The doctor’s words were measured, each one a single capsule, as though she were speaking to someone whose slow-wittedness demanded uncomplicated syllables: ‘Have you any idea how many mutant rats are living in the sewers?’
‘There can’t be a great number, otherwise there would have been much more evidence of them.’
‘How d’you explain the slaughter we saw outside?’ said Fairbank. ‘Just a handful couldn’t have done that.’
Dr Reynolds looked around the room. ‘Does anyone here know the breeding habits of rodents?’
A small man, unshaven and with skin nearly as pale as the white smock coat he wore, nervously raised a hand, almost as if the sudden limelight would shrivel him up completely. Clare Reynolds knew him as one of the shelter’s caretakers-cum-maintenance men. ‘It’s – it was – my job to keep this place free of the buggers, being below ground en’all, with the tunnels nearby, and the drains. Never had any big uns, though, not like you’re sayin’.’
‘But you have some knowledge of rodents?’ the doctor urged.
‘No, not much, not really. ’Cept I read a bit about ’em when the Black uns were runnin’ riot around London. It made it a bit iffy bein’ down ’ere, y’know?’ He tried a grin, but the others were more interested in hearing what he had to say than in joining in.
‘Well, I know all rats breed five, mebbe more, times a year and can have as much as twelve in a litter.’
‘He’s talking about normal rats,’ Dealey hastened to say. ‘As I understand it, the breeding ability of the mutant was nowhere near as great as the ordinary rodent’s. One can only assume its very uniqueness played some part in its reproductive output.’
‘It’s just as well,’ someone else remarked. ‘Otherwise the sewers would have been over-run with them years ago.’
Other voices murmured mutual alarm.
Dr Reynolds addressed herself to the caretaker once more. ‘Have you seen any indications of these larger-sized rats over the years?’
The small man shook his head. ‘Can’t say that I have. I’ve killed off a few of the other kind, but I couldn’t say this place has been plagued with ’em.’ Scratching his nose reflectively he added, ‘Surprisin’ really, considerin’ the amount of outlets – pipes and cables and tubes and things. Poisons have kept ’em down, I suppose.’
‘Have you ever used gas?’ Clare Reynolds asked. She had seated herself against the edge of the desk, arms folded, back towards Strachan and Ellison.
Farraday answered the question. ‘That wouldn’t have been allowed, not with so many people working in the vicinity. Besides, gas is only normally used in sewers.’
Clare craved another cigarette, but she had just used up that hour’s ration. ‘It’s only that I found a proprietary powder among the supplies, the kind that produces hydrogen cyanide when exposed to dampness.’
‘I don’t see where this is getting us,’ said Ellison. ‘If we’re going to leave the shelter we won’t have to bother with putting down poisons. When we get on the outside we’ll have guns to protect us.’
Dr Reynolds whirled on him. ‘Do you really think that kind of weapon would save you if a pack of rats – or even a pack of rabid dogs – attacked you? It’s about time you faced up to the truth of the situation, you idiot—’
Ellison pushed back his chair, but did not rise. ‘Look, just because you’re a doc—’
Culver did rise, but it was a tired movement. ‘You figure out what you’re all going to do, I don’t give a shit one way or the other. I’ve told you what it’s like out there, so you can make your own choice. As for me, I’m beat.’
Fairbank stood as if in agreement.
Both men made their way towards the door and Culver turned before pushing his way through the throng. ‘One thing I remembered when you were discussing the bodies that had been recovered from the sewers over the years.’ He ran a hand around the back of his neck, twisting his head to relieve a creeping stiffness. ‘I don’t know what it means, or even if it’s particularly relevant, but I noticed something odd about a lot of the bodies we found on the escalators and in the station itself.’
Kate Garner, already shocked by his revelations, felt a fresh shiver of anticipated dread rush through her. Could there really be anything worse to hear, more suffering to contemplate? Perhaps not, but what he told them added a touch of the macabre to an already horrific account.
‘The heads of many of the corpses were missing,’ Culver said before leaving the room.
16
Something, someone, was pounding him. His name was being called from a long way off, drawing closer, insistent, piercing the sleepy folds of exhaustion he had drawn around himself.
‘Steve, wake up for God’s sake, wake up!’
Culver tried to push the tugging hands away, unwilling to relinquish the soft respite, but other parts of his consciousness were aroused, alerted, already instigating the waking process. He stirred in the narrow bunkbed and protested at the unrelenting prodding. Still fully clothed, too exhausted to remove them hours before when he and Fairbank had slumped onto the beds – stacked three-high in the men’s cramped dormitory – he forced his eyes open.
Kate’s face hovered above him, its edges blurred by his own sleepiness. He blinked his eyes several times and the face finally focused.
‘Steve, get up, right now,’ she said, and her urgency quickly dismissed the remaining vestiges of tiredness.
He raised himself on one elbow, his head almost touching the bunk above. ‘What is it?’
Noises intruded from the open doorway – shouts, even screams, and an all-too-familiar rushing sound; Fairbank was awake, too, on the opposite bunkbed, staring confusedly across. Culver recognized the background noise before Kate spoke.
‘The shelter’s being flooded!’
His stockinged feet were over the side almost before she had time to give him room. Cold water swirling around his ankles completed his revival.
‘Where the hell’s it coming from?’ he shouted, grabbing his boots, the only items he’d bothered to remove before lying down, and pushing his soaked feet into them. Opposite, Fairbank was following suit.
‘The well!’ Kate told him. ‘The artesian well has flooded. The water’s pouring through.’
Culver did not take the time to wonder how such a possibility could occur – with the damage sustained to the surface and the sewers below, it required little reasoning to understand how the earth’s very structure could easily have been harmed; he stood, Kate rising with him, and stepped out into the corridor, water dragging at his feet.
‘Wait!’ Kate grabbed his shoulder. ‘There’s worse—’
But he had already seen with his own eyes.
Water gushed towards him from the opening further down the corridor, the switching unit area, figures thrashing around in the bubbling torrent, fighting against the flow. There were other shapes in that churning mass, though; sleek black projectiles that torpedoed through the water, seeking targets.
Culver watched almost in fascination as one rat reached its victim and clambered up the unfortunate man’s leg, claws tearing as they gripped, open jaw reaching upwards, ready to clamp tight when they reached their goal. The man tried to hold the creature away, but its impetus was too great and the victim too unsteady on his feet. Culver saw the rat nuzzle beneath the man’s chin, a spurt of blood immediately jetting outwards, the man falling, the water around him churning red.
Kate and Fairbank were behind Culver, the girl clinging to the pilot, the engineer bracing himself against the doorframe.
‘How did they get in?’ yelled Fairbank.
‘Maybe from the well, maybe from the pipe inlets!’ Culver was pushed aside as two figures, a man helping a panic-stricken woman, splashed their way down the corridor, something black following in their wake.
Culver, Kate and Fairbank shrank back into the dormitory and watched another of the water-sleek rats skim by. They heard distant gunshots.
‘I thought
these shelters were supposed to be impregnable,’ Culver said to Fairbank.
‘This is a communications centre as well as a shelter – I suppose it was never completely sealed off.’
The girl tugged at Culver’s sleeve. ‘The water level’s rising. We have to get out!’
‘It’ll be okay,’ Fairbank told her. ‘I don’t think we’ll be completely flooded.’
‘D’you want to stay and take the chance?’ Culver asked. He peeked around the doorframe into the corridor again. The flow seemed even more forceful than before. He turned back to say something to the others when suddenly the lights dimmed.
For a few frigid seconds the light fluctuated between dim and bright before settling for bright once more.
Fairbank cursed. ‘If the generator goes, we’re really in trouble. We won’t even have emergency lighting.’
Culver pulled Kate closer to him. ‘Where were Dealey and the others when you last saw them?’
‘Back in the Operations Room, still fighting it out between them.’
‘Okay, that’s where we’ll head for.’
‘Why there, for fuck’s sake?’ Fairbank demanded to know. ‘Let’s just get outa here.’
‘We need weapons, that’s why. We won’t stand much chance without them. We can cut through the carrier section, then back to the Operations Room.’
Fairbank shrugged. ‘Okay, lead on.’
He waded over to a metal locker and reached for a heavy-duty lamp perched on its top – torches and lamps were kept all around the shelter for lighting emergencies. ‘We may need it,’ he said and all three hoped they wouldn’t.
Culver fought for balance as he stepped back into the corridor. One hand stretched for the far wall as the water, now past his knees, endeavoured to unbalance him. Kate held on to his other arm and Fairbank kept close behind, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure no dark creatures were swimming towards them. Something nudged the back of his leg and he was relieved to see it was only an empty shoe. Ownerless, it swept by.
Sparks suddenly sprouted from machinery just ahead. ‘Christ!’ Fairbank shouted. ‘If it goes, we’ll all be electrocuted!’
The other two heard him but no reply was needed. Culver just hoped that someone had the sense to shut down all the unnecessary machinery. He pushed between two towering racks of telecommunications equipment, pulling Kate in with him. Fairbank, still busy looking over his shoulder, would have passed the opening had not Culver reached out and yanked him in. Figures raced by at the other end of the narrow alleyway they had taken refuge in.
‘Looks like they’re making for the door to the Underground tunnel!’ Fairbank shouted over the noise.
‘That might make matters worse,’ Culver replied and Fairbank understood what he meant. The flooding in the tunnel could be even greater than before. A deeper sense of dread surged through them, for they realized that was their only way out.
Culver pushed on, setting himself only one objective at a time, the acquisition of firearms being the first. Guns would give them some protection against the rats, though they would be useless against too many. Then perhaps they could find high ground – on top of machinery possibly – where they could be above the water level and in a position to hold off any clambering vermin. Culver knew that the Exchange had two other entrances, but both had been sealed by fallen buildings; how the government planners had been so stupid as not to have foreseen such an event, he could not fathom – perhaps they felt the tunnel exit was safeguard enough.
He stepped out from the narrow, machine-created passage into a wider area where the crushing water had become a torrent. On the opposite side was a metal catwalk, just seven or eight feet above floor level, which enabled the engineers to reach the upper parts of communications equipment built into the wall there. If they could get to the catwalk ladder just a few yards ahead of them, then the narrow platform would provide an easy passage for some considerable distance. Culver pointed to the ladder and the others nodded vigorously, failing to see the black vermin that raced towards the pilot.
One was on his shoulders before he had even realized it had clawed its way up his body. Another bit into the hem of his short, leather jacket as he pitched forward into the water.
Kate screamed, involuntarily shrinking back into the slightly calmer current of the passageway they had just passed through. Culver’s body thrashed around in the water, two scrabbling black shapes clinging to it, a wild foam created around them.
Fairbank leapt into the mêlée, raising the heavy-duty lamp high and swinging it down onto the back of the creature that was about to tear into the pilot’s neck. He thought he heard the rat squeal in pain, but the overall noise was too great to be sure. Its grip loosened and Fairbank, now on his knees, water seeping around his upper torso, swung at it again. The rat fell away, but immediately lunged for its assailant.
Culver coughed water, aware that the paralysing grip around his neck had been released, but not understanding why. He pushed himself upwards, bursting through the foamy surface. Spluttering and gasping for air, he tried to regain his feet, but something else encumbered him, something that dragged at his jacket like a lead weight, one with sharp, scudding claws. Almost without thinking he slipped an arm from the jacket, turned, and used the tough material to smother the thrashing rat. He bore down, water cascading over his back and shoulders, using his weight to keep the lethal-clawed creature below the surface.
The vermin’s strength astounded Culver and it was all he could do to keep a grip around its squirming shoulders. He could feel its head twisting round beneath the surface, trying to reach him with those razor teeth, and he was glad the tough leather of the jacket provided some barrier. But his hold was slipping; he could feel the rat slithering from beneath him. Drawing in a huge breath, Culver lunged down, covering the animal entirely with his own body, using his full weight, fighting the current and the rat, both trying their best to dislodge him, natural force combining with animal strength as if in league against man himself.
Culver clenched his hands tighter around the wriggling bundle underneath, resisting the grey, swirling claustrophobia. Huge, single bubbles of air fought their way from beneath the jacket, becoming a frothy stream of effervescence, finally exploding into a gush of larger bubbles as the struggles beneath him grew weaker, began to fade, became almost still. Ceased.
He rose up, his own lungs spurting their protest, falling backwards, rising again, trying to gain his feet. Arms reached for him, and he gratefully used Kate’s support to draw himself up. Before he had fully risen, he saw Fairbank’s head just above water, resting against a bank of machinery, hands desperately holding away the snapping jaws of a mutant rat. Culver realized Fairbank must have pulled the animal off him, and now the creature had turned its attack on the engineer himself. Culver plunged for the animal, rage burning inside, loathing for these grotesque creatures overcoming the fear.
He pulled at its body, gripping it beneath the shoulders, heaving and taking the weight from Fairbank’s bloodied chest. The engineer twisted free, keeping his hands around the rat’s throat. They could see its snapping teeth below the surface, the evil slanted eyes staring at them with a malevolence that held no fear, no acceptance of its inevitable fate, no surrender.
The two men pressed hard, Culver using one knee to pin the powerful hindquarters, avoiding the frenzied claws that turned the water white with their scrabbling. They slowly pushed the head down until it was against the floor, both men relieved they could no longer distinguish those glaring, hate-filled eyes. Air rose to the surface and it was fetid, an evil smell befitting the monster it escaped from. Soon the creature no longer struggled, no longer twitched. They released it and the body drifted away with the current.
Culver and Fairbank rose, breathless and shivering, both leaning back against the machinery. Kate allowed them no respite.
‘It’s getting deeper!’ she cried. ‘We have to get away from here!’
Culver blinked water f
rom his eyes and looked back along the wide corridor in the direction of the Operations Room. It was not just the rising water that alerted him further, for where the corridor opened out to accommodate the repeater power plant there was total chaos. Figures attempted to run through the water, fleeing from the vermin which skimmed towards them. One of the engineers held what looked to Culver like a submachine gun and was desperately fiddling with its mechanism as though unable to understand how it operated, while a rat stealthily crept along the top of a bank of lifeless television monitors behind him.
Culver shouted a warning, but the man was too far away and the noise too great for him to hear. The rat’s front paws slid over the edge of the monitors and it quivered there, held by its huge hindquarters, tensing itself to leap. It sprang, jaws open and aimed at the back of the engineer’s exposed neck. The jaws closed almost completely as the incisors crunched into the cervical vertebrae.
The man’s mouth opened in a scream, the scream lost in the clamour of other sounds; his back arched and his arms were thrown outwards. The gun, too late, fired. Bullets sprayed, thudding into the ceiling, tearing into machinery, causing minor explosions and spark showers. The firing continued as the man sank into the water, reaching lower targets, his fellow engineers and one or two women who were among them.
The water frothed as he disappeared, the submachine gun becoming silent once more. The man rose just once, his back crimson with his own blood, the rat still clinging fiercely, before sinking to his death. Only the rodent’s snout broke surface again, thwarted of its prey by the lack of air; it glided off in search of fresh victims. Of whom there were plenty.
Light abruptly faded, returned, faded again, then remained a dim twilight for long, terrifyingly long, seconds. Something shattered in the complex machinery, an explosion of glaring light and blue smoke. They saw the flame lick and looked aghast at each other.
‘This place is finished, Culver!’ Fairbank shouted. ‘We’ve got to get out – now!’
The lights revived, then flickered before they resumed their normal brightness. Culver saw the dark shapes gliding from the narrow passageway they had themselves used only minutes before.