They emerged again three minutes later, all deathly pale.
One went to the side of the road and vomited.
Chapter Six
Harris woke with a start and automatically reached for the shrilling alarm. The ringing always shocked him when it caught him unawares. Lately, he’d got into the habit of waking just a few minutes before the alarm went off, waiting for the first explosive ring, and shutting it off immediately with a fast-moving hand.
Then he’d doze for twenty minutes or so.
But this morning, it had caught him in a deep dream. He tried to remember what it had been about.
Something to do with teeth. Sharp teeth. Tearing.
Bloody hell, he thought, it was rats. Thousands of them.
He’d looked out his window, he remembered, it was night-time, and there below him were thousands of rats, all perfectly still, just staring up at him in the moonlight. Thousands of wicked looking eyes. Then they’d surged forward, crashing through the front door, scurrying up the stairs. Thank God for the alarm.
He turned over with a groan and put his arm around the curled-up figure lying next to him.
‘Morning, Jude.’ The girl curled up into a tighter ball, murmuring softly.
Harris ran his tongue down her naked back, making her squirm with pleasure. He put his hand between her arms and drawn-up thighs and lightly stroked her smooth stomach.
She languidly turned around to face him, stretching her arms and legs as she did so.
’Hello,’ she said as she kissed him.
He drew her close and they both stretched against each other.
‘It’s late,’ he said.
‘Not that late.’
‘Oh yes it is.’ He ran his fingers along the inside of her thighs, teasing her. ‘Didn’t you have enough last night?’
‘No.’She began to closes his eyelids.
‘Well, I did.’ He laughed as he whipped back the covers.
‘Now get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.’
‘Pig.’
He watched her as she slipped on her dressing gown and disappeared into the kitchen. As the sound of cupboards being opened and closed, water filling the kettle and Radio One music came through to him, helay thinking of Judy.
They had lived together for six or seven months now and their love seemed to grow stronger by the day.
She was a dress designer, a good one too, and they’d met at a mutual friend’s party. They’d slept together that first night, but she hadn’t let him make love to her. He’d tried of course, but she’d gently discouraged him, and to his amazement the next morning, he was glad she had. Weeks later, when they realised they were both in love with each other, he’d asked why she’d let him stay that first night but hadn’t let him make love. She couldn’t explain because she didn’t really understand herself. Not the fact that they hadn’t made love, but that she’d let him sleep with her. She’d never slept with anyone before, and although she’d been engaged for two years, her love-making had been confined to touching only.
It was just that she’d felt something ‘stir’ inside her that night. She’d almost felt sorry for him in a strange way. He appeared on the surface to be self-sufficient, confident, but underneath he was the proverbial
‘little-boy-lost’. He’d smiled and said that was his usual trick with women but she’d nodded and replied:
‘Yes, that was quite apparent. But even underneath that, there really was a little lost soul roaming around.
You, Harris, are a man of many layers.’
He’d been impressed. Flattered that anyone should be interested enough to try and ‘suss’ him out like that. She’d gone on to explain that she couldn’t let him go thatnight, that she wanted to be close to him, but she couldn’t let the final barrier down until she was sure of him. And herself.
A few months later they rented a flat in the King’s Cross area and moved in together. They’d talked about marriage and decided it wasn’t important just yet. They would live together for at least a year and then decide. Either for – or against.
Sometimes, usually when he was alone, the old hardness would come creeping over him, and he’d say to himself:
‘Harris, you’re on to a good thing here, son.’ But when he was with Judy, walking, holding hands, making love, tender-ness would sweep away any harshness from his feelings.
Judy’s voice from the kitchen interrupted his thoughts.
‘Okay, lazy, breakfast’s almost ready.’ He leapt out of bed, shrugged on an old blue bathrobe and went into the toilet on the landing. Then he went down to the front door to collect the paper. When he returned, he kissed Judy’s neck and sat down at the small table.
‘Good thing you called me when you did, I thought my bladder was going to burst.’
Judy placed bacon and tomatoes before him and sat down to her hard-boiled egg. He hated eggs first thing in the morning.
He unfolded the Mirror to look at the headlines. He usually read the paper on the bus on the way to school – he loved to leave it around the staff-room, to the disapproval of his colleagues who thought any newspaper other than The Times or the Guardian were comic-books - but he always glanced at the headlines at breakfast.
’Christ, listen to this,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of bread. ‘Six tramps eaten alive by rats. Late last night, police were called to a bomb-site in Stepney after passers-by had heard screams and the sounds of violent struggle coming from the ruins of the old St Anne’s churchyard. On investigation, the police officers discovered the remains of six bodies, apparently killed by rats, a few of which were still feeding on the corpses. The area was immediately cordoned off, and police, wearing protective clothing and assisted by a leading pest extermination company, combed the ruins for the rats’ lair but were unable to discover any trace of- the vermin. Earlier in the day, Karen Blakely, aged thirteen months, and her dog, were attacked and killed by rats in their home. The girl’s mother, Paula Blakely, is still in hospital under sedation and is now said to be seriously ill
An inquiry committee will be set up to...’ Harris finished reading the article in silence and Judy came round and leaned over his shoulder.
‘It’s awful.’ She shuddered and pressed close to him. ‘How can that sort of thing happen in this day and age?’
‘I knowthere’s still some terrible slums left, but I didn’t realise that they were bad enough to breed anything like this.’ He shook his head in puzzlement. ‘That must be the woman I saw in hospital yesterday. And Keogh. He said he saw two enormous rats. Perhaps he wasn’t exaggerating after all.
What the hell’s happening?’
They both got dressed and left the fiat. As they were both going in opposite directions, Harris to the East End, Judy to the big department store for which she
‘created’ fashions in the West End, they kissed goodbye in the street and went their separate ways.
On the bus Harris pondered on the question of rats and wondered if the three incidents were connected.
‘Was it just coincidence or were they tied up in some way? Could it have been the same rats or were they different groups? He decided he’d question Keogh further about his two rats when he remembered the boy wouldn’t be in that day. Well, nevermind, tomorrow would do.
But there wasn’t a tomorrow for Keogh. When Harris reached the school he was called into the principal’s office and told that the boy had been rushed to hospital the previous night with a severe fever and was at that moment in a critical condition. The hospital had rung and asked if anyone else had been with him when he’d been bitten by the rat?
And could the teacher who had brought him to the hospital yesterday come along to see them?