“Oh well, here goes nothing.” He turned the key and the lights came on the dashboard, but the engine didn’t start.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with it?” Emma asked urgently.
“Calm down, Em. It’s a diesel, it needs a second to warm up before you turn the ignition full on.” As soon as he finished speaking, one of the orange lights went out and Mike turned the key further. After a short cough, the engine burst to life. He put his foot on the accelerator and revved the engine, it roared menacingly. “Okay, let’s see what this thing can do.” He pulled off the handbrake and the giant vehicle began to move away. Mike started heading towards the gate then pulled a loop. He drove round the back of the Portakabin then put his foot down to gain as much speed as he could before hitting the gates. By the time metal hit metal he was in third gear and doing nearly forty miles per hour. The lock on the gates shattered as if it were made of glass, and the three RAMs flew through the air, their dirty grey bodies mangled by the impact. Mike punched the brakes and changed down a gear so he could turn the wheel without tipping the large vehicle over.
“Where the hell did you learn to drive something this big?” Emma asked, surprised that her brother was so comfortable behind the wheel.
“They were talking about putting me through for my HGV licence at work. They thought it might be useful if one of our drivers ever went down and a hell of a lot cheaper than getting an agency bloke in. So, I might have had a few unofficial lessons,” he said nonchalantly, then his eyes lit up as he turned towards Emma. “I’ve never driven a plough before though. This is really cool.” Mike easily negotiated a corner onto a residential street and then slowed the truck down to a stop. He checked the mirrors and even though the light was getting poor, he could see there was no movement outside. He opened the door and jumped down.
“What are you doing?” asked Emma, but the driver door was already shut before she got the words out. She leaned up in her seat to watch her brother withdraw a crowbar from his rucksack and begin breaking car windows. He smashed three in a row. Deafening car alarms began to shriek from each of them before he ran back to the cab and hoisted himself in. “I dread to even ask why you did that,” said Emma as he pulled away.
“It’s a dummy pass, Em,” he said, taking another bend and then flooring the accelerator.
“What are you talking about?”
“In rugby, you can have the ball and pretend to throw it to one of your players, but in actual fact, you hold onto it. If it works, the momentary confusion gives you enough time to get away. After starting those car alarms, any RAMs within hearing distance are going to be heading towards them. Hopefully that will give us a little bit of breathing space to get back to the library and get the hell out of here,” he said, pulling up again and contorting his face.
“What’s wrong, are we lost?” she asked, trying to gauge her brother’s look.
“No, I know exactly where we are.” He nodded forward and Emma’s gaze turned to the road ahead. Just beyond a crossroads was the caravan with the collapsed axle that had nearly been their downfall two days earlier. “We’re going to have to cross the main road in this thing to get back to the library and we might pick up a couple of stragglers along the way.”
“Just put your foot down and get it over with. We’ll deal with whatever we’ve got to deal with when we get parked at the library,” she said with a determined look on her face.
Mike turned towards her. “Em, I just want you to know something.”
“What?” she asked.
“I’m really proud of you. Ever since we came on the road, you’ve amazed me at how you’ve dealt with everything.” He looked at her sincerely and she dropped her eyes, embarrassed.
“What, like the screaming fit I had over the rats? Or like when I was back at the raiders’ house cowering in a corner?”
“Everyone’s allowed to freak out now and again, and it’s not as if there have been any books written about how to cope with this. I mean it, Em, I’m really proud of you. Even if you weren’t my sister, I’d be glad you had my back.” He held out his hand. She took hold of it gratefully and squeezed.
“Don’t think this makes up for you not getting me a present,” she said with half a smile. He pulled his hand up to her mouth and kissed it.
“Here goes nothing.” Mike released the handbrake and awkwardly crunched the gear stick into first. He kept the revs high and was in fourth gear doing fifty miles per hour as they went over the crossroads. Emma shot her head from side to side and saw a group of four RAMs just a few metres to the left of them. They began to follow the bulky yellow vehicle, but when Mike slammed on the brakes and went down the gears to second to take a hard right, Emma lost sight of them in the mirror. He speeded up and moved into third, then he turned left, knocking over a bollard. It went flying into a tree, which shook violently with the impact.
“Nice driving, Mike,” said Emma, grabbing hold of the support strap above the passenger door.
Two RAMs appeared on the road ahead and Mike ploughed through them. The pair of smashed figures cartwheeled onto the pavement, both devoid of movement. Mike slowed to take another right and then kept his speed down as he turned a corner and parked up behind their familiar van. The plough was so close to the building that Emma couldn’t get out of her side.
“Nice parking.”
“I’ve done that deliberately. We’ll climb on top of the cab and get onto the roof. It saves us banging on the door and waiting to be let in.” He opened his door and pulled himself up onto the cab roof. Emma shuffled across to his seat, then wished she hadn’t made fun of him, because it was a manoeuvre requiring a large amount of upper body strength and she was already exhausted from their escape. She took hold of the edge of the roof and her brother’s hand came down to help her up. She accepted it gratefully and the pair made their way to the skylight and back into the library. It was dim inside when they dropped to the floor and Raj and the librarians were armed when they came to greet them, but they lowered their weapons when they saw who the intruders were.
“You had us worried, Mike,” said Raj as he shook Mike’s hand. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Are my brother and sister okay?” Mike asked.
“They were the only ones who weren’t worried,” replied Ruth. “Sammy had an uncanny knack of making me feel that I was worrying over nothing,” she said.
“She’s good at that,” Emma said. She smiled and headed into the dark space to find her brother and sister.
Mike looked at the assembled faces. “We need to leave now.” He looked towards Ruth and the other two librarians. “All of us,” he said adamantly.
Ruth shook her head slightly. “I’m afraid we haven’t arrived at a decision yet, Mike.”
“I’m sorry, guys, but I’ve arrived at it for you. We all need to go now. Get your stuff together, we’re leaving,” he said, walking past them and heading into the library.
“Just wait a minute, Mike,” said Ruth, “we’re not going anywhere until the three of us have made up our minds.”
Mike turned around. “Ruth, David, Richard...” He looked at each of their faces as he spoke. “The situation has become a little more complicated,” he said, glancing across towards Raj as well. “And when I say complicated, I mean horrifying. There are thousands of vicious disease-ridden rats on the loose. And these things are big,” he said, estimating the length with his hands, “with teeth that look like they’ve been sharpened with an angle grinder. And they’ve been feeding on the RAMs. If you get bitten by one of these, that’s it. And let me tell you, the chances of getting bitten by only one are remote, because they hunt in packs. So, if you think this place is impenetrable to rodents, you stay here by all means, but me, Raj and our families are going.”
All four of them looked at Mike without realising their mouths had fallen open. David was the first to speak, and the sudden strike of fear had reactivated a speech impediment that he had not suffered from
since childhood. “R-Rats? We’ve been finding the odd rat in th-the trap in the stationery cupboard over the l-last few days.”
“Yeah? Well this isn’t the odd rat, this is thousands of them, and if they find a way in here it will make your worst nightmare seem like a fairy tale.”
“R-Rats are my w-worst nightmare,” replied David, who had suddenly gone pale. “We should go,” he said, turning to look at Ruth and Richard, who both nodded in agreement.
“Okay, get all your belongings, all the books you’ve selected, and we’ll meet at the back door in fifteen minutes.” The three librarians dispersed nervously.
Raj walked up to Mike. “That’s one way to make sure they’d come with us.”
“I was being completely serious, Raj. What we saw out there was terrifying. I can fight RAMs, I can fight people, but rats are something else. They’re too fast, too vicious and there are too many of them. If they got in here we’d be stuffed.” Mike looked grimly towards his friend.
“You know, Mike, there is a temple in Rajasthan where they worship twenty thousand rats. The devotees believe the rats are an incarnation of the goddess Karni Mata. They are brought food by their worshippers,” said Raj, believing Mike’s fear was getting a little the better of him.
“Trust me, Raj, you’d have to be a full-on fucking howl-at-the-moon whack job to think there’s anything sacred about the things we saw. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to forget that image,” and Raj realised that if Mike was terrified, maybe there was more to the situation.
“One of the first things you warned me about though, Mike, was that we should never travel at night. In a few minutes, the last of the daylight will be gone.” Raj was more than a little concerned that Mike wanted to break one of his own rules.
“It’s not ideal, Raj, I realise that, but it’s the lesser of the two evils. Plus,” he said with a smile beginning to emerge on his face, “we’ve acquired a new vehicle which might give us the edge.”
*
“Jenny!” cried Lucy as Private Tuttle walked her into the cell block. Jenny dropped her book and penlight on the floor and rushed to the bars, extending her hands outwards. Lucy clasped them in her own and looked past her to the darkening room where Shaw was still on the bed nursing his wounds.
“What have they done to you?” asked Jenny, noticing the mark on the side of Lucy’s face where she had been struck.
“I’ll live,” said Lucy. “What about you? Have they hurt you?” she asked, concerned for her friend.
“Just let them try,” she said indignantly, then she looked towards Tuttle. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to share a cell that has an open toilet with a man, do you? I think you should put me in with Lucy. It’s not as if we’re going to tunnel out together.”
Tuttle looked nervous. “Erm, I was given instructions that the doctor had to be put in the end cell by herself.”
“Why, what difference does it make?” she asked, scowling at the young soldier.
“Erm, I was told...”
“You were told, you were told, that’s all I seem to get from any of you. Why don’t you grow a pair, lad, and do the right thing. It’s not acceptable to expect a woman to share with a member of the opposite sex, well is it?” She sounded like a school mistress.
“Err, well, I don’t...” stuttered Tuttle.
She turned round, picked up her book and torch from the floor, collected her bag and stood expectantly in front of the barred door. “Come on, Private, it’s been a long day and I’d like to get at least some rest tonight.”
Tuttle looked nervously at Jenny, then beyond her to Shaw, who was still holding his head, and finally to Lucy, who was desperately trying to hold back a grin. “Erm, well, I suppose it can’t do any harm,” he said, passing Lucy the lantern and opening the door.
“That’s a good boy,” said Jenny patronisingly as she walked past him and up to the cell next door. Lucy raised her eyebrows at the young soldier as if to say it’s not my fault. He relocked the door, fumbled the keys back out of the lock then moved to the other cell and opened it up. Jenny walked straight past him and threw her bag onto the bottom bunk. Lucy walked in behind her. “You don’t mind do you? I might struggle with the top one,” she said, already unzipping her bag.
Tuttle locked the door behind them and looked at them both, wondering how that had just happened. “Was there something else?” asked Jenny indignantly. The soldier shook his head and walked away, realising that on top of everything else he’d left his lantern in the cell with them. As soon as he was out of sight, Jenny embraced Lucy tightly, then stepped back to look at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, as if she were a concerned parent.
Lucy nodded, “I’m fine. For the moment, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Jenny replied, stepping back a little further from her friend.
“I think things are going to get really bad here. Our friend next door – granted, I’m not his biggest fan, but I think he was a normal guy who just made a string of very bad decisions.”
“Prick,” chimed in Jenny.
“Now Thomson, on the other hand, he’s a real piece of work, and” – she looked towards the wall of the other cell and realised Shaw could be listening, so she instinctively lowered her voice – “from what I’ve been told he’s got most of the other soldiers with him.”
Jenny sank onto the bed, deflated. “So what should we do?” she asked, matching Lucy’s whispered tone.
“That guy who brought me here, he’s not with them, and there’s another – I can’t remember his name –”
“Barney,” called Shaw, who had crept up to the bars and was listening to the hushed conversation.
“Oi, prick, this is a private conversation,” spat Jenny sharply.
“Yeah, well, sue me. Listen, I heard what you said. I think you’re probably right. Now, at a push, I bet I could persuade Tommo to let Jenny walk out of here, but there’s no way in hell he’s letting go of you, Doc.” Shaw winced as he acknowledged he was the one who had brought her here in the first place.
“Well, there’s no way I’m going anywhere without Lucy, so you don’t need to grovel to that little rodent for me,” replied Jenny, who was on the verge of finishing the sentence with “prick”, but then decided against it.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. I met Beth and I got the distinct impression she wanted to get out of here too,” added Lucy.
Shaw clenched his eyes tight and rubbed his hand over his short bristly hair. “I’m really sorry I got you into this, Lucy.”
“You see that locked stable door? Well the horses have already bolted... prick,” said Jenny. “Now, this is all because of you, so you’d better figure out some way to make it right.”
“Look, if we’re talking about a breakout, we can’t even think about that until Hughesy is fit and by that time who knows where I’m going to be?” said Shaw.
“Got some holiday plans, have you?” quipped Jenny.
“Thomson is more a man of action than I thought. He wanted to kill Mike back in Candleton. I was friends with him for a while, but when it comes to survival, some people turn feral.”
“Jesus,” said Jenny. looking to her friend for confirmation. Lucy nodded.
“I think I can have Hughes on his feet within a couple of days. He won’t be fit for much, but it might be enough to get him out of here,” said Lucy.
“So it will be three against seven. I don’t fancy our odds much,” replied Shaw.
“Well, no, it will be five against seven. I can handle myself and Beth knows how to shoot too.”
“The problem is, Doc, if we lose and you and Beth survive, things would get an awful lot worse for the pair of you in no time at all.” Shaw didn’t need to go into details. The look of fear that formed on Lucy and Jenny’s faces said it all.
*
The rag-tag group assembled at the fire exit. They all held either torches or lanterns as the interior of the
library was now virtually black. The three librarians had stacked five large boxes of books by the door and had their own belongings in a variety of suitcases and holdalls. The food they had unloaded earlier that day was stacked on the other side and Mike had given specific instructions about what and who should go into which vehicle.
“Okay, guys, me and Em are going out there via the skylight to make sure everything is clear. If it is, we’ll tap on the door and then we’ll keep guard while you load the vehicles.” He made a point of looking at each of them individually to make sure they had understood. “If anybody sees anything, you tell one of us two. If all hell breaks loose, you get back inside straight away.” Jake began to sob and Mike knelt down. “Hey, come on, Jakey, I need you to be strong for your sister. I need you to keep your eyes open for trouble. I’m counting on you.” His comments did nothing to appease his little brother, who just buried his head in Talikha’s skirt. Mike stood up reluctantly, realising that nothing he could say would make it better. Sammy stood on her tiptoes to reach up and hug him. He kissed her on the forehead and then headed towards the stepladder below the broken skylight. Emma followed, looking back once to see Sammy taking tight hold of her brother.
On the roof the pair of them turned off their torches and crouched down at the edge. There were patches of cloud in the sky, but the slip of moon and stars provided just enough light for them to see outlines. Once they were happy the coast was clear, they climbed down from the snow plough to the ground. Emma lost her footing as she dismounted, but Mike took hold of her waist to steady her. “Go knock on the door and tell them to be quiet,” he whispered.
She left his side and Mike heard a gentle tap followed by the careful opening of the fire exit. There were whispers as the figures emerged. He turned to look and saw Emma going to take guard on the other side of the vehicles as had been agreed. He brought his head back round to search the area he was guarding. The light noticeably worsened as a cloud began to pass over the small slither of moon. He squinted harder to maintain his concentration. He looked back towards the vehicles to see a flurry of activity as they were being loaded, then he turned round again. This time something was different. There was an outline in the centre of the road, darker than before, and he peered hard to try and make it out. The darkness began to move erratically towards him. Then he heard a familiar growl and reached round into his rucksack for the criss-crossed handles of the machetes. Mike moved his left foot forward and kept his other foot back at a right angle to give him a strong stance. The sound grew louder as the creature increased its pace. The moon re-emerged from behind its cloudy curtain and Mike could now see that there were two figures. He had handled many more than that in daylight, but the RAMs had a distinct advantage now. He remembered that the RAMs had perfect night vision, then he wished he hadn’t. They were just over ten metres away when he heard a piercing scream from behind. He risked a quick look back and saw Emma fighting off a RAM while Ruth shone a torch on another three that had emerged from round the corner.
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