The Rats

by James Herbert

  It seemed even bigger than the usual giant rat and Harris wondered why it wasn’t affected by the sound waves as much as the others. He quickly recovered his wits and drove on, trying to ignore the monster glaring evilly at him through the glass. The sharp squeals of the rats trapped between his tyres strengthened his hate for them and this spurred him on.

  Suddenly the rat on the bonnet lunged at the windscreen, baring its teeth and using them to try and shatter the glass.

  The glass held, but the teacher knew it wouldn’t stand up to too much pressure. With relief, he realised he was almost through the black writhing mass and he began to gather speed. The rat lunged again causing a large jagged scratch to appear across the windscreen. At last the car broke through the vermin river and Harris immediately pushed it into second then third gear. He knew he had to shake the monster off quickly before the glass shattered and he began to turn the wheel jerkily from side to side hoping to dislodge his unwelcome passenger.

  But he was too late.

  The rat took a final desperate lunge at the windscreen almost as though it knew it was its last chance and the whole of Harris’s vision became cloudy white as the glass shattered into a myriad of tiny cracks.

  Harris found himself staring directly into the face of the rat. Its head had broken through and it struggled to enlarge the hole to accommodate the rest of its powerful body. It bared its bloodied incisors at the teacher, its eyes glaring and bulbous because of the restraining glass that pulled its skin back at the neck.

  Harris knew it would be a matter of seconds before the glass gave and the creature plunged through on to his exposed face. He jammed on the brakes, knowing and fearing what he had to do next. As the car came to a skidding halt he pulled on the heavy gloves of his protective suit and opened the door on his side. He jumped out and ran around to the front of the car, grabbing at the loathsome body and pulling with all his strength. The sudden cold air on his face made him realise how exposed his head and face were and the panic gave him even more speed and strength. He pulled the rat free, the glass cutting into its neck as it thrashed from side to side.

  He held it above his head and threw it towards the other side of the car, its weight taking him by surprise and weakening his throw. The rat’s body brushed the edge of the bonnet and rolled on to the ground with stunning force but it was on its feet immediately and tearing back underneath the car towards the teacher. Harris moved fast but hadn’t expected the rat to come from beneath the car.

  As he jumped in and began to pull the door shut he felt an excruciating pain in his leg and he looked down and saw the rat clinging to a spot just above his ankle, the tough material of the suit saving him from serious injury. He tried to shake it off but it clung relentlessly increasing the pressure, trying to climb into the car.

  Harris beat at it with his fist but to no avail. Bringing his foot back inside but resting it on the very edge, he grabbed at the door-handle with both hands and slammed the door shut with all his strength. The rat gave out a piercing shriek and loosened the grip on his leg. Its neck was trapped between the door and frame but it still thrashed around wildly, its eyes glazed and its mouth frothing. He pulled the door tighter, slipped a hand through the narrow crack for a firmer grip, and squeezed the life from the rat.

  When its struggles ceased, he opened the door just enough for the body to flop on to the ground and quickly closed it tight. He sat there shaking for a few moments, feeling no relief because he knew he had to go on. It was only the sound of the roaring engine that brought him fully to his senses. His foot was resting on the accelerator pedal and because he purposely had not turned the ignition off, the engine was racing madly. He eased his foot off, made the hole in the windscreen larger, and engaged first gear, driving slowly at first then picking up speed as he remembered his mission.

  He saw many more of the giant rodents, unhesitatingly driving through them without even reducing speed when they blocked the road. At least the idea of the ultrasonic sound waves seemed to be working, he thought. It had flushed the vermin from their nests. Maybe there was some truth in the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin after all. Maybe his pipes were tuned in to the rats’ frequency as well.

  He looked up through the side window at the sound of a helicopter. It’s up to those boys now, he told himself. And their gas.

  He turned off from Commercial Road and drove towards the disused canal, the rats now seeming to diminish in numbers. When he reached the street that ran alongside the old canal, it was deserted of any rodent life at all. He spotted a car halfway down the street and assumed Foskins had beaten him to it. He stopped at the place where he knew the house to be hidden behind a high wall and screened by wild foliage. Foskins must have parked his car and walked back looking for the house. He sat there for a few moments, listening for any sound, reluctant to leave the comparative safety of his vehicle. He reached for the glass visored helmet and got out of the car. He stood there and looked both ways down and up the street. Carrying the helmet in one hand, ready to don it at the slightest muse, he moved towards the boarded-up gap in the wall where the iron gates had once stood. Two of the heavy boards had been pulled aside leaving a hole large enough for a man to get through.

  Harris stuck his head through cautiously and shouted,

  ‘Foskins! Foskins, are you there?’

  Silence. Complete, utterly lonely, silence.

  The teacher took one more look up and down the street, put on the helmet, hating the clammy, claustrophobia it caused him, and stepped through the hole. He pushed his way through the undergrowth, along the path that had once existed, viewing everything remotely through the glass visor.

  He reached the old familiar house and stood at its closed front door. Taking off the helmet, he called out again:

  ‘Foskins, are you in there?’

  He banged on the door but the house remained silent.

  Hell, I’ll have to go in, he thought. At least, if there were any rats, they’ll have all cleared out by now.

  He peered through the broken window but could see nothing through the gloom, the surrounding trees and undergrowth preventing a lot of the light from penetrating into the interior of the house. Returning to his car, he brought out a torch from the glove compartment then went back to the house. He shone the light through the window and saw nothing but two old mildewed armchairs and a heavy wooden sideboard. He drew back at the stench that wasn’t due entirely to the must of age. He tried to open the front door but it was firmly locked. He then went round towards the back.

  What must have been at one time the kitchen overlooked the muddy canal and its door was slightly ajar.

  He pushed it open gently, its creak the only sound that broke the uneasy silence.

  He went in.

  The smell that assailed his nostrils was even stronger than before and he quickly replaced his helmet in the hope that it would act as a mask. The kitchen still had crockery in its sink, now dusty with time; cobwebs hung across the windows and from the corners of the small room; ashes, still lying in the fireplace, uncleared from its last fire. Whoever had lived here had left in a hurry.

  Harris opened a door and went into a dark hall, switching on his torch although he was still able to see enough without it. He stopped outside a door that, as a child, when the lock-keeper had let him and his friends visit, he’d never been allowed to enter. Not that there had been any mystery on the other side, but because the lock-keeper had said it was a private room, a room used for rest and reading the Sunday papers. He didn’t understand why, but the unknown room presented him with deep apprehension, fear looming up inside his very soul. Nervously he turned the handle and pushed against the door, slowly at first but then swiftly and firmly, letting go so that it crashed against the wall.

  It was almost completely dark, the dusty lace curtains across the window no longer allowing light to pass through its fine mesh. He shone the torch around the walls, searching and dreading what he might find. It seemed to have been
converted into a study; a round globe stood in one corner, a blackboard in another; on the walls were drawings of animals, bone structures, variations of species; a long book-case, crammed with huge volumes; a desk piled with maps and drawings.

  Harris flashed the light back to the blackboard. The chalk drawing on its surface, faded and difficult to distinguish in the poor light seemed to be of a–he removed his helmet for better vision and moved closer.

  The thin pointed head, the long body, heavy haunches, slender tail–yes, it was unmistakeably a rat. And yet–it was hard to see in the poor light there appeared to be something odd about it.

  A noise from somewhere downstairs abruptly broke his thoughts.

  ‘Foskins, is that you?’ he shouted.

  For a moment, there was silence, but then he heard another sound. A faint scuffling noise. He hurried back to the door and called Foskins’ name again. Silence and then a dull thump coming, it seemed, from the back of the house, below.

  He edged quietly down the hall, one hand on the wall to steady himself. Opposite the kitchen was another door he hadn’t noticed before, but now he remembered it from his childhood. It was the door to the cellar and it wasn’t quite closed.

  He pushed it wide and shone the torch down the steep flight of stairs but was only able to see a small area at the bottom.

  ‘Foskins?’

  He took a tentative step down and almost retched at the nauseating smell. He saw that the bottom of the door had been chewed away. If the zoologist had brought mutant rats into the country, this must have been where he’d kept them, Harris told himself, allowing them to breed – encouraging them. But what had happened to him? Killed byhis own monsters? And once he was dead, there would have been nothing to control their rapid growth in numbers. But the cellar must be empty now–the sound-beams would have cleared them out. But what of the rat on his car? It didn’t seem affected by them. Perhaps there were others like it.

  Turn back, or go on?

  He’d come this far, it would be an utter waste not to continue his search. He descended the stairs.

  As he reached the bottom, he saw there was a faint light shaft coming from some point ahead. He trailed his torch along the ground towards it and discovered many white objects littered around the floor. With a gasp he recognised them as bones–many resembling human bones. If this had been a rat’s nest, they must have dragged their human victims down here, to gorge themselves in safety, or perhaps to feed their young.

  He flashed the torch from side to side and discovered cages set around the room, their meshwork of wire torn away, their bottoms filled with straw and more white objects. He played his beam back towards the small shaft of light and then realised where it came from. It was another torch, the kind kept on key-rings, giving out a weak pinpoint of light, enough to allow a person to find a keyhole in the dark.

  It was lying next to a body and with dread in his heart, Harris directed his torch over it.

  The lifeless eyes of Foskins stared brightly towards the ceiling. He was hard to recognise for his nose had gone and one cheek was flapped open wide, but Harris instinctively knew it was the ex-Under-Secretary. The lower half of his face was covered in blood and there was something moving at his crimson, open throat. A black rat was feeding on him, drinking the red liquid with greedy gulping motions.

  It stopped as the light was shone fully on it, two evil slanted eyes, yellow and malevolent, glaring directly at the bright torch.

  As Harris took an involuntary step back, the broad beam took in the rest of the mutilated corpse. The clothes were in shreds, an arm seemed to be almost torn from the body. On the exposed chest, a hole gaped where the heart had once been. Another rat lay half across the corpse’s body, its head buried into the lifeless man’s intestines, oblivious in its greed to the presence of another human. In his other hand, Foskins held an axe in a death-grip, its head buried into the skull of another giant rat. Another of the vermin lay dead nearby.

  It was as though the whole scene was frozen in Harris’s mind, as if his eyes had acted as a camera lens and had snapped the macabre scene into timeless immobility.

  Although he couldn’t have stood there for more than two seconds, it seemed like an age, like a void in time that couldn’t be measured in hours or minutes.

  Dimly, through his shock, something else registered in his mind. Something lurked in the far comer.

  Bloated and pale.

  Indefinable.

  The paralysing catalepsy was suddenly broken as the rat at Foskins’s throat broke loose and leapt towards the light.

  Harris stumbled backwards, tripping over bones, landing fiat on his back. He lost his grip on the torch and it went skidding along the floor, fortunately not breaking. As he lay there slightly stunned, he realised he was not wearing his protective helmet, and it, too, was lost from his grasp. He felt heavy paws clambering along his body, towards his exposed face. He managed to catch the rat by its throat as it was about to sink its teeth into his flesh. The fetid breath from the creature’s jaws, inches from Harris’s face, struck even more terror into his mind. The rat appeared to be even larger and heavier than the giant species, similar to the one on his car. He rolled over desperately, his feet kicking out and landing a lucky blow on the head of the other approaching rat.

  Pushing the pointed head against the ground, he beat at it with his free fist, but the rat’s claws raked at his body, pounding in furious rhythm, preventing him from using his weight to pin it down. It snapped at the heavy-gloved hand as it descended again and caught the material between its teeth.

  Harris felt something land on his back and a sharp pain as his head was yanked back by his hair. He rolled over again, trying to crush the rat on his back but losing grip on the other to do so. The trick worked but he felt his hair tear at the roots as he got to one knee, The first rat jumped up at his face but he managed to turn his head just in time and felt a searing pain as the razor-like incisors cut along his cheek. With his right hand he helped the rat in its flight with a hard shove at its haunches sending it sailing over his shoulder to crash into one of the scattered cages. He made a move towards the axe he remembered seeing in Foskins’s dead hand, stretching on all fours, becoming like the creatures he was fighting.

  As he reached for the axe, lit by the eerie light from his lost torch, he discovered his hand was bare -

  exposed to the flashing teeth and jaws of the vermin. He almost drew it back towards him, to protect it with his body, but his balance depended on his gloved hand. He stretched his arm again to reach the weapon his life depended on, but sharp teeth clamped down on his hand, shaking it furiously.

  With a scream he scrambled to his feet, drawing the hand with him. The rat fell back to the ground, two of his fingers between its jaws.

  Incredibly, he felt no pain, his mind too numbed by terror and shock for the message to reach his brain.

  He staggered towards the door, intent on escape, no longer caring about Foskins, no longer concerned with the defeat of the vermin, only wanting to be free of the nightmare. He was knocked to the ground by one of the rats landing on his shoulder. He fell on to a cage and rolled over behind it, dislodging the rat as he went. The desire to cower, to lie down and die swept through his frenzied mind but with a roar, a scream, a cry of rage–he never knew which–he regained his feet, grabbing for the rat as he did so. He caught it by its hind legs and pulled it off the ground. The other rat had jumped at his thigh and Harris felt it biting through the material of the protective suit. As the blood flowed warmly and freely down his leg, he knew the teeth had penetrated the heavy cloth. It added to his fury, giving him extra strength–not a madman’s strength, for his mind was now cool and calculating, ignorant of the pain–but the strength of a man refusing to be beaten by an inferior and loathsome creature.

  He twisted his body, dragging the rat in his hands with him, ignoring the one at his thigh. He lifted the struggling creature as high as he could, then swung it against the wall with
all his might. The stunned creature emitted a high-pitched squeal, not unlike the scream of a child, but still twisted and turned in his grip. He swung again, this time grunting with satisfaction at the sound of crunching bones as the thin skull hit the concrete. He tossed it away from him, as far as he could, not knowing if it still lived.

  Reaching down, he pulled at the rat at his thigh, but now the pain became unbearable. He lifted the writhing body and staggered towards the lifeless figure of Foskins. He sank to his knees, almost passing out with the effort and pain, but managed to crawl desperately on. But he could not endure the pain in his leg much longer. With one final supreme effort, he reached for the corpse and collapsed against it. His weight forced the rat to release him but it immediately launched itself into another attack. Harris rolled on his back, drew his knees up, and kicked out with both feet. The blow sent the rat scuttling across the room, giving him time to get to his knees.

  He grabbed for the axe and pulled its head from the dead rat. To his horror, Foskins’s hand still held grimly on to the handle. He grasped the wrist with his injured left hand and wrenched the weapon free with his right. Turning sharply, he was just in tune to meet the charging black beast, its jaws frothing with blood and foam, its eyes bulging with hate. He brought the axe down to meet its flying attack, the blade cleaving fight through its pointed skull. It landed in a heap before him, dead already, but twitching violently. He had decapitated it.

  Harris sank down, his forehead almost touching the ground but a slithering sound brought him to his senses.

  Looking up, he saw the other rat, the one he’d tossed from him, the one whose skull he thought he’d fractured against the wall, crawling towards him. It was badly injured, almost dead, but still it found the strength and hate to move towards him, leaving a wet trail of blood in its wake.

  He crawled towards it and the rat raised its loathsome head and bared its teeth, a sound like a snarl rising from its throat. Harris realised its back was broken, but still it kept coming, determined to destroy him.