‘Over here!’ came the shout and he saw Dealey standing in a smaller boat further down towards Westminster Bridge. He made for it.
‘Cast off!’ he called out, aware that the vermin were scampering down the ramp, several leaping through the railings to get at him.
The boat would have accommodated no more than fifteen to twenty people on the benches set around its interior. A tiny white-topped cabin covered the bow, its paintwork scorched and bubbled, protection against the spray or foul weather for those tourists lucky or quick enough to find a place inside. Steering was from the stern, a simple but no doubt effective rudder fixed there, its bar ending close to an equally basic gearstick. In front of both was a pale green box that covered the engine. Not the most gracious looking of boats, it seemed to Culver in those desperate moments the handsomest craft he had ever laid eyes on. It was already a few feet away from the quayside, drifting lazily out into the current, and he had to take a running leap to reach it.
He landed on the small area of deck, sprawling over the engine box and quickly turning to face whatever followed. Two rats leapt at the same time. One just reached the side and tried to clamber over. Culver dislodged it easily with a slashing stroke of the axe. The other had scuffled over onto the bench, jumping from there onto the engine covering. It skidded around to face Culver, hissing venomously.
Culver struck and missed as the quivering animal ran to one side. It came at him as a bundle of powerful, squirming fury, knocking him back onto the bench, rending his face with needle-like claws.
Culver sank down, the weapon falling to the deck. He pushed upwards and over, using the animal’s own momentum. The rat flew over the side, splashing into the muddy water.
Culver was on his feet immediately and at the rudder and gearstick in two quick strides. Kate lay huddled on the deck, her eyes closed, her face white with shock. He knew she would not yet be in pain – the nerve ends had been cut away and shock was its own analgesic – and was relieved to see her arm was now only seeping small amounts of blood.
From the quayside, the vermin plunged into the water and glided towards the drifting craft.
‘How do we start it?’ Dealey was close to weeping. ‘There’s no key, there’s no damned key!’
Culver groaned, his shoulders sagging. There was now hardly any mist on the water, although the sun was hazy-bright above, and he could clearly see the sleek black shapes smoothly moving towards them. Given time, he might have been able to open up the engine and bypass the ignition; but there was no time – the leading rats were already sinking their claws into the boat’s hull.
He stooped to pick up the axe and spotted the boat-hook lying beneath the bench. ‘Dealey, use that to keep them off. We may get away yet!’
Leaning over the side, he swiped at a body in the water. The distance to the water level was frighteningly short, but at least the current was taking them away from the quayside. Red liquid stained the river as the axe found its mark. Dealey had picked up the long, stout pole and was just in time to push back a rat that was clambering over the side. Another appeared in its place and snapped at the pole, sinking its teeth into the wood and refusing to let go. Dealey had to use all his depleted strength to shake off the rat, shoving it back into the water where it thrashed the surface into a foam, still refusing to release its grip. Only as air escaped its lungs did the animal relinquish the hold to swim back to the surface. Meanwhile, other vermin had taken advantage of the struggle.
They scrambled up the side of the boat, using their powerful haunches to thrust themselves from the river.
Culver moved backwards and forwards, never stopping, knowing if he battled with one rat for too long, then others would quickly steal aboard. He thrust, cut and hacked, his face grim and a part of his mind cold, almost remote from the action. Dealey helped him, his movements more clumsy, less swift. He had learned a lesson, though, and that was to keep his jabs with the boat-hook sharp and short, never allowing the vermin to gain a grip.
The river bank drew further away, but still they came, a skimming black tide of them. The boat was drifting upriver with the tide, moving towards the bridge with its missing span on the opposite side of the river. Beyond he could see rising from the river the peculiar rockface that was the fallen section of the ancient clock tower.
Culver realized that if the current took them fast enough they might just outdistance the swimming vermin. If only they could keep them off the boat, if only . . .
He froze.
He had looked up, just for a moment, a quick glance at the bridge itself. Black shapes were darting along its balustrade and the pavement below – he could just see the moving humped shapes. Many were peering through the ornate mouldings. They were lining up above him, bustling, jostling each other for position, long snouts descending, front paws already stretched downwards, balancing themselves. Tensing themselves. Readying themselves to drop down as the boat passed under the bridge.
34
It was hopeless. They had no control over the small craft as the current lazily carried it towards the bridge. Still warding off boarding vermin, Dealey caught sight of Culver and wondered why the man was not moving, why he was staring ahead of them, regardless of the danger they were in. He followed the pilot’s gaze and he, too, became still.
He could not speak, he could not curse, he could not even weep. Dealey had become too numbed by it all. To survive the holocaust, to struggle through the terrible aftermath, to thwart disaster at every turn – and now this. To be destroyed by creatures that skulked in filth. A bitterly ironic death.
Culver turned, as if to warn him, and saw that he already knew. Something passed between them. A recognition of shared, impending death? That, and something more. A sudden, cognizant touching of spirits, a startling and rare knowing of each other. For Dealey, who was and always had been a pragmatist, it was a spontaneous and staggering insight not just into another’s psyche, but also into his own, giving an acute awareness of his own being. The moment passed, but the sensing was indelible.
A dripping, sleek-furred rat appeared over the stern, and Culver attacked it with a grim deadly ferocity, slicing its skull in half and pushing the broken body back into the river with the end of the axe. Feeling that same chill rage, Dealey turned his attention back to the creatures beginning to clamber onto the deck. His anger grew as he attacked them, for he had been driven beyond fear, had reached the stage for which the very animals he did battle with were renowned; trapped, cornered, he turned on his aggressors.
Jamming the hook at the end of the pole deep into the mouth of one that had jumped onto the engine covering, he pushed against it so that the rat skidded off the smooth surface onto the bench at the boat’s side. Dealey followed through, leaning over and lifting the stunned creature before it had a chance to recover. The effort took considerable strength, but he did not have time to wonder where that strength came from. Teeth sank into his ankle and he roared with anger and pain, stabbing down at the animal, battering its skull and body, forcing it to release him. The pole hook bent, broke off, and he used the jagged piece of metal that was left to stab into the rat. A jet of blood gushed as an artery in its neck punctured and the rat fled squealing. Yet another was already lunging for him. It caught him in the stomach, sending him back over the engine covering, the pole flying from his grasp. He felt his clothing tear, teeth entering his abdomen. He sank his fingers into the wet fur, digging deep, trying to push the burrowing creature away.
A shadow covered the sun and the mutant rat was wrenched from him.
Culver had the creature gripped around the neck. He pulled it back, regardless of ripping Dealey’s flesh, and exposed its belly: he brought the axe down with a deep, chopping movement, then tossed the writhing animal aside.
He did not linger; he turned, lashing out, scything, racing along the deck, inflicting wounds, severing limbs and heads, never resting, never pausing, never allowing himself the time to think.
Dealey clutched the wound in his stomach fo
r a moment, then reached for the fallen pole, picking it up with both hands and joining Culver in the fray.
Although soon only seriously wounded or dead vermin remained inside the boat, others continued to clamber over the side. The water all around had become black with them. And the bridge was only yards away.
Culver bludgeoned a rat that was stealthily approaching Kate, the stump of her arm lying exposed and enticing on the wet boards of the deck. She opened her eyes as he lifted her, only a brief flash of recognition in them before she sank back into protective oblivion. She was terribly, dangerously, pale. Culver, in a quick moment of tenderness, kissed her lips before gently placing her on the engine box. Then he was back, fighting, yelling, keeping the boat clear.
He sensed the huge bulk of the bridge looming over them, looked up, saw the first of the rats beginning to drop, landing with a splash in the water just ahead. The boat drifted closer. He saw their quivering, excited shapes above, crawling over the buttress near the Embankment, across the supports, poking their bodies through the thick ornamental balustrade and balancing on its broad top.
Impatient, another leapt outwards and managed to land slitheringly on the top of the pleasure boat’s tiny cabin. It glared down at the two men, but did not attack.
Culver raised the axe, holding it across his chest in both hands, ready for the final onslaught. Once the boat was under the bridge, the vermin would fall on them in an avalanche. He prayed the end would be swift.
An eerie silence fell. Their squealing stopped, so did their trembling. It was as before, in the basement chamber, the lair in which the grotesque creature had suckled her young; the vermin had fallen silent then, just before they had gone mad with bloodlust. It was about to happen again.
Dealey offered up an unspoken but fervent prayer, and Kate softly moaned, still unconscious.
The rat on the cabin roof watched Culver. Its haunches began to quiver, the unsightly pointed hump above them tensing. It bared its teeth and hissed.
The roaring, whirring sound came fast, breaking the unnatural quietness with a swiftness that stunned both men and beasts. Over the deafening noise came gunfire and Culver and Dealey watched open-mouthed as chippings sprayed off the old bridge. The vermin scattered. Many were thrown screeching into the water below, bodies rent by bullets. Others leapt into the river for safety, but still the gunfire followed them, spewing tiny, violent fountains, many of those fountains a deep red.
Confused, deafened by the noise, Culver and Dealey crouched in the boat as it drifted beneath the bridge. Rats fell onto them and once more they were beating them off, the squealing audible now they were beneath the bridge, the roaring above muted. But this time the vermin were terrified, demented by the sudden turmoil, scuttling around the boat in disarray, those in the river disorientated, swimming in circles.
The two men stood before the recumbent girl, striking out at those who came too close, defending rather than attacking. Culver caught sight of the same rat still perched on the cabin roof, and still watching him. Unlike the others, this creature was not panicked. Its gleaming eyes showed that it was not even afraid. It shuffled close to the edge of the cabin roof. Its fur bristled, swelling its body. It launched itself into the air.
The rat’s powerful haunches sent it clear of the engine covering on which Kate lay. Its flight seemed peculiarly slow to Culver, the action – and his reaction – almost leisurely. Its black shape grew languidly in his vision, claws outstretched so that he could count each one, jaws opened to reveal every yellow fang, the two incisors stained and jagged from use, eyes slanted wickedly, intent on his.
And the axe was coming up from behind Culver, a lazy, arcing motion, sweeping high to meet the floating beast.
Culver’s arm juddered with the impact and he fell backwards under the animal that had been split down the middle, through the skull and shoulders, the blade travelling alongside the spine, stopping only when it reached the big bones of the mutant rat’s pelvis.
Culver lay there as the creature’s life substance flooded over him. He pushed the opened body away, barely able to lift it.
Daylight dazzled him as the boat passed from beneath the bridge. Yet something still blotted out much of the clear blue sky and he could not understand why, could not understand the thunderous roaring.
Dealey was near him, pointing, shouting something, but the other sounds were too great. A rush of wind, a gale-force breeze, rocked the little boat. Culver dragged himself to his feet and staggered, gripping the side of the boat to steady himself. He looked up once more.
‘Pumas,’ he said, the word lost in the whirlwind. He suddenly understood why they had not seen or heard the helicopters before that moment: the tilted hulk of the Big Ben tower had hidden their approach from upriver.
The three helicopters hovered over the river, one close to the boat below, their wheels retracted, their huge blades creating a maelstrom. Two of them hailed down bullets from specially mounted 7.62mm general purpose machine guns onto the bridge and into the river, while the third manoeuvred its draught to push the boat with its three human occupants away from the bridge.
The same word kept forming on Dealey’s lips: ‘Incredible-incredibleincredible!’
Culver stumbled over him and grabbed his shoulder. ‘It’s not over yet!’ he shouted close to Dealey’s ear. ‘They’re still coming aboard! We’ve got to keep fighting them off!’
As if to prove the point, two rats appeared just in front of them, sliding over the side. The two men acted as one, kicking out at the beasts and sending them toppling back into the water. But more leapt onto the boat, using it as a place of refuge from the rainstorm of lead. Culver and Dealey attacked them before the bedraggled vermin had a chance to recover. There were still too many, though. More and more clambered over onto the benches and deck.
‘It’s no good, we can’t hold them!’ Dealey shouted, once again panic-stricken.
‘Get onto the cabin roof!’ Culver told him over the roar. He leapt onto the engine covering, Dealey following suit. The older man awkwardly climbed onto the small roof while Culver picked up the unconscious girl. It was difficult, but Culver managed to pass her up to Dealey, who dragged her to momentary safety. The pilot kicked at three rats that had mounted the box, one managing to grip his jeans and tear off a shred as it fell back into the well of the deck. Culver sprang up onto the cabin roof and knelt there, ready to swing at anything that followed.
Dealey, half-sitting because standing would have been too precarious on the rocking boat, tapped Culver’s shoulder and pointed.
Culver looked up at the giant shadow that filled the sky above them. A man was being lowered down to them.
Culver thanked God that the Puma helicopters had been fitted with both machine guns and winches. Feet dangled just above their heads, and then the man was down, Culver and Dealey helping to steady him.
‘Not a great time for a pleasure-boat ride,’ the winchman yelled, and saw the two men were too weary to speak. ‘I can only take one . . .’ He noted the rats below, the man with the axe still striking at those trying to reach the cabin roof. ‘Okay, I can stretch it to two, but we’ll have trouble up top! Let’s get the girl into the harness!’
They could hardly hear his words, but guessed his meaning. Together they lifted Kate and secured her in the harness loop, the helicopter maintaining a steady hover above them, skilfully following the motion of the boat. ‘All right, one of you get behind and put your arms around my shoulders! You’ll have to hold tight, but we’ll soon get you up there!’
Culver indicated at Dealey to do just that. Dealey shook his head.
‘You go!’ he yelled.
‘Don’t be bloody stup—’ Culver began to say.
‘I don’t have the strength to hold on! I’d never make it! ’
‘Come on, either one of you,’ the winchman shouted impatiently. ‘One of the other choppers will pick up whoever’s left. I’m signalling for lift now before those bloody monsters start
chewing my toes!’
Dealey slapped Culver’s shoulder and took the axe from him. He even managed a weary smile.
Culver barely had his arms gripped over the winchman’s shoulders before a thumb was offered skyward and their feet left the cabin roof. They soared upwards, moving rapidly and steadily away from the boat. He looked down anxiously and held his breath when he saw the black shapes swarming onto the white roof. Dealey was standing, swinging the short axe with both hands, knocking the vermin aside, sweeping them overboard or back down onto the deck. But for every one ejected, another took its place. He saw Dealey’s ever diminishing figure go rigid with pain as his thigh was bitten into. Another rat scurried up his back, forcing him to reach behind to dislodge it, the weapon falling from his grasp.
‘Dealey!’ Culver shouted uselessly.
The second Puma swooped in, a winchman already swinging at the end of the wire. His feet never touched the cabin roof; he scooped up the blood-soaked man and pulled the rat from his back all in one movement. They swung away from the craft, two black forms still clinging to Dealey’s legs. Their own weight sent the rats crashing back into the river, flesh and material stretching then parting under the pressure. Culver closed his eyes as the two figures were winched upwards. The third helicopter hovered low, using up its ammunition on the vermin. Gunfire ravaged the boat and the mutant rats that filled it, and when the bullets burst through its fragile hull, reaching the fuel tank, the little craft exploded into a thousand pieces. Culver opened his eyes in time to see the pall of black smoke billow up into the air, a miniature replica of the explosions that had destroyed the city so long, so very long, ago.
Reaching hands helped them into the helicopter, Culver hauled in first, then the girl, the winchman climbing in last.
Culver was quickly guided to a seat and he sank down gratefully into the cool shade. The big door slid shut, the interior of the helicopter still noisy but less than before. He watched as Kate was carefully lifted onto a fixed cot-stretcher and another officer, a medic he assumed, examined the stump of her arm. The man did not flinch; he had obviously treated worse injuries during the past few weeks. From a case, he swiftly took out a small phial which he broke open to extract a syrette. Expertly, and without cutting away her jeans, he plunged the needle into a muscle in Kate’s thigh, holding the syrette there for a few seconds while its fluid drained. He noticed Culver watching.