‘Why do you do it, Luke? Why rats?’
‘I told you yesterday: the money's good.’
She shook her head. ‘No, that's not it. There's some other reason.’
He drained the last of the coffee and placed the mug on the floor.
‘I think I'd better make a move. It's an early start tomorrow
. . .’ he glanced at his watch '. . . I mean today.’
She rose with him. ‘I'm sorry if I was probing.’ She moved closer. ‘Really.’
He smiled down at her. ‘I started it. I got what I deserved.’
‘Will I see you tomorrow?’
‘Of course. I'll be pretty busy, but as of now, Jenny, you're part of the operation, so we'll be working together.’ And then he wanted to kiss her, but foolishly - ridiculously - he was afraid to. He hadn't felt that heart-shaking fear since he'd been fifteen, on his first date. It was crazy, but irrefutable: he was afraid his advance would be rejected. He stood there like a naive fool, too nervous to take a forward step. So she kissed him.
It was a light touch, and on the cheek; but a pleasurable shock ran through him dispersing his uncharacteristic timidity.
‘Jenny...’
‘It is late, Luke. Walk me over to the main building so I can help Jan clear up. Then you go and get some rest; it sounds like you're going to need it.’
He relaxed, no longer the schoolboy. ‘Okay. I'm staying at the hotel in Buckhurst Hill. It shouldn't take me much more than ten minutes to get there, and only two minutes more to be sound asleep. It's been a long day.’
But it wasn't over for him yet.
Jan Wimbush wiped the steam from her spectacles with the end of her sweater. All the cups and saucers were washed now, the ashtrays emptied and clean, the big table in the lecture hall wiped of all stains. Tomorrow would be a busy day but, thank God, there would be no classes and all the Centre staff would be helping.
Alex Milton had spoken to the staff earlier that evening, explaining the rat problem to them and how the Centre was to be the operational headquarters. If any of his members wanted to leave, they could do so - he wouldn't blame them in the least.
But their help was needed by the men who were coming to destroy the vermin. He had been assured by Ratkill's research director that there would be no real danger to the staff, providing they did exactly as they were told and wore the protective clothing that would be issued when outside the confines of the building itself. Everybody volunteered to stay, of course, most looking forward to the drama. The fact that the local vicar had apparently been eaten alive by the monsters seemed hardly real to those who hadn't visited the graveyard, although the warden did try to stress the deadly seriousness of it all.
The three classrooms had been cleared, the desks in each room pushed together to make two big tables. The laboratory itself was to be used as a storeroom for the gas tanks and rodenticides the Ratkill people would be bringing. The protective suits would also be kept there. The lecture hall would be used as the main operations room, while the library would be reserved for smaller, more select meetings by the inner committee.
Jan put her spectacles back on and tried to look out into the night through the large, single-frame window; all she saw was her own reflection. She didn't much fancy walking over to the residential wing by herself. Anything could be out there in the dark. Most of the staff had retired for the night, but Will Aycott had stayed to help her finish up. He was around somewhere checking that all the windows and doors were secure; he also had the keys to the main door.
Jan turned from the window, not too keen on her own reflected features, and switched off the kitchen light. Will would see her back to her room - he'd tried to get into it often enough.
Luckily, Jenny Hanmer was a good chaperone to have around
- in fact, they were useful chaperones to each other at times.
Not that she disliked Will. Sometimes she wished she had her own room.
She wondered if Jenny was feeling any better. She'd had a terrible shock up at the churchyard; Jan wondered what had possessed her to go up there in the first place. She wouldn't have had the nerve. Still, Jenny was different. She had guts. She stood up for herself.
‘Will, where are you?’ Jan called along the darkened corridor. There was no reply so she walked its length, peering into doorways as she went. The lights in the end classroom were still on, throwing a rectangle of brightness across the corridor. She marched towards it, assuming he would be there and hadn't heard her call.
‘Will, are you in there?’ She peered round the door and saw that the classroom was empty. He must be at the other end of the building, near the library.
Jan glanced around the room, checking that it was in order and the sliding windows closed. The large windows ran the length of the building without a break on that side, compensat-ing for the lack of glass at the front. Satisfied all was in order, she reached for the light switch, then groaned silently when she noticed the lone coffee cup resting on the work top beneath the windows. Will must have missed it.
She crossed the room and stared disgustedly down into the cup. Someone had dropped a cigarette end into it. Sighing, she looked up at her reflection in the black glass again, brooding on her physical inadequacies. Too thin, neck too long, chin a little too firm. No breasts to speak of. Her hair was too straight and always lank two days after washing. And the glasses. No matter how well she groomed herself for a special occasion, no matter what make-up she used, what perfume, how beautiful the dress, she always had to detract at least twenty percent of the overall effect by donning the glasses. It was unfair. Still, Will seemed to find her attractive; maybe she was being too hard on herself.
Jan suddenly had an uneasy feeling. It must have been the total, obscuring blackness outside, the lightless forest something to which she had never quite adapted. But now it worried her more than ever before. Obviously, the fact that there were monster rats roaming around out there had a lot to do with it; for her, Epping Forest had rapidly lost all its charm. She shivered. Silly, but it was almost as though the creatures were out there watching her. She leaned forward, pushing her face close to the window and shielding the light from behind with her hand. She stared out into the night through the shadow her own form had created. Then the window exploded into her face.
Pender and Jenny were just entering the main building when they heard the crash of glass and the shrill scream that accompanied it. They looked at each other in shocked surprise, then rushed into the reception area, almost colliding with Will Aycott as he emerged from the corridor.
‘Where did it come from?’ Pender asked, grabbing the young tutor's arm to steady him.
‘The other end. One of the classrooms.’
‘Come on.’ Pender ran down the corridor, Jenny and Will hard at his heels. They made for the lighted room at the end, further screams and scrabbling sounds urging them on.
‘It's Jan!’ Jenny shouted, fearing the worst.
Pender stopped at the doorway, his eyes widening and the skin at his scalp tautening. The two tutors crowded in behind and he held them back, preventing them from entering the room. Jenny screamed at the sight before them.
Jan Wimbush was dragging herself along the floor towards the door, her spectacles gone, her face a bloody mess, glass slivers projecting from her cheeks and forehead glinting like silver shards in the overhead light. Rivulets of blood ran down her arms and her chest was stained red. She raised a quivering hand towards them as though beseeching help, strange gurgling sounds coming from her throat.
Clinging to her back, weighing down her frail body, was a huge, evil-looking black creature. Its head was buried beneath the hair at the back of her neck, its shoulders jerking spasmodically as it drank in her blood.
‘Oh, God, help her, Luke!’ Jenny implored and she saw the ratcatcher’s face was a mask of sheer hate.
‘Get help, Jenny,’ he told her, his voice tight. ‘Don't go outside the building. Use the phone.’
She stood there, mesme
rised by the awful scene, and he had to shove her hard. ‘Move!’ he shouted.
Pender held on to Will, feeling the younger man's fear, but knowing he was courageous enough to run forward and help the girl.
‘For Christ's sake, we've got to save her!’ the tutor shouted.
Pender motioned towards the window with his head. ‘Look,’
he said.
Perched on the work top before the shattered window squatted another huge rat, its body hunched, hindquarters quivering. It stared at them through evil, dark eyes. It was suddenly joined by another.
Jan's screams had died into a low, heart-rending wailing, and she still pulled herself forward, the pain in her neck pushing her on, her eyes imploring the two blurred figures to help her.
She tried to reach behind her with one hand in an effort to drag the deadly weight off, but the creature ignored her feeble struggles.
‘We've got to get rid of those two first,’ Pender said grimly, shutting the girl's cries from his mind.
‘But Jan...’
‘The other two will attack while we're helping her. Come on, we'll have to move fast. We've got to prevent more getting in.’
Pender pulled the young tutor forward towards the arranged desks in the middle of the room. ‘Quickly. Grab two legs - we'll use the desk as a battering-ram.’
As they snatched up the flat-topped desk, Pender glanced towards the broken window. There were now three rats perched on the sill.
He knew they would attack at any moment, for their hindquarters were bunched and trembling, building up pressure.
‘Now!’ The two men ran towards the window, the desk held before them, its top a strong, flat shield. They hit the vermin with all the force they had, sending them scurrying back, through the broken window, out into the night. But one managed to slither clear; it scrambled off the work top and disappeared beneath, scuttling into a dark corner.
‘Hold the desk against the window-frame, Will. Don't let them get back in. I'm going to help the girl.’
The tutor could only watch as Pender dashed away. He felt a blow against the wooden surface and the desk shifted back a few inches. His muscles stretched taut as he pushed it further against the frame.
Pender already knew the weapon he was going to use against the rat; he had seen it from the doorway when he had forced himself to think clearly and not be panicked by the situation.
His loathing of the creatures had helped override his natural fear. He reached up for one of the metal skewers used for soil-testing mounted on the far wall of the classroom. They were between three and four feet in length, having a single-bar cross-ing handle at one end and tapering into a corkscrew point at the other, resembling an oversized wine bottle opener.
He ran back to the girl. She was still crawling, almost at the door now, but her movements were weak, her wail diminished to a dull moan. The black creature clung to her, oblivious to the two men. Jan suddenly rested her head on the floor, as though she'd given up, the effort too much. Pender prayed he wasn't too late.
He stood above the mutant, his legs astride the girl's recumbent body, and raised the skewer high, one hand halfway down its shaft, the other over and around the handle. He plunged down, using a slight sideways movement for fear of impaling the girl. The rat emitted a high-pitched squeal as the sharp point struck into its flank. Its pointed head arched upwards, its mouth wide, revealing blood-soaked teeth, red liquid spurting from its throat as it choked.
Pender used all his weight, pushing hard, sinking the skewer deep, dislodging the squirming creature from its perch. It fell against the floor, claws tearing at the wood surface and causing long scars. Pender began to twist at the handle, the corkscrew point churning into the rat's intestines, bursting through its stomach, sinking into the floor itself.
The mutant rat struggled, its squeals almost pitiful, child-like; but Pender did not relent until the skewer was imbedded into the floor, pinning the black creature there, its struggles becoming weaker until they became just a nerve-twitching reaction. He left the improvised weapon standing rigidly upright and bent down towards the girl. He winced at the sight of her mutilated face when he turned her over. Her eyes were closed, but he was relieved when a low sob escaped her.
‘It's all right now, Jan,’ he softly told her. ‘You're safe.’
Pender knew he had to stem the flow of blood from the back of her neck if she were to survive her ordeal. He turned her over again and parted the blood-clotted hair to examine the damage. He almost retched when he saw the open wound. The top of her spine was exposed but, fortunately, the rat had burrowed beside it and not into it. She would have been permanently paralysed, if not killed, if it had. He reached for a hand-kerchief and placed it over the wound, pressing it against the flow of blood.
‘Luke, help me, help me!’
The rat- catcher whirled at the sound of Will's voice and saw a rat biting into the young tutor's calf. Will's arms were still pushing at the upturned desk and Pender could see the claws and pointed snout of a mutant on the outside as it balanced on the window-sill trying to push its way through the narrow gap between table and frame on that side. The tutor was kicking his leg out, afraid to let go of the desk; the rat refused to be shaken off.
Pender quickly looked around for another weapon and his eyes rested upon the red and white surveyor's stakes propped up in one corner. They were at least five feet long and about two inches in diameter; these, too, had pointed ends for sinking into the ground. He hurried over and grabbed one, the others clattering to the floor as he disturbed them.
Holding the stake before him like a lance, the ratcatcher ran at the rodent clinging to Will's calf and struck. The point slid off the rat's back, cutting a red groove beneath the bristling, black fur. It lost its hold on the tutor and turned to face its aggressor, long front teeth baring in a ferocious snarl, one front paw raised, claws outstretched.
Pender poked at it with the stake, aiming for the eyes, trying to blind it. The rat tried to duck beneath the point, but Pender immediately lowered it, keeping the creature at bay. He stabbed again, striking at the head, hoping to pierce the skull, but once again, the blow glanced off. It caused the rat to stagger back though, and Pender pressed his advantage, stepping forward, pushing, stabbing.
The mutant reared up and it was frightening to see its full length. Pender aimed for the stomach, but the rat fell backwards, turning over and scrambling round to face its assailant again. It clawed at the tormenting stake, its jaws open wide, hissing a stream of pink-flecked saliva. Pender lunged, the point disappearing into the creature's mouth and cutting into the throat.
Once more, the rapid, high-pitched squealing as the rat scuttled backwards, trying desperately to escape the choking weapon. Pender went with it, not allowing the rat room to break free, but it suddenly shook its body violently, twisting and turning until it was loose. Pender struck again and this time the point cut into the creature's hindquarters, penetrating, but not deeply. The rat broke away and scuttled for the open doorway, passing between the impaled rat and the limp body of the girl.
‘Luke, I can't hold them off much longer,’ came Will's desperate cry.
Pender hurried over to the young tutor who was ignoring his leg wound and keeping his arms taut against the desk, his hips resting against the work-top unit. Pender struck out at the lethal-looking claw curling around the wood and when it disappeared, helped Will to shift the desk along, filling the gap.
‘Will, can you get to Jan? Drag her out into the corridor?’
‘What are you going to do? You can't hold them off forever.’
‘Pretty soon they're going to have the sense to break through the other windows. That's how they got in in the first place.
When they do we'll have no chance - this room will be swarming with them.’
He gasped as a body thudded against the other side, the desk-top juddering and moving back an inch. They pushed it back.
‘Get the girl out, Will, then stand by
the door. I'll be coming through fast and you'll have to get it closed behind me.’
‘Okay. Ready? I'm going to let it go now.’
Pender redoubled his efforts as the bodies thudded against the wood. He could hear claws scrabbling at the surface as they ran up its length. ‘Hurry, Will, for Christ's sake hurry.’
The young tutor limped towards the prone body, his teeth clenched against the pain, his face deathly pale. He almost wept when he turned Jan over and saw the damage the broken glass had done, but he knew there was no time for grief. He grabbed her beneath the shoulders and, in a half-crouched position, began to drag her through the doorway.
‘Look out for the rat that got into the corridor,’ Pender warned him.
The pressure against the table was becoming too much, the thumps against it increasing in frequency. He propped the bright-coloured stake against the wood, hoping it would hold the desk in position long enough for him to make it to the door.
Then the indescribable happened.
The long windows on either side all shattered at once. The noise of falling glass was deafening and the sight of the black, furry bodies hurtling through, squealing their fury, skidding off the work top onto the floor, was almost enough to make his heart stop beating.
Pender ran.
The rats were too stunned and confused to attack at once, and Pender gave them no second chance. He dived when he was still feet from the door, rolling into the corridor and crashing against the wall opposite.
‘Shut it!’ he screamed, and Will lost no time in doing so.
The door rattled in its frame as the vermin threw themselves against it. They could hear the scratching sounds, the splintering as the creatures gnawed at the wood.
Pender shook his head to clear his senses.
‘Are you okay?’ the tutor asked anxiously, holding on to the door-handle as if to keep it closed.
‘Yes. I knocked my head, that's all.’ He got to one knee and crouched beside Jan and felt her pulse. It was weak. We've got to get her to a hospital. I don't think she'll make it, otherwise.’
He looked up at Will. You can let go of the door - I don't think they're that clever.’
Lair Page 14