He stopped again when he heard something ahead of him. He listened, sure it was not from behind, the sound of others following his path. Perhaps he had been wrong, for now he heard nothing. He began to dig again, pulling brickwork away and burrowing through powdered rubble. Then he was certain he heard noises from ahead.
He called for his companions to be quiet and he waited there. The scraping noise did not seem too far away.
The ex-waiter gave a gargled whoop of joy and shouted back to the others that he was sure rescuers were on the way, digging to meet them, obviously careful not to disturb the debris too much with their digging machines lest more danger was created.
He called out, and the others behind called with him. There was no reply except a scratching sound. He frowned. Now it sounded like . . . like . . . gnawing.
Scraping, slithering. Definite movement. He pushed forward.
Presently he came to another blockage and he almost wept with frustration. But then, no, he saw it was only wood, a partition, a screen or perhaps the back of a fallen wardrobe amid the jumble of masonry and rubble. He could see only a small section of the blockage, for it was framed by the rough tunnel itself. He heard more scratching and wondered why the rescuers did not just punch a hole through the wood. He called out again and the noise stopped.
He spoke eagerly and the scratching resumed and the wood bulged, only there was no comfort in the sound this time, for it was not human digging, it was more like the sound of claws scrabbling to break through and that high-pitched squealing was not human, but was the sound of animals, animals with sharp, scratching claws and with enough strength to push the wood inwards, to make it bulge and crack and . . .
He began to back away and the man behind wondered what he was playing at, cursing the shoes that scuffed his face, the others behind him demanding to know what was going on.
The ex-waiter found he could retreat no further, that the next man was blocking his retreat. He stared beyond the candleflame at the cracking wood, a slow scream beginning.
A sliver of wood broke inwards with a crack. A talon-like claw gripped the edge of the newly formed hole. More splinters fell away. A long pointed snout appeared and yellow teeth gnawed a bigger opening. The rat’s head and gleaming eyes were the most heart-wrenching manifestation of evil he had ever seen.
His scream escaped as the rat pushed through and closed the short distance between them with a swift, scuttling movement. The light vanished as the candle was dropped and he could only feel the creature eating into his face, his hands useless against the thick, hairy body.
The vermin had known there were humans close by, their keen sense of smell, their acute instincts, attracted by the distinct aroma of living flesh and human excrement. The digging noises had alerted them and given direction.
They poured through the opening, some eating their way through the body of the first man, others tunnelling their way around him, finding more humans, aroused to an intense frenzy by their own bloodlust. They swept along the tunnel, killing and feeding until they reached the huge cavern where the people waited.
The survivors tried to hide in the darkest corners of the dining hall as the black hordes swept down. At first they did not understand what these creatures were, seeing only a flowing devil’s spawn, an invasion of demonic beasts, perhaps returning to their hell’s womb in which they, the survivors, had been incarcerated. The desperate screams of the tunnellers had forewarned of the irruption, petrifying the people in the dimly lit hall. They scattered and hid as the dark beasts scampered through the narrow opening and descended the rubbled slope, their traumatized minds unable to cope with this new nightmare, to recognize the demons for what they were. The fear would have been no less if they had.
Only when their very flesh was being shredded by flailing teeth and claws did they fully realize that vermin were to be their final adversity, not radiation poisoning, not disease, not hunger and not despair. They hid, but the rats sought them out; they barricaded themselves behind upturned tables and chairs and the vermin squirmed their way through. The kitchens offered no refuge and those who hid in store cupboards only prolonged the waiting, lengthened the torment as razor-sharp incisors gnawed away the barriers. Those who escaped into the walk-in freezer store with its rancid meat might have found some protection had not others belatedly tried to gain entry, pulling open the big metal door and allowing their attackers to storm through.
One elderly man hid inside an oven, cramming his body in, pulling the door closed, holding on to it for dear life, panting and sobbing, legs drawn up in foetal position. Unfortunately for him, the enemy was within. His old heart had given warning twice in the past and it finally lost patience with its host who would not avoid excitement. The old man suffered an undignified death, stuffed in an oven, now his coffin, his feet and arms feebly beating at the iron walls.
An elderly woman pushed open the double-doors to the bar, the stench of the more-recently dead of no concern, and slammed them shut behind her. She stood alone in the total darkness with her back to the doors, listening to the frightening noises outside, her frail legs barely able to hold her weight. A bump against the door made her start; something slid down the other side. More bumping at the base of the doors as though someone was struggling there. The woman stumbled away, hands groping the blackness, heading for the mound of old and new deceased who were wrapped in tablecloth shrouds.
She fell against something and her probing hands found the nose, an open mouth, of an upturned face beneath its thin covering of cloth. She crawled onto the pile of bodies, burrowing down, pulling them around her, flinching as cold hands brushed her arms, as rigid lips kissed her cheek, as the receptive cadavers crowded in on her, hugging her close as if to steal her warmth. Like the corpses, she tried not to breathe lest the sound give her away, but it seemed that her heart beat loud enough for them all. Encased in the stifling bundles, she waited, silently mouthing prayers not remembered since childhood, corpses tight around her as if conspiring to keep her hidden. She might well have eluded the attention of the predators had not other fugitives burst through the doors. The voracious rats quickly overwhelmed them, dragging them to their knees. The concealed woman tried to close her mind to the shrieks.
A quietness eventually fell. Most of the people had been swiftly killed; those still alive could only moan helplessly as the vermin fed.
The woman thought she was safe. Until she heard the rummaging among the mound of corpses in which she lay, the scrabbling of claws, strange childlike sounds. Weight shifted around her. Something nuzzled against the loose fat above her hip. Something began nibbling at the side of her neck.
21
She scratched at the itch on her cheek, her eyes still closed, her other senses still captive of sleep. The insect moved on in search of less resisting prey. Kate’s full awakening was sudden, eyelids snapping open like released blinds, sprung by returning fear. The white blanketing mist did not disappear with the blinking of her eyes.
It was several minutes before she was aware that the rain had stopped and the sun had turned the earth’s wetness to rising vapour. Her fear quietened.
They had escaped the underground refuge and its unnatural vermin. Flight through the rubbled city had been a continuation of the torment, terror of being pursued driving them on through the rain, each jagged streak of lightning making them flinch, the ensuing thunder causing them to cringe. They had stopped only when they found a clearing, each of them dropping to the ground, drenched, exhausted, with little will left to carry on. She had crawled into Culver’s arms, and some time in the night the rain itself had wearied and finally, after so many weeks, relented. The day’s heat was clammy and insects droned in the steamy air; the sky was a bright, white haze, only a faint colouring indicating the sun’s position.
Kate glanced at her watch: nearly eleven-twenty; they had slept the morning away.
Culver lay like a dead man next to her, one arm thrown across his face as if to shield his eyes
from the sun’s nebulous presence – or perhaps to cover them against further horror. Without disturbing him, she raised herself on one elbow and looked around.
The mist was almost impenetrable beyond thirty yards or so, although occasionally warm air currents disturbed the swirling veils to reveal glimpses of the destroyed landscape beyond. Kate shivered, even though her body was soaked in perspiration.
The area they sheltered in had once been a park, a green, path-patterned oasis surrounded by tall, once-gracious buildings. To one side had been the older law offices of Lincoln’s Inn, a complex comprised of buildings dating as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a high wall separating it from the park. The wall no longer stood, nor did the legal ghetto, for she knew they had climbed through its ruins the night before. She was sure, although she could not see them, that the other buildings which bounded the park would be gone, too, and that the nearby scrubbed stonework of the Law Courts – the huge gothic Royal Courts of Justice – would be nothing but crushed rubble. The park, with its tennis and netball courts, cafeteria, and seat-fringed lawns, had always bustled with life, especially around lunchtime and particularly in the spring and summer months when local office workers poured into it for a brief respite from the city itself; now the grass and leafless trees – those still standing – were scorched black and the only bustle was that of milling insects, their constant droning replacing the sound of voices, of laughter.
And she noticed that the peculiarity was not just in the number of insects, but in the unusually large size of many of them. Maybe they were the meek who would inherit the Earth.
Culver stirred, groaning a little as he wakened. Kate turned to him.
His eyes flickered open and she saw alertness spring into them. There was something more, too: the spectre of deep dread was visible for just an instant as he looked into the drifting mists. Kate quickly touched his face.
‘It’s all right, we’re safe,’ she said softly.
He relaxed only slightly and stared up at the white sky. ‘It’s hot.’
‘Humid, almost tropical. The sun must be fierce beyond the mists.’
‘Any idea of where we are?’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’
‘Uh-huh, I know it.’ He raised himself on both elbows. ‘It used to be pleasant.’ He turned his face towards hers and she saw the question.
‘I’m all right,’ she told him. ‘A little battered, a little bruised, but alive.’
‘Did we all make it?’
‘I don’t know – I think so. Wait – Strachan didn’t get out.’
Memories rushed in and his eyes narrowed as if from pain. ‘An engineer fell. Two others went down before we even got into the shaft. And Farraday, the others, Bryce . . .’
‘I don’t think they had a chance. There were explosions before we got to the ventilation plant. And fire . . .’ Kate shrugged.
She felt Culver appraising her and was conscious of the bedraggled mess she presented, with her torn clothes, tangled, matted hair and grime-smeared skin.
Culver saw the softness of her features, the sadness in her brown eyes. The man’s torn shirt she wore was too large and made her look small, vulnerable, and younger than her years. As yet, the ordeal had not etched irreparable lines in her skin and the dirt on her face combined with the ripped clothing to give her a waif-like appearance. He pulled her to him and, for a little while, they rested in each other’s arms.
Eventually, she asked him: ‘What happens now, where do we go?’
‘I think Dealey may have the answer to that,’ Culver replied. Despite the rain having fallen for so long, he could still smell the acridity of the scorched grass. Nearby, a blackened tree rested its length along the ground like some discarded giant charcoal stick. Vapour rising from the ground added to the haunting desolation of the scene.
‘He seems to be a man who likes secrets.’
Culver’s attention was drawn back to the girl. ‘It’s engrained in him.’
‘You’d think he’d have forgotten his civil service training under these circumstances.’
‘It’s precisely these circumstances he’s been trained for. The “them and us” syndrome carries on, no matter what, only I think now there are more of “them” than “us” left. That’s the way it’s always been planned.’
‘Do we have a chance?’
‘While we’ve got him we do. He was the only reason I got into the Kingsway Exchange, remember?’
‘He needed you then.’
‘Devious as he is, I don’t think he’ll desert us. Besides, I don’t think he’ll want to travel alone through what’s left of this city – the dangers are too great.’
‘Dangers?’
‘The rats, for one.’
‘You think they’d come out into the open?’
He nodded. ‘They’ll have a field day. Take a look at these insects: they’ve thrived on radiation and while there may not be much vegetation left for them to eat, there’s plenty of other food around.’
She did not ask what he meant by ‘other food’.
‘Those that needed to may well have adapted fast. As for the rats, they must be instinctively aware they have the upper hand – look at the way they attacked us in the shelter. They may still feel uncomfortable in broad daylight, but they only have to wait for nightfall. Then, as we well know, there’s the problem of rabid animals. And working a way through the ruins will be treacherous; break a leg or ankle and you’re in real trouble. No, Dealey’s better off in a group and he knows it. Which reminds me, my ankle’s hurting like hell.’
She moved down to examine the injured limb and winced when she saw the ragged holes in his blood-soaked sock. Even the top of his boot had blood-smeared puncture marks. Untying the lace, she eased the boot off then began to gently roll down the torn sock; she was relieved to find no swelling.
‘When did the rat get at you? Can you remember?’
‘Clearly,’ he answered. ‘It was just before we closed the opening to the vent shaft. Fairbank got me through.’
‘We need to clean the wound.’
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a crumpled but unused handkerchief. ‘I’ll wrap this around it for now and pull the sock back up to keep it in place. We’ll have to find somewhere to bathe it, and we’ll need antiseptic.’
‘Thank God Clare kept us regularly dosed against their disease.’ A shadow passed over Kate’s face as she thought of the doctor’s terrible death. She busied herself with the handkerchief, folding it carefully to make a rough dressing. ‘Your ear’s been cut through too, Steve,’ she informed him, ‘and there’s a nasty gash in your temple. They’ll need looking at.’
Culver touched the wounds, then closed his eyes, quickly opening them again when his thoughts became even more vivid. He stared into the surrounding fog and Kate became aware that he was trembling. She assumed it was a reaction to the previous night’s events and quickly changed position to put an arm around his shoulder.
‘You did what you could for all of them, Steve. Don’t let it prey on your mind. You can’t be responsible for all our lives.’
His words were sharp as he pulled away. ‘I know that!’
Kate did not allow the rebuttal; she moved with him. ‘What is it, Steve? There’s something more that you won’t tell me. Clare mentioned something to me back there in the shelter, when you were sick. You were delirious, talking, calling out for someone. Clare thought it was a woman, a girl, someone who meant a great deal to you and who drowned. You’ve never told me, Steve, not in all the time we were inside the shelter; can’t you tell me now?’
Kate was surprised to see a smile appear, albeit a bitter one.
‘Clare got it wrong. It wasn’t someone close and it wasn’t a girl. It was a machine.’
She stared at him in confusion.
‘A goddam helicopter, Kate. Not a person, not a wife or lover; a Sikorsky S61 helicopter.’ His short laugh expressed the bitte
rness of his smile. ‘I crashed the bloody thing because of my own stupid carelessness.’
She was relieved, but could not understand why the memory still haunted him.
As if reading her mind, he added, ‘I crashed her into the sea and eighteen men went down with her.’
It made sense to her now: his frequent remoteness, the aloofness towards the happenings around them and the decisions that had had to be made, yet the reckless bravery to save others, the risks he took. For some reason he blamed himself for the deaths of these eighteen men and, a natural survivor, he disdained his own survival. He had no death wish, of that she was sure, but his ‘life’ wish was not so strong either. So far it seemed to be the survival of others that drove him on, starting at the very beginning with Alex Dealey. She hesitated for a moment, but she had to dare to ask, had to know how justified his guilt feelings were.
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ she said.
At first, when the coldness crept into his blue-grey eyes, she thought he would decline; then his gaze swept past her, staring intently into the mist as if seeing the destruction beyond. Whatever inner battle was taking place, it was soon resolved. Perhaps his own guilt feelings paled into insignificance against this vast obscene backdrop, itself a devastating indictment of mankind’s culpability; or perhaps he had just wearied of his self-inflicted penance and felt admission – confession? – would expel its demons. Whatever the motive, he lay back against the scorched grass and began to tell her.
‘Years ago, when the North Sea oil boom really took off, the big charter companies found themselves desperately short of helicopter pilots to ferry oil-rig crews back and forth. Bristow’s could take an experienced single-wing pilot and turn him into an experienced chopper pilot in three months, with no charge for the training; an agreement to work for them for at least two years was the only stipulation. I signed on, went through their training, but unfortunately didn’t quite manage to fulfil the contract.’