If you can tell this without frightening them, we’d appreciate it.’
‘It would take more than that to’ frighten my bunch,’ smiled Harris.
‘I think it was around here,’ Harris told the one Ratkill man he’d been allowed to take away from the chaotic and gruesome churchyard scene. He and the rodent exterminator, a quiet little man whose thin, pointed face, Harris mused, was not far off resembling the creature he was paid to obliterate, were now standing before a high brick wall.
‘Thecanal’s on the other side,’ said Harris. ‘If we walk down a bit, we’ll come to railings, and unless it has changed now, there’ll be a few openings.’
As they walked the little man, whose name was Albert Ferris, lost some of his reserve and slight wariness of Harris’s profession and began to talk to the teacher.
‘I’ve never seen anything like that place this morning, you know. I’ve been at this game for fifteen years and never seen anything like it.Blood, and bits of bodies, all over the place.
Terrible. But no rats. None dead, you know. Those poor old buggers couldn’t have known what hit them. Mind you, they were probably all well gone on that stuff they drink, all well boozed. But all the same, you’d have thought at least one of them would have got out of it. Or killed some of the rats anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘Beats me.’
‘I’ve never heard of rats actually attacking people for food before,’ said Harris, to keep the man talking.
He was deter-mined to learn as much as possible about the situation. He didn’t know why, but the uneasiness he felt went deeper than the natural abhorrence of the shocking tragedy.
‘No, they don’t as a rule,’ Ferris replied. ‘Not in this country anyway. You see rats are very, very cautious. They can live on practically anything and they certainly wouldn’t attack just for flesh, you know.
Corpses, yes. They’d eat corpses. But attack a man just for food? No. But, what puzzled us this morning was some of the spoors we found.
Twice as large as normal rats’ droppings. We’ve sent them off to the lab to have them analysed, but what they obviously suggest is very large rats. And now, ifLondon’s started breeding a colony of bigger-than-average rats - and you know how fast they breed - well, I reckon we’re in for a lot of bother. And if they’re attacking people...’ He shook his head again.
‘Just how fast do they breed, in fact?’ asked theteacher.
‘The female can have from five to eight litters a year, with anything from four to twelve in a litter. Then the randy buggers are at it again after a couple of hours. I don’tmuch fancy mobs of them big ones roaming around.’ Nor did Harris. They came to the railings and found an opening.
‘Look,’ Harris said to Ferris, ‘you know we’re only looking for signs of these creatures - we don’t actually want to catch any.’
‘Don’t worry, mate, I’m not going to tangle with them.’
Assured he was on no crusade mission with the little man, Harris led the way through the gap. They slowly began to walk back towards the starting point of the wall, keeping a wary eye for any small movement.
Ferris was the first to see them. He’d been scrutinising the far bank, looking for any dark holes, groups of droppings, anything at all, when his gaze fell upon three moving objects in the dark waters. Against the dark brown muddy canal water could be seen three small, black heads gliding in the opposite direction to which they were walking.
‘Look,’ he pointed excitedly. ‘Three of them.’
Harris looked across to where Ferris was pointing. He saw the three black shapes instantly, their perfect triangular formation causing smooth water-trails behind them. ‘All right, let’s follow them.’ ‘They seem to know where they’re going!’ Harris called back to the little rat-killer, who was having a hard time keeping up with him.
Suddenly, the dark creatures emerged from the water and scurried up the bank. For the first time, the two men could see the whole of their bodies.
‘Christ, they’re enormous,’ exclaimed Harris.
‘I’ve never seen any that size before,’ Ferris said, open-mouthed. ‘We’d better keep clear of them for the moment, mate. We don’t want to,er , excite them.’
‘We’ll have to try to follow them,’ said Harris firmly.
‘They may lead us to their lair.’
As he spoke, the leading rat stopped and turned his head towards them. The other two froze and did the same.
Harris would never forget the horror he felt under the gaze of the three pairs of sharp, wicked-looking eyes. It wasn’t just their size, or natural repulsion of vermin that numbed him. It was because they didn’t run, or try to hide.
There was no sign of panic. Just three still bodies, malevolently watching the two men, as though deciding whether to swim across to them or go on their way. Harris knew if there was any hint of the foul creatures making towards them, he would not hesitate to run as fast as his legs would carry him. He guessed when Ferris’ hand gripped his arm that the rat-killer had the same idea.
But the rats suddenly turned and disappeared through a hole in the old wooden fence that protected that side of the canal from public property.
‘Thank Gawd for that.’ Ferris exhaled a deep mouthful of air. And then, when he’d recovered slightly;
‘What’s over there?’
Harris thought for a moment, trying to recollect the surrounding area. ‘Well, there’s a bit of wasteland -
we can see the undergrowth from here - and then there’s . . .‘ He scratched his cheek and pondered.
‘Oh, no. Flats.There’s blocks of flats behind the waste. Fortunately most of the kids will be at school although some may be coming home for dinner around this time. My guess is that the rats are making for the big rubbish bins that belong to the flats. We’ll have to get around there fast, just in case.’
As he was about to run along the iron fence on their side of the canal to find an opening, his eyes caught more movement in the water. This time coming from the opposite direction of the first three, he saw a bigger group of black shapes gliding through the water. He registered at least seven before he began running after Ferris, whose reaction to the fear-some pack was immediate.
As he ran, Harris glanced back to see the furry, wet bodies scurrying through the same hole in the fence that the other three had used.
When the two shaken men reached the road once again,
Harris pulled the little exterminator to a halt.
‘Look, get on to the police,’ he said, his lungs gasping for air. ‘Get them to contact your people and get them over here as fast as possible. I’m going around to the flats, you follow when you’ve phoned.
There’s a small road bridge across the canal not far in that direction, so follow me as fast as possible, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to come up against that lot on my own!’
‘Look, mate, rats are my business,’ Ferris answered back fiercely. ‘You go get the police. I’ll find out where they’re going to and I’ll know how to handle them when I do. I’m no hero, but it’s bloody commonsense, ain’t it?’
Without waiting for a reply, the little man set off at a jogging pace.
Who’s arguing?thought Harris to himself and began to look around for a phone box.
The rats sped swiftly through the undergrowth, joined now by groups of the smaller variety. They reached another wooden fence that separated the council tenements from the wasteland. They flowed under through its many gaps and made towards the large waste-disposal bunkers that stood at the bottom of each block of flats. Food and litter of all kinds were emptied down the chutes from all floors of the block by its residents into a huge round bin that was cleared by the council’s sanitation department each week. Many a family pet was buried in this way when their lives ended either by accident or from old age. Potato peelings, egg-shells, stale food, paper, anything that could fit into the chute was disposed of in this way, and allowed to mix and rot for a week before being emptied into and then churned up by the grinding dust-cart. By the end of the week the smell was always abominable and residents warned their young to stay away from the rotting doors of the bunkers.