There's something wrong. It ... doesn't feel ... right.' The first sound of the crying child had sent a harrowing and uncanny sensation spilling through her. There was something unnatural about the voice.
‘You don't really think I can walk away.' Culver's statement was flat, his eyes searching hers.
She averted her gaze, not replying.
'How can you get to her?' Ellison was still agitated, hating Culver for wasting so much time in this God-forsaken hole. "You'll break your neck trying to get down there.'
There could be a way through the sewers,' Dealey suggested. 'Underneath here must be the very basement of the old shelter, close to the sewer network.'
Culver shook his head. There's no way I'm going back there. Look.' He pointed the flashlight. There's a broken joist over there sticking up from a pile of rubble. The top end of the joist is leaning against the wall, just below the overhang. I think I can make it back up that way. Getting down is no problem; the ceilings are low in here; it's an easy drop.' He turned to Fairbank. 'I'd like to borrow the Ingram.'
The engineer surprised him by shaking his head. 'Uh-huh. I'm coming with you. You'll need a hand with the kid.'
Culver nodded gratefully and handed the Browning to Dealey. 'No point in you three waiting. Take them out of here.'
Again he was surprised when Dealey refused. We'll wait for you,' the older man said, taking the gun.
We'll be better off if we all stick together.'
You're crazy!' Ellison erupted. 'Look around you! Those bloody rats have been here, and they can get to this place again! We've got to leave now!'
He made as if to grab the gun from Dealey, but Fairbank's hand clamped around his arm.
'I've had all the shit I'm going to take from you, Ellison.' The stocky engineer's eyes blazed angrily. You always were trouble, even in peacetime, bitching, whining, never happy unless you were complaining about something. Now if you want to leave, leave! But you go on your own, and with no flashlight and no gun. Just don't go stumbling into any hungry rats in the dark.'
Ellison appeared ready to attack the other man, but something in Fairbank's glacial smile warned him off. Instead he shook his head, saying, You're all insane. You're all fucking insane.'
Culver gave Kate the flashlight. 'Keep it shining into the floor opening - we're going to need all the light we can get.'
Her quietness disturbed him, but he turned away. 'Ready?' he said to Fairbank.
Muttering something about 'another fine mess', the engineer eased his way through the gap they had created.
Both men paused on the other side, Fairbank shining the light downwards. Apart from rubble, the room looked empty. The light beam reflected off black pools of water in the debris.
'Can you hear me down there?' Culver called out, aware that it was impossible not to be heard.
The kid may be too scared to answer,' Fairbank sug-
gested. 'God knows what the poor little beggar's been through.'
They thought they heard a shifting sound.
‘You want the gun or the flashlight?' the engineer asked.
Culver would have preferred the Ingram. 'Let me have the light.'
With backs to the wall they eased themselves around the overhang, fearful that it might collapse beneath them. Streams of dust trickled into the darkness below. Kate, standing just inside the gap, one leg still in the outer room, helped guide them with her light.
Culver came to a halt. 'Okay, this is where we go down.' They had reached a corner, the flooring wider and seemingly more solid there. He could just make out the iron beam projecting beneath the overhang.
'Hold the torch for a moment,' he said, then lowered himself into a sitting position. He turned onto his stomach and lowered himself, his feet finding the angled beam. He let himself go, boots sliding down the joist, the descent to the heap of rubble not long. Steadying himself, he looked up.
Throw me the torch, then the Ingram.'
Fairbank did so and clambered over the edge himself. They were soon standing side by side.
'Easy,' acknowledged the engineer, retrieving the weapon.
Culver swept the torch around the room. There's nothing here,' he said. 'Nothing.'
He moved forward and something gave way beneath him. Fairbank tried to grab him as he fell, but was encumbered by the gun. Culver toppled, rolling in the debris, the axe in his belt digging painfully into his side. The sound of sliding masonry echoed around the damp walls. Fairbank went after him, and fell also, cursing as he went
And the crying began once more, high-pitched and fearful, the voice of a terrified child.
Both men looked towards the direction of the cries. They saw a dark doorway, another room. A familiar nauseating stench came from that room.
Dust settled around them as Kate's voice from above called out, 'Are you okay?'
"Yeah, we're all right, don't worry.'
The two men picked themselves up and noticed that, yet again, the crying had stopped.
'Hey, kid,' Fairbank yelled, 'where the hell are you?'
They heard what sounded like a whimper.
'She's in there,' Culver stated what they both knew.
That smell...' said Fairbank.
We have to get her.'
'I don't know.' Fairbank was shaking his head. 'Something—'
We have to.'
Culver led the way, sloshing through the puddles, stepping over debris. After a moment's hesitation, Fairbank went after him.
The next-door chamber was wide and long, its ceiling, fallen in many places, low. Parts of the walls had collapsed, too, creating deep, impenetrable recesses. In the distance they could hear a faint rushing, gurgling noise, the cadence of the sewers. Long cobwebs, like soot-filled lace, drooped everywhere.
Scattered on the broad expanse of floor before them were humped shapes, yellow-grey in the gloom.
Smaller white shapes glowed almost phosphorescently. Dark, less discernible forms lay between.
Both men took a step backwards, Fairbank raising the weapon, Culver reaching for the axe in his belt.
The urge to run, to flee from this stinking, horror-strewn cellar, was almost irresistible. Yet it held a peculiar, paralysing fascination. And the distressed whimpers could not be ignored.
They're not moving,' Culver whispered urgently. They're dead. Like the others in the shelter, wiped out by the plague. They must have crawled back here, their lair, to die.'
'All those skulls. Why all those skulls?'
'Look at them. They've been broken into. Through the eye sockets, between the jaws. Look there -
holes bored straight through the top of the cranium. Don't you see! They eat the brains. That's why so many corpses we found were headless. The bastards brought them back here to feed off.'
Those other things...'
Culver singled out one of the bloated, yellowish-white shapes. Its form seemed peculiarly blurred, indefinable.
•What the hell is it?'
Culver had no answer to the engineer's question. He moved closer, fascinated, despite himself.
'Oh, sweet Jes ...' The words faded on his lips.
The bloated creature barely resembled a rat. Its head was almost sunk into the obese body, long withered tusks emerging from the slack jaw. Under the strong light they saw there was a pinkishness to the fine, stretched skin, a smattering of wispy white hair its only covering. Dark veins streaked its body, blood vessels that had hardened and stood embossed from the skin. The twisted spine rose to a peak over its rear haunches; the tail curved round like a lash, its surface hard with scales. There were other projections about its body, these resembling malformed limbs, superfluous and hideous in shape. The slanted eyes glinted under the torch glare, but there was no life in them.
"What is it?' Fairbank repeated breathlessly.