side of his face had completely gone, the skin ripped down, taking an eye and most of his lips with it.
His nose was nothing more than a mushy protuberance. He tried to raise his arms as if still reaching for the ledge, but they could hardly move with the weight of the rats clinging to them.
Fairbank fell stiffly backwards, crashing down into the rubble, the black pools of water. His blood spread outwards, joining those pools as the vermin pushed and snapped at each other in their struggle to devour the most succulent parts.
Others were aware of the three people on the overhang above and darted up the slope, springing onto the metal beam, attempting to scramble onto the ledge.
The thing that would eventually kill Ellison was lying in the darkness. It did not move, nor even breathe.
It made no sounds, nor could it. It had been dead for some time. But still it would kill Ellison.
The corpse was that of a sewer worker, a senior repairs foreman, and as a living being the foreman had chosen this shadowy place to die. Others in his small work crew, on the day of the bombs, had elected to return to the surface, to find their families, to put their faith in the authorities. This man had had no such faith. He was old, ready - more than ready - for retirement, not just from the job he had worked at for forty-two years (some said a hundred, others said he was born in the sewers, while still others who did not appreciate his dour, often rancid, humour maintained he belonged there), but from existence itself. He may have been considered perverse in his belief that life was somehow cleaner beneath the streets than above. What he meant, but what he never told anybody, was that there was a wonderful absence of people in this permanently nocturnal underworld. And everything was more distinct down there, more defined, unlike the murky upperworld where there were shades for everything, colour, opinions and race.
In the depths, everything was black unless illuminated by man-made light; and such illumination made the blackness beyond mere black,
deeper in intensity. He had considered himself a simple man (although he was not) with a penchant for absolutes. The tunnels gave him absolutes.
And the falling bombs had provided the ultimate one. There was no more living, only dying.
He had let his workers go, not even offering advice. In fact, he was pleased to be released from them.
Then he had found his place in the dark.
The old air-raid shelter was not unknown to him, although strictly speaking it was off-limits to the sewer workers. He hadn't visited it for many years, for past curiosity had soon been diminished by the bunker's very emptiness; but once he was alone, he had sought out the refuge simply because he had preferred death without wetness. True, the old complex was damp and puddled, but there were places where the moisture at least did not run.
So he had settled down in the dark corridor, not minding when the batteries of his helmet lamp had run down, the light slowly eaten by shadows, swallowed by blackness in one quick gulp. He waited and ruminated, having no one to shed tears for (his family were not close) and little regret that it had all come to this. In a way, he was even pleased that his manner of death was of his own choosing, and not specifically laid out by the corporate authority who had ruled his destiny for as long as he could remember. He had heard that the final stages of starvation were not that unpleasant, that the mind, unrestricted, not diverted by physical needs, found a new, freer plane. If only the boring hunger pains and the agony that came from organ deterioration did not have to be endured first.
The days had passed and the old man had tried to remain still, not to maintain strength, but because stillness was close to lifelessness. He lost track of time, so had no idea of when the hallucinations began (or even of when they ended). He enjoyed most (who wouldn't mind swapping anecdotes with God, or floating through space and seeing the Earth as a tiny pinpoint of blue light?), but there were others that terrified, that made him huddle up in a tight ball and hide his face away from sights and sounds that had no place in his dimension. The scurrying noise had provoked the worst visions for, inexplicably, they seemed to draw him back to a dreamy reality. The padding, scuffling of small bodies was very close, coming from a grating that ran the length of the corridor in which he lay. He never dared look, for that would mean testing the truthfulness of the dream, and that truth might bind him longer to the existence he was trying to escape. He had lain still, not breathing, lest those underworld creatures that made such sounds impose their truth upon him.
The old man's delirium was timeless, the slide - once the worst was over - into peace, not oblivion, easy and gliding, with almost no line drawn between the two opposites, life and death. The body had straightened before the final but slurred moments, legs sprawling outwards, arms at his sides, and head slumped onto his chest. It was the way he had chosen and it had not been too unkind to him.
He had thought, mistakenly, that at least his way out was of no consequence and no bother to anyone else; but in that, he was wrong.
Had not the sewer worker chosen that particular spot in which to wither away, and had his legs not sprawled outwards, feet pointing east-west, then Ellison would not have stumbled over him, tripped and lost his flashlight, gun, and a little later on, his life.
Ellison burst through the door, his only desire to be as far away as possible from the commotion back there. He knew
the others had no chance: there would be nothing left of Culver and Fairbank by now, and Dealey and the girl would not last long on their own. He did not consider that the latter two had even less of a chance without the flashlight and gun he had taken from them. They were fools and the world was no longer fit for such; only the clear-headed and ruthless would survive. He meant to survive; he had already gone through too much not to.
Beyond the room where Kate and Dealey lay stunned was yet another room, this one smaller and square-shaped. The flashlight soon picked out a door directly opposite. He prayed it would not be locked as he hurried over, and his prayer was answered. Thankfully, he pushed it open wide and saw the short corridor beyond, another door at the end. Whoever had originally designed the crazy house must have had a mania for doors and corridors, unless (and more likely) these were added over the decades as the complex was extended. So unnerved at what lay behind and so intent on what lay ahead, Ellison failed to notice the sprawled legs, the opposite-angled feet, just inside the door. Both flashlight and gun were thrown from his outstretched hands and he landed heavily, the concrete floor rushing up to meet him and skinning his hands and knees. His surprised cry changed instantly to one of pain, then anguish when something shattered and there was no more light.
Panic, his old acquaintance and motivator, sent him fumbling around the hard concrete floor in search of the precious light. He recoiled from the stick-like leg he touched, moving rapidly away, coming up against a wall and feeling some kind of grille beneath him. The slats were wide enough for his hand to go through and, for a moment, his fingers dangled in space. He hastily withdrew them, not liking the cool draught of air that embraced his skin.
He found the torch close by, cutting his hand on the shattered glass. He pressed the switch, praying once again, but this time the invocation went unheeded: the light failed to respond.
Ellison began to whimper, occasionally a self-pitying sob breaking loose. The gun. He had to find the gun. It was his only protection. But somebody up there had closed shop: his entreaties were ignored. He searched as much as he could of the corridor, moving around on scraped hands and knees, finding only dried, brittle excreta, presumably the dead person's bequest to the world. Eventually he gave up, knowing madness or vermin would claim him if he remained in that place one minute longer. He moved to the wall on his right, feeling the grating beneath his feet - perhaps the gun had fallen into it - and touching the wall on that side with both hands he moved forward, sure that it was in the right direction, his fingertips never leaving the wall's coarse surface, blinded by bubbling fear as well as lack of light.