Samantha didn’t know where she was. Her foot was heavy on the pedal, gliding down the open, hilly slopes of the backcountry. Cellphone in one hand; the GPS buffering. Twice already she almost crashed. Approaching out of...

There atop a steaming sewer vent, beside a murky gutter, laid a rat burrowed in a heap of filthy blankets. Its face coarse, its claws yellow from grime, its fur stained by seeping garbage bags and its tail severed....