Belly of the Dragon

"Jack?"

He nodded in reply, his head brushing the speaker’s face. The Lieutenant kept one hand on John’s jacket, as they moved to an area with a wall of light stabbing through the opening between two broken dock planks. John pushed pieces of flotsam out of the way, refusing to wonder what they were. He had seen under Chinese piers when he was stationed in China; and the flotsam and jetsam had consisted of human shit, dead animals, including the human kind, garbage, oil, mud, fish, green river algae, plant matter, and some other things he never could identify. He was glad it was dark.

Parker lifted the waterproof packet on the lanyard around his neck and placing his elbows over the cross member, he attempted to get out a notebook.

Maybe it was the flash of the white paper or the brass on the pencil eraser that was the attraction or maybe it was the white skin showing at water level like a flashing fish. John never knew for sure, but suddenly there it was, on the plank next to Parker’s head. It was the biggest rat John had ever seen. The light glinted off its silver whiskers and gray, hairy face, and its eyes were red in the orange light of the dock lanterns. Before John could move, it lashed out at the white skin of the Lieutenant’s neck, sinking its yellow teeth deep into his throat. Then with a shaking tearing motion it tore a three-inch chunk out of the side of the slender neck, taking the main artery with it. Blood drenched the savage jaws and gray head, and spurted over John’s face and the shoulders of his jacket. Leroy Parker opened his mouth to scream but the brown river filled it as he sank beneath the dark surface and he died without knowing who or what had killed him. The rat retreated into the blackness and Bluefield, West Virginia had lost one of its favorite sons.

John grabbed Parker’s jacket with one hand, as the rice and fish John had eaten for supper was catapulted up from his stomach and erupted out of his mouth and nose.

"Son-of-a-bitch," he said in a whisper as he wiped his face with the dirty water. "Son-of-a bitch. What a f------ way to start a mission." He wanted to puke again, but there was nothing left to bring up. He worked to hang on to the body, forcing it against the piling to avoid the pull of the current. John tapped his head twice, and Corporal Paul Byrd appeared at his side. He put his mouth against John’s ear. John smelled the sourness on Paul’s breath and knew he wasn’t the only one that had lost his rice.