The bodies lay atop each other in the field.  It was raining, and the stench could be smelled for miles.  Men, women, children: none had been spared the sickness that had swept the city. 

 

In a house located near the field, Martha is making sweetmeats for her husband and three children, Vicky, Vinny, and little Wendell.  Martha lives to cook.  Her family lives to eat.

 

The faces of the victims all displayed a similar expression of pain and fear.  Covered in mud and pelted with rain, the bodies continued to putrefy, their bellies filled with a yellowish liquid.

 

Martha takes the sweetmeats from the oven and places them on the top of the stove.  She calls the family in to eat, which they do without prodding.  Several minutes later, their plates are clean.

 

In one spot, a mother was holding her child, whose head had partially rotted.  Elsewhere, a corpse’s flesh was being slowly devoured by maggots the size and color of grains of rice.

 

Their bellies full, the family disperse: Vicky and Vinny go upstairs to do their homework, while little Wendell plays with plastic dinosaurs in the living room.  Dad watches TV.

 

A burnt adult-size body lay in one part of the field, its skeleton black and covered with once-crispy, wet flakes of skin, its inner organs also blackened and burst.  Beside it, a blackened Bible.

 

Martha washes the grease off the dishes from dinner.  She is thinking about what she will do with the bonus her husband has recently brought home.  Will she buy herself a new oven, perhaps?

 

The rain had begun to fall in a less-intense mist.  The sky had darkened, the bodies become invisible to the naked human eye.  The stench, however, was not hidden by the darkness.

 

And now it is time for dessert.  Martha has made a triple-layer chocolate mousse cake.  Her family devour it greedily.  Little Wendell gets an upset stomach.  He vomits meat and cake into the toilet.

 

A wolf found a fresh corpse and began to eat.  Though it was dark, the sound of its sharp teeth separating flesh and tendon from bone could be heard.  When it was done it moved on, snout wet.

 

Martha puts little Wendell to bed.  But, only a few hours later, his temperature has reached a dangerous level.  She calls the hospital.  An ambulance comes.  Wendell dies en route.

 

The misty rain eventually stopped.  The sun came up, revealing, once again, the bodies that lay atop each other in the field.  The stench had gotten worse overnight, the bodies more decomposed.

 

The husband, distraught, turns to religion for comfort.  Bible in hand, he walks outside into the brisk morning air, and prays for his son’s eternal soul.  A wolf howls in the distance.

 

Marc Lowe’s work has appeared in 580 Split, The Battered Suitcase, Big Bridge, BlazeVOX, Caketrain, elimae, Farrago’s Wainscot, Pindeldyboz, The Salt River Review, Sein und Werden, Storyglossia, and others.  He is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction writing at Brown University in Providence, RI, where he is working on multiple book-length projects.  Visit his website at www.malo23.com for more information.