Lair (21 page)

Whittaker looked at him as though he was mad. That's impossible! We can't claw our way to the top!"

There's no bloody choice! We can't stay here. Look, I'll have to go first; you won't be able to use that hand much. Try and keep close behind me I'll help where I can."

Fender clambered onto the brickwork that jutted out at right angles from the wall they were leaning on and began his ascent, testing every grip on the crumbling stone. He was relieved to see Whittaker following his example.

He soon reached the highest limit of the climbing wall and he stood erect, keeping his hands flat against the facing surface. Kicking into the brickwork, careful not to overbalance, he created a small foothold.

Then he undid the empty gun-belt and used the metal buckle to dig into the wall's surface. The outer layer crumbled like powder, but the going became tougher when he reached the stone underneath. There was just the slightest chance the idea might work, though. If he could just create enough holds for their hands and feet, they might... He saw there was no chance at all. Above, on the top of the building's inner wall, a pointed, black shape appeared, looking over the edge, nose twisting and waving in the air.

The rat opened its jaws wide and gave out a snarling hiss as it saw its quarry below, revealing its enormous, yellowed incisors. It was joined by other black shapes and Fender saw still more running along the wall's length. They had found another way up.

Whittaker clutched at his leg. "What is it, Fender? Why have you stopped?"

The tutor saw the vermin above and screamed aloud. The next moment, the rats were stretching their bodies over the edge, digging their powerful claws into the brickwork, then letting themselves go, hurtling towards the heads of the men below.

NINETEEN

Fender managed to throw his arm up in front of his face before the first giant rat landed on him, but the sudden force knocked him from his perch, sending him crashing downwards, taking Whittaker with him, other black bodies following their descent. It seemed ages to Fender before the impact came, as though his body had floated down in slow motion. His muscles tensed for the blow, but he barely felt it when it happened. The squirming bodies of the vermin cushioned the initial impact and the rotted floorboards beneath them gave way with a dry, cracking shriek, breaking the fall even further. They fell headlong into the dark cellar beneath the house, squealing vermin toppling in after them.

Fender's breath was knocked from him and everything was a mad blur of swirling dust and black, leaping shapes. Bodies were landing on top of him, claws slashing at his face and hands as he tried to protect himself. But the rats were too confused and startled to attack. They scrambled around in the underground chamber, snarling and clawing at each other in their panic, trying to climb the walls of the cellar as though this was a place in which they had no desire to be.

Fender wiped the grit from his eyes and looked up at the gaping hole above, the sunlight shining down through the old mansion's shell, flooding the basement with shafts of dust-filled light. Their fall had caused at least hah" the floor above to cave in and the rats were spilling over the jagged edges.

Tender!"

He turned his body to see Whittaker crawling in the rubble, free of any clinging rats, blind terror driving him forward. Fender tried to reach him, but he had not yet recovered his breath. He started to call his name but only sharp gasps came from his throat. The tutor was crawling away from him, trying to get from beneath the vermin still tumbling down. One landed on his back and crouched there, its claws digging in, sending the tutor into an even wilder frenzy. His screams filled the cellar with their shrill sound, rising above the squeals of the vermin, and he staggered forward, still on hands and knees, heading into the darkness beyond the shafts of sunlight.

Fender managed to raise himself on one elbow and tried to call out to the tutor, but was still unable to do so. A terrible, cloying stench filled his nostrils, making breathing even more difficult. A falling rat knocked him back amongst the rubble and he pushed the creature away in a frantic movement. It nipped at his hand and darted away; mercifully, Fender was still wearing the tough gloves. He gained his knees and rose up from the sea of bristling fur. He could see Whittaker's figure just beyond the area of light, now standing, the black shape gone from his back, others scurrying around his ankles. His figure was still as though shocked rigid, and he seemed to be gazing at something in the corner of the cellar.

Abruptly, as though a signal had been given, all movement in the underground chamber stopped. Only the disturbed dust swirled and eddied, trickles of earth running down from the broken floor above. For a brief second, Fender felt a curious ringing in his ears, but he couldn't be sure if it wasn't just the sudden silence playing tricks.

He looked down at the vermin around his feet and saw they were all crouched, their bodies quivering, eyes staring, slightly bulged. Their ears were stiffened as though they were picking up a sound too high in pitch for him to hear. Something white caught his eye. Something lying in the dust close by.

The light from the sun above shone through the skull's empty eye sockets, entering through a large hole in the cranium. Fender felt his body sway as a dizziness hit him. The skull was human. And beyond it was another. Beyond that, yet another. He desperately tried to keep upright, not wanting to fall among the vermin. There were more white objects around him, gleaming bones of severed limbs. But mostly there were the skulls, some in shattered pieces, others like the first with just their craniums cracked open. He slowly began to back away from the area of light, careful not to step on the crouching rats, afraid that one wrong move would set off the whole demented bedlam again. He moved towards the wall that should be somewhere behind him, hoping there would be a way up from the cellar there, wanting to call out to the tutor, but too afraid. If he found a way out, then he could guide Whittaker towards it without wasting time. A rat let out a sharp squeal as he trod on its claw. He froze, but the rat merely shifted its position and crouched low. Nothing else moved.

Soon he found his back brushing against the rough surface of the cellar wall and he quickly looked from left to right in search of an exit. The staircase, what was left of it, was to his right. He groaned inwardly when he saw the top was blocked with boards and rubble. He looked around for another way out.

The cellar was much larger than Fender had first thought; it stretched to the back of the house, most of it still in shadows. As he peered into the murky greyness he saw things moving against the gloom. Shapes that were light in colour, animals that were larger than the rats around them.

Whittaker's cry made Fender quickly turn his attention back to the figure standing on the other side of the patch of light. The tutor was moving backwards, his eyes still on some object before him, his body moving stiffly as though automated. His mouth opened and closed and whimpering sounds came from it. Sunlight burst onto his head and shoulders as he passed into the light. He stumbled over a crouching rat and the creature scampered away. Whittaker regained his balance and then emitted a swift-rising scream as a black shape scudded from the shadows and launched itself at him.

To Fender it looked huge, bigger than the other giant rats; another, equally big, joined in the attack.

Whittaker went down, holding the first creature off with his hands and kicking out at the other with his feet. Miraculously, almost as if panic had lent him strength, he caught hold of the first rat's head with one hand and snapped it backwards, breaking its neck. He tossed the twitching body away from him and struck out at the rat now nestled in his lap and trying to burrow a hole through the protective clothing into his stomach. Another Black rat of the same size ran from the shadows and leapt at Whittaker's exposed face. It seemed to be the signal for every rodent in the cellar to throw themselves at the struggling man.

Fender could only watch in horror as Whittaker's body was engulfed in black, bristling bodies, the tutor's screams becoming a blood-choked gurgle. Fender was about to rush forward, knowing it would mean his own death, but unable to stand by while the tutor was killed in such a terrible way, when a great explosion of blood spurted into the air from the undulating heap, telling him it was already too late. The rats, as though incensed by the fresh smell, went into a new paroxysm, scrabbling over each other's backs, snapping and scratching out at their companions in a demented effort to get to the man's body.

Incredibly, a form began to rise from the heap, a figure so covered in blood, so mutilated, it was almost inhuman. Whittaker's face had been torn away, his eyes gleaming whitely amongst a mass of red, glutinous substance. His exposed, blood-stained teeth, no lips or beard to cover them, opened wide in a silent scream, red fluid gushing from his throat to splash onto the backs of the clinging vermin. The protective suit hung in tatters and the rats had their incisors clamped onto his chest and arms. A black body shot upwards and Fender saw it was one of the larger giant rats; it bit into the deranged man's throat and his body went over backwards, falling stiffly like a stone statue.

Fender closed his eyes as the slumped form was once more covered by the jostling vermin and when he opened them all he could see of the tutor was a hand, the fingers missing, twitching in the air above the gorging bodies. The tutor was dead of that there could be no doubt and the macabre action was caused by the elbow tendons being gnawed.

Fender felt vomit rising and suddenly he was leaning forward, the sickness pouring from him. Something strange had taken place when he had wiped his eyes with his sleeve and straightened, his back pressed against the wall. The larger rats were driving the other mutants back, away from the mangled corpse, snarling and hissing at their fellow-creatures, their sharp claws lashing out. The smaller vermin seemed afraid even though they could easily have swamped the two larger beasts with their numbers. They backed off, many dragging strips of flesh with them. One, more bold than the others, ran forward again and bit into Whittaker's mutilated body, but the larger rat pounced, teeth sinking into its neck. The imprudent creature squealed, then died, the windpipe severed. The big rat shook itself free of its victim and turned to face the others. They pushed away, heads low, haunches high and trembling. It was then the huge, bloated creatures shuffled forward into the light.

Fender felt nauseous again, hardly able to believe what he saw. The creatures were from a nightmare, deformed monsters, freaks from hell!

They were almost hairless, just a few white wisps clinging sparsely to their obese, grey-pink bodies. Their long pointed heads and thick, scaled tails gave them some identification with the vermin they were derived from, but there the resemblance ended. Their swollen bodies, almost too heavy for their legs to carry, were covered in a network of blue, throbbing veins. Some were hunch-backed, their spines twisted upwards to a high peak, descending towards their haunches in a sharp swoop. Several had long, curling tusks; incisors deformed from lack of use. Two or three had shrivelled limbs projecting from various parts of their bodies, hanging uselessly, a few with twisted claws attached.

Fender suddenly understood what they were, why they were here in this dark cellar. These were the extreme mutants, their rodent bodies genetically corrupted into these obscene shapes. These were of the same kind Stephen Howard had spoken of, descendants of the creature that had been destroyed in the canal-house! These were the monsters who governed the more numerous black-furred mutants, controlling them, using them as hunters.

And this was their lair. This was where they hid their ugly, distorted bodies from the world, this underground chamber so like the dark underworld their precursors had once fled from.

That day he had looked up at the ruined house from the field beyond and seen what he and Denison had thought to be a pig it had been one of these creatures! The house had been left alone because the arsenals seen from a distance wandering in the ground were thought to have been pigs, and it was assumed that pigs would have been slaughtered by the Black rats if they were in the vicinity! But the pigs were already dead, killed earlier by the rats and used as a food supply, the cold weather preventing the corpses from rotting completely. How had it started? The main force, the hunters, living in the sewers, existing on anything they could find, killing small animals, bringing the corpses into the cellar, down to their masters? The sudden awakened yearning for fresh blood, warm flesh? The slaughter of the pigs they had been cunning enough to leave alone until then, blood lust overpowering their caution? The growing need for human flesh, the desire to strike back at their mortal enemy? The growth and strength in their own numbers the catalyst that drove them forth? The questions tumbled through Fender's mind.

He became aware of the cold silence in the cellar once more. He could see the dark trembling shapes, the basement floor littered with the creatures, and the bigger, pinkish mutants gathered around the still form of Whittaker, blood bubbling from his stripped body, filling the air with its sickly heavy odour. He could hear the shuffling, dragging sounds coming from the dark place Whittaker had backed away from only minutes before.

The beast emerged from the shadows into the glaring sunlight, two of its eyes flinching in the brightness, the two on its other head white and sightless.

Fender felt his knees beginning to give, his back sliding down the rough wall. He steadied himself, his hands pressing into the brickwork behind.

The creature dragged itself forward, its two heads waving in the air, separate noses twitching. One head had long descending tusks sprouting from the upper jaw, keeping the mouth permanently open; the other, sightless, head had normal incisors and these were bared in a furious snarl. A peculiar rasping came from both throats.

It seemed to be sniffing the air, relishing the fresh blood smell. The other mutants backed away, allowing it to drag its gross form towards the dead human. It paused when it reached the body, its head wavering over it, quick, snuffling sounds escaping from its nostrils. One of the larger Black rats crept forward, its body crouched low as if in obeyance to the master. What happened next made Fender's senses reel.

The giant Black rat moved around to the tutor's head and opened its jaw wide. It lunged forward, clamping its razor-sharp teeth down in the top of the dead man's skull, the sickening crunching sound of shattered bone rebounding off the cellar walls. Fender could only watch in mesmeric fear as the gnawing sounds continued.

The rat finally withdrew its head, the snout covered in a sticky redness. Something dark bulged against the gaping hole left in Whittaker's skull. The two-headed beast shuffled forward and the head without the tusks plunged into the open wound, digging deep, then withdrawing, dragging out the meaty, veined substance with its teeth, blood and watery slime oozing from the emptied shell. The monster dropped its prize onto the dirt, then both heads attacked the brain at once, ripping it apart and swallowing the meat and tissue.

Fender's legs finally gave way completely and he slid to the floor. He knew he would be next.