Progress

Rat wasn’t dead.

He wasn’t dead, but he might as well have been.

Rat knew he wasn’t dead, because he could feel his heart thud, he could feel blood pulse at his temples and behind his eyes, because he could feel all those hectic, meaningless thoughts flying around in between his ears, hot and electric and beating at his skull in wordless fury. He knew he wasn’t dead because he could feel the gash up the side of his leg burning with white fire, deep and bloody and crawling with pain. He could feel the blood and mucus crusted under his no se, he could feel the soreness, the dull aches that consumed his muscles and pulsed with endless, vague pain, like old friends suddenly turned bitter and moody, who now refused to do anything more than sit there and brood. Rat knew he wasn’t dead because he could feel the night wind pushing softly against him, cool and sweet and empty, like the touch of a corpse.

Rat wasn’t dead, and he really didn’t care.

He just kept walking.

The man who called himself Rat–or had been named Rat; he could no longer remember which was the case–walked on, ignoring the pain, like he always did. The best that he could, that was. He kept walking, down the ditch, heading the way the sun set, with only the vaguest feeling that there was a reason he was doing it. Maybe there wasn’t a reason–wouldn’t’ve been important, if there wasn’t. Wouldn’t’ve been important if there was. He was just doing it, and that was all there was to it, now. Down there, in the ditch–that huge, endless canyon of concrete and steel–that was all there was to anything. Just walking. Just staying alive. Or dying. Either way, it didn’t matter.

Rat stopped, sure he hadn’t walked far at all but stopping just the same, looking down at his leg, granting a cursory glance at the wound that burned him, making walking harder and harder. He wasn’t sure where he had gotten it–he couldn’t remember, but the wound was fresh, so he couldn’t’ve gotten it that long ago —

The dog, he remembered suddenly, feeling a faint flicker of emotion that died faster than it had come, snuffed out before Rat could even begin to recognize it. He had killed a dog. He looked back, just able to make out the broken black mass now yards and yards behind, its body smashed against the cracked and worn concrete, its blood drawing a dark line down to the thin stream of water that was all the ditch ever held, glossy and clean in the frozen moonlight.

The dog.

Rat suddenly thought that he should go back. The dog was meat–the dog was food. And he was out canned ravioli, out of Roller Coasters and Spaghetti-Os. He had been for months. Since the last city, since the last store with anything left. Since the last urban exit out of the godforsaken ditch. He had eaten jerky, mostly dried ham and pork rind he had bought off an old woman in Newport, since then. A little rabbit, some squirrel, but mainly dried and cured pork that went down like salty shoe leather. There was a little cured beef in the bundle–at least, that was what the old woman had told him–but to Rat’s tongue, things all tasted the same. He just wanted to get rid of the gnawing in his gut, and the jerky never helped much. And he was almost out of that, too. But his knife was gone, and so was his flint–and he hadn’t seen sulfur tipped matches for a year. He had lost all of his salt. He had no pack and no sling, nothing to carry the dog in, nothing to skin it or carve it up with, nothing to cook it, and no way to preserve it. And it didn’t really matter, anyway.

So Rat kept on walking. Walking in the ditch.

The ditch was big. The ditch was long. Rat didn’t know how long he had been walking in it now, but except for the towns, the cities with exits, the few places where he had gotten out and foraged, all he had done for the last two seasons was walk in the ditch, between the walls of the concrete canyon. For the last several months–and therefore, in a way, forever–Rat had lived in the ditch, barely eating, barely sleeping, mostly walking. And fighting. Animals, mainly. Not many people. Not many people anywhere. Rat had few opinions about anything, but he could almost feel something stir at that thought, something deep inside, something that was almost an emotion, something that was almost strong. The thought that there was hardly anybody left–the thought that almost everybody was dead–the thought that the stinking, fetid cesspool that had called itself a civilization was now little more than a myth, if it had ever been at all–that thought was a strong one. It was one of the few really coherent thoughts in Rat’s brain.

What had been before, he knew of only vaguely. Of its death he knew even less. He only knew that it had been a long one. An enormously long one. What had done it, he didn’t know. Its murderer had left precious little evidence. No matter where he went, it was the same. No wounds, no cuts, no bruises on the earth’s dead flesh. Just decay. Just rot. Just the sweet, cold smell of a dead, dead world.

So Rat walked. So Rat lived. In the ditch.

The ditch. All he really knew about it was what the man had told him, the old man, sitting on a milk crate, cooking squirrels on a spit, his voice metallic and emotionless as he tried, with only marginal success, to teach Rat everything he knew. The old man–that small, ugly box where his jaw should have been, the muck-encrusted tube that he had had to eat and drink with dangling limply from his throat, a flaccid, rotting snake. The old man had told him much, but in the hot, buzzing gray matter in between Rat’s ears, very little had taken. Still, at least for now, he remembered that modulated, metal voice talking about the great river and the pollution that had clogged it, the dams that had choked it, the burning sun that had baked it dry. And about the men–the men that had come with their huge machines, the sort that Rat had occasionally seen, junked and useless and overgrown with dryweed, rusted the color of dried blood, lonely, brooding monuments to the dead men who had built them.

But back then, the old man had said, the machines had worked, and the men had built, laying concrete and steel along the valley the river had carved, and making new valleys of their own, stretching it, expanding it, building up to the old headwaters–by then, little more than arid, bone-white desert–and then taking it further. All for some plan, the old man had said. Back then, they had always had plans. Big plans. Plans to make everything better. Plans to improve the world, to make it all nice and clean and tidy and convenient for everybody–and, somehow, in the process, save it as well.

They had had plans, plans, and then more plans. And Rat could remember the old man spreading his arms, seeming to encompass the entire desolation that had surrounded them in that simple motion, as if he were embracing the entire landscape, and, at the same time, trying to throttle it. And he would tell Rat to look, to look all around, to look at what all those grand plans had wrought. He would tell Rat, in his flat, tin-can voice, to look at the wonderful world those big planners had made for them–to look at what they had inherited from their forefathers. It hadn’t taken war, it hadn’t taken bombs, it hadn’t taken missiles or clever little supergerms cooked up in the government labs, the man had told him, chest shaking and nostrils flaring, the ugly gray box in the cavern under his nose spit ting static–that was the way the old man had laughed. In fact, the old man would say, it hadn’t taken anything at all. They had done it without even trying.

The memory faded as Rat kept walking, leaving little imprint in his mind. Rat felt nothing for the old man. He might’ve, at one time, but he didn’t now. There was no need. The old man had died, just like Rat would, just like everything did. Even planets. Everything died, and it was mostly bullshit–that was probably the closest Rat had ever come to developing a philosophy. The old man had seemed to think it unbelievably funny, the way everything had gone. But Rat didn’t. It was just more bullshit. Like everything else. Like the gnawing in his gut and the still-bleeding gash across his leg. Like the dogs. Like the ditch. Like the walking. Like everything.

So Rat walked. Like the men who had built the sun-bleached, water-stained canyon he walked in, Rat had a plan. The plan was to walk. He would sleep soon. An hour, perhaps two, always lightly and always without dreams. Here, there was nothing left to dream about. And then, after he woke, he would walk some more.

After a mile, maybe two, Rat lay back against the ditch-canyon wall and slept.

◊◊◊

The morning was quiet and still, the way morning always was, the sky a violet and pink frame around a cold, orange sun, the air cool and scentless and moist with dew. Rat had been walking for a few hours–he had started well before sunrise, so it had been five hours at least. And now, in the distance, he could see a bridge spanning the long distance between the walls of the ditch. A big bridge. And that meant a city. This time, perhaps, a big city–a city with supplies, maybe. A city with a lot of supplies. There were still some, he knew–cities with food and clothing left over from before things had begun to fall apart, and even some, though decidedly few, with small, loosely-knit cultures that had created a limited industry of their own. Rat had little but baubles to use in the way of commerce, but, he decided, it didn’t matter much. If he couldn’t trade, he could work. And if he couldn’t work–well, whatever. What happened, happened. That was just the way it went.

And Rat walked on. The bridge couldn’t’ve been more than ten miles away, a distance he could cover easily in an two hours or so, and there was likely to be some sort of avenue into the city well before that–there almost always was. And that was good. He felt very light-headed, now. He had lost a lot of blood the day before, and had eaten next to nothing over the past few weeks. He needed food and rest and medicine, and the city would almost surely offer him that, one way or another. Perhaps there’d even be clean water, without the grit and mud he had become accustomed to in the ditch. Perhaps, somehow, there’d even be a reason to stop walking–to climb out of the man-made gorge and never come back. To leave it. To quit. Maybe there’d be a reason.

But Rat didn’t think there would be. He had decided to see this thing through to the end–that had been his plan for quite a while now–and nothing got in the way of progress. The old man had taught him that.

Rat thought about the man as the bridge grew larger and the city came closer, about the things he had said, about everything. Rat thought about the old man a lot–here, in the ditch, there was little else to do. And almost everything he knew–everything important, anyway–he had gotten from the old man. Where he had come from–from between the legs of a slut, the man had told him–and where he was going. Straight to Hell, the old man would say, and he had been right. He usually had been. The man had told Rat a lot. About everything. About how to kill, about how to die, about plans and progress–the man had told him about it all. He had been the only one there to tell Rat anything–he had been the only other human being that Rat had ever really known. There had been others–traders and panhandlers, tricksters and highwaymen, and others still that he had run across in his travels, but nobody else he had really known. For Rat, the old man was it.

Rat wasn’t dead, but the old man was really the only reason he had ever been alive at all. He had found Rat, or so he had said, in a garbage can–where the sluts would put their babies, if they lived through squeezing them out, the old man had told him. He had probably been in it for weeks before the old man had come by, but, where most babies got eaten by rats, that time the rats had gotten eaten by baby. And that was his name, Rat suddenly remembered. The old man had named him. Because of the story, the old man had said. Rat wasn’t sure if the story was true or not–rats were persistent bastards, and he had had to deal with a few over the past few months with less than favorable results. He doubted he would’ve fared better as a baby. And besides, they tasted bad–like spoiled meat, like rancid pork, even when they were fresh. So, no, it probably wasn’t true, he decided, but it really didn’t matter that much–

The dog came out of nowhere. Hardly ten yards behind him, it came at him, killing off the distance in seconds. It could’ve had him. Rat, caught up in thoughts about the old man, about the city ahead of him, would scarcely have noticed it. He was too light-headed, too tired, too thirsty, to pay much attention to any thing but the chaotic frenzy of thoughts inside his brain. But the dog–over-eager, the way the wild dogs often were–barked, losing the advantage of surprise. The second Rat heard it, he turned, mind shifting gears with smooth suddenness as the dog hurtled towards him. He lifted his hands up just as it jumped, grabbing the dog around the neck as it fell on him, jamming his fingers down hard on its wind-pipe. Paws thumped against his chest and stomach, claws raking at his shirt as the force of the thing’s weight sent him falling hard against the concrete. His thumbs slipped way from its wind-pipe as the back of Rat’s head met stone with a sickening whip-snap, filling his skull with hot, white pain. But he kept his hands around the dog’s throat, keeping his grip tight as he could, but not tight enough to do much damage. The black, snarling face came closer as Rat struggled to get his thumbs back where they could have some effect, so close Rat could make out the tiny cracks on its yellowed, worn-down teeth as it worked its jaw furiously, the fine grains of black dirt matted in its fur, the thick, white cataract covering one of its eyes. Rat could feel its claws tearing at his shirt, he could smell its hot, stinking breath crawling over his face, he could hear the loud, guttural, cracked sounds of its barking tearing at his ears. He could feel the fear, thick and cold and metallic, slithering around in his belly and freezing his skin–it was all there, so he knew he wasn’t dead, not yet. He was still in the fight.

After that, killing the dog was easy. It had him pinned, and, having had very little food over the past few weeks and all, Rat was weak. But he was still stronger than the dog. The dog worked its jaws and shook its neck violently, trying to get out from between Rat’s rough, scarred hands and sink its teeth into his flesh. Its head got closer, pushing insistently against Rat as he slid them up its throat, trying to get a grip on its jaw. Rat could feel dull, cracked teeth sinking into his fingers as he gripped its jaw, sliding out and then sinking back in as the dog chewed ravenously at his flesh. He felt a bone splinter as it bit down on his fingers again, then another, but the pain was dull and dreamy, hardly pain at all. Not enough to stop Rat. He took his free hand away from its throat, but the dog, too intent on gnawing at Rat’s fingers, didn’t seem to notice as the bloody hand it was chewing on tightened its grip around its lower jaw and his other and closed around its entire muzzle. Rat shifted, spreading out his legs and lifting them up, and then the dog must’ve known something was going to happen, because it quit biting and started to try and shake free, but Rat’s legs flew up and scissored its torso, holding it firm and giving him some leverage so he could break the thing’s neck. And once he had it, it was just a matter of a turn and a loud, wet crack, and it was over.

Rat lowered his legs, pushing the limp, lifeless body of the dog off of him, twisting its head around full circle as he did so, just to make sure. He shook his jacket off, knowing better than to waste any time now, and removed his shirt, tying it tight around his bloody, broken hand. Then he wrapped the jacket around his leg–the gash from the day before had come open when he was struggling with dog, and now it was bleeding worse than it had before. He didn’t like the idea of going for any length of time bare-backed in this sun, but his clothes were all he had to stop the blood and, besides, the city wasn’t far now. There’d be more clothes there, for sure. So, making sure the shirt was tight, he stood.

Rat wasn’t dead.

Not yet.

Rat knew he wasn’t dead because he could feel the sun, already hard and hot against his back, because he could feel the dull pain in his hand steadily turning into something much worse, because he could smell the sickly sweet, coppery scent of his own blood hanging in the air. So he wasn’t dead–he might as well have been, and he guessed it really didn’t make much difference if he was dead or not, but he wasn’t, so that was that. It was time to start moving.

Rat bent down to the dog, its head now turned backwards on its neck, lifting it up and setting it on his shoulders–it would protect his neck and shoulders and most of his back from the swiftly approaching noon-day sun, and if there was any opportunity to trade in the city, maybe he could use the dog. He wished he had a pack or a sling, but the city wasn’t far–he was pretty sure he could make it before he got too tired to carry the dog any further.

So, with the dog on his shoulders, the pain very present but really nothing more than distracting, Rat walked, and Rat made progress.