The Rats r-4

by James Herbert

  Yes, they were trying to scrape their way through the door.

  He eased the desk back slightly to see what damage they’d done. Christ, cracks were beginning to appear already. He could hear them gnawing at the wood now. Dropping the desk back he plodded to the storeroom. He looked around.

  Just the thing, heavy drapes. Old curtains that had been used in the school hall. He dragged them down from the shelf where they’d laid for the best part of a year, ready to be used for the next end-of-term prize-giving. They were heavy, but one would be enough for his purpose.

  He left them draped over a bench, to prevent them getting wet and thus heavier, and went to a stack of blackboards.

  They were of the old type - they had to be used with easels - and took two. Carrying them outside, he leaned them against the wall. Then he pulled the radiator and the desk back away from the basement door.

  He saw bulges in the wood where the rats had nearly eaten their way through. God, they must have strength in those jaws! Quickly he went back to the storeroom and gathered up the curtain. He hurried back in time to see the wood beginning to splinter.

  Almost in a panic, he stuffed the material in the crack beneath the door, folding it to make as many layers as possible. He grabbed the blackboards and slid them up against the door, as close to the bottom as the curtain would allow. Then he pushed the table up against the door, and the radiator against that, re-enforcing the barricade with chairs and boxes - anything he could find from the storeroom.

  At last satisfied, he leaned back against the wall and regained his breath. He thought he could hear squeals from inside but wasn’t sure if it was his mind playing tricks on him.

  By now he was knee-deep in water. He waded to the stairs and climbed up. As he gained the top step he heard a cracking noise coming from the staffroom door. He saw a long black pointed head emerging, still gnawing at the surrounding wood. He stood frozen to the spot. Would it never end?

  He looked around desperately and caught sight of the heavy poker he’d used before, still lying in the corridor, almost hidden by the streaming water. He sprang forward, slipped in the wet and fell headlong.

  Glancing back, he saw the rat’s shoulders emerge from the widening hole. Frantically, he stumbled forward on all fours, snatched for the poker and got to his feet, using the wall to steady himself.

  It was almost as though the rat knew of his intention as it redoubled its attempt to escape from the splintered wood.

  Most of its body was out, only its heavy flanks holding it captive.

  Harris ran forward, this time taking care not to fall. Without pause, he brought the weapon down upon the twisting skull. Amazingly, it missed as the rat pulled its head to one side, and crashed against the door-frame. The rat bared its large, sharp teeth at the teacher, snapping at him, its eyes glaring venomously. But with some fear in them, Harris noticed, almost with satisfaction. What’s happened to its inscrutability now? It’s scared. Of me! He cried out in blood- lust, bringing the poker down hard upon the thin skull. It split wide open and substance flowed out, the whole body stiffening and then going limp.

  Harris felt sick. Killing even monstrosities like this held no pleasure, no triumph. He backed away, knowing the body now blocking the exit for the other rats wouldn’t last long.

  It would either be pushed through or its hind-quarters eaten away.

  Even as he walked backwards, he saw the body jerking, as though being tugged from behind. Suddenly, half its body dropped from the hole. That’s all it took, he thought. Less than half-a-minute to chew away its hind-quarters! Another black shape began to push its way through. Harris turned and ran, first throwing the poker back at the door, more in frustration than in panic. It missed the rat and clattered to the floor.

  The rat was through, another taking its place immediately as it dashed towards the retreating teacher.

  The door opened slowly because of the pressure from the few inches of water at its base and Harris barely made it in time. As he slipped through and pulled it shut behind him, he heard the heavy thud of the rat’s body crashing into the other side. Clawing noises soon followed. There was nothing on the stairs that he could jam against the door. He raced up the stairs and through to the next floor, slamming the door shut behind him. He burst into the Headmaster’s study, giving Ainsley a fright. The Headmaster still seemed to be in a state of shock.

  Harris ran to the window and leaned out. Ladders from the fire-engines had already been extended to the adjacent classroom windows and firemen were about to clamber in.

  ‘Over here!’ he cried. ‘Bring one over here - with a hose.’

  One of the firemen looked across at him. ‘The hoses are being used below, sir,’ he said, then added,

  ‘Don’t worry.

  We’ll get to you in a moment, sir. Soon as we’ve seen to the children.’

  ‘Get a hose up here quickly!’ he shouted impatiently.

  ’We’ve got to stop the bloody things getting up the stairs!’

  Without further argument, the firemen began to descend.

  ‘Mr Harris, there is no need for one to lose one’s temper.’

  Grimble’s head was sticking out from a nearby classroom window. ‘If we all remain calm...”Shit!’

  Grimble’s head disappeared abruptly. Harris smiled to himself. At least he was getting some satisfaction from today.

  He looked down to see the firemen talking to his superiors, pointing out his window. He saw them nod and the firemen run over to where two others were controlling a hose. The streaming jet of water died and the heavy hose was man-handled towards the base of the long ladder. The first fireman mounted the steps carrying the metal hose point over his shoulder, his colleagues paying it out as he ascended.

  Harris noticed a white van bearing the name of ‘Ratkill’ had arrived. Men in white overalls were unloading several long silver cylinders. He assumed it was some sort of gas.

  The whole street was blocked now by police cars, fire engines, ambulances, and the crowds were being held back by a cordon of policemen at both ends. He saw anxious parents, the women crying, pleading with the police to be let through.

  As the fireman neared the top of the ladder, it was swung over towards Harris’s window.

  ‘Good,’ he said, helping the man into the room.

  ‘Which way is it?’ the fireman asked looking round, ignoring Ainsley and the Headmaster.

  ‘Straight through. Follow me,’ said Harris, pulling more of the hose through the window. He noted more uniformed figures were climbing up.

  They both carried the hose through into the corridor.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said the teacher, halting in front of the door to the stairs. ‘Let’s just check first.’ He wondered if he would ever be able to open a door confidently again as he peeped through the merest crack. He opened it wide when he saw it was safe. They went down to the bend in the stairs and looked at the closed door below. The fireman looked at Harris as he heard the clawing noise coming from it.

  ‘My Gawd, is that them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harris. ‘It’s them. Gnawing their way through.

  It won’t take them long either - they’ve got teeth like electric saws?

  ‘Well, the place seems to be filling up with water all right,’ said the fireman, removing his helmet and scratching his head.

  Harris nodded. There were three or four inches of water at least at the foot of the stairs. ‘The basement must be completely flooded by now. Up to the windows anyway, and the jet from the hoses must be preventing any rats from getting out.’

  They heard footsteps behind them. Three policemen, one a sergeant and two more firemen were coming down to join them.

  Harris gestured to them to stay where they were. ‘The rats are trying to break through the door. If one of your men stands at the window, another by the study door and another at the top of the stairs, we can signal back for the right moment for the water to be turned on.’

  �
�The only trouble is, we’ll only be able to use half-power, because of the bends,’ said the fireman at his side. ‘If we use full power, the force will try to straighten the hose out.’

  ‘Let’s try and make all the curves fairly rounded then,’ said the sergeant. ‘No sharp turns.’

  They formed the hose in a series of curving arcs around the various corners.

  ‘The force will throw it against the right hand wall, so I’ll stand there and hold it off. Harry, you get on the other side,’ said the fireman at the teacher’s side.

  The sergeant ordered the other fireman back to the window upstairs, and his two men into strategic positions along the way.

  ’Right. Let the bleeders come,’ he said.

  They waited in silence, watching tiny cracks grow larger in the door below.

  ‘Get ready up there!’ the first fireman bellowed. ‘It’s un- believable. Solid wood.’

  ‘Yes, and this is the second time this morning,’ commented the burly sergeant.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Harris asked.

  ‘They attacked a train-load of people in the rush-hour. We don’t know the strength of it yet, but it seems it was a massacre. Didn’t believe it, myself, ‘til I saw this lot.’

  ‘A train-load of people? They attacked a train?’ Harris stared incredulously at the policeman. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s true enough,’ replied the sergeant. ‘As I said, we don’t know all the facts yet. It could have been exaggerated.

  But we were called out last night as well, to Shadwell. Three people dead. We found what was left of the station-master which wasn’t much - inside a cupboard. The door had been cracked open. They were going to try and hush it up for a while, but you can’t keep something like this quiet.’

  They heard the splinter of wood and a hole appeared in the door, spreading upwards as a large chunk was dislodged.

  ‘Right!’ shouted the fireman.

  ‘Right, right, right,’came the echoes from the other men.

  A rat began to wriggle through the hole.

  The lifeless hose stiffened as it filled with water and the fireman released the jet immediately, aiming it directly at the squirming creature. It hit the door a fraction of a second too late. The rat scrambled free just in time, its hind-quarters being knocked aside by the powerful liquid jet. The fireman aimed low, throwing it back against the wall.

  ‘The door. Concentrate on the door. Don’t let any more get through,’ shouted Harris, but it was already too late.

  With lightning speed, another rat had leapt through the exposed hole. The fireman returned his jet to the door, completely covering the hole, and in fact, making it bigger by pushing the loose pieces inwards. The two free rats half-ran, half-swam towards the stairs.

  ‘I’ll deal with them,’ roared the sergeant, snatching one of the firemen’s small axes from his belt. He advanced to- wards the approaching rats taking care to keep out of the path of the cascading water. To gain him more time, the fireman lowered his aim for a split second, sending the two creatures sprawling back against the opposite wall.

  The policeman jumped the last two steps and landed with a splash, brandishing the axe above his head.

  He slipped, but lashed out at one of them as he did, managing to cut deep into its back. Once again, the child-like squeal of the injured monster. Without waiting to do further damage, he turned on the second rat, but only hitting it a glancing blow with the flat of the axe. It fell back, twisted round, and launched itself at the big man’s legs. The policeman cried out as the vicious teeth sank into his knee. He hit sideways at the tenacious beast, wary of cutting his own leg with his bloodied weapon, trying to dislodge it. In desperation, he fell to one knee, pushed the rat flat against the ground, and brought the axe down with all his might. He almost cut the black-furred body in half.

  The other injured rat tried to make it to the stairs but

  Harris ran forward and kicked it back as it mounted the first step. The policeman chopped its head off with one stroke.

  Then he prised the jaws of the rat still clinging to his knee loose. He limped up the side of the steps, cursing loudly.

  The fireman who had been stationed at the window came running down. ‘They’ve just brought the cylinders of gas into the playground. They’re going to feed it into the windows.

  They said it’s harmless to humans providing you don’t get too much of it, but lethal to vermin - cover your faces with wet handkerchiefs to stop yourselves choking on it.’

  ‘Tell them to pour gas into the window around the side of the building. It’s the staff-room window - they may try to get back out that way? Harris shouted above the noise of gushing water.

  ‘Right!’ The fireman raced back up the stairs.

  ‘Think you can hold them?’ Harris asked the man with the hose.

  ‘No problem. Even if the door bursts open under the pressure, we can keep them off the stairs until the gas gets them!’

  Harris helped the sergeant with his torn knee up to the second floor. As he limped along, the policeman said: ‘I’ve been told these bites can be dangerous. Didn’t the kid who died from one last week come from this school?” ‘Yes, he did. His name was Keogh.’

  ‘That’s right. He must have been pretty badly bitten, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harris lied.

  He took him into the Headmaster’s study and sat him on a straight-backed chair.

  ‘Oh dear. Have you been wounded too?’ Ainsley asked querulously, reaching for the medicine box.

  ‘Only the one bite, sir. Nothing much. Just stings a bit,’ the policeman told him.

  Harris went along to the next-door classroom and rapped on the door.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he called out. ‘Let me in.’

  He heard the grating of furniture being dragged back and the door was opened to him. The room was completely full now with teachers, pupils, policemen and firemen.

  He raised his hand for the children to be quiet. ‘Everything’s under control now. The stairs are being blocked by water, and gas - harmless to us - is being pumped into the classrooms downstairs. We should be able to leave fairly soon.’

  ‘Thank you very much for your appraisal of the situation,

  Mr Harris,’ Grimble said acidly. ‘I’m sure the Chief-collrse .’

  There’s one rat the gas won’t destroy, Harris thought.

  The rats in the school were slowly exterminated. The ones not drowned in the basement were finished off by the gas.

  The others on the ground-floor scurried around, swimming through the rising water, frantically looking for a means of escape. They climbed on top of radiators, gnawed through doors into classrooms and tried to escape through the windows only to be stopped by the meshwork grill fixed to the outside frames. They jumped on to desk-tops, cupboards, anything above ground level, to escape the torrent of water. Then gas seeped through and one by one, convulsing violently, rearing up on their hind legs, they finally dropped, some into the water, others sprawling on the tops that might have saved them from drowning.

  Many tried again and again to crawl through the hole in the door at the end of the corridor, but were beaten back by the powerful jet ofwater, Their panic caused a madness in them. They fought amongst themselves, whenever they collided or whenever more than one tried to reach the same point of safety.

  Then a pack would single out one particular rat for no apparent reason, and attack it, killing it in a matter of seconds because no resistance was offered. Then the pack would pick on one of its own members and destroy it. Thus the numbers were depleted.

  Soon, they were all dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  It became known as ‘Black Monday’ for Londoners. Reports came in at regular intervals all day long; reports of deaths and injuries. The Underground tragedy was the major disaster, the school had almost been the second. Deaths occurred in bizarre ways: the man who went to get his car out and found his garage full of the v
ermin; the baby left in his pram in the morning sun, laughing at the black creatures, to be dragged out and killed; the priest saying his morning devotions, alone in his church; the two electricians rewiring an old house for new tenants; a pensioner, living in the top of a new council building, opening her front door to take in her milk; the dustman who took off a dustbin lid to find two creatures lurking inside.

  There were miraculous escapes too; a postman delivering letters to a basement flat turned to find three sets of evil-looking eyes staring at him from a coal bunker - the rats made no attempt to attack him as he stumbled backwards up the stone steps; a gang of dockers were trapped by rats in a dockside shed -

  they escaped by climbing stacked crates, through the skylight and across the roof; a milkman warded off two black rats by throwing milk bottles at them; a housewife found her hall filled with the creatures – she ran upstairs and jumped from a bedroom window into the street.

  But perhaps the most fantastic escape of all was the newspaper boy, on his early-morning round, who took a short cut across debris to findhimself in the midst of thirty or forty giant rats. Amazingly cool for a fourteen-year-old boy, he calmly walked through them, taking great care not to tread on any. For no apparent reason, they let him pass without harm. The boy would never have been believed save for the fact he was seen from the road by two men on their way to work. There was no explanation for the phenomenon, no logical reason.

  People in Stepney, where most of the incidents occurred, were in a state of fear - and anger. They blamed the local authorities for the whole situation, insisting that proper sanitation for the area had never been maintained to its full and proper extent. Old bomb-sites had been neglected since the war; houses that were condemned for years still remained standing; garbage from markets and rubbish dumps were never cleared soon enough. All breeding places for filth - all sanctuaries for vermin. The local councils blamed the government, implying that the investigation carried out by the Department of Health was not thorough; that not enough money had been allotted to the task of destroying the pests; that too little tune and labour had been allowed on the project; that not enough care had been taken to ensure the total extinction of the vermin. The government ordered a public inquiry in which the ultimate responsibility was laid squarely and irrevocably on the shoulders ofFoskin,s the Under-Secretary of State.