Domain (20 page)

Bryce was in pain. He moaned and his body rocked quickly backwards and forwards in swift rhythm that sought to ease the hurt.

Culver and Fairbank saw there were scratch marks on his neck, blood flowing from the wounds with the rain. They rushed to him, Culver kneeling and grasping the CDO's shoulder.

'What's happened to you?' he said, using pressure to get the man to straighten. 'Did you fall?'

Fairbank looked around uneasily, then bent closer, hands resting on his knees.

Bryce looked at them as if they were strangers, a terrified, glazed expression in his eyes. Recognition slowly filtered through.

Thank God, thank God,' he moaned.

They were shocked when they saw his face. The neck wounds stretched round to his cheek, where they became large gashes from which blood flowed freely. The thin line of blood, dotted with small bubbles of drying blood, stretched across the bridge of his nose as if he had been slashed with wire. One eyelid was torn, blood clouding the eyeball beneath red. 'Get me back to the shelter. Get me back as quickly as possible!'

'What in hell did this?' Culver asked, reaching for

a handkerchief to stem the seeping tide from the man's neck.

'Back, just get me back! I need help.'

'Culver, there's something wrong with his hand.' Fairbank had moved closer and was reaching for Bryce's arm. He tried to ease the injured man's hands from his lap, but met with surprising resistance.

'Bryce, were you attacked by rats?' Culver asked. 'Jesus, we thought you'd be safe out here.'

'No, no!' It was a shout born out of acute pain. 'Please take me back to the shelter.'

'Show me your hands. Let me see them.'

Culver and Fairbank pulled at the arms together.

Bryce had been clutching one hand with the other and, when they were withdrawn from between his blood-drenched lap, they came apart. The other two men flinched when they saw the fingerless right hand.

Fairbank turned away from the bloodied stumps, pushing his forehead against the coolness of the bus.

Culver held the wrist of Bryce's injured hand. He folded the handkerchief, now rain-sodden, over the finger stumps, pressing them against the protruding bones.

'Hold the handkerchief against them,' he told Bryce. 'It'll stop the bleeding a little.' He guided the hand towards the other man's chest and placed the uninjured hand over it. 'Keep it there. Keep your elbow bent and your hand pointed upwards. Try not to move it.' He quickly ran his eyes over Bryce, checking for further wounds. He found them, but none was as bad. "Where were they, where did they attack you from?'

'No, not rats.' It was an effort for Bryce to speak. 'It was a dog. A ... mad ... dog in the car. Rabid. It was rabid. That's why you've got to get me back.'

Culver understood and it was almost a relief. Bryce had come across a wandering dog and it had attacked him. Not rats. Not bloody mutant rats, but a lost, probably starving, dog! But if it had rabies, then Bryce was in even more serious trouble. No wonder he wanted to get back to the shelter -Dr Reynolds would have an antiserum, something that might save his life. If she didn't - Culver tried to push the thought away - then Bryce would be dead within four to ten days.

'Can you stand?' he asked.

'I... I think so. Just help me up.'

Fairbank forgot his nausea and helped Culver lift the injured man to his feet.

'Okay,' Culver assured Bryce, We'll get you back. There's bound to be an anti-rabies vaccine in the medical supplies, so don't worry. The sooner we get you there the better.'

'It's essential ... that I'm treated before the symptoms begin to show. Do you understand that?'

'Sure, I understand. Try to keep calm.'

Through his pain, Bryce remembered the bitter irony of the newspaper headline he had read in the car just before the rabid dog had snapped its jaws into his neck. Keep calm, that was only annihilation knocking on the door. Keep calm, that was only Death tapping you on the shoulder. He began to weep and it was not just because of the throbbing pain.

They half carried him towards the Underground entrance, keeping a wary eye out for the animal that had caused the injury, avoiding open car doors where possible, kicking them shut first if there was no option but to pass by. The rain pounded ceaselessly, and even though it was warm, Culver felt a chill creeping into his bones. The outside world was as bad as they feared it would be; the city was not just crippled, it was crushed.

Culver and Fairbank both saw McEwen at the same time.

He was leaning forward, one hand extended, reaching for something crouched in a doorway.

Something that was partly obscured by his own body.

McEwen smiled at the dog as he tried to coax it from the doorway. 'Come on, boy, no one's gonna hurt you. You just finish your food and then we'll see what to do about you. We could do with a rat-catcher.'

A low, warning growl came from the dog. Its head was still bent close to the food, and its eyes looked up at him with distrust. McEwen noticed there was a moroseness in those large brown eyes.

"Yeah, I know you're starving. I'm not going to take your food away from you. You just gobble it down, there's a good boy.'

Before the final scraps disappeared into the dog's jaws -snapped up and swallowed whole, as if it feared they would be taken away - the ROC officer noticed something odd. One of the two slivers of meat had what appeared to be a fingernail attached to it.

He hesitated, his hand poised in mid-air, suddenly not so sure that the animal should be patted. It looked a little wild-eyed now. And it was trembling, and its snarl was not encouraging.

There were red blood specks in the foamy white substance drooling from its mouth.

'McEwen!'

His head whirled round and he saw Culver running towards him through the rain, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster. Everything became slow motion, the running figure, the turning-back to the dog, the animal quivering, moving forward, its back legs stiff as though semi-paralysed, the hunching of its shoulders, the bristling

of its damp fur, the wide gaping jaws and blood- and saliva-filled mouth...

Culver stopped and aimed the gun, praying he wouldn't miss from that range. The dog was tensing itself to leap, but something was wrong with its haunches. Its own madness carried it through. It was in the air, yellow teeth exposed, ready to clamp down on the man's outstretched hand only inches away.

Culver fired and the shock wave jerked his arm back.

The mad dog spun in the air and landed writhing at McEwen's feet, jaws snapping, yelping, screeching.

McEwen stepped back, his feet moving rapidly over the wet pavement. He tripped over rubble, sprawling backwards.

The animal, mortally wounded, tried to reach him, crawling forward, its howls diminishing to a low snarling.

Culver moved in for the kill.

He aimed at the dog's head. Fired.

Then again, into the jerking body.

Again, and the body went rigid.

Again, and the body went limp.

He let his breath go and bolstered the weapon.

McEwen was slowly rising to his feet and wearing a stunned, disbelieving expression when Culver reached him.

'Did it bite you?' Culver asked.

McEwen stared at him before answering. 'No, no, it didn't touch me. I didn't realize ...'

'It attacked Bryce.'

'Oh, shit.'

'Help us get him back.' Culver had already turned away and was walking over to Fairbank and Bryce.

McEwen studied the inert canine body and bit into his lower lip. He had been so close, so fucking close. The

realization dawned on him that nothing could be taken for granted any more, that the ordinary could never again be trusted. That was a legacy that had been left them. Just one of the many.

As with Culver, the chill was now inside McEwen. He hurried after the three figures as they disappeared down the steps leading into the station's ticket hall.

The sweet, putrid smell hit them before they had even reached the bottom step. Eagerness to get back into the shelter's cocoon safety, the same feeling a rabbit had for its burrow when a fox was on the prowl, battled with their reluctance to enter the gloomy interior with its infestation of glutted insects and rotting human cadavers. Bryce's moaning urged them on.

The awkward descent down the corpse-crowded escalator was almost surreal now that their initial horror had been muted by an excess of shocks. They had the feeling of creeping into the pit of Hades and that the dead littering their path were those who had tried to flee, but had not managed to reach the sunlight. Paradoxically, the four men realized that the hell was above them.

At one point, Fairbank and Bryce stumbled, nearly tumbling in what would have been a snowballing fall

- the snowball comprised of gathering corpses - if Culver hadn't grabbed a handrail and used his strength to hold back the others. They rested for a short while before continuing, each man drained by what had proved to be a harrowing and arduous reconnaissance. They were mentally tired, too, for the trauma had its own special debilitating effect.

Nevertheless, none of them was keen to spend too long on the escalator: the slumped half-eaten shapes above and

below were a gruesome reminder that they were not yet safe. They journeyed on, Bryce supported by Culver and Fairbank, McEwen leading the way, torchlight sweeping the stairway before them.

They heard the peculiar rushing noise long before they reached the bottom, and looked at each other quizzically before resuming the descent. The sound was emanating from the archway leading to the eastbound platform and as they drew nearer the four men began to understand its source. McEwen anxiously hurried ahead, the others hampered by the injured man.

The sound became a roar as they rounded the corner into the archway. McEwen's lone figure was standing at the edge of the platform, his torch held low. They reached him and they, too, shone their lights down into the raging torrent, its sound amplified by the circular walls and ceiling of the station platform.

'The sewers must have flooded!' McEwen shouted above the roar. 'All this rainfall must have been too much.'

'Too many cave-ins, caused by the explosions' Fairbank agreed. 'The water's had nowhere to run.'

'We must get back!' There was panic in Bryce's voice.

'Don't worry, well make it.' Culver shone his torch into the eastbound tunnel, from which direction the water was pouring. 'It's not too deep, not waist-high yet. We can use the struts and cables inside the tunnel to pull ourselves along.'

'What about Bryce?' said Fairbank. 'He won't be able to use his hand. I doubt if he's strong enough to fight the current anyway.'

'We'll keep him between us, help him along. One in front, two behind. He'll be okay.'

Fairbank shrugged. 'If you say so.'

'McEwen, you get behind Fairbank, help him support Bryce

as much as you can.' Adrenalin flowing through him once more, reviving his beleaguered body, Culver prepared himself for the ordeal ahead. 'We'll use just my torch - that'll leave your hands free. You set?'

Fairbank and McEwen nodded, tucking their torches into their clothing. Bryce's had long since disappeared.

They walked to the end of the platform and Culver dropped down into the tunnel.

The water was icy cold and took his breath away for a moment. The current tugged at his lower body and it was an effort to move against it, much more so than he had expected. He grabbed one of the metal struts that ribbed the arched tunnel and pulled himself along, struggling to maintain his balance, hindered by the torch in his right hand. He stopped when the other three had dropped into the water. Bracing his back against the wall, he turned to them. It was difficult to talk, not just because the confined space reverberated with the rushing sound, but also because it was difficult to regain his breath. His legs were already numbed by the chill.

'Put your left arm through my right,' he told Bryce, crooking his elbow, still holding the torch in that arm. Bryce did so and Culver gripped tight so that their arms were linked. That way he could keep the light shining ahead while still supporting the injured man, and use his other hand to grab any holds along the tunnel wall that he could find. Providing both he and Bryce kept their backs against the wall, they would be all right.

They moved off once more, a bedraggled procession, the force against their legs becoming greater as they waded deeper into the tunnel. It was soon evident that Culver would not be able to use the torch and support Bryce at the same time; the weight on his arm was too great.

He brought them to a halt. 'You'll have to use your torch, McEwen' he shouted. 'Try to shine it ahead of us, against the wall on this side.'

McEwen's light flicked on and Culver tucked his own torch into the waistband of his jeans. He linked Bryce's arm again, this time keeping his fist tucked tight against his own chest.

Perspiration was soon pouring from him with the effort of pulling both himself and the injured man along, despite the numbing coldness in his lower body. The first journey into the tunnel ran through his mind, the deep, hollow silence, the discovery of the bodies, the gorging mutant rats, the petrified girl.

Kate! God, he wanted to see her again.

Bryce began to slip from his grasp.

'Hold him!' he shouted back to Fairbank as the injured man started to sink.

Fairbank grabbed Bryce beneath his shoulders and heaved him upwards. He held him against the wall, Bryce's mouth wide open against the dirt-grimed brickwork, gasping for breath. He tried to speak, but they could not hear his words.

'He's not going to make it!' Fairbank shouted to Culver.

Culver, too, rested against the brickwork and tried to recover his breath. He leaned close to Bryce and spoke into his ear. 'Not far now, only a little way to go. We can do it, but you've got to help.'

Bryce shook his head. His eyes were closed and he looked as if he were moaning.

Culver slid one arm from his jacket and slipped off the shoulder holster. Pulling the jacket sleeve back on, he tossed the flashlight into the swirling water, knowing there would not be room enough for both torch and revolver. He took the gun from its holster and tucked it securely into his jeans.