tent sizzling, all shredded and white like dead maggots.

Oh, there was beautiful sunlight streaming in all right, and cold air. But it didn’t keep the tent from smoking, and Coral from screaming and staring at the stump of her right hand. I thought it smelled good, like roasted meat. And for some reason the sunshine made me really sad and scared.

“What the heck are you doing?” Big Bill demanded, punching my shoulder hard with a hammy fist.

“We came back because we heard Coral screaming,” I answered. “What’d ya hit me for?”

“I hit you because you’re standing in the sun burning up batteries; and I’m gonna hit you again in a second if you don’t turn the damn flashlight off and get back to your job.”

“But Coral needs the doc,” I said. “Who else is gonna take care of her?”

“Not you, that’s for sure,” said Big Bill. “So get your rat ass back in the cave and find us some water like I told you before. What’s a matter, you too scared to explore on your own?”

I didn’t even bother to answer. I just turned around and headed back toward the darkness. Fact is, I’m the only one in the whole group who’s not afraid to explore alone. And that includes Big Bill. I was more than happy to go solo—that meant no one would bother me and I could do whatever the hell I wanted. And what I wanted more than anything else was to figure out how to get rid of Big Bill.

I walked back a couple hundred feet or so to the big bend. That’s as far as anybody else but me has gone yet. I could still see most of what was going on in the cave thanks to the sunlight up front, but nobody could see me back in the shadows. And I could disappear in a second around the bend if anybody headed my way. I could hear Coral still screaming bloody murder, and Big Bill bossing people around as if he knew what the hell he was talking about.

I settled into a cool, dry mound of dirt and leaned back into the cold stone wall—I was more comfortable here in my thinking spot than I’d ever been at home before the death storms.

I thought of Coral’s stumpy right arm, and realized I was pretty hungry. I remember when I couldn’t even imagine eating people meat. I guess there’s a lot of stuff you can’t imagine until you’re starving. But when we hadn’t eaten anything but mud and moss for three weeks, and Mrs. Hurflesch got lit up by a lightning bolt, nobody looked at each other or even said a word; we just dug in all at once like a pack of hyenas.

Ever since then, what they call “group dynamics” changed for our little community. Your value ain’t just what you can do anymore; it also includes how many you could feed if the mood was right, and how annoying you are in balance. If you’re a fat pain in the ass, your chances of surviving a food shortage aren’t good. If you’re skinny and productive, you can rest easy.

I’m not worried about myself; I’m the best scavenger we’ve got, and just to play it safe I make it a point to stay tough and lean. Ms. Pulaski’s been mentioned for jerky a few times lately.

Big Bill, he’s been chunkin’ up plenty since he took control of the group, and I think that could help me get him spinnin’ on the spit. At any rate, I make sure he gets first dibs at any sweets I come across in my scavenging.

As far as value, Big Bill ain’t got much that I can see. His most significant contribution is not kickin’ people’s asses as often as he could. Maybe I should work on reversing that trend. It would be a tricky gambit, dangerous if people blamed me for instigating their beatings, but a few good whoopins would sure make folks hungry for revenge if you know what I mean.

Now there are screams emanating from the opening of our cave. In my line of sight, the opening renders itself to me as a white-hot hole of light with what seems to be a tentacle or some kind of giant, oversized pincer silhouetted against the bright. Blindly, it snaps at the opening of the cave.

The thing is an extension of something larger, something larger that’s searching for something alive to eat. I understand. Evidently “carnivore” isn’t limited to our immediate environment. And evidently the nuclear rains have mutated one of our sea creatures.

I run as fast as I can to the opening of the cave, tripping over skeletons and empty water buckets. I cross myself and hope to God the children will be spared. (Not that I’m anxious for anyone to be taken, but Miss Durley has existed for enough fulfilling years on this planet.)

Rat, what do you suppose will happen when you get to the front of the cave? Do you have it in you to do what needs to be done? How will you even know what needs to be done? Will you put on the right mask? Or will you hide and let someone else handle it?

Moving closer, I see that the thing is a giant lobster-like claw, slick and ravaged from the acid rains of the outside. Whatever’s at the other end of the claw is ready to feed, I’m guessing. The children are slumped against the wall of the cave, catatonic with fear. The thing must have smelled Coral’s charred stump. The claw snaps at its nearest potential victim, intense on clasping a living being.

It’s Molly. She can’t move either. The remains of her dress tatter in a wind—a wind the pincer is creating with the force of its snaps.

“Rat, where are you?” she’s screaming at a decibel that distorts her voice. Time has stopped, yet this all happens in just a few seconds. Molly stands and emits siren noises. It’s all she can do.

“Jeremy….” I hear Doc Andrews’ latest sobs for his dead son waft up and through the back part of the cave.

I hate to say it, but the first thing comes to mind is that Molly’s a sure thing … and I’m not willing to give that up.

The claw snaps at her head; its cilia drips with a glue-like ooze that nearly has Molly ensnared. Once it intertwines with any part of her, she’s history—dragged off to become the thing’s living lunch. I have to act.

I grab a fire torch ensconced on the cave wall. I distinctly remember seeing a can of aerosol hair spray tossed in a corner. I run to it and—I’m in luck. It’s one quarter full.

“Rat, you fucking fool,” Big Bill bellows in the background. ‘What you doing with a can of hair spray?” My rage suddenly becomes me.

I hold the torch in front of me and spray the hairspray directly through its flame, toward Big Bill, immediately lighting his mangy body hair on fire. He waves his arms wildly, and is now running around the cave in a screaming, burning mass.

The thing must smell the new, burnt flesh. Its ooze has ensnared Molly. She’s being drug out of the cave by it, as I’d predicted. I fire the hairspray through the flame again, this time at the claw.

“Rat,” Molly can only moan my name. She’s wrapped in the claw’s residue; a nightmarish cocoon.

My flame burns at the ooze that is dragging Molly. Silently, it suddenly frees her from its grip.

Do you see your chance? You can alter the course of everyone’s life.

As Big Bill screams and flails, I know I have to make the sacrifice. Not just for my own self-preservation, but for the good of everyone in the cave. I hit him with the burning torch. In the back as hard as I can, toward the grasping claw.

He’s an easy victim, already cooked for the lobster mouth that surely awaits. Too burnt to scream, Big Bill is still alive. I can see the remains of his limbs twitch as the orange of the claw retracts from the opening of the cave, its prize in hand. The children’s shrunken forms stare after the claw, unblinking, frozen with fear. Molly is still entombed in the claw’s ooze, but she’s alive. Yet she’s free of the thing’s grip.

I know Molly and I will play Let’s Make a Deal tonight.