Vermin (re-written)

Betsy and Herman were a match made in hell. They lived back in the sticks....about ten miles from the nearest neighbor. Their trailer was cluttered with crushed beer cans and empty junk food bags. Herman was a small man...he only weighed 97 pounds and 96 of those pounds was a mean spirit. He called his wife Betsy,"Sow Face" because she weighed just over 400 pounds and had three chins.

Betsy would sit and watch,"Wheel of Fortune" and "The Price is Right" on television while Herman looked at the pictures in his Playboy magazines. He would often color in the women's faces with a white crayon while sitting next to Betsy on the filthy couch. He had piles of centerfolds that he had drawn fat smiley faces on with a red crayon.

Betsy's only hobby other than watching television was gluing her finger and toenail clippings on to black cloth. She would form them into skeletons. Her favorite work of art was a fat skeleton choking a skinny one. She displayed it proudly next to the 8X10 glossy of Bob Barker....hung above the couch.

The gold couch arms were so soiled...flakes of dark filth had formed. There were no dishes in the home...they either ate with their hands or licked food from containers. The orange and brown carpet was matted with grease from mashed in foods. Betsy was too fat to get in the bathroom. Herman had cut a hole in a Lazy Boy recliner and a hole in the spare bedroom floor beneath it to make Betsy a potty. He placed an old tin wash tub beneath it and would dump it in the creek once or twice a month.

Herman had been collecting disability checks for years. He busted both knees from falling off of a large machine he was working on in a factory. He could barely walk for a few months....he then began to pretend he could barely walk because Herman loved being lazy. Betsy would go to town once a month to get a car load of beer, food and other needs after cashing his check.

They would often argue and violently fight each other. Betsy had almost every finger broken and Herman had numerous scars on his face and head. He would never hit Betsy but he thought it was OK to break her fingers.

Betsy was watching TV one night and Herman was coloring in his magazines again. He said to Betsy,"Get me a beer, Sow Face." Betsy snarled back,"Get your own damn beer...Bob is about to give away a car." Herman cleared his throat and spat on her cheek. Betsy removed her right hand from the cheesy popcorn bag...drew back and slammed Herman in the side of the head with her fist. Herman's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he began violently shaking. He began gasping for air and Betsy turned the volume up on the TV.

She put her hand back in the popcorn bag...looked over at Herman and said,"Why don't you just die." Herman began bleeding from his mouth and urinated on himself. Betsy turned the TV off and went to bed...not realizing she had broken Herman's neck. She thought she had just knocked him out again.

Betsy came into the living room the next morning and saw that Herman hadn't moved at all. She went to the refrigerator...took out a half gallon of milk...ate a handful of cereal and washed it down. She walked over to Herman...poured milk on his head to wake him up. He opened his eyes....revealing extreme pain but didn't move. She kicked his leg and grumbled,"Get your skinny ass up and make some coffee...it's your job!"

When Herman didn't even flinch...Betsy got closer to his face and saw that he was really hurt. She grinned and said,"You cain't move can you...you cain't even hold your crayon...I must have broke your worthless... skinny neck...damn...I told you that one day I would just haul off and kill your dumb ass...you shoulda listened!" Betsy shoved another handful of cereal in her mouth...sat on the couch beside Herman and turned the TV on.

She flipped through the channels while eating her breakfast. She looked over at Herman...huffed with disgust and said,"You have peed and messed yourself....I ain't cleaning it and you ain't staying in the trailer like that." Betsy grunted as she got up...saying,"I hate you even more when you're helpless!" She opened the back door of the trailer and walked back to Herman. She knocked the magazine and crayons off of his lap as he tried to say,"Help me" by moving his mouth. Betsy grunted as she bent over to grab his feet and said,"Oh...I am going to help you...help you get under the trailer."

Betsy pulled Herman off of the couch and his head hit the floor with a hard thud! She dragged him out the door...removed a length of underpinning and shoved him under the trailer with a board that was laying on a pile of trash in the yard. She looked in Herman's terrified eyes and said,"I'm canceling your stupid girly magazine subscriptions" as she re-fastened the underpinning.

Three months went by and Betsy was in hog heaven. She had the place all to herself and she could still cash Herman's disability checks. One night...when she turned the TV off to go to bed...she heard scratching under the floor. It disturbed her but she knew it wasn't Herman...she had checked weeks ago and he was as dead as a door knob. Varmints had even been chewing on him. She had covered his body with lime because the stench was even worse than her Lazy Boy bathroom odor. She thought to herself," it has to be rats...I'll fix them....I got a whole box of rat poison in the cupboard."

The next morning....she laced the whole perimeter of trailer with rat poison. She noticed throughout the day...the scratching got worse. It was All Saints Night and Betsy was watching a marathon of Tales From The Crypt. She began to hear squealing...she grinned when she thought the rats were suffering. She just ignored it and turned the volume up on her TV. Betsy got up, grunted and walked to the kitchen for more snacks and suddenly went down! She fell through the floor. Betsy screamed in agony because both of her legs were bent backwards and broken. She had sank in the floor just up to the bottom of her breasts. She couldn't move because of the excruciating pain.

She heard the TV channels change...turned her neck as far as she could to see a rat running back and forth over the remote....eating her spilled crumbs. She screamed,"Get out of my house...nasty vermin!" She turned back around to see a large rat in the shadows beneath the kitchen table. She slammed her fists on the floor and growled out,"I hate rats...come here and I will pound your nasty guts out!"

The rat slowly moved out into the dim light. Betsy gasped and said,"What the hell?" The rat had two large hideous eyes bulging from it's head and it's front feet looked like two dirty human thumbs. Betsy totally forgot about her broken legs...this thing was more frightening than anything she had ever known. She cried out in a shrill,"You get away from me..get out...get away!" As the freakish rat moved slowly towards her...she felt something cold pinch the back sagging fat of her left arm. She quickly twisted her head over her shoulder and saw another large rat with four dirty human fingers for legs.

She screamed and swung back at it but it scurried away and ran to the other rat. Painfully...she reached and pulled an end table to her. She broke a leg off and screamed,"I'll kill you filthy rats!" She heard noises behind her as more rats scurried along the wall to join the others. Betsy snorted and growled with pain, fear and anger. She watched the rats gather around the other two. Some rats had human flesh on their bodies. One had filthy human ears and tufts of hair. Some had dirty human toes in place of feet.

Betsy began crying and screaming.....no words...only expressions of horror. The largest rat of them all moved from behind the refrigerator shadow...backwards.... towards Betsy. It stopped about four feet in front of her. The other rats lined up for the assault as the rat slowly turned around to look at her. Betsy screamed in horrifying fear! The rat had a human mouth. With a raspy...broken voice...it said, "Hello...Sow Face."