TRIGGER WARNING: Violence, Implied Potential Sexual Violence, Gore, Child Abuse, Body Horror
Hello.
My name is Abigail.I have no last name. My parents never gave me one. Well, I’ve never known them either. I spare them no thought, because they spared none for me.If they did, they would not have abandoned me in the place that I once called home. You see, I grew up in the dumps of New Jersey, raised by the outsiders who live under the specious rule of the Dumpster Babies.
My first memories are of the ceiling pieced together from scraps of rusted metal and cut-open plastic bottles.
I remember being wrapped in a bundle of dirty cloth, scavenged amongst the ruinous piles of things that humans no longer wanted. One of the boys, a half-goblin child with a missing tooth, handed me a pink puppy with a missing eye. Another child, a girl, took it and tucked it into my arms. Those are my memories. Raised by a crowd of other children who were all the same as me. Half-breeds, children of sexual violence and assault, human babies born of illicit affairs, banished beings whom no one wanted—living in a fantasy world made of things that nobody else wanted.
The irony is not lost on me.
The Black Rain came when I was twelve.
***
It started with the pitter-patter, as they always did. One droplet at first, then a dozen more, followed by a host of numbers that my mind could not comprehend.
“Guys! Guys!” Droopy-ears came running through the door, his large pointed ears flopping. “It’s raining!”
No sooner had he spoken than the ceiling began to be bombarded with hundreds of tiny knocks from the rain. The ceiling of our den, made of plastic, wood, foil, cloth and whatever else we could forage, began to shake.
“N-no,” Dolly whispered in her whining voice. “T-Thunder scary.”
I looked over at Dolly, feeling my chest be clutched with a feeling that I’d come to associate with her. We all looked different than humans here. The few humans I saw that occasionally came to the dumps were all the same. Two arms. Two legs. Eyes, nose, mouth. Most of them were men wearing orange clothes. But very rarely did I see others. A young man and a woman. More often, a young woman. Skinny, sneaking, and leaving a soft crying bundle inside something that would block the winds. They’d leave, crying.
But I never paid attention to the crying. I’d see them. Their legs. Slim arms. Boobs. Stomachs. The shape of their bodies. The way they walked, the way their eyes crinkled with the tears. Humans were fascinating; human girls more so.
They were pretty.
Dolly was not pretty.
Dolly had been given everything, but robbed of everything that made her pretty.
Her arms were pudgy and twisted, fingers mishappen and nearly not there. One eye was half-shut, while the other nearly bulged out of the socket, and if Green wasn’t careful while holding her, it did pop out. Once, Droopy-ears hugged her too tight, and the eye had popped right out. Veins cracked along her skin, especially around her too-big belly button.
Dolly crawled on the floor on her freakish arms and legs, more stuffed doll than living, and always required one of us to hold her. Most of the time, it was Green. Sometimes, it was Toothless. Other times, it was me, the third oldest.
I hated holding Dolly. It made me want to wash my hands. But water was precious. And—
“Quick,” Green stood up, stooping as to not hit the ceiling. She’d been growing taller lately. Taller than some of the boys. Much taller. Wider, too.
“Get all the bottles, buckets, dishes, everything.” Green’s voice came out slurred. Two fangs jutted out from her lower lips. Not pretty, but scary. Like two metal doors rumbling against each other.
“Aye aye!” Toothless gave her a salute and began to help the young’ins. Those who were too small to carry buckets made do with plastic bottles and broken plates.
“Blankie, you’re with me. Bring Dolly.” Green hunched over and left through the opening of our den.
I felt my chest sink. I didn’t want to be outside in the rain. Much less with Dolly.
Something crawled over and grabbed my toe.
Dolly looked up at me, smiling with her W-shaped mouth. “B-Blankie c-c-carry D-dolly?”
I hid my feelings under my skin and made the effort to smile back. “Yeah, I got you, Dolly.”
Quickly searching, I found one of the younger one’s blankets glued together from dirty diapers and washed out in the rain. Grabbing it, I went to wrap Dolly up in it.
“N-No!” Dolly shrieked and freaked away from the diaper. “D-Dolly no w-w-want!”
I frowned. “What?”
She pointed at the cloth wrapped around my waist. The blanket I’d been wrapped in when I was found. “D-Dolly want that.”
I felt the blood drain out of my face. “No, Dolly. That’s mine.” I walked closer to wrap her in the diapers.
“N-NO!” Dolly put all her effort into pushing me away.
The room stopped as the younger ones looked in this direction. I felt my face go red.
I smiled. “Dolly being Dolly,” I said.
That seemed to bring back the quiet hustle. Everyone went back to their tasks.
I quickly wrapped her Dolly, and while no one was looking, pinched her in the flabby stomach and twisted. “Be quiet, or I’ll pinch you until your good eye falls out. You hear me Dolls?”
A fat teardrop fell from the bulging eye. She hiccuped and nodded.
I tied her to my waist.
My chest felt stuffy, like I couldn’t breathe. But good and satisfied at the same time. But wrong, like I ate too much of the greasy fwench fwies that Droopy liked so much. I wanted to vomit.
I’d do it again.
I ignored the feelings and ducked into the little opening of our Den to follow after Green.
I bumped into her broad back and stopped.
“Green,” I said. “I brought Dolly. Why’d you stop? I thought you wanted help getting the—”
It was raining black.
I looked up.
Fat, round murky droplets fell from the sky. One by one, twelve by twelve, a hundred by a hundred and more and more and more and more. I couldn’t see anything except the black water. The different homes of the other outsiders were only seen because the rain was bouncing off of them. Places where there wasn’t anything for the rain to hit were just lines of black and gray. It was like I’d stepped foot into another world.
The rain fell into my mouth. Bitter. Sour. Unpleasant. It ran over my eyes, cheeks, everything. I was soaked from head to toe.
Dolly began to cough and cry.
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I felt scared. Green stood still, not moving. Green was always moving.
“Green?” I asked. “Should I go help you get the buckets?”
Green didn’t answer.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
She moved out from under the scaffolding over to the pile of scrap buckets we used. She emptied the waste basket, scrubbing it clean with copper wires. I took the clean ones and began to lay them out to collect the water.
But the water was different. Pools of murky black that turned like there were things inside. Dolly began to cough. A wet, horrible cough that started in her lungs and ended in her mouth. She wailed, though most of it was drowned out by the rain.
“Green!” I yelled over the thunder. “Should I put Dolly back?”
“No! Remember what happened last time?”
Last time we left her inside, one of the young’ins stepped on her by mistake. Not only had Dolly’s bad eye fallen out, but things had squeezed out of her stomach like a tube. Our den had smelled rotten for a good moon’s worth.
I nodded and went back to work.
Soon, we were joined by the others. They brought out the broken plates, water bottles, and glass cups. Some of the young’ins were amazed at the rain and danced like they always did. A lot of the weaker ones stayed under the awning, not wanting to go inside, but too scared to be hit by it.
Green joined me under the scaffolding. Droopy-ears was with us too.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Green said suddenly.
I looked up at her. Green was twenty years old. The oldest of any of us. Old enough to be one of the Dumpster Babies, if she wanted to. Or join a powerful tribe as one of their leaders. She was strong too. I once saw her throw down with one of the Dumpster Babies. He was a nobody, but he’d still been a Dumpster Baby with big arms and mean pig-eyes. Green had beaten him down in a few seconds.
Green was supposed to know everything.
Droopy-ears nodded. “I’m scared, Green.” And I saw him reach for her hand.
She took it, and squeezed, her fingers wrapping tightly around his hand and wrist. “It’ll be okay.”
I wanted to hold her hand too. But I didn’t want them to think I wanted to. So I waited to see if they’d hold mine. They didn’t. So I pretended not to care.
We stayed that way.
That night, Dolly couldn’t stop coughing.
Neither could the kids who played in the rain.
Then the night after. And the day after. Then the whole day after that.
It wouldn’t stop.
***
“Get out here!”
I woke up to the yelling.
It had been a full moon since the Black Rain came and went. A full moon of coughing filling the den.Of the sickest young’ins disappearing during the night. Green refusing to eat. Her stomach growled every night, and I knew she was hungry. But there was nothing to eat anymore. All the rats disappeared. So did the roaches. And what roaches we found were barely enough to feed the remaining young’ins, let alone me, Droopy-ears, and Green.
At night, Green sucked on plastic wrappers or stained paper plates. But her stomach never stopped growling under the sound of the coughing.
Droopy-ears… he stopped smiling. Oh, he did with his mouth. But it never reached his eyes anymore.
“By the decree of the Rust Lord, and the Dumpster Babies who serve under him! I demand you to come out!”
I got up to the rustling.
Green had gotten up. Her cheeks were gaunt. Her ribs stuck out painfully against her chest.
I reached out and grabbed Green’s hand.
She looked down at me.
I shook my head. “Don’t go, Green. I have a horrible feeling. Oh, Green. Please don’t go.”
“Haff to,” she muttered. But she was all gentle about it. Soft. She reached down with her other hand, placing it on top of mine. It was warm.
“You and Droppy stay inside now. Okay?” she said. Then she tried to push my hand away.
I looked around. Without thinking, I held on to Green’s hand.
“Green?”
“Blankie, I really have to—”
“Where did all the young’ins go?”
Green’s green face went pale. She forced my hand away from hers and walked out without a word, squeezing through the small burrow hole.
Droopy, who had been watching the whole thing, said, “We have to go after her.”
“But she said to stay inside.”
Droopy wasn’t listening. He wasn’t even looking at me. “C’mon. Bring Dolly, just in case.” He disappeared through the hole.
I followed.
Outside, the clouds were still gray—we hadn’t seen the sun through the clouds since the Black Rain. And it was cold. Though this was a time when it was supposed to be hot. But the air was sharp and mean. I wrapped Dolly tighter in the diapers, but she didn’t wake. She didn’t stay awake much anymore.
Outside, amongst the junk and dump, was one of the Dumpster Babies.
He had fur all over his face, and teeth that were sharp like the pack of dogs who’d eat some of the young’ins who were unlucky enough to go potty too deep in the junkyard where the wild things lived. He was big too, almost as big as Green. Not as tall, but leaner. Meaner. Sharper. Like the winds that kept blowing since the Black Rain.
There were a few others with him. All with different faces. The kind I saw on the wrapper for what Droopy-ears told me was bacon. A huge girl who looked like a pigeon, except she had two heads that kept pecking at each other. Every face a different one. Some pretty, others ugly, others just strange.
There were a lot of them. All older. Stronger. Bigger than us.
But the one who spoke wasn’t one of them. He was human. Pretty. Two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Everything. No weird hands. Just… a regular mortal, wearing what they call a t-shirt and real pants. Real pants.
“Green the Faeling.” He spoke in a slight accent. “That you? You really are as big as they say.”
“What do you want?” Green blurted out.
The human sniffed, then smiled. I didn’t like it. It felt greasy. Like fwench fwies.
“I’m Corriander. One of the Rust Lord’s Dumpster Babies. You’ve been summoned by the Rust Lord.”
“I don’t answer to the Rust Lord. I’m not a Dumpster Baby. I’m just an outsider. We all are, here.”
“You live in the Rust Lord’s territory. And as to you not being a Dumpster Baby… you could be. If you wanted to be. The Rust Lord told me to tell you that.”
Green scowled. Her face was scary when she did that. Wrinkles between her eyes, her teeth bared like a wolf-dog. She clenched her fists. “I’m not going.”
“Let’s just take her,” One of the bacon-kids said, his voice stuffed between his throat and nose. “Take her and the young’ins too. I like that one,” and he pointed at me. He wore nothing except a loincloth. From underneath his enlarged belly, his sex poked out. “She purrdy.”
Green only seemed to notice me then. She stepped in front of me. “Go back, Dumpster Baby. Tell the Rust Lord we’re not interested.”
“Now, now,” Corriander shot the bacon-kid a nasty look, but when he looked towards us, he was smiling again. “Don’t be like that. We’re not asking you to come for free. We’re offering a trade.”
“I’m not interested,” Green snapped.
“Water.”
Droopy-ears gasped.
“Last moon, the skies opened up and it rained Black. I saw it. They saw it. We all saw it. It rained Black, and anyone who drank even a droplet of it would’ve felt it. The rain was wrong, Green. It was sickness. Judging by how many souls I sense in your den, I’m guessing you already had to drag out a few corpses yourself, am I right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Green snarled.
Corriander didn’t stop. “And that’s only the first wave, Green. The sickness first… then food after. All the rats, the pigeons, the coons, the opossums, they all are dying. All the food that’s lying against? Soaked by the Black Rain. Death by starvation, if you don’t all die by thirst first. All the garbage cans are infected, the wells, the springs… the whole dumpster is a cesspit of sickness and ruin.”
Green said nothing, just glaring.
Because he was right. I heard Green and Droopy-ears arguing about the same thing just yesternight.
I looked at Green. Her shoulders were shaking.
“The Rust Lord offers clean water and food if you come with us.” Corriander spread his hands warmly. “Not just for you, but for your followers.”
“They’re not my followers,” Green said. “They’re family. And I know what the Rust Lord is about.”
“You’d be elevated to the status of a Dumpster Baby. All those beneath you?” He continued like he hadn’t heard her. “Under your direct leadership. They wouldn’t come to harm.” He gave me a careful look. “No matter how purddy they are.”
As Corriander spoke, I could see Green’s body language change. She was so sure of… of whatever she wanted at first. But the more he spoke, the less sure she became. Her straight back stooped, her scowl becoming smaller. Her eyes shook, and I could tell she looked confused.
Droopy-ears tugged on Green’s sleeve. He whispered, “Green, let’s take it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Green muttered. She did that sometimes. Said we didn’t know things. That she was older, so she knew more. It was unfair.
“Listen to him, Faeling.” Corriander looked at his nalis. They were clean. No dirt and junk packed underneath them. In fact, his red hair was combed back and shiny.
I looked down at my own stringy black hair. I wanted to wrap them around my face to hide.
“Look at them, Green,” Droopy-ears kept going. “They’re fat. Fat. They have water, they have food. C’mon, we’re all dying out here, Green. Please!”
“The Rust Lord—”
“…I want to go too,” I said quietly without realizing it.
Green looked at me.
“I mean… I’ll do whatever you want, Green. I’m okay with just staying too.”
Droopy-ears latched on. “Green… we already dragged out half our—” With a glance at me, he stopped. “Green, please. We’re all going to starve at this rate.”
Green shook her head. “We can’t. The Rust Lord… maybe some other Lord. But the Rust Lord’s rules are—”
“Let me do something that would hurry this discussion along.” Corriander reached into his pockets and brought out a candy bar.
“Green… please?”
It wasn’t Droopy-ears or me who reacted.
It was another voice. A young’in that snuck up from behind me.
His arms were all skin and bone. His cheeks so gaunt. So… empty. But it was the eyes.
Desperate.
He crawled towards Corriander.
Smiling, the pretty human unwrapped the candy bar and handed it to the young’in. The child snatched it out of Corriander’s hand, and gobbled it up. Getting chocolate everywhere, the tantalizing smell of sugar, and pleasure, and everything—
I looked at Green.
Green’s eyes were… different.Not brave.Not strong.
Weak. Defeated. Like the Dumpster Baby she’d beaten down awhile back. Except worse.
“Green!” Droopy-ears shrieked, his eyes impossibly wide. “Fuck! Say something! Fucking--”
“I’ll do it,” Green said quietly.
Corriander smiled, like he’d expected it all along. “And you know the Rust Lord’s policy?”
“I do.”
He nodded. “Then as of now, Green the Faeling. You are given a new name. You are hereby called Abigail, named by the Rust Lord, and instated as one of the Dumpster Babies. All those beneath you are now under the Rust Lord’s rule, and as such will be subjected to the Culling.”
Droopy-ears frowned. “The culling?”
Green refused to meet our gaze.
“The Culling means this,” Corriander said.
Then the bacon-kid ran up to me and tore Dolly from my grasp.
“What are you—”
Taking Dolly in both hands, he squeezed her so hard that things squeezed out of her. Her eyes popped so hard that they flew across the clearing. Poop and innards came bursting out of her poop-hole. Her tongue lolled out, and other grey-red ropey things came slithering out.
I screamed.
The bacon-kid threw her aside. Dolley just... plopped. And kept oozing things out.
“Cull the rest of the unworthy,” Corriander said, turning around. “Bring the rest. We bring them to the Rust Lord. Welcome, Sister Abigail.”
Green looked at me and Droopy with a look I didn’t recognize and followed after Corriander.