The news was alarming, but was there real reason to worry? The hospital had emergency containment procedures in place. Families of victims were in quarantine. Theoretically, the plague wouldn’t spread much beyond what it already had.
Theoretically.
The reality was that no one could predict exactly what would happen. The deadliness of the plague had surprised everyone. It had not responded to antibiotics. And the heat wave was making a bad situation worse.
Tom remembered reading about the Black Death in his university days, but he hadn’t read much. His interest had been in stopping the modern plague of cancer. Ananda had been reading up on the Black Death for a school project. Maybe he’d borrow one of her books.
The moon was up when Dr. Blake finished for the day. A breeze blew in from the harbour. It was warm and balmy, with that ever-present tar smell from the waterfront.
He balanced a box of papers on his hip and dug in his pocket for his car keys. Wrong pocket. He shifted the box to his other hip, fumbling a bit. Then, with a whump, it slipped to the ground. The lid fell off, and Tom’s research papers took to the air, gusting across the parking lot like a flock of origami birds.
Cursing, Tom sprinted after them. He cornered the last of the escaped papers and stuffed it in the file box with the others. He roughly set the whole thing on the back seat of his car, and with a final curse or two, he got into his car, started the engine, and drove out of the parking lot.
Tom Blake drove home through silent streets, humming tunelessly along with a jazz song playing on the radio.
He had no idea that he wasn’t alone.
This time, he hadn’t seen the flash of white and grey, hadn’t seen the rat as it slipped into the box he had placed in the back of the car.
Relieved to finally be home, Tom turned into his driveway and brought the shadow of the plague right to his front door.
THIRTY-ONE
“It was unusual that in a house where one person died, others did not follow.”
Brother John Clynn, 1349
Finding the two-leg’s nest had been surprisingly easy. Fin had staked out the Killing Chamber all day, had watched the ugly two-leg walk across the pavement to its machine. And when it had dropped the box it was carrying, Fin slipped in. The poor dumb thing had taken Fin right to its nest.
After the two-leg had turned off its machine and got out, it reached into the back seat for its box. That’s when Fin had had a little fun. Galloping up the two-leg’s arm, he leaped onto its mousy head then vaulted through the air. Landing on the grass, Fin dived under a shrub.
From his hiding place Fin chuckled, watching as the two-leg screeched, flapped its arms, and slapped itself on the head. The two-leg’s round pieces of glass flew from its nose and settled near Fin’s paws. Patting the ground, it had crawled on its knees, sounds of anger hissing from its mouth. Finally, the thing got up and hid inside its tall nest.
Alone outside, Fin sniffed every corner, every windowsill, every crack of the wooden nest until he found a way in: a slight gap in a small window frame, which was only a tail-length up from the ground. On the night of the attack, Fin need only gnaw an opening the Plague Rats could fit through.
Running back home to the Tunnels, Fin mapped the way in his mind, memorizing every smell, every dip in the pavement, every pattern of light and sound. He repeated to himself over and over, I will keep my promise. I will keep my promise. I will keep my promise.
***
“That’s the target we’re hitting tonight, Lieutenant Scrubbs,” said Fin. He glared at his second-in-command. “That’s an order.”
She glared back. “It’s too far away! I’ve deployed death squads before and—”
“I know, and this is my first time. But I’m in charge.”
Scrubbs pointed at the Plague Rat squad. “Captain Fin, look at them. They’ve peaked! They’re almost gone!” The ragged group huddled together several tail-lengths away. Clearly they did not have long to live.
Fin gazed at the rats. They looked miserable. Chewing his lip, Fin fought back the pity that swelled up inside him, that pricked at his eyes. No! There is no time for this! They are martyrs for the Common Good. There is no greater honour.
“Then we’d better hurry up,” said Fin, gritting his teeth.
***
A light rain began to fall as the Plague Rats stumbled after Fin. Progress was slow. “Hurry up!” Fin yelled over his shoulder. His foot was aching—he’d done too much running already. He forced himself forward. Drizzle beaded on everyone’s fur and whiskers like a fine gauze. The only sound was of gasping breath and the scratch of claws on pavement. The Plague Rats were slowing, but so was he. Fin’s paw felt like it was on fire.
Lieutenant Scrubbs puffed along beside him. “Captain Fin, the squad needs a rest.” She looked pointedly at his paw. “It seems you do too.”
“No…need,” panted Fin. “We’re…here.” On the other side of the street sat the two-leg’s tall nest. A light shone from one of its windows.
“Stay here,” said Fin. “I’ll call when you’re to bring them.”
“Captain, I should be the one—” began Scrubbs, but Fin had already started across the road.
Fin felt the lieutenant’s sharp eyes on him and tried not to limp. On the other side, he climbed up the lawn. The grass was cool and wet and eased his paw’s throbbing a bit. Sitting up on his haunches, Fin sniffed the air until he caught the scent trail he was looking for.
Since his eagle-eyed lieutenant couldn’t see him now, Fin limped heavily to the low window. He sniffed at it: the ledge was just a tail-length up from the ground. He could jump it, no problem. But when he leaped up his leg was so stiff that it knocked clumsily against the ledge and forced him backwards into the grass. He jumped again. This time he dug in his claws and managed to hoist himself up.
The whisker-thin gap ran the length of the window. Choosing a spot in the frame that was rat high, Fin bit into the wood then spat, flakes of bitter paint sticking to his tongue. Wrinkling his nose, Fin gnawed at the hole. When he thought it was big enough, he tried fitting his head through. Too tight. He kept chewing.
After spitting out mouthfuls of paint and chewed wood, Fin tried squeezing his head in again. This time it fit, which meant the rest of him would too.
Sniffing his handiwork, Fin nodded, his part of the mission done. He opened his mouth to call ultrasonically for Scrubbs to bring the Plague Rats but clamped his mouth closed again. It had been Fin’s idea to come here. Fin’s mission to save the Killing Chamber rats. But he wasn’t allowed to go in? Only the Plague Rats? It wasn’t fair. Orders or no orders, chewing a hole in a window frame was nothing.
Fin had to see where the cruel two-leg would die. It would only take a moment, then he’d call the squad. No one would ever find out.
Fitting his head in the hole, Fin eased through one paw, and then the other. The inside ledge was just below. He dug his claws into the wood to brace himself, and, flattening his ribcage, squeezed his chest through.
He pulled through his good back paw. His curled paw was still on the outside, hanging like a market ham. As he pulled it through, it caught on the frame.
His claws popped out of the wood and his front paws pedalled air. Yanking his leg free, Fin tumbled and fell sprawling onto the ledge below.
He lay frozen, not daring to move, not daring to breathe. Slowly, Fin lifted his head and sniffed his surroundings. He was high up. Below him was plunging darkness. Thank the Old Ones he hadn’t fallen down there.
He carefully picked himself up. Grey shapes poked out of the gloom. Scent trails of cooked food could be detected in the air, coming from somewhere above him. It mixed with the sharp smell of concrete that surrounded him here in the nest’s lower part.
This was it? This was where the monster lived? He’d expected something else. Something that spoke about th
e evil of the Killing Chamber. Maybe rows of cages. The moment he’d imagined over and over in his head, the triumphant moment of stopping the two-leg, of getting justice for the tortured Killing Chamber rats, felt bitter in his mouth, like the flecks of paint.
He shouldn’t have come in.
The gnawed hole was a few tail-lengths up. Fin clawed up the concrete wall and, reaching the window frame, fit his head into the hole. But as he tried to lever in his shoulders, his swollen back paw threw off his balance. His hind paw gave way, and he slithered back down.
Frowning up at the hole, he dug in his claws and pulled himself up one paw at a time. But as he fit his head to the hole and pushed forward, his hind paw gave way once again. Again he slid down.
He peered up. His heart pounded a drumbeat in his ears. Again he hoisted himself into the hole. Again his paw slipped and he fell back down.
Panic buzzed in his ears like a swarm of angry bees. Coiling his haunches, he leaped. He stabbed the wall with his outstretched claws and clung to it. The tips of his whiskers quivered against cold concrete. The hole was overhead—a reach of the paw, that was all. He stretched his paw toward it slowly…
His foot slid out and he fell straight back, passing the ledge. He plummeted into the dark, his paws flailing. He squealed, “Help me, Papa! Help me!”
He hit bottom. Metal jaws snapped around his paw.
Red washed over his eyes. Everything went silent.
THIRTY-TWO
“In our modern times we are drowning in sin.”
Archbishop of Canterbury, July 15, 1375
Papa lay on his side, his body halfway off his pile of nesting and sprawled on the dirt floor of the burrow. There was a scuffling at the entrance. A guard peeked timidly around the corner.
“Beloved Chairman? Here is your forage. I brought sausages and—”
Papa reared up and bit the rat’s shoulder. “Get out! Get out!”
“Agh! Yes, Chairman! I’m sorry, Chairman!”
“And take your filthy sausages with you!” shouted Papa, scooping his nose under the food and flinging it after the retreating rat. He slumped down onto the dirt again.
Tears shimmered in his eyes. It was never supposed to be like this. Not after Nia. He had already lost so much. And now Fin…
Even as a tiny pup, there had been something about Fin. The pup’s father had been a dirty Wrecker, but Papa had always loved Fin. Fin could be trusted. In the Council where enemies hid behind smiles, his beloved nephew was the only one he could believe.
They had gotten the news while in the Council Chamber. Fin’s second-in-command Scrubbs had told them that Fin was lost. She’d said other things—the death squad dying without being deployed—but Papa brushed that aside. The Plague Rats were going to die anyway, and there were always more. But his beloved nephew had been very much alive. And now he was gone.
The Council meeting had been contentious. Julian had “issues” with using Plague Rats, wanted the deployments stopped. Had actually called for an end to the war. Oh, not the puny little war that they had fought before the Gift; according to Councillor Julian, the Tunnels could continue its campaign of Disruption and Harassment. But not the real war.
The burrow was so empty. Papa shivered, even though it was so hot outside that even the dirt under his claws felt scorched. He felt hollow. All of his plans…
Papa had made Fin into a War Hero. The crowds had loved him. Loved them both. “Papa and Fin! Papa and Fin!” the Tunnel Rats had roared in the Forbidden Garden until Papa’s ears had thrummed. Together, they would have been unstoppable.
Papa groaned as he pulled himself up. “What am I to do?” he asked. The walls of the burrow stared back at him. He looked down and noticed that his coat was covered with grime. He leaned back on his haunches and, spreading his fur with his paws, groomed his belly, nibbling out bits of dirt.
“Eh? What’s this?” White fur salted his belly. Where had it come from, all of a sudden? “Pah!” he spat, slapping down the ruffled fur until the offending white shafts were covered.
Papa carefully licked his paws and drew them over his ears and down his whiskers, one by one. And then he saw it: one long white whisker sprouting amongst the black. He breathed deep to steady himself, rocking back on his haunches.
Papa was getting old. Old rats did not stay Chairman for long.
This was the time when Fin should have been by his side, when he was needed most. And now that buzzard Julian was circling. Must have seen Papa’s greying muzzle. But Julian was too old to be Chairman, even older than Papa!
Tiv wasn’t. And hadn’t he seen Tiv nodding her head when Julian had spoken about the Plague Rats? Were the two of them in this together?
Papa’s eyes glinted as he realized the truth. Tiv and Julian were plotting against him.
Papa had underestimated them, had believed their hollow oaths of loyalty, while they schemed under his very nose! He knew it now. Papa realized that deep down inside he’d always known it.
Wreckers. Wreckers everywhere.
Who to trust? If only Fin were here.
But there was one. Sergo could be trusted. Papa’s “loyal dog” would do anything Papa asked of him. Yes, he would send for Sergo. There was no time to lose.
THIRTY-THREE
“Be assured, comrades, that I will give all to the cause…even my life’s blood, drop by drop, if need be.”
Josef Stalin
Ananda gripped her books to her chest as she walked across the school parking lot toward the front doors. She hadn’t slept well. Correction: she hadn’t slept at all. Litko’s face loomed before her every time she closed her eyes. What was it with that guy? Why did she let people like that get under her skin? She trudged, head down, and gulped in air to try to stop her heart from racing.
Closer to the school, the buzz of high-pitched voices, of crying, made her jerk her head up. Students milled around out front like an anthill that had just been stirred up. Some were sobbing, others had tears running down their cheeks. She slowed down, stopped.
A girl with long blonde hair pushed by her. Ananda stumbled, and her notebook fell to the ground. The girl looked back. “Oh, sorry—Ananda!” It was George.
“Oh, Ananda! It’s so awful! How he died! Oh my God, you must feel awful! He was out of school because of you!”
Around them, the pitch of crying and general hysteria had raised. More students gathered into the press. Ananda couldn’t breathe.
“What?” gasped Ananda. “What’s going on?”
George looked at her, round-eyed. “You haven’t heard?”
Students turned around to stare at her. A few pointed. “She was the one who pushed him…” “I saw her do it, I was there…”
“Shut up!” Ananda snapped at them. “George! Tell me!”
“It’s Chris. He’s dead. He caught the plague! I mean, the plague? Who dies of plague anymore? It’s crazy—” George kept talking, but Ananda didn’t hear her.
Chris Litko was dead.
Ananda’s first thought was, I’m saved.
Her second thought was that she was a disgusting human being for thinking such a thing. But as the chaos continued, with students flinging themselves into each other’s arms weeping, she couldn’t help but feel relief.
Chris Litko, a.k.a. “Hyena Boy,” unibrowed tormenter and modern-day Neanderthal, had died of Bubonic Plague. He was the “local high school student” in the news.
By the time school started and the crying mass of students was shepherded inside the school doors, grief counsellors had been brought in. By midday the halls were empty. Parents had come early to pick up their kids, cars parked bumper to bumper, spilling out onto the road in front of the school. Buses were called in early.
Ananda’s mom pulled up with her car, and Ananda climbed in. Her mother grabbed Ananda to her, awkwardly pinning her to her ch
est while she squeezed her. “I am so glad you’re okay…I’m so glad…”
Instead of pulling away, Ananda hugged back. Her throat suddenly felt like it was being squeezed by a vise.
“Mom!” she choked.
“It’s going to be okay, honey,” said Perrin. “It’s going to be okay.”
Ananda pulled back, wiped her nose, and burst into tears.
Perrin looked at her, eyes streaming, and nodded as she put the car in drive. “It’s going to be okay,” she said again, as if she could make it true by sheer will.
***
That afternoon, Perrin had to go out to an appointment. She had stared into Ananda’s eyes and asked her about a million times if it was okay for her to go, and insisted that if Ananda said the word she would change her appointment in a heartbeat. But Ananda needed some time alone to think.
She curled up on her bed and pulled the covers over herself, even though it wasn’t cold out. It seemed surreal. Like a joke. These kinds of things happened to other people, in other places. Not here. Not to her.
“It didn’t happen to you, stupid!” she hissed to herself. “It happened to Chris.”
She turned over and buried her head in her pillow, hating herself anew. She lay like that until she fell asleep.
***
A clanking sound jarred her awake. She jerked her head up and looked around her room, blinking groggily. “Mom?”
No answer.
She climbed out of bed, opened her bedroom door a crack, and peeked into the next room.
Nothing.
The noise started again. A scraping noise coming from the basement. Visions of Ebenezer Scrooge being visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol ran through her mind. In her case, it would be Chris Litko wearing the huge chain, covered with plague sores and pointing his rotting finger at her. Her mouth went dry.
She reached for the basement door with a shaking hand. She opened it a crack. CLANK! Scraaaape. She slammed it shut.
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