VOM

Pitt woke up that morning like every other. 5am. To feed the pigs.

She emptied the brown feed into the troughs and watched the the pigs devour it. It was new feed she'd bought from a new digestion plant. It was made from what they'd called digestate. Great for pigs they'd said. It smelt bloody awful but had been dirt cheap. Money was tight this year. Tighter than ever and ends were not meeting since the economic slump.

Vagrancy was on the rise and Pitt knew it stood round every corner.

Still, Pitt always enjoyed to watch the pigs eating. She got lost in their contentment. They were so conscientiously efficient, munching every last crumb until there was nothing left but happy porkers.

On this particular morning after the pigs had fed on the new brown digestate, Pitt noticed one of the larger sows wobbling on its legs a little. As it wandered round the pen it began to stagger and shake. Pitt hadn't seen this sow behave like this before and knew something was wrong. She approached from the adjacent empty pen and stroked the pig checking its skin temperature.

Suddenly it shivered, sat on its hind quarters, dropped its head and then began to tremble. It lifted its head to look at Pitt and vomited violently allover her face and shoulders. A spray of yellowed curdled liquid and bile completely covered her upper torso and the vomiting seemed not to stop. The pig's huge mouth remained wide open as the slew spewed out.

She was covered. Pitt tried to find her way out but her eyes were sealed with the thick pig puke and she just couldn't rub them clear.  As the vile fluid slipped into her mouth she gagged and also began to vomit, first slowly and then with a force she had never experienced, as if her insides were loosening.

Throwing up with chest-straining heaving beyond belief, she stumbled through a pile of brooms and shovels and fell over the wooden gate, crashing straight into the full pig pen. The pigs were momentarily stunned as Pitt landed among them, spraying sick everywhere, but after a second of silence in the barn she began to scream as the first animals started to bite. The hungry things commenced to eat through Pitt's clothing as she desperately tried to clamber out of the stall, but it was too late. She was exhausted from the most violent puking she had ever experienced and gagged on the bile burbling in her throat.

As she laid there face down puking a large pig bit clean through the hamstring at the back of her right knee and she shrieked with agony. the sound sent the herd into a frenzy of biting and crunching and within minutes Pitt the farming wife had been eaten alive. Even the bones had been ground down and slurped up, together will all the congealing blood oiling the ground. The pigs had also eaten all the sow vomit she had been covered with along with her own. They had also eaten the ailing sow. There was nothing left. Not even Pitt's clothes.

When the farmer returned and found his wife gone, he declared her missing to the police and withdrew into himself and the solace of alcohol, leaving the business of the farm to his son. Within weeks the herd of pigs were slaughtered and made into link after link of pork sausages destined for supermarkets allover the country with the brand name Pitt's Farm. Digestate and puke were never listed in the the ingredients but they were there nonetheless.

Jupp lived in the city. He loved sausages. He coveted the plump skins of fatty meat, fried quickly in a pan. No herbs. No flavourings, just thick succulent pork. He saw the Pitts Farm bangers and grabbed three packets of twelve from the shelf. Despite it being Winter, it was going to be a great Saturday morning.

Jupp rang his mates and invited them all over for sausage sarnies. They all worked at the digestion plant in the city outskirts and this was their weekend off. The prospect of Jupp's butties and rock music played loud on his system drew them in like pigeons.

"Top class nosh Jupp", "Mighty bangers!" The priase was unanimous.

The friends relaxed in the telly room after eating. One of them had brought an old body melt flick to watch on the player. One of those toxic waste horrors that were popular in the 1980's. Watching it Jupp began to feel a bit queazy. He held hos belly as it rumbled loudly, so loud in fact that everyone heard it.

"Jeez Jupp, how many butties did you eat? I can hear your guts from over here!" said his mate slouched in the far armchair.

Jupp smiled and rubbed his stomach but he could feel the beginnings of churning. He cradled his gut and knew he wasn't right. He went a a whitish shade and then a hint of green brushed his face as the first signs of heaving could be felt. He was going to be sick.

Just as some unfortunate tramp was dissolving into a toilet in the screen, Jupp stood, started to walk, stopped and stared at his pals before opening his mouth disturbingly wide and violently puking allover them and the room. The slick of curdled sausages and bread hit his friends in a tsunami of foul-smelling chum and they and the room were quickly covered in the contents of Jupp's now empty stomach. He fell on all fours and gasped for air. He was physically shattered after being the sickest he had ever been in his life and the final globs dribbled from his trembling lower lip.

It was then he heard the first of his friends start to retch. It was a loud, dreadful sound and clutching his midriff his friend stared at the ceiling as a fountain of spew blasted from his stretched mouth hitting the light fittings and blowing the bulb. The ceiling was daubed in thick puke, which dripped onto the assembled company now in complete darkness.

All of them began to gag and throw up allover each other. There was no time to reach the bathroom. the force of the vomiting was so great that it split their mouths at the cheeks as the uncontrollable convulsions swept through their helpless bodies and sent them reeling on their hands and knees desperate to rid themselves of this heinous vomit. They screamed in between and the whole scene was a charnel house of sick, blood and bile with humans crawling through it like milk worms.

The screams of agony had alerted the neighbours, who in turn alerted the police. On breaking into the premises and witnessing the carnage the two attending officers had also felt sick and had to go outside for air. Before they could finish radioing for an ambulance the pair had fallen to their knees in the curbside to be violently sick in the gutter, throwing up that morning's curdled Maccy D big breakfast in a pool of half-digested pancake mix and patty sludge. It began to rain and the hideous mess was washed along the gutter, down the drains and into the city-wide sewage system.

The local paper picked up on the police report and brandished the next day's headline with: "CHUNDERSTRUCK!" and relayed the unsavoury details of the incident to a grateful readership only too ready to bask in the arms-length glee of schadenfreude. Pitts Farm was never mentioned as the wrappers were swept up along with the vomit splatter by the city clean-up crew. The whole thing was put down to a bad case of the winter vomiting bug, the novo-virus. But some locals began to mutter of darker sources and a rumour of foul play started its chatter.

When a similar incident occurred in another neighbouring city and then one much further away a national paper took interest. A seasoned hack was dispatched to check out the stories, find a link and paint a picture worthy of nationwide coverage. Was this just novo-virus or was it something else?

The journo, Vander, got a hotel room in the city near the first occurrence and began to snoop around asking questions. He managed to track down Jupp, who was still recovering in hospital. His split cheeks had been stitched and his digestive system rested with a ciurse of mild antibiotics and bland food and water. He felt like he'd thrown up his very being that day he whispered to the journalist sat at his bedside scribbling. The violence of the vomiting came across vividly in Jupp's traumatised voice and the thought of it happening again clearly terrified him. Further questioning garnered as yet unknown details about the friends' common employer, the digestion plant and the sausage sandwiches they had all shared that Saturday. Could these be the links he was looking for? He chuckled at his own pun and holed up in his room with a bottle of Bells he wrote up his piece for the waiting editor.

"BAD DIGESTION?" ran the suggested headline and went on to ask questions about the City's new out-of-town anaerobic facility and its possible impact on the local countryside. The editor said no.

"That plant is one of the biggest employers in the Northern region. It makes millions for the local economy. No! They'd sue us no messing. Get more facts Vander and lay off the damn scotch!" he yelled down the phone at the deflated hack.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world Pitt's Farm products were selling well from the freezer shelves of stores. These frozen pork sausages had matured in transit and their potency had quadrupled.

The first American case was a welder enjoying a sausage sandwich during his break on the high steel. He sat on the soaring girder and took huge bites. he swilled it down with hot coffee from his thermos. Wiping his mouth on his arm he began to feel a little queazy. He stood up and immediately his stomach began to cramp. He clutched himself and staggered towards the workers' loo near the completed lift shaft.

"What's up Chuck?" said his co-worker looking non-plussed turning off his blow-torch.

Chuck never got to answer. He threw his guts up as the clouds looked on. He heaved and gagged and was repeatedly sick, the convulsions increasing in intensity each time until eventually he shrieked loudly and his co-worker looked on in horror as Chuck puked out his trachea, then his lungs, then his stomach full of acid until eventually his entire insides had erupted from his mouth with such terrible force that his whole body flipped inside out with a sickening slurping sound.

The co-worker held his head in utter terror and screamed as the bloody mess slipped off the girders and fell five hundred feet to the pavement crammed with pedestrians. Looking like a big red wet slug, Chuck's inverted corpse hit the tarmac with a nauseating thud and splattered everywhere.

The bewildered crowds tried desperately to avoid the flying globs of blood and guts as they ran wildly in all directions. Everyone was screaming and grue was spattered allover there hair, their hands and their faces. It was impossible to stop the crimson slick dribbling into their mouths. 

Almost immediately the gagging started. Hundreds of pedestrians began to heave and clutch their bellies. They tottered into each other wailing in agony as the puking began. It was like a chain reaction: first one, then another: the violence of the vomiting crescendo'd into an orgy of erupting entrails as food pipes, livers, spleens and intestines launched into the air as their bodies literally de-gloved themselves. Pints of stomach acid were strewn across the road hitting cafeteria windows and the stench of vomit and bile wafted across the inner city.

The apocalyptic event hit the news across the globe and footage of the horror was running as Vander ate his evening meal in his room. He couldn't believe his eyes. This was like the Pitt's Farm incident only much worse. He connected the dots and knocked up what he thought would be the story of his life.

"VOMDEMIC!" ran his alarming headline, "Hundreds of new Sickening Cases Every Day!" Garnished with his pictures of the farm, the dead friends, the pigs, the sausages and the secret Digestion plant, Vander penned a convincing connection to the American carnage across the pond. He was pleased how it turned out.

So was his startled Editor, who sniffed a Pulitzer or a Bafta or something in all this chunder and proffered Vander his own photographer and researcher on the spot.

"I want a world exclusive Vander! I want to know what's in that damn Digester!"

Holed up in their digs, Vander and his new team hammered out a plan. They would break into the plant, take samples, shoot lots of pictures and try to interview any disgruntled worker before high-tailing it back to their room.

"We'll do it tonight!" enthused Vander.

They broke in at midnight when luckily the guards were changing shifts. They all noticed the big shiny side arms they had in their leather holsters and their zest was momentarily tempered. They wondered why there were no dogs, but it could have been the smell. It was horrendous and would have driven dogs wild. It reeked of rot, decay and death.

The three entered the outer office whilst the door was open and tip-toed to the sheds beyond with an eye on the main digester in the distance, a huge green half-globe at least 100 foot high, it looked like an ominous Christmas pudding in the moonlight.

In America a chain reaction of body flopping was raging. What had started as a localised disaster with Chuck's demise had mushroomed into a national Apocalypse. Everywhere people were puking violently on each other, stoking mass body inversions. Millions of corpses turned inside out lay strewn around streets, houses, malls and factories. The hot guts steamed in the evening chill and the entire country looked like a vast slaughterhouse floor swimming with innards and bones. 

The fabric of American society quickly broke down. FEMA was activated but it was too late. Thousands tried to fly out at airports. Where the pilots didn't throw their guts up then some made it only to find that they were spreading the lethal vomiting contagion across the globe.

At the Digester Vander and his team were unaware of world events and had reached the lab in front of the the main dome. They disturbed a single scientist at her desk. As she reached for her gun Vander kicked it towards his companion, who trained it on the woman in the white coat.

"What the hell are you doing here?" protested the Scientist.

"Shut up Doc. I'll ask the questions. What the hell are YOU doing here?"

The gun was aimed more precisely at her and she removed her glasses looking fiercely at Vander.

"We have developed the world's biggest, most efficient biological digester."

The gun nudged her.

"It dissolves any form of waste, creates heat which can be siphoned off and produces digestate, which can be used to feed animals".

"What sort of waste Doc?"

"Anything. Literally anything. We dispose of society's trash and turn it into heat and meat-paste."

"Why don't you show us!"

Sticking the nozzle into the Doc's back the party walked out onto a massive flat concourse. Huge trucks were driving up a vast ramped road, reversing into an unloading bay and returning down the other side towards the plants exit in the distance.

They entered the main dome of the digester through a door marked Authorised Personnel Only. Inside it too the group a moment to adjust to the twilight. What Vander saw then horrified him to his very core. In front of them was a colossal quivering bag towering above them. It was attached to a wet pipe at the top ending in a gigantic fleshy funnel. The bag quivered and belched as if alive and occasionally let out loud rumblings. It ended in another fleshy pipe which exited the dome though a hole. It reeked to high heaven.

"What. What the hell is that?" asked Vander grimacing at the sight before him.

"Its a stomach. A human stomach. We were able to grow a giant one." explained the Doc staring at the thing with obvious pride.

"A stomach! What on earth goes into it?"

"That." The scientist pointed to a large jetty overhanging the flesh funnel way up near the ceiling.

The party all looked up. Falling off the jetty was an endless slurry of waste matter: garden material, clinical waste, surplus food, chip fat, old veg oil and domestic rubbish.

Vander could also make out what he thought were .... bodies! Animal bodies and human corpses, all slopping into the convulsing 'mouth' of the infernal stomach thing. But worse was to come. Vander noticed that some of the human bodies were moving, flailing their arms and legs as they fell.

"They're, they're still alive for God's sake!" he yelled at the scientist grabbing her shoulders.

"of course. I told you. Society's rubbish. Undesirables. Prisoners, young offenders, tramps, vagrants and anyone deemed unnecessary in the modern state. We are doing you all a favour and cleaning the place up! We collect the run-off and feed the farms! Its a win-win. I should know, I grew the stomach and convinced the Government to let us do it!"

Appalled at the catastrophe unfolding before him, Vander grabbed the Doctor and with the gun pushed her all the way up the winding staircase to the very apex of the dome where the jetty was. He peered down at the red pouting throat below and the slew flowing into it.

"This was just a story when we arrived but now its more than that. Its an outrage and you must be stopped!" he screamed at the cowering woman.

"Its what the world needsssssssssssssssssssss......." the scientist didn't have chance to finish as without warning Vander pushed her into the billious slop gushing past. She fell screaming into the hungry maw. Vander smiled. His companions arrived too late to stop him. They leant over the edge.

Suddenly a large living person caught up in the stream grabbed hold of Vander's foot. He staggered and was pulled in, accidentally knocking his two companions over the jetty too, camera and all. All three entered the crimson gullet screaming. It shivered and then they were gone, digested and expelled as brown paste into a waiting truck.

No-one ever got to hear of their findings about the secret plant and the vomdemic spread across the globe unabated. Millions died in agony as they turned inside out.

Eventually though, over time, people became slowly immune to the effects of the syndrome. No one ever knew what happened to the millions of imploded victims. They just vanished from the streets every night.

Digesters carried on springing up everywhere. The streets were clean.

There may well be a digester near you!