by N M Tatum
Sam produced a rag from her pocket. She laid her sword across her lap and polished the blade. She grunted indifferently in response to Cody.
He made sure his wristcom was synced with the monitor setup and left the alcove to follow the path Joel and Reggie had taken. Being the shortest of the group, he could walk upright without worry of bumping his head. That made it easy for him to walk with his head down, focused solely on his wristcom. And it was for that reason that he didn’t notice the signs of damage until he’d passed halfway through the tunnel.
When he finally looked up, the signs were glaringly apparent. Wires chewed through. Claw marks scratched in the solid metal. Sections of the wall that had been completely destroyed.
“Guys,” Cody said. “Did you see any of this damage as you walked through?”
“I didn’t see anything that didn’t look like it didn’t belong in an attic crawlspace that’s been infested with rats.” Joel sounded like he couldn’t give a crap.
Cody crouched next to a fuse box. This was the most confounding thing he’d seen yet. It was demolished, but not in the way he would have expected, like it had been smashed with a hammer. This looked like it had been systematically dismantled.
“None of this should be here,” Cody said. “This amount of damage, this kind of damage shouldn’t have happened. Plus…” His throat tightened with realization. “It’s all outside the tunnels. They’ve been in this area. So where’d they all go? Why’d they all crawl into the tunnels before we got here? Something doesn’t add up.”
“They’re just rats,” Joel said. “An infestation of anything causes crazy amounts of damage. Even run of the mill rats.”
Cody stood, but the foreboding feeling that something was looming wouldn’t leave him. “I don’t think they are.”
Reggie and Joel seemed annoyed to have to disrupt their relaxing time staring at the floor. They rose to their feet, ready to give a cursory glance around and then tell Cody he was being paranoid as usual.
That’s when they noticed the flow of rats had stopped.
“Guess we got them all,” Reggie said. “Let’s wrap this thing up.”
The two of them walked around the alcove, prepared to step over the bodies of the countless dead rats that had run into the lethal traps. But they didn’t find any.
“What the hell?” Joel crouched down to examine one of the lethal traps. It had been tripped, but not by a dead rat. He looked at a few others nearby. Same thing. Reggie confirmed that the rest of the lethal traps were the same. Tripped.
Their eyes fell on the nonlethal traps. Crates of living rats.
“I’m starting to think you might be right,” Joel said to Cody.
If the traps weren’t tripped by dead rats, then they could only have been tripped by living ones. But it wasn’t possible that they were all tripped in the hustle of the rats pouring out of the tunnels and not one of them was killed. Which only left one option.
“These are some goddamn super rats,” Joel concluded.
As if waiting for their cue, the nonlethal traps burst open, and the rats surrounded Joel and Reggie.
Chapter Four
Joel enjoyed saying, “I told you so,” but he wished he didn’t have to say it so often. And he wished the circumstances could have been different. Like, not so much with the apocalyptic scenarios.
“We’ve got a situation here,” Reggie said over comms. “We need backup immediately.”
The line was silent. Reggie and Joel had been lulled into thinking they’d won. They’d left their weapons sitting against the wall where they’d been relaxing, and were now separated from them by an army of rats that, as far as they could tell, were smarter than the average rodent.
“We might be on our own,” Joel said. “Ideas?”
Reggie clenched his fists inside his Rapoo-teeth-studded gloves. “We need to rendezvous with the others. Which means getting through this crowd. We can charge straight for Cody and Sam, or double back to get our weapons.”
“I vote weapons.”
“Agreed.” Reggie turned on his heel and slammed his fist into the floor.
He’d been wanting to try out the new upgrades Joel had made. Reggie’s gloves now had the capability to hold a kinetic charge. He could discharge that energy however he wanted to—over a steady period of up to five minutes to give each punch a little extra oomph, or in one massive burst.
A shockwave emanated outward from Reggie, knocking the rats back and opening a path for Joel to charge ahead. He dove and rolled to a stop against the wall, his fists now full of pistols. He fired indiscriminately, the rats so packed together that he never missed even though he never aimed. Reggie followed and grabbed his semiautomatic.
Together, Reggie and Joel let loose a barrage of suppressive fire as they pressed forward. The rats scattered, but reformed around the blaster fire like water flowing around a rock jutting up from the beach. With meters to go until they reached the entrance to the passage back to Cody and Sam, Joel tossed a concussive grenade into the heart of the rat swarm.
The explosion sent the rats flying in pieces. Joel and Reggie sprinted out of the alcove. The passage was clear of rats, so they didn’t stop running, though now that they needed to stoop, they moved considerably slower.
They stopped after several minutes to catch their breath. Between broken inhales, Joel said, “Told you so.”
“Shut up,” Reggie said. “How was I supposed to know?”
“You should always know.” Joel tried his comm again. “You guys reading me? Shit has and is continuing to hit the fan. We could use a hand.”
Silence.
Neither of them dared speak as to what that silence could mean. They exchanged a look that was full of worry, full of all the outlandish possibilities and nightmare scenarios rattling around inside Joel’s head. Then they continued on.
“Guys?” Cody checked the comm signal again. “You there? Sam, you read me?” Nothing. “Crap. Why did I go off alone? You never go off alone. That’s how you get separated and eaten by the monster. Everyone knows that.”
He stopped, took a deep breath and tried to calm his raging heart. “Okay, this isn’t that bad. Comms went down. That happens.” He looked down at the signal readout on his wristcom. “Except the signal is still strong, which means something is interfering with our equipment. Which would only happen if someone was intentionally blocking our communications. Which would be crazy because they’re rats. And rats are dumb. They live in sewers and eat garbage.”
Cody debated with himself which path to take. Venture further down the path toward Reggie and Joel and try to reconnect with the guys and make sure they’re okay, or double back to get Sam? Okay, so not much of a debate. Always go with Sam. He’d go with Sam over ten Reggies and Joels.
He ran a routine diagnostic of the comm system as he made his way back to Sam. Everything was reading strong, which only made him more anxious. He needed to find the main comm hub. Something there must be jacking up the signals. Luckily, the hub was on level two.
The sound of string music wafted up from below. Clinking glass and silverware followed. Then haughty laughter. Cody imagined that if he pressed his ear to the floor, he could hear the sound of people getting richer and fatter and shallower.
Over the sound of the party, he heard a small clang. Like metal on metal. His ears perked up. Another clang. The sound was coming from nearby, on level two, not from below.
Another clang. He followed the sound, stepping over bundles of wires and pipe. His foot fell on something. Several screws lay in a close bunch on the floor. He bent to inspect them, but something else quickly drew his attention. A squeak above him. He looked up, expecting a rat to drop on his face.
What he found was something far more terrifying. Slowly and carefully, the last screw holding the grate on the ventilation shaft above Cody’s head was being unscrewed. From the inside.
The screw dropped onto Cody’s face, followed immediately by the grate. His eyes sna
pped shut instinctively. When he opened them again, he was alone. No rats, crawling up his legs, gnawing holes in his flesh. No beady eyes. staring at him from the dark.
“What the hell?” Cody shined his flashlight in the dark areas around him. Nothing.
Then came more squeaks. Not the metal on metal squeak. An animal squeak. From somewhere in the dark around him came the sound of unnaturally sneaky rats.
Cody suddenly felt them crawling all over him, imagined them in his hair. A cold shiver ran up his spine as he spun in circles, trying to catch sight of one.
When he finally did, it didn’t feel like a victory. It didn’t feel earned. It felt like they’d allowed him to find them. Like they were done playing their game with him.
Cody locked eyes with a fat, brown rat. It stood atop a fuse box, like a vigilante on patrol in the dead of night. One could assume he was alone, until moving the flashlight half an inch in either direction and finding the dozens of others.
In a flash of panic and adrenaline, Cody dropped the flashlight and pulled out his scatterblaster, which hung on a strap around his shoulders. He fired two rounds at where he thought the rat was. Without the light, he couldn’t be sure he hit anything. Then he ran back toward Sam, taking little steps as if he was running through a dense forest and being careful not to trip over a root.
He ran for what seemed like an hour but couldn’t have been more than two minutes before slamming into something firm and steady. He fell back onto his butt. He reached for his blaster and pulled it frontward, moving on pure instinct, ready to obliterate whatever stood in his path.
Like his body had a second before, his blaster collided with an immovable object. His vision focused to see Sam standing over him. She stood on the barrel of his scatterblaster.
She didn’t scold him for almost putting a hole in her midsection. She just said, “Goddamn super rats.” She helped Cody to his feet. “What the hell is happening right now? I heard shots. Tried to raise you on comms, but couldn’t get you. The guys either.”
“Something is interfering. We need to get to the communications hub to fix it. Then we can radio the guys and make sure they’re still alive.”
Sam drew her sword. “Lead the way.”
The passage was eerily quiet. Reggie didn’t like it. It felt oppressive, like the quiet was being used as a weapon. It bludgeoned him, prodded him along. He felt like he was being led somewhere.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he said.
“Which part?” Joel said. “The super rats? Or the fact that I was right yet again?”
“Both. Don’t you think it’s weird that they stopped chasing us? When has that ever happened? They had us on the run. Why not chase us down?”
Joel shrugged. “Maybe their tiny rat legs got tired. I don’t really give much of a shit why they didn’t eat us alive. I just want to find Cody and Sam and figure this out.”
Reggie grabbed Joel’s shoulder to stop him.
“That’s it,” Reggie said. “We can’t contact them, but we can think like them. Where would Cody go right now?”
Joel let his hands fall to his side. He shook his arms and rolled his neck like he was warming up for something. “Let me get in the right headspace.” He spoke to himself, coaching himself into a Cody mindset. “I’m a nerd. I’m scared. I probably peed my pants a little. Where would I go?” An idea shot into his head. “The comms.”
“We tried that already,” Reggie said.
“I know that. And Cody knows that. He knows they don’t work. He’ll try to fix them. He’ll go to the communications hub.” He closed his eyes like he was trying to remember something. “This way.”
Joel had a memory unlike any the Notches had ever seen, near perfect recall, which was often a pain in their ass when it wasn’t useful. He remembered every infraction, every misquote, and could wield them all as well as Sam could her sword. In this instance, his memory of the level two layout displayed on Cody’s wristcom might save their lives.
The communications hub was located down a smaller, narrow tunnel that branched off from the main one. It was an alcove about ten meters in diameter. Not too big, just big enough to house the equipment needed to maintain radio communications in this section of Malibu.
Standing at the mouth of the communications tunnel felt like waiting to enter the dragon’s keep. Joel and Reggie stared into the darkness like it was the mouth of a giant monster waiting to swallow them. It gave them flashbacks to when they had literally done that, not that long before.
“After you,” Joel said.
Reggie grunted, pressed the butt of his semiautomatic rifle into his shoulder and marched forward into the dark. Joel hurried along behind him, stepping on his heels on several occasions.
The tunnel was fifty meters long, and they traveled the length of it without meeting any resistance. But when they reached the alcove, the sounds of life echoed out. Chirping, hissing, grunting, like two pigs were arguing with each other.
Joel and Reggie readied their weapons then charged in.
Sam nearly sliced them both in half.
“I knew it,” Joel said. “I’m such a good nerd.”
His victory was short-lived. He could just barely distinguish Cody’s outline in the dark behind Sam. Even then, he could tell Cody was distraught. He had the same look about him as a man who just dropped the last slice of pizza and watched it land cheese side down on the floor.
“What are we looking at?” Joel asked, moving in to see if it was anything with which he could help.
Cody was still trying to wrap his head around it. The communications hub was basically a big wireless router. It was hardwired into the comms network and sent out a wireless signal that all comms devices could piggyback off of. It was a simple setup. Which made it easy to mess with.
Cody directed Joel where to shine his flashlight. A metal panel the size of a toaster lay on the floor, the screws that had fastened it in place sitting beside it. The now exposed area that had been protected by the panel was a mess of cables plugged into various ports. Cody gestured for Joel to lean in close.
“See this,” Cody said, pointing to the mess. “All of these represent the wireless communications capabilities for the entire station.” He pulled some aside so Joel could get a closer look. “Now, see this? The one way in the back is the cable for just this sector of the station. It’s been chewed through.”
The weight of the realization hit Joel in the gut. “They removed the panel, passed through all these other cables, and chewed through the right one to cut our comms?” He held his dual blasters up, readying for an attack, suddenly sensing that one was inevitable.
The others seemed to agree with him. They readied themselves as more puzzle pieces came to them.
“They came out in force, but didn’t really attack us,” Reggie said. “They were flushing us out. Herding us.”
“Bringing us here,” Sam said.
It seemed like the rats had been waiting for the Notches to understand what was happening. A vindictive move from a simple rodent.
The shrieking rose up around them, like war drums. The Notches spun in circles, looking for the source, but were unable to find it.
Then Reggie went down.
Chapter Five
“It’s eating through my spleen!” Reggie rolled around like a turtle on its back, hopelessly thrashing its tiny little legs.
Joel grabbed him by the elbow and lifted him to his feet. “You’re fine.”
Reggie swatted at himself, making sure the filthy creature was gone. “I guess this is a bad time to admit I have a slight fear of rats?”
“How do you feel about super rats?” Cody said, but his voice was cut off when something soft slammed into the back of his knee, dropping him to the ground.
The team spun, trying to spot the culprit before it disappeared back into the shadows. They were unsuccessful.
“Considerably worse,” Reggie said in response to Cody’s question.
The attack
s continued. Several more streaks of brown flashed through the dark, clipping the team in the shoulder and cutting small gashes in the exposed skin just above their ankles. Each time, the team only caught a fleeting glimpse of the rodent responsible.
Sam finally had enough. “Cover your eyes and ears.” She plucked a flash grenade from her belt and tossed it just feet in front of them.
With little time to react, the team turned their backs to the grenade and tucked as near to a fetal position as they could while still standing.
The explosion sent a shockwave smashing into their backs, reaching through their skin and punching them straight in the hearts.
Sam was the first to act, fueled more by anger than anything else. She’d grown up on the streets, in alleys, in sewers. Rats had been a constant enemy when she was young, one that she’d defeated time and again. She’d be damned if she let them best her now.
She popped a flare and dropped it in the center of the alcove. The flickering red light illuminated the rats hiding in the crevices and along the outer edge of the area. They were all stunned, some completely unconscious. Her sword became a whirling fury. She rushed forward, cutting through dozens of them, spraying the walls with red.
The others regained their wits a full twenty seconds later. Once they were able to make sense of what they were seeing, they followed Sam’s lead. They unloaded shot after shot into the dark recesses of the alcove, but, the enemy being so small, the killing was inefficient. Though, since survival was their main concern now, all they cared about was escaping the alcove.
They pushed forward and into the narrow tunnel that connected back to the main passage. Though relieved at the progress, the Notches didn’t allow themselves to breathe easy. If anything, this run-in had only shown them just how crafty the rats were. And it put them on edge. They doubted their choices now, whether they were making them freely or being manipulated.