The group moved towards the wide door leading to the corridor, which in turn led to the smaller outer door to the underground bunker. Culver remembered how sickened they had all been on finding the headless corpse still clinging to the green metal door; the sight barely stirred them now. He allowed Fairbank to go through first, both men switching on the flashlights. The last to enter the dark, concrete corridor, he kept his hand on the door.
'Do I close it, or not?' he said to the others. 'If I do, there's no getting back inside.'
Ellison said, 'If you don't, any rats left alive can follow.'
Kate shuddered. 'No matter what, I'm not going back inside that slaughterhouse.'
Culver looked at Dealey and Fairbank.
The former gave a small nod of his head and the engineer said, 'Shut the fucker.'
He closed the door.
The corridor was bright with the flashlights, water on the floor reflecting the beams. The coolness of the atmosphere hit them like an incorporeal wave, turning perspiration into icy droplets; air-conditioning inside the shelter had kept the temperature low, but the difference in the outside tunnels was substantial.
Each of them shivered. It was a relief to be away from the grim sight of the human massacre and the dead and dying creatures who were the perpetrators; but the chill darkness that surrounded them created its own sense of ominous menace.
Dealey broke the uneasy silence. 'I suggest we use the first upwards outlet we come to, rather than look for the ladder we came down on.'
We don't need a vote on it,' said Fairbank, already leading the way down the corridor. He moved fast and was soon well ahead of the others.
'Don't get too far ahead!' Culver called out. 'Let's stick together.'
'Don't worry, I'll stop at the first ladder,' came the hollow-sounding reply.
Kate kept close to Culver, striving to keep her mind free of the day's terrors, not contemplating what the rest of it might bring. They trudged down the dank corridor, splashing water, the noise they made amplified around them, the tenseness a shared, unifying sensation. They heard trickling water and passed over the drain they had discovered on
their way into the shelter. Ellison's breathing was coming in short, sharp gasps; with every step it felt like someone was jabbing his ribs with a knife. He needed to rest but, although he was sure the worst was over, he refused to consider the possibility while still in the confines of the damp passageways.
Perhaps when they reached the next level they could take a break. Perhaps not. Dealey was last in line, constantly casting his eyes around the pitch blackness behind as though expecting the shelter door to be flung open and hordes of squealing rats to burst through. His imagination, thoroughly aroused by now, conjured up further, grotesque visions: in his mind's eye he saw the corpses inside the shelter stirring, gathering up their scattered pieces, moulding them back into grotesque, barely-human forms, rising, many without heads, for they were lost forever, stumbling through the complex, bumping sightlessly into one another, scrabbling their way to the exits, humps of rotted flesh falling from them, staggering out into the dark corridors fringing the underground bunker, searching for those who still lived, seeking revenge for their own deaths on those who had survived...
He moaned aloud and tried to wipe the fatigue-induced visions from his mind with shaking hands. He had never thought it possible to experience a nightmare while still awake, for a dream to come so alive when one's eyes were not closed. Sometimes, though, reality created the worst living nightmares.
Running footsteps ahead, coming towards them. A blinding light, freezing them in its glare like fear-struck rabbits paralysed by on-coming headlights.
Fairbank almost ran into Culver.
The engineer leaned against the wall, shining the light back in the direction he had come. He was gasping for
breath. They're ahead of us,' he managed to say. 'I heard them squealing, moving around. They're above us, too, take a listen!'
They waited and the noise grew. Slithering sounds. Scratching. Squealing. Coming from the corridor ahead of them. And then, just faintly, they heard similar noises overhead. They became louder, exaggerated by the acoustics of the passageways.
'Back!' Culver said, pushing at Kate to make her move.
'Back where?' Ellison shouted. We can't get back into the shelter! We're trapped here!'
Culver and Fairbank, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow confines, pointed the Ingrams and flashlights into the tunnel ahead, waiting for the first sighting. It soon came.
They swarmed from the darkness just beyond the range of the beams, a squealing thronging multitude of black-furred beasts, scurrying forward into the glare, eyes gleaming. The vermin filled the corridor, a flowing stream of darkness.
Culver and Fairbank opened fire at the same time, bringing the rush to a sudden, screeching halt. Rats twisted in the air to land on the backs of others, who were themselves in death-throes. Yet more took their place, more advanced, bodies snaking low to the floor, powerful haunches thrusting them forward.
Culver stopped firing for a moment to yell at the two men and the girl.
'I told you - move back!'
They did, slowly, still watching over Culver's and Fair-bank's shoulders.
The advance stopped momentarily and the two men rested their weapons. Bloodied creatures wriggled on the floor no more than fifty yards away.
'Steve!' Kate was near to breaking. There's nowhere to go! It's hopeless!'
'Find the drain,' he said to them. 'It can't be far behind us. Find it quickly.'
More shadows rushed forward and the two men opened fire again. Bullets ricocheted off the walls, showering sparks, creating a bedlam of flashes and leaping animals.
'Give us one of the lights!' Ellison was screaming in panic.
Without pausing, Culver handed his flashlight over. Ellison grabbed it and stumbled away, aiming the beam into the puddles at their feet. The shooting stopped. The group continued their retreat.
'Here they come again,' Fairbank warned. The rats were relentless in their attack, jumping over the backs of their injured companions, only the narrowness of the passageway itself preventing the group of survivors from being overwhelmed. Both Culver and Fairbank had the same question in mind: How much ammunition did they have left?
'It's here, I've found it!' Ellison called out.
The rats were still huddling together in the full glare of the torches, hemmed in by the rough walls, neither retreating nor advancing. Culver told Fairbank to raise the beam above ground level for a moment. The two men drew in sharp breaths when the light travelled over the quivering humped backs, for the black creatures stretched far away into the tunnel, well beyond its curve.
'Oh, shit, beam me up, Scotty,' Fairbank said in hushed awe.
'Culver, we can't get it open. It's stuck!'
The pilot turned and saw Ellison and Dealey struggling with the drain cover, Kate holding the light for them. He reached for the axe tucked into Fairbank's belt and said, almost in a whisper, afraid anything louder would encourage the vermin to continue their attack, 'Start firing the moment they break.'
Fairbank did not risk looking at him; he merely grunted affirmation, finding the advice totally unnecessary.
Culver knelt beside the two men and handed the Ingram to Ellison. 'Help Fairbank,' he said, then examined the edges of the drain. 'How far down are the sewers?' he asked Dealey, still in a low voice.
'I've no idea,' Dealey's reply was equally quiet. 'I think there are channels below us, running into the main waterways, but I don't know how far down they are, or even if they'll accommodate us.'
Culver bent low and listened, but although he could hear the water trickling down the walls he could not tell whether it was running into a stream. He inserted the sharp side of the axe head into the gap between the grating and its surround. Before trying to lever it up, he scraped out mud.