The kill squad entered the rat-infested village under cover of darkness. Their orders were simple: burn everything that can’t be shot.

The sodden rainforest was aflame.

It was too wet for anything to catch without a flamethrower, so the humid, smoke-filled air smelt acrid with fuel.

Rifle raised, Jack shot at a man dashing into a burning hut. Rats as big as cats screeched from the steaming undergrowth as he approached.

Inside, Jack found the man cradling a dead girl, the floor beneath both blackened with blood. He was fervently intoning something repetitive, like a prayer.

There were rats everywhere.

The dying man grabbed one, breaking it in two with a dull crack. Sweating through a mask of pure agony, he smeared the rat’s blood on his face and hands and flicked some at Jack too, who flinched.

Then he raised the rat’s broken body high as if to throw it.

“Grenade!” Jack’s squadmate screamed, firing reactively as he burst into the hut.

Then the man was still.

Jack kicked the broken rat from the dead man’s grip.

He could taste its blood in his mouth.

***

A sleepless year later, Jack was still struggling to adjust to civilian life.

There were reminders of his tour everywhere. They lived in a suburb with lots of cats, for example, so it wasn’t unusual to find a dead rat outside your door, or at the end of your path; but now…now it was a trigger.

The rat he’d seen last week though was huge - just like the ones he’d seen overseas.

“Go see the councillor,” his wife Janie had begged, but the idea made him feel weaker.

But it wasn’t all bad. Janie was pregnant. There was…hope.

And at night, when the insomnia got too bad, he drove.

Drove to the supermarket.

Drove through his old neighbourhood.

Drove to the skatepark where he’d whiled away his youth.

One night, he sat staring into space, almost asleep, when a screeching sound jolted him awake. He'd pictured a rat, its teeth bared as it leapt…but then realised it was just a group of skaters, their wheels grinding the halfpipe’s smooth walls.

“Fuck me,” he laughed, feeling his heart pounding.

One of the kids was sat atop the pipe, kicking his heels. The streetlight had painted his face red, and on the underside of his board was an illustration of a rat.

He couldn’t escape it.

He would go and see the PTSD councillor, like Janie had wanted.

*

Arriving home, Jack flopped into bed and kissed Janie on the shoulder.

Her skin was cold.

Then a noise like a deep breath swelled horribly.

“Blood for blood,” the guttural voice said, as Janie twitched involuntarily.

Jack rolled her naked body towards him.

She was dead. 

The exposed skin on her stomach was veined, dark. It bulged strangely.

He placed an ear to her stomach. There was a noise coming from within.

A petrified tear rolled down his cheek.

Her stomach was…squeaking.