The Rats (15 page)

‘,And if it doesn’t work, what then?’

‘Well it wouldn’t be just theEast End’s problem anymore.

They couldn’t possibly contain the rats in that area. They’d spread throughout London. And if that happens, I don’t want to be around.’

Chapter Thirteen

The rats came out on to the streets to die. It was as though having spent their lives scuffling around in the semi-darkness they wished to breathe the fresh air of the upper world before they perished. They littered the streets, their corpses bloated in the sun, at first causing great alarm to the people who lived in the area. The alarm gave way to relief as the people realised the vermin were dying, the crisis was passing.

The diseased corpses were gathered up in bulk and loaded into lorries and taken to incinerators where they were reduced to harmless dust. It had taken only two days for first signs of the virus’ effect but it escalated rapidly in the week that followed. There were still attacks on people but they were far less numerous than before. And then a remarkable side effect of the virus was discovered.

A soldier was bitten by a rat he’d assumed to be dead because of its prone position. He shot it and reported to the hospital where he expected to die. It was extremely critical for three days but he managed to pull through, his survival being attributed to a reaction on the disease carried by the rat from the virus infecting it. The deadly germ had been halted.

Others bitten by the rats were not quite so fortunate. Some died in the usual twenty-four hours, others lingered on the edge for anything up to a week. Not enough people were bitten to allow any assumptions to be made, but the fact that one person had survived and others had lasted for almost a week was definitely encouraging. Tests were tried on animals but instead of dying from the disease caused by the rats, they died from the man-made virus introduced into the rodents.

After three weeks, the danger from the vermin was thought to be virtually over although only approximately two thousand bodies were found. It was assumed that the rest of the rats’ population was dying or dead below ground.

Life began slowly to return to normal. Plans were made to begin a massive clean-up operation on East London’s older districts. Houses were to be pulled down, wastelands to either be utilised for building or flattened into concrete playgrounds or car-parks. The dockside areas would be renovated into modern open-plan blocks. Disused basements would be forever sealed, sewers and drains thoroughly cleansed or rebuilt. It would cost millions but a sharp lesson had been learnt. Stepney and Poplar would eventually become fashionable areas and their history of slums forgotten.

Foskins was completely exonerated of any blame for initial mistakes and reinstated publicly to his former position. He was congratulated personally by the Prime Minister and passed on the compliments to the team that had helped him accomplish his critical task. At a press conference he praised the specialists whose painstaking endeavours coupled with their dynamic ingenuity had finally, begun to defeat this fearsome mutant creature and the deadly disease it carried, whilst subtly implying all credit really belonged to him, as originator and organiser of the project.

They still held daily meetings in the town hall to discuss the progress of the operation but the urgency was no longer felt amongst the members. A serum was derived from the virus to be used as an antidote for the rat-bites which made the disease non-mortal although now such cases were becoming much less frequent anyway.

The danger had passed. So everyone thought.

Chapter Fourteen

Judy was in the bath, enjoying its cocoon warmth, when she heard the phone ring. Harris’s muffled voice came through the half-open bathroom door as it was answered. She idly wondered who the caller was.

After a few moments of one-sided conversation she heard the click of the receiver being replaced and footsteps crossing the lounge towards the bath-room. Harris came in with a wry smile on his face.

‘That was Foskins,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the toilet.

‘Ringing on a Sunday morning? He must miss you.’

‘Hardly. He’s given me the sack.’

‘What? Why?’

‘My services are no longer needed. “Thank you for your extremely valuable assistance, old boy, but the worst is now over and I think it would be unfair to you to take up any more of your valuable time.” “The old bastard.’

‘No, not really, I couldn’t have done any more. To tell you the truth it’s a bit of a relief; I’ve felt a bit useless the last couple of weeks.’

‘Yes, but to get rid of you now, just when it’s nearly all over.’

‘Well, he’s proved his point hasn’t he? He doesn’t need me to show off to now–he’s got the whole of the public.

Anyway, the kids will be coming back in a few weeks and then it’ll be back to the old routine.’

Foskins greeted them warmly when they arrived at his home the following Tuesday.

‘Hello, old boy. Ah, this must be Judy. Do come in.’

Half-plastered already, thought Harris, catching Judy’s eye and winking.

‘Most of my guests have arrived,’ said Foskins in an overloud voice. ‘Bathroom’s upstairs to the left, bedroom to the right.’

Judy disappeared up the stairs to attend her make-up and Harris followed Foskins into a room full of chatting people.

He saw Howard amongst one of the groups, his face flushed with the glory of the previous week’s events. ‘Hello, Harris!’ he called, waving a glass-filled hand and spilling some of its contents on a young woman next to him. ‘Come and meet everybody.’

Harris walked over, Foskins leading him by the arm, taking a Scotch from the waiter with a tray full of assorted drinks on the way. Howard introduced him to his group with an air of camaraderie he’d never shown in their working relationship.

‘Oh, you’re the teacher who saved all those little children at the school, aren’t you?’ the girl standing next to Howard said excitedly.

‘With the help of halfLondon’s police force and fire brigade,’ smiled Harris.

‘Now, my boy, mustn’t be modest,’ said Foskins, placing his hand on the teacher’s shoulder and shaking it heartily.

‘Fiona adores heroes,’ Howard laughed, putting a possessive arm around her waist.

‘Come along, you must meet everybody,’ Foskins tugged him away from the group. They were joined by Judy as they made their circuit of the room, smiling, shaking hands and being congratulated. After his third Scotch, Harris’ mood began to mellow towards the Under-Secretary as he watched him laughing and bantering with his fellow ministers, accepting their praise with mock modesty at one moment and skilful braggartism the next. He noticed Howard standing to one side, glaring at Foskins, taking no notice of the chattering Fiona at his side.

His thoughts were interrupted by Judy whispering in his ear, ‘So this is the jet-set?’

‘It could have been worse,’ he smiled down at her. ‘At least the booze is flowing smoothly.’

‘Old Foskins is certainly bathing in the glory.’

‘Of course. What do you think the party’s for? You can’t blame him though.’

‘Harris, for a belligerent man you’re very easy-going.’

He laughed, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her to him. ‘All right, he made a mistake once, but he soon made up for it.’

‘Yes, with the help of you and all the others!’ Judy said indignantly.

‘She’s quite right you know, Harris!’ Howard had crossed the room to join them, Fiona at his heels.

‘He’s busy taking all the credit–very modestly, I grant you–when after all, it was my idea.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Fiona, breathlessly.

‘And by the way,’ he added maliciously, ‘I’m sorry to see you’re no longer part of the team.’

Harris grinned at the researcher, refusing to be drawn out.

‘What does it matter? It’s all over now, anyway,’ he said, looking around for the waiter and his tray.

‘Yes, and we’re all going back eventually to our obscure little jobs while he ...’

‘Look, if you don’t like it, don’t tell me about it, tell him.’

Harris deftly grabbed a Scotch from the passing tray.

‘Right,’ said Howard. ‘I bloody will!’ and marched towards Foskins.

‘Harris, you’re evil,’ Judy admonished the smiling teacher.

‘Oh dear, he’s going to create a scene,’ wailed Fiona.

Just as Howard reached the jovial Foskins, the telephone rang in the hall and the Under-Secretary excused himself from his group, leaving the researcher standing open- mouthed and flat-looted.

Harris suppressed his mirth as he watched the researcher gather his wits and stride after him.

Two minutes later, Howard came back into the room ashen-faced. He rejoined them, slowly shaking his head, a look of disbelief on his face.

‘Darling, what’s the matter, what’s happened?’ asked Fiona, worriedly.

He looked at each of them in turn, not really seeing their faces. ‘That phone call,’ he started to say. ‘It was from our operations room.’

They waited in impatient silence.

‘There’s been another attack. Another massacre – in North London.’

Chapter Fifteen

Stephen Abbott sat in the darkened cinema and stole a quick glance at his girlfriend’s face, illuminated by the cinema-scope screen. He was bored with the film, partly because the big, craggy cowboy on the screen was now too old to act like superman, and partly because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Vikki didn’t know he wore glasses sometimes and he thought it might spoil their relationship if she did. She’d probably go off him too if she ever found out about his two false front teeth; he had to be so careful in their ‘snogging’ sessions that her probing tongue didn’t dislodge the plate. She was very fussy. And she deserved to be, with her looks! Best looking bird in the club.

He had another problem too–he wanted to go to the toilet. He wasn’t desperate yet, but the thought of not being able to go was steadily making it worse. And he couldn’t go because he didn’t have his glasses and without them he’d never find his way back to the seat. It had happened to him once before; he’d wandered up and down the aisle in the dark until his embarrassed girlfriend had waved to him. And that was the last time he’d dated her.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His arm reached around her shoulders and she snuggled against him, one of her hands resting on his thigh. The area under her hand became the centre of his feelings until the weight caused stirrings elsewhere. He kissed her cheek softly and then her lips hard as she turned her head towards him, her fingers increasing the pressure on his leg. Well, he’d bided his time for two weeks now so as not to spoil things; maybe now was the time to make his move. His heart thumping, his head filled with concentrated love and the desire to urinate overpowered by a stronger desire, he put his free hand on her wrist and stroked the silky material of her blouse. He drew his trembling and cautious fingers to the centre buttons and poked a finger through an opening, giddy at the feel of the warm flesh of her tummy. After a few moments of making circling motions with his exploratory finger and waiting for the rebuttal, he withdrew it and moved his hand upwards towards her breasts. He found the gentle swelling and cupped it tremblingly. Her restraining hand rested on his and weakly, without conviction, tried to pull it away.

Instead he moved it along and slid it inside the opening of her blouse, getting it stuck between the buttons.

He wriggled it loose and undid one of them, hearing her gasp as his hand reached inside again for her.

My first one, he thought. My first proper good-looking bird! After all those fat ones, skinny ones, ones with big noses, ones with big teeth–at last a good-looking one! Ooh, I’m in love. Wait till I tell the boys she lets me have a feel!

His hand crept inside her lacy bra and felt her hard little nipple, squeezing it between his fingers, pressing it as though it were a button.

Suddenly she screamed and leapt to her feet, pulling his arm up with her.

‘I didn’t mean anything,’ he began to bluster, his face reddening as people turned to look at them.

‘Something bit me!’ Vikki cried. ‘There’s something there on the floor! It bit me leg!’

He looked downward but failed to see anything in the dark. He bent down, more to escape the accusing eyes of the cinema crowd than to discover the offending ‘something’.

‘There’s nothing there,’ he said miserably.

’There is, there is!’ She began to cry, backing away on to the lap of the person sitting next to her.

Someone in the next row flicked on a lighter and leaned over the back of his seat with it, holding a small flame towards the floor.

A large dark shape scuttled underneath the seat.

As Vikki screamed, a woman behind in the next row leapt to her feet and screamed also. Then pandemonium broke loose throughout the theatre. People jumped ,up and kicked out at or leapt away from something at their feet.

‘Rats!’ a terror-stricken voice echoed around the cinema, the cry being taken up by others equally frightened.

Vikki began to pound her feet hysterically up and down on the floor, as though contact with it would make her more vulnerable to the vermin. Stephen grabbed her shoulders and tried to calm her just as the house-lights came on. Then the terror really took grip as the people saw the horror between the seats.

Rats were flowing down the aisles, branching off through the rows of seats, pouring over the tops; leaping on to the panicking crowd. Women and men screamed as they fought each other to get free of seats, blocked in on either side by stumbling bodies. The exit doors became jammed, people falling over one another in their bids to escape the death behind them. The big cowboy in the film began his final shoot-out with the villains.

Stephen pulled a rat from Vikki’s hair and hurled it away from him, his hands torn by the creature’s gnashing teeth.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her along the row, pushing at the people ahead of him. Inexplicably, the house-lights dimmed and finally faded leaving the confused scene lit only by the light reflected from the huge screen. Something was biting into the boy’s leg and he tried to kick it against the back of a seat, but because of lack of space the rat was able to hang on. He bent down to pull it away and his hands were nipped at by another rat. In desperation, he sat on top of a seat back and painfully raised his leg on to the back of the seat in front, lifting the great black rat with it. Vikki ran from him and stumbled over a man in his last death struggles with three rats. She fell heavily, and was immediately en-gulfed in bristling bodies, her screams unheard amongst the screams of others.

Stephen grabbed the rat’s throat with his hands and squeezed with all his strength but still it clung to him.

He felt another as it landed on his back and bit into his coat which he quickly shed without thinking, dropping it and the rat into the row behind him. A man in front saw his plight and bravely grabbed at the rat clinging to his leg and pulled.

Abruptly, the creature released its grip and turned on the man, biting into his face.

He went down screaming in agony.

The boy looked over the seats and saw there was nothing he could do to save his rescuer. He looked around but seeing no clear line of exit, he jumped up on to the back of a seat and carefully began to walk along the rows, using peoples’ shoulders where he could, but mostly depending on luck to keep his balance, He slipped a few times but managed to spring upright again, the fear inside him giving him the extra strength he needed to keep going. The holocaust around him became unreal. It was a nightmare, the strange light from the screen heightening the unearthly effect.

A man in front lifted a rat above his head and threw it away from him, hitting the boy with its long body and causing him to slip between the rows again. He landed heavily on his back and lay there stunned for a few moments. Someone stumbled and fell across him, struggling with something in his arms. The rat was pushed into Stephen’s chest causing him to shout out in anguish. He beat at both rodent and man with his fists, cursing and crying at the same time. The weight was lifted from him as the man regained his feet and staggered on, the rat still clinging to his arms, another around his shoulders, chewing at his neck.

The boy got to his feet and climbed on to the seats again, continuing his hazardous journey across the sea of helpless people. Many were in the aisles now, their panic pressing them together in the confined space, preventing the use of speed as a means of escape. The doors were blocked with scrambling bodies and those that managed to get through were being chased into the foyer by the vermin.

An elderly couple near him clung together in a last desperate embrace, the vermin biting at their legs and buttocks, finally bringing them down to their .knees.

Another man sat rigid in his seat, eyes still on the screen as though watching the film, hands clenching the seat-arms.

A rat sat on his lap gnawing a hole into his stomach.

A group of teenage boys had formed a circle, back to back, and were slowly making their way up the aisle, kicking out at the vermin with their heavy boots. Unfortunately they could get no further than the thronging mass of people around the exit.

The people in the balcony above were no better off; they only had two exits of retreat and rats were pouring through these. They were forced back by the bodies of others and many were toppling over the rail into the theatre below.

Stephen went on, sobbing with fright, and at last reached the front stalls. It was comparatively empty of people and vermin, the sides and the exits of the cinema now being the main points of disorder. He leapt on to the floor and headed towards the stage. He managed to get one leg on to it, quickly finding his feet again. A stream of black, furry bodies emerged from the curtains at one side making straight towards him. He turned to run in the opposite direction but slipped in his own blood from the torn leg. The vermin were on him in an instant, smothering his body with their own foul smelling forms, biting into him, pushing each other aside to get at his flesh. His arms beat at them growing weaker and weaker at every effort until he finally lay them across his face for protection, allowing the creatures to gorge themselves on his body.

Raising one arm from his eyes, he stared up uncomprehendingly at the huge coloured screen above him.

His eyes read the words, and his voice spoke them faintly, but his brain did not understand. He whispered ‘The End’.

George Fox had worked at the zoo for twenty-odd years now. Unlike many of his comrades he had a deep regard for the animals in his care; he worried when one of his lions was unwell, pampered his pet gazelle when it was off its food and once even spent a sleepless night at the side of a dying snake.

When hooligans had broken into his bird-house and for no other reason than sheer bloodlust had slaughtered thirty of his exotically coloured winged friends, he’d broken down and cried for three days.

He had a deep sympathy and understanding of his animals, big or small, ferocious or docile.

Even when a monkey had bitten off half his ear a few years back he hadn’t reprimanded it, but gently put it down, ignoring the pain, and quietly left the cage clasping a blood soaked handkerchief to his injured part.

And tonight, he felt the zoo was restless. There was a stillness in the air, a quietness unnatural to London’s large animal estate–but the animals weren’t sleeping. As he made his rounds he noticed the beasts prowling to and fro in their cages, the monkeys huddled together staring out nervously into the night, the birds silently blinking on their perches.

Only the lunatic laugh of the hyena disturbed the uneasy silence.

‘Easy now, Sara,’ he soothingly reassured Iris favourite cheetah in the large cat-house. ‘Nothing to be nervous of ?

Suddenly, the screeching of birds broke through the night.

Sounds like the aviary, he told himself, making for the door and running towards the tunnel that led under the public road to the canal where the fantastic bird sanctuary stood.

He was joined by another keeper at the entrance of the underground passage.

‘What’s up; George?’ the man gasped.

’Don’t know yet, Bill. Something disturbed the birds, sounds like they’re going mad.’

They plunged into the dark tunnel using their torches for added light. As they emerged on the other side they heard a squeal from the giraffe section. To their horror they saw one of the graceful creatures racing round its enclosure with large black creatures clinging to its trembling body. It plunged into the water acting as a moat around its paddock and thrashed about crazedly.

‘Oh my Gawd–what is it?’ asked Bill, unsure of what he’d seen in the night light.

‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ cried George. ‘It’s those bloody rats. The ones that are supposed to have been exterminated the giant rats!’ He took several steps towards the helpless animal but then turned back to Bill. ‘Back to the office, quick. Get on the phone to the police–tell them it’s an attack on the zoo by the rats! Tell them we need every avail-able help we can get! Hurry!’

He ran towards the giraffe again, knowing there was nothing he could do for the poor creature, but going on anyway. He turned as he heard a human scream coming from the tunnel and saw Bill emerge, swarming with black shapes and what must have been blood gushing from his head. He saw him go down, half rise and slump forward again.

‘God Almighty,’ he breathed. He had to get to the telephone. There was another ticket office in this section but would mean passing the rat-filled tunnel and crossing the bridge over the canal. And the canal must have been where they came from. Those bastards said they’d cleared out the rats, they were all dead or dying. But the vermin are killing my animals. My poor animals!

He moaned aloud, not knowing what to do. Finally, he decided on a plan of action, trying to ignore the cries from the rat-besieged animals in that section. He ran towards the fence protecting the zoo from the dividing road and scrambled over it in hurried clumsiness. He fell over on to the other side and as he sprawled there he saw the lights of an approaching car. Scrambling to his feet, he ran into the road, waving his arms frantically. At first it seemed as though the car was going to drive on, but the driver must have seen his uniform in the glare of his headlights. It screeched to a halt causing George to jump to one side to avoid being hit.

The excited keeper was shouting instructions even as the driver was winding the window down. At the uncomprehending look on the motorist’s face, George began again: ‘Call the police, tell them rats, hundreds of them, are attacking the zoo. If they don’t get here soon, the bastards will slaughter my animals! Move, man, move!’

As the car sped off a horrifying thought struck George.

When the police and the soldiers got there, the only weapon they’d be able to use would be gas. And gas would be just as lethal to his animals as it would be to the vermin. He cried out in despair and ran across the road to the main entrance of the zoo. Climbing the turnstile, he saw the figures of two other keepers on night duty approaching him at a run.

‘Is that you, George?’ one of them shouted, shining a torch into his face.