Ratsnake Parrotdog
By
R.J. Butler
Andy Hodgson wiped sweat from his forehead, anxiety tightening his grip as he held onto the rusted ladder leading down into the New York sewers.
The stench hit him first. It was sour and cloying, a reek of rot and rust, with a faint undertone of shit. It made him wince. The dark water hissed and gurgled beneath him, as if the city itself breathed.
Amos Snell stood beside him. The others called him Snell the Smell, because he had spent much of his working life knee-deep in filth and was now accustomed to its acrid stench—a sordid perfume of humanity.
Andy, like everyone else, hated Snell. The feeling was mutual. As they descended the ladder with casual ease into the labyrinth of decay, Snell’s pale, narrow eyes lingered on Andy, resentment sharpening his gaze. Andy clenched his jaw, holding the ladder tighter, trying to hide his unease. He imagined, as he always did, some unseen horror in the sludge below—waiting, hungry, hoping.
Hoping for prey.
“Watch out for this here alligator.” Snell cackled like a B-movie villain. Andy had heard the joke a thousand times or more. It was not funny. Not one bit.
The legend was old. Andy’s mother had told him about it to scare him when he was naughty. Later, Andy found it hypocritical. But back then, the legend became his bogeyman. It left him terrified at night, dreading what could be below.
The alligators in the sewer.
He imagined big, snarling, snapping, impossible creatures, living in stagnant underground rivers. Now, as an adult, Andy did not believe the horseshit story his mother told him. Still, as he descended, a small amount of dread returned. Every splash and bubble seemed to have intent, as if the water itself were alive.
Snell claimed to have seen one once. It was total bullshit. It had to be. He claimed he found it when he first started on the job, back when Elvis was still the king and the Ramones were starting up at CBGB’s. Snell said he caught sight of it, eyes glowing in the dark, dragging a half-gnawed cat into the shadows. When he told Andy, he wore a smirk, knowing Andy did not believe him. Andy just wanted to get on with the job, no matter how crap the job was.
At the bottom, the stench intensified. Faeces, harsh chemicals, and the metallic tang made Andy want to gag. He had worked for the city’s sewage department for six months, ever since the scandal that ruined his family. Being in deep shit was the only job he could land. It seemed fitting, in a way.
Snell sniffed the air like a hound and rolled his eyes.
Snell sniffed. “The smell of humanity.”
Andy looked around. A soggy pile of trash bags lay ahead of them.
“Looks like they have been dumping trash down here again.” Andy’s tone was flat.
“Typical of rich types,” Snell said, smirking. “Oh, but of course you wouldn’t know about that. Not anymore.”
Andy gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to react, bitterness and humiliation churning in his gut.
Bastard, Andy thought. You rotten fucking bastard.
Snell walked closer to the soggy trash bags and began to inspect them, ensuring it was something that could be easily removed.
“Ah, shit!” he yelled. “More dead pets.”
Andy walked slowly toward him and looked over his shoulder. He glimpsed the disturbing remains of a dog; brown fur matted, a singular glassy eye staring blankly at him. His stomach churned. He hated this place. He hated the endless echo of dripping water and the distant, indistinct scuttling noises that made him twitch.
“Why do they buy their kiddies pets if they end up being tossed down here?” Snell asked, shaking his head.
“No idea,” Andy replied.
Snell chuckled at that.
“We will remove them on the way back. Now, we have to locate this blockage.” Snell’s voice was brisk.
Andy shivered, resentment and envy wrestling inside him. He hated Snell’s easy confidence, his knowledge, his ability to navigate this nightmare. Beneath it all, he hated him for something else, something that knotted his insides with anger and a sense of betrayal. Something deeper.
Something darker.
They pressed on. Ladder behind, darkness ahead. The city rotted above them. They had been instructed to investigate a blockage deep within the sewers. An entire downtown Manhattan block had been unable to flush the toilet for over six hours. Snell was chosen because he was familiar with the sewers. He needed a second, of course, and he nominated Andy. Andy played reluctance with ease, keeping his true intentions close to his chest.
A thick, syrupy wet rot flared in Andy’s nostrils as filth clung to their boots. The stench coated the back of Andy’s throat. It was like wading through a graveyard, the dirt continuing to rise. Snell had his flashlight. It slashed across the dripping walls, revealing slick veins of brown and green mould. The light caught the water, making it pulse in slow ripples alive with insects.
When he least expects it, Andy thought, focusing on the anticipation that pulsed in his chest. When he least expects it, that will be my moment.
His nerves were raw, every step sparking a wicked hope and a trembling uncertainty.
The tunnels branched like a ribcage. Pipes throbbed above them as the dull clang of the living city bled through. Far away, the ghost of a subway car hummed. Andy thought about it. He thought about the people up there, drinking coffee, checking their phones, talking about traffic jams, fucking their spouses while dreaming of a celebrity crush. Meanwhile, he was down here, in a place where nothing living should linger for long.
The scandal had eaten away at Andy’s whole life. It led to his father being fired from his own firm and the riches lost, the Feds arresting his mother, while his father escaped justice at the barrel of a gun. Andy had seen the movie. His mother had too many lovers. Andy knew this, and he was aware that she had embezzled money from the company to support her lifestyle. The coke and the array of rough young men, but the movie, the snuff film, had been too much.
Andy had managed to locate and deal with the first three men in the film with his mother. Snell was the last. The best thing was that Snell didn’t even know. He didn’t know that Andy—the man he’d been mocking—knew what he did. Knew he was partly to blame.
They waded deeper.
The light hit something pale floating on the surface. Snell crouched down and reached into the water, fishing it out and holding it up in the air.
It looked like a rat. The fur was white as chalk, skin stretched thin over bones that didn’t look right. A second head jutted from its spine, tiny and malformed. Its teeth bore a rictus grin creepier than Conrad Veidt’s in The Man Who Laughs.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Andy muttered.
“Mutation. You dump enough toxic shit down here; you start making your own animals.” Snell’s mouth twisted in grim amusement.
The extra head of the rat twitched once before it broke apart in Snell’s hand. Snell tossed the remains before they continued moving, the sound of dripping water constant, but underneath it, Andy heard another sound. Wet slapping. Heavy and rhythmic.
Snell heard it too.
“Hear that?” he asked.
Andy nodded.
They stopped. They listened.
It came again. Closer this time. It was a dragging sound, like something being pulled through the sludge. Snell swung his flashlight beam ahead. The light picked out something, pale and wet, slipping out of sight behind a curve in the tunnel.
“What the fuck was that?” Andy asked.
“No fucking clue!” Snell replied.
They followed, the tunnel narrowing until they had to duck. Snell’s flashlight beam danced along the walls, picking out graffiti, strange markings that weren’t quite letters, just scratches, symbols like claws dragged through soft cement.
The air grew hot, and a low hiss filled the tunnel. The sound of steam, or breathing. Turning the next corner, the beam fell on movement.
A thick white shape was coiled halfway in the water. It looked like an alligator, but one that had mated with a dog and a snake – pale skin stretched over bulging muscle, whilst a snout too short and a mouth of mismatched teeth lined its face. When it moved, its limbs shifted wrong, like a dog kicking its hind legs but failing miserably, the crack snapping like broken sticks.
“Jesus!” Snell whispered.
The creature blinked. Its eyes were as blue as the ocean.
And human.
Andy stumbled backwards.
“What the fuck is that thing?”
Snell raised the flashlight. The abomination hissed and scuttled sideways with impossible speed, vanishing into the water.
Snell turned.
“Are you okay?”
Andy nodded, but fear and shame flickered in his eyes, betraying the lie to Snell, who recognized Andy’s anxiety despite his silence.
They moved on, both of them knowing that something was following them. Minutes passed like hours. Time passed slowly there; the air grew heavier. The heat rose from the water in waves. The smell turned sickly sweet.
Then, they found the blockage.
It was a wall of flesh.
Dogs, cats, rats, snakes—all pale, all dead, all fused together. Their bodies melted into one another like wax. It formed a pulsing barrier that quivered with each drop of water that hit it. Here and there, eyes opened and closed. Some human. Some not.
“Fuck!” Andy screamed.
Snell gagged, turning his face away.
“It looks like a fucking nest,” Andy said.
The wall shifted as Snell turned back round. A long, slick tail slid out from underneath. Another followed.
And then it came.
The big one.
It moved with strange, sluggish grace. Its scales were like porcelain, the body thick as a horse’s torso. The face was wrong. Half-human, half-reptile. Nostrils pulsed like a heart. Shredded remnants of wings sprouted from its back, feathers fused to skin. When it opened its mouth, rows of teeth gleamed in a large gaping maw, each stained red.
Snell fired his flashlight beam into its eyes. It did not flinch.
Andy turned and started to run. Snell followed. Their boots slapped through the filth, splashing down another tunnel. Behind them, it came. Claws scraping against stone. Andy turned and saw it once. White. Massive. Graceful in the water. Jaws open wide.
Snell slipped. Andy stopped. He thought one thing.
This is it. This is my chance.
Andy ran over to Snell and grabbed his arm, helping him stand, maintaining the façade of teamwork.
“Thank you, rich boy,” Snell said.
Andy smiled and then simply pushed.
Snell fell backwards. Andy turned. He ran. He heard Snell scream once. It was short and sharp. Andy still ran. His legs burned. He didn’t look back.
I did it. I killed the bastard. I killed the bastard.
When he reached a ladder, he climbed, gasping. Behind him, he heard the snapping of jaws in a grand cacophony of hunger. Halfway up, he looked down. Snell’s flashlight still glowed faintly below as something pale moved past it.
Andy climbed faster.
Bursting through the manhole cover onto a street, he collapsed against the asphalt. Night air hit him like a drug. He laughed. He cackled as sirens howled far off. A car passed. Sirens blared. Life went on.
Andy quit the job the next day. His revenge was complete.
Snell the Smell. You will no longer smell my mother’s pussy, he thought as he tossed a single rose down a manhole.
Andy told the boss before he quit that Snell had tried to attack him because he was a rich boy. Andy ran, and Snell ran after him until he slipped. Andy didn’t look back. He told the cops the same story. They believed him.
Andy moved upstate. Found a job with a publishing firm. Worked with the likes of Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates. He was even put in charge of editing an anthology of Harlan Ellison stories. He married. He had two kids. No one was any the wiser to his part in Snell’s death. The only thing that changed about him was an intense lingering dread whenever his hand approached the faucet of a sink, and the need to step away from drains in the street.
What lay beneath still haunted him.
It was two days after Andy quit when Snell’s gear was located. There was no corpse. Just a flashlight, still burning, and a set of wet footprints leading towards the drain.
R.J. Butler is a UK-based writer of horror and dark speculative fiction. His work explores grief, obsession, monstrosity, and the fragile boundary between the psychological and the supernatural. Drawing inspiration from folklore, classic cinema, and existential literature, his stories blend visceral imagery with emotional depth. His fiction has appeared in independent magazines and anthologies. He is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing, where his research focuses on folklore and contemporary horror. When not writing, he can usually be found watching old monster movies, reading Borges, or walking beneath an obliging full moon.
By
R.J. Butler
Andy Hodgson wiped sweat from his forehead, anxiety tightening his grip as he held onto the rusted ladder leading down into the New York sewers.
The stench hit him first. It was sour and cloying, a reek of rot and rust, with a faint undertone of shit. It made him wince. The dark water hissed and gurgled beneath him, as if the city itself breathed.
Amos Snell stood beside him. The others called him Snell the Smell, because he had spent much of his working life knee-deep in filth and was now accustomed to its acrid stench—a sordid perfume of humanity.
Andy, like everyone else, hated Snell. The feeling was mutual. As they descended the ladder with casual ease into the labyrinth of decay, Snell’s pale, narrow eyes lingered on Andy, resentment sharpening his gaze. Andy clenched his jaw, holding the ladder tighter, trying to hide his unease. He imagined, as he always did, some unseen horror in the sludge below—waiting, hungry, hoping.
Hoping for prey.
“Watch out for this here alligator.” Snell cackled like a B-movie villain. Andy had heard the joke a thousand times or more. It was not funny. Not one bit.
The legend was old. Andy’s mother had told him about it to scare him when he was naughty. Later, Andy found it hypocritical. But back then, the legend became his bogeyman. It left him terrified at night, dreading what could be below.
The alligators in the sewer.
He imagined big, snarling, snapping, impossible creatures, living in stagnant underground rivers. Now, as an adult, Andy did not believe the horseshit story his mother told him. Still, as he descended, a small amount of dread returned. Every splash and bubble seemed to have intent, as if the water itself were alive.
Snell claimed to have seen one once. It was total bullshit. It had to be. He claimed he found it when he first started on the job, back when Elvis was still the king and the Ramones were starting up at CBGB’s. Snell said he caught sight of it, eyes glowing in the dark, dragging a half-gnawed cat into the shadows. When he told Andy, he wore a smirk, knowing Andy did not believe him. Andy just wanted to get on with the job, no matter how crap the job was.
At the bottom, the stench intensified. Faeces, harsh chemicals, and the metallic tang made Andy want to gag. He had worked for the city’s sewage department for six months, ever since the scandal that ruined his family. Being in deep shit was the only job he could land. It seemed fitting, in a way.
Snell sniffed the air like a hound and rolled his eyes.
Snell sniffed. “The smell of humanity.”
Andy looked around. A soggy pile of trash bags lay ahead of them.
“Looks like they have been dumping trash down here again.” Andy’s tone was flat.
“Typical of rich types,” Snell said, smirking. “Oh, but of course you wouldn’t know about that. Not anymore.”
Andy gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to react, bitterness and humiliation churning in his gut.
Bastard, Andy thought. You rotten fucking bastard.
Snell walked closer to the soggy trash bags and began to inspect them, ensuring it was something that could be easily removed.
“Ah, shit!” he yelled. “More dead pets.”
Andy walked slowly toward him and looked over his shoulder. He glimpsed the disturbing remains of a dog; brown fur matted, a singular glassy eye staring blankly at him. His stomach churned. He hated this place. He hated the endless echo of dripping water and the distant, indistinct scuttling noises that made him twitch.
“Why do they buy their kiddies pets if they end up being tossed down here?” Snell asked, shaking his head.
“No idea,” Andy replied.
Snell chuckled at that.
“We will remove them on the way back. Now, we have to locate this blockage.” Snell’s voice was brisk.
Andy shivered, resentment and envy wrestling inside him. He hated Snell’s easy confidence, his knowledge, his ability to navigate this nightmare. Beneath it all, he hated him for something else, something that knotted his insides with anger and a sense of betrayal. Something deeper.
Something darker.
They pressed on. Ladder behind, darkness ahead. The city rotted above them. They had been instructed to investigate a blockage deep within the sewers. An entire downtown Manhattan block had been unable to flush the toilet for over six hours. Snell was chosen because he was familiar with the sewers. He needed a second, of course, and he nominated Andy. Andy played reluctance with ease, keeping his true intentions close to his chest.
A thick, syrupy wet rot flared in Andy’s nostrils as filth clung to their boots. The stench coated the back of Andy’s throat. It was like wading through a graveyard, the dirt continuing to rise. Snell had his flashlight. It slashed across the dripping walls, revealing slick veins of brown and green mould. The light caught the water, making it pulse in slow ripples alive with insects.
When he least expects it, Andy thought, focusing on the anticipation that pulsed in his chest. When he least expects it, that will be my moment.
His nerves were raw, every step sparking a wicked hope and a trembling uncertainty.
The tunnels branched like a ribcage. Pipes throbbed above them as the dull clang of the living city bled through. Far away, the ghost of a subway car hummed. Andy thought about it. He thought about the people up there, drinking coffee, checking their phones, talking about traffic jams, fucking their spouses while dreaming of a celebrity crush. Meanwhile, he was down here, in a place where nothing living should linger for long.
The scandal had eaten away at Andy’s whole life. It led to his father being fired from his own firm and the riches lost, the Feds arresting his mother, while his father escaped justice at the barrel of a gun. Andy had seen the movie. His mother had too many lovers. Andy knew this, and he was aware that she had embezzled money from the company to support her lifestyle. The coke and the array of rough young men, but the movie, the snuff film, had been too much.
Andy had managed to locate and deal with the first three men in the film with his mother. Snell was the last. The best thing was that Snell didn’t even know. He didn’t know that Andy—the man he’d been mocking—knew what he did. Knew he was partly to blame.
They waded deeper.
The light hit something pale floating on the surface. Snell crouched down and reached into the water, fishing it out and holding it up in the air.
It looked like a rat. The fur was white as chalk, skin stretched thin over bones that didn’t look right. A second head jutted from its spine, tiny and malformed. Its teeth bore a rictus grin creepier than Conrad Veidt’s in The Man Who Laughs.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Andy muttered.
“Mutation. You dump enough toxic shit down here; you start making your own animals.” Snell’s mouth twisted in grim amusement.
The extra head of the rat twitched once before it broke apart in Snell’s hand. Snell tossed the remains before they continued moving, the sound of dripping water constant, but underneath it, Andy heard another sound. Wet slapping. Heavy and rhythmic.
Snell heard it too.
“Hear that?” he asked.
Andy nodded.
They stopped. They listened.
It came again. Closer this time. It was a dragging sound, like something being pulled through the sludge. Snell swung his flashlight beam ahead. The light picked out something, pale and wet, slipping out of sight behind a curve in the tunnel.
“What the fuck was that?” Andy asked.
“No fucking clue!” Snell replied.
They followed, the tunnel narrowing until they had to duck. Snell’s flashlight beam danced along the walls, picking out graffiti, strange markings that weren’t quite letters, just scratches, symbols like claws dragged through soft cement.
The air grew hot, and a low hiss filled the tunnel. The sound of steam, or breathing. Turning the next corner, the beam fell on movement.
A thick white shape was coiled halfway in the water. It looked like an alligator, but one that had mated with a dog and a snake – pale skin stretched over bulging muscle, whilst a snout too short and a mouth of mismatched teeth lined its face. When it moved, its limbs shifted wrong, like a dog kicking its hind legs but failing miserably, the crack snapping like broken sticks.
“Jesus!” Snell whispered.
The creature blinked. Its eyes were as blue as the ocean.
And human.
Andy stumbled backwards.
“What the fuck is that thing?”
Snell raised the flashlight. The abomination hissed and scuttled sideways with impossible speed, vanishing into the water.
Snell turned.
“Are you okay?”
Andy nodded, but fear and shame flickered in his eyes, betraying the lie to Snell, who recognized Andy’s anxiety despite his silence.
They moved on, both of them knowing that something was following them. Minutes passed like hours. Time passed slowly there; the air grew heavier. The heat rose from the water in waves. The smell turned sickly sweet.
Then, they found the blockage.
It was a wall of flesh.
Dogs, cats, rats, snakes—all pale, all dead, all fused together. Their bodies melted into one another like wax. It formed a pulsing barrier that quivered with each drop of water that hit it. Here and there, eyes opened and closed. Some human. Some not.
“Fuck!” Andy screamed.
Snell gagged, turning his face away.
“It looks like a fucking nest,” Andy said.
The wall shifted as Snell turned back round. A long, slick tail slid out from underneath. Another followed.
And then it came.
The big one.
It moved with strange, sluggish grace. Its scales were like porcelain, the body thick as a horse’s torso. The face was wrong. Half-human, half-reptile. Nostrils pulsed like a heart. Shredded remnants of wings sprouted from its back, feathers fused to skin. When it opened its mouth, rows of teeth gleamed in a large gaping maw, each stained red.
Snell fired his flashlight beam into its eyes. It did not flinch.
Andy turned and started to run. Snell followed. Their boots slapped through the filth, splashing down another tunnel. Behind them, it came. Claws scraping against stone. Andy turned and saw it once. White. Massive. Graceful in the water. Jaws open wide.
Snell slipped. Andy stopped. He thought one thing.
This is it. This is my chance.
Andy ran over to Snell and grabbed his arm, helping him stand, maintaining the façade of teamwork.
“Thank you, rich boy,” Snell said.
Andy smiled and then simply pushed.
Snell fell backwards. Andy turned. He ran. He heard Snell scream once. It was short and sharp. Andy still ran. His legs burned. He didn’t look back.
I did it. I killed the bastard. I killed the bastard.
When he reached a ladder, he climbed, gasping. Behind him, he heard the snapping of jaws in a grand cacophony of hunger. Halfway up, he looked down. Snell’s flashlight still glowed faintly below as something pale moved past it.
Andy climbed faster.
Bursting through the manhole cover onto a street, he collapsed against the asphalt. Night air hit him like a drug. He laughed. He cackled as sirens howled far off. A car passed. Sirens blared. Life went on.
Andy quit the job the next day. His revenge was complete.
Snell the Smell. You will no longer smell my mother’s pussy, he thought as he tossed a single rose down a manhole.
Andy told the boss before he quit that Snell had tried to attack him because he was a rich boy. Andy ran, and Snell ran after him until he slipped. Andy didn’t look back. He told the cops the same story. They believed him.
Andy moved upstate. Found a job with a publishing firm. Worked with the likes of Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates. He was even put in charge of editing an anthology of Harlan Ellison stories. He married. He had two kids. No one was any the wiser to his part in Snell’s death. The only thing that changed about him was an intense lingering dread whenever his hand approached the faucet of a sink, and the need to step away from drains in the street.
What lay beneath still haunted him.
It was two days after Andy quit when Snell’s gear was located. There was no corpse. Just a flashlight, still burning, and a set of wet footprints leading towards the drain.
R.J. Butler is a UK-based writer of horror and dark speculative fiction. His work explores grief, obsession, monstrosity, and the fragile boundary between the psychological and the supernatural. Drawing inspiration from folklore, classic cinema, and existential literature, his stories blend visceral imagery with emotional depth. His fiction has appeared in independent magazines and anthologies. He is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing, where his research focuses on folklore and contemporary horror. When not writing, he can usually be found watching old monster movies, reading Borges, or walking beneath an obliging full moon.
