Claws

by Ricky Sides

  “That’s good to know. I’ll make a note of that in my report,” Jerry stated.

  “Why don’t you let me write up a detailed paper on all these aspects?” Patricia asked. “I could reference the appropriate terminology so that the government scientists would get a better comprehension of the full scope of the situation, and do another in laymen’s terms for the bureaucrats.”

  “That’s a lot of work. I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Jerry said.

  “You didn’t. I offered,” she said with a smile.

  “Alright, you talked me into it,” Jerry said, matching her smile with an easy grin.

  Turning sober, he said, “You know about the murders today, and I told you what Talbot had done. That leads me to my most serious question. When I spoke with my superiors late this afternoon, they wanted me to work up a worst-case scenario for them. I could really use your help on that. It’s way out of my field of expertise.”

  “Something like that is out of everyone’s field of experience,” Patricia remarked thoughtfully. Then she said, “I’ve seen studies that stated in 2009 there were 77 million dogs and 93 million cats in the United States. That’s 170 million animals acknowledged by the study, which doesn’t account for the feral cats and dogs that exist in this country, some of which are fed by kindhearted souls who know they exist. But to simplify matters for the sake of this discussion, let’s just work with the known numbers. The worst-case scenario involves an enemy contaminating the feed of the major suppliers. There are dozens, but five or six are the backbone of the industry. Those companies, under various labels, supply the majority of the pet food consumed by the animals. The rest are marginal in the market. That would mean they feed approximately 140 million animals daily.”

  “That would become a full fledged national emergency. Millions of people could die as a result,” Jerry stated.

  Nodding her agreement, Patricia added, “And that’s just dealing with the dogs and cats. What happens if the enemy gets more ambitious?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Jerry said, puzzled by her statement.

  “To this point, we’ve just discussed dogs and cats. What happens if an enemy targets all pet food production, which includes birds and reptiles? They could also contaminate hog feed, or even chicken feed. In that extreme event, you’d have a scenario much like the old movie The Food of the Gods. Giant rats are almost a certainty, as are some species of insects that we humans just can’t keep out of our feed,” Patricia stated grimly.

  “In short, you’d have an American apocalypse. Millions would die, and society would break down as a result. Public services would go down. Food production would drop drastically, and what food was grown would be fought over by hordes of giant rats. We might be glad we have giant cats if that ever comes to pass, but not when they turn on us of course.”

  “My god, Patricia, you’re painting a nightmare scenario, but is it realistic? Could anyone produce enough of the compound additive to contaminate that much feed?”

  “Oh yes, and it wouldn’t require a great number of people either. But it would require a sophisticated lab. The compound is a dry powder added to the feed mixer at a five hundred to one ratio. Therefore, a pound of the compound would contaminate five hundred pounds of feed. That’s just if they used it to contaminate feed. There is a possibility that they could utilize it for other applications. The raw powder could be dumped into a sewer, thus contaminating the system. Rats live in big city sewers. It could be sprayed from crop dusters with no one the wiser.”

  “Would that affect humans?” Jerry asked.

  “Based on what I know about the formula, I’d say no, but I could be wrong. I really don’t know enough to give you a definite answer. Based on what I do know, humans should be immune to its affects. You’d need to consult with your superiors for a more definitive answer to that question.”

  Chapter 16

  Gary Rogers was a competent maintenance man. He had worked for Alcorn for ten years, six of which, he had been the best maintenance technician at the facility. He knew every system inside out, and because of his skill, he was the man the company called on when they had a perplexing problem. Therefore, when the company heat stopped flowing through an air exchanger in the feed storeroom, he was the man they called to come in and affect repairs.

  At 2:00 A.M. Sunday morning, Gary walked into the facility and clocked in so that he could begin troubleshooting the problem. Al Hastings, the shift supervisor, met him as he walked into the storage area. “I’m damned sorry to have to call you in like this, but if we can’t get the environmental controls working in the storeroom, we’ll end up having quality control up our ass for letting the product freeze. They say that makes it brittle and causes a portion of each bag to disintegrate, leaving a brown meal instead of the nice geometric shapes the customers are accustomed to seeing.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I get paid double time for coming in during off shift hours. I’m not upset,” Gary responded with a grin. Then he asked, “How cold is it in there anyway?”

  “It was forty-five degrees a few minutes ago,” Al answered.

  “Damn, that is cold. Did you check to see if the heat is turned on before calling? Sometimes breaker three kicks off, and you just have to reset it.”

  “That was the first thing I did. All of the breakers are on, and heat is getting to the special storeroom, but it’s not flowing past that room into the next.”

  “I’ll see what I can do with it,” promised Gary.

  Thirty minutes later, Gary was standing on the platform of a scissor lift, elevating it into position beneath an access panel on the north side of the experimental feed storage room. He could tell by the telltale ribbons flying on the grate in that section that the warm air was flowing into the room. But the ribbons on the south side grate were hanging limply. That told him that somewhere between the north and south side grates there was a blockage of sufficient size to prevent the air from flowing through the system into the next storage room.

  Most of the maintenance men would tap on the ductwork until they located the blockage, but to do that, Gary would have to take a forklift truck and move all of the stock that was in the floor. It was against safety regulations for a man to enter the ductwork, but Gary had installed it two years ago, and he’d used triple the recommended supports for just this reason. He didn’t intend to move all that stock, which would then have to be put back in its original position.

  Whistling as he worked, Gary removed the access panel from the bottom of the ductwork, and then he knelt down on the platform and gingerly elevated it beneath the open port. He pulled his small flashlight from its pouch and turned it on, letting the light illuminate the interior of the ductwork. He stood up carefully, working his upper body into the open port. “Perfect,” Gary said to himself. He’d managed to stop the platform at the spot where he could stand flat footed on it and his head was still a couple of inches from the upper portion of the fabricated tunnel. The air inside the duct was a comfortable seventy-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

  Gary looked to the north first. He was ten feet from the exhaust grate, but he knew it was possible that the blockage could be on the short side. In this case, it wasn’t. Turning to the south, the maintenance man aimed his powerful LED flashlight down the manmade tunnel of galvanized sheet metal. He frowned when the light hit a darkened portion of the duct. The blockage was twenty feet to the south. He couldn’t tell what it was, because it was just a dark blob to him, but he could see that it was restricting at least ninety percent of the flow in the two foot by two foot duct.

  Shrugging, Gary laid the flashlight on the floor of the duct and pulled himself inside. It was a snug fit, but he was a small man and he felt comfortable in the close confines. He started toward the obstruction, crawling as best he could. It was slow work because he had to watch out for the sharp points of the screws that joined the sections of the ductwork together, but crawling through the duct would save him two hours work. He liked t
he overtime pay, but he also enjoyed his rest.

  He was approximately halfway to the obstruction when Gary saw it move. Pausing, he raised the light to get a better view of the obstruction. He saw two eyes glowing back at him, and then the dark shape started toward him.

  Gary crawled backwards as fast as he could, heedless of the metal screws that tore into his forearms and legs. As he retreated, the dark shape stopped as if it was momentarily confused, but then it began to advance again. Now Gary could see that it was a rat, but it had to be the biggest rat in the world because it almost filled up the passageway of the duct.

  Gary screamed at the rat as it closed to within mere feet of his face. Once more, the rat paused as if confused. He felt his feet bump over the lip of the opening and scrambled backward, trying to escape from the rat.

  Sensing that its prey was about to escape, the rat jumped at Gary’s face. The maintenance man thrust his left hand out to hold off the rat while he tried to scramble through the service entry port. The rat clamped its jaws shut on the man’s hand, severing the middle two fingers near the palm.

  Gary screamed and thrashed about as he struggled to escape from the rat. In the room below, the door opened and Al Hastings entered. He saw the scissor lift elevated beneath the ductwork and looked up as Gary screamed incoherently. He saw the maintenance man’s feet protruding from the opening for a moment, and then they disappeared as the man’s screams abruptly ended. For several seconds, something was crashing about inside the duct.

  Al saw several dents appear in the side and bottom of the metal housing, and then everything grew still. He could hear what sounded like tearing noises, but he didn’t know what they were. “Gary!” Al yelled. “Are you alright in there?” he asked. Then he saw a stream of blood begin to flow out of the service opening.

  Ashen faced, his hands trembling as he made the call, Al called in security.

  ***

  Robert strode through the facility, accompanied by Al Hastings who had met him at the door. “Is the maintenance chief here?” Robert asked.

  “Yes, he’s working on getting the scissor lift down so that we can get up to the duct works,” responded Al. “I’ve got an ambulance on the way too, but I think it’s going to be too late for that to help.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Robert as he stopped and punched in the code to open the door to the storage room.

  “You’ll see in just a moment,” Al assured Robert cryptically.

  The door unlocked and Robert opened it. The two men hurried inside. They had arrived in time to see the maintenance chief and a security man about to take the scissor lift back up so that they could check on Gary Rogers. Robert took one look at the deck of the lift and ordered his security man off the platform. “I’ll be going up to check it out,” Robert said. Then he added, “Lend me your sidearm. I didn’t take time to go get mine.”

  The security man climbed down from the lift and handed Robert his pistol. “I chambered a round when I saw all the blood,” he said quietly. “The safety is activated,” he added.

  “Your flashlight,” Robert said with his hand extended, and the guard handed his boss the powerful flashlight.

  Thirty minutes had elapsed by the time the maintenance chief had the scissor lift in position for Robert to look inside the air duct. The security chief held the flashlight in his left hand and the pistol in his right, and he elevated both to cover the entrance, flicking off the pistol safety as the maintenance chief slowly took him into the service port.

  As he illuminated the interior of the duct, Robert felt bile rise in his throat. He desperately resisted the urge to vomit, concentrating on finding what had dismembered Gary instead of the severed fingers he saw floating on the puddle of blood, retained by the thin lip of the duct. On the other side of the body, he saw a dark shape moving about. Shifting the angle of his flashlight revealed that it was a rat, and that the animal was feeding on Gary’s body.

  Robert fired two shots into the rat’s body, knocking it back away from Gary. He needed to retrieve Gary’s body, but the maintenance man was almost certainly dead and Robert wasn’t certain that the rat was.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” demanded the maintenance chief. “I’ve got a man in that duct!”

  “Shut up and get over here,” Robert said tensely. He felt the lift shake as the maintenance chief approached him. “I’m going to hold the light in my mouth so I can see. Then I’ll use my left hand to pull Gary out. He should fit between the opening and me. I need you to be ready to haul him out and lay him on the deck. I’ve got to keep the pistol on this damned giant rat.”

  “Alright, I’m ready,” responded the maintenance chief.

  Working together, the two men managed to drag Gary out of the ductworks. The maintenance chief was unable to contain his own vomit, and Robert felt the lift sway as the man leaned over the safety railing and threw up. He was about to extricate himself when he remembered the two severed fingers. Reaching inside the duct to get them, he took his eyes off the rat for just a moment.

  Unfortunately, the rat chose that precise moment to spring at Robert. The security chief belatedly sensed the movement and squeezed the trigger on the forty-five. The heavy caliber bullet slammed into the rat’s chest, knocking it back away from the man. Robert continued to fire at the animal in a methodical manner until the pistol ran dry.

  He quickly ducked out of the hellish tunnel and said, “Get us down!”

  The maintenance chief dropped the lift a few feet in a rapid descent and then he moved it out from under the opening before resuming a more careful descent.

  Al was leading the ambulance personnel into the room when the Alcorn team got Gary’s body to the floor level. He’d lost several fingers on both hands. His face was mostly gone, and the rodent had partially scalped the back of his head. “Oh my god, he’s still alive,” observed the maintenance chief, pointing to the blood that was pumping from the stumps of one of Gary’s severed fingers.

  The ambulance personnel struggled to stabilize Gary enough to move him to the ambulance, but he died as they were wheeling him to it.

  “Call the police,” Robert ordered his security personnel who had joined the others at the scene. “I want someone watching that opening while I go get my gear. I’m going to have to go inside that duct to get the rest of Gary.”

  ***

  As he did almost every morning, Jerry awoke at 5:00 A.M. He lay in Patricia’s bed listening to the sound of her breathing. Her warm body beside him reminded the man of the wonderful lovemaking they had shared before going to sleep. Patricia was an attentive lover, and she had gone out of her way to ensure that their first experience together was a memorable event.

  Jerry felt his passion for the woman begin to rise, so he forced himself to think of something else. She didn’t make that any easier when she rubbed her thigh across his and moaned softly in her sleep. She had slept with her face on his chest again with his arm wrapped possessively around her. He tightened his hold on the beautiful woman and smiled when she moaned in pleasure. He had heard that sound enough the previous night to know it meant she was relishing his touch.

  The special ops team leader was considering waking her for another round of lovemaking when his cell phone rang. Cursing under his breath, Jerry tried to get out of bed to answer the phone before Patricia woke up. He managed to answer on the fourth ring. “This is Jerry,” he said.

  “Robert here. You’d better get to the Alcorn manufacturing facility as fast as you can,” Robert stated.

  Jerry thought he heard weapons fire in the background. “What’s going on there?” he asked.

  “A rat killed a maintenance man. After the police left, we started looking for how the rat got in the ductworks. We found a nest of the bastards. Bring your weapon and plenty of ammo,” Robert said. Then Jerry heard him shout, “Don’t go in there alone!” and then the call was abruptly terminated.

  “Is everything alright?” Patricia asked.

 
“There’s an emergency at Alcorn. They found a nest of giant rats and Robert is calling me in to help deal with it. You go back to sleep. I’ve got to get dressed and get to Alcorn.”

  “You be careful. I’ll sleep a bit longer, and then I’ll start to work on those worst case scenario reports for you,” Patricia promised sleepily.

  Jerry leaned over the bed and gazed into Patricia’s sleepy eyes. “Thank you for last night. I had a wonderful time.”

  She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down toward her so she could kiss him. When she broke the embrace, she said, “You be careful. I know you have plans for most of the day, and tonight as well, but you’re welcome to come back tonight if you like.”

  “I’d like that,” Jerry stated. “I’ll come back, if I can get here by 10:00 P.M.” Sighing regretfully, he added, “I’d best hurry.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jerry was driving to Alcorn. He had trouble during the trip because there wasn’t time to permit his car to warm up, therefore, the windshield was incessantly fogging up.

  He was wiping the accumulated fog off the windshield as he drove down Wilkinson Street when he felt a jarring impact on the front end of his car. He pulled to a stop and got out of his vehicle. Looking around, he saw a young deer in the field to the right of the street that he had apparently clipped with his bumper. The animal ran a few steps, and then stumbled and fell. It quickly got back to its feet, but Jerry could see that one of its back legs was broken.