Domain
( Rats - 3 )
James Herbert
The long-dreaded nuclear conflict has come. The city is torn apart, shattered, its people destroyed or mutilated beyond hope. For just a few, survival is possible only beneath the wrecked streets—if there is time to avoid the slow-descending poisonous ashes. But below, the rats, demonic offspring of their irradiated forebears, are waiting. They know that man is weakened, become frail—has become their prey.
JAMES HERBERT
Domain
Also by James Herbert
The Rats
The Fog
The Survivor
Fluke
The Spear
The Dark
Lair
The Jonah
Shrine
Moon
The Magic Cottage
Haunted
Sepulchre
Creed
Portent
The Ghosts of Sleath
‘48
Others
Graphic Novels
The City
(Illustrated by Ian Miller)
Non-fiction
By Horror Haunted
(Edited by Stephen Jones)
James Herbert's Dark Places
(Photographs by Paul Barkshire)
TIME: 12: 37
DAY: Tuesday
MONTH: June
YEAR: The not too distant future…
PLACE: LONDON
ONE: ADVENT
They scurried through the darkness, shadowy creatures living in permanent night.
They had learned to become still, to be the darkness, when the huge monsters roared above and filled the tunnels with thunder, assaulting the black refuge - their cold, damp sanctuary - with rushing lights and deadly crushing weight. They would cower as the ground beneath them shook, the walls around them trembled; and they would wait until the rushing thing had passed, not afraid but necessarily wary, for it was an inveterate invader but one which killed the careless.
They had learned to keep within the confines of their underworld, to venture out only when their own comforting darkness was sistered with the darkness above. For they had a distant race-memory of an enemy, a being whose purpose was to destroy them. A being who existed in the upper regions where there was vast dazzling light, a place that could be explored safely only when the brilliance diminished and succumbed to concealing and pleasurable blackness. But even then the darkness was not absolute; different kinds of individual lights pierced the night. Yet these were feeble, and created shadows that were veiling allies.
They had learned to be timid in exploration, never moving far from their sanctum. They fed on night creatures like themselves, and often came upon food that was not warm, that did not struggle against the stinging caress of the creatures jaws. The taste was not as exciting as the moist and tepid moving flesh, but it filled their stomachs. It sustained them.
Yet in this, too, they were cautious, never taking too much, never returning to the same source, for they possessed an innate cunning, born of something more than fear of their natural enemy; it was an evolution accelerated by something that had happened to their species many years before. An event that had changed their pattern of progression. And made them alien even to those of their own nature.
They had learned to keep to the depths. To keep themselves from the eyes of their enemy. To take food, but never enough to arouse unwelcome attention. To kill other creatures, but never to leave remains. And when there was not enough food, they ate each other. For they were many.
They moved in the darkness; black, bristling beasts, with huge, humped hindquarters and long, jagged incisors, their eyes pointed and yellow. They sniffed at the dank air and a deep instinct within craved for a different scent, a scent which they did not yet know was the sweet odour of running blood. Human blood. They would know it soon.
They tensed as one when their keen, long ears picked up a distant wailing, a haunting whining they had never heard before. They were still, many risen on haunches, snouts twitching, fur stiffened. They listened and were afraid, and their fear lasted for as long as the sound lasted.
Silence came and it was more frightening than the sound.
Still they waited, not daring to move, barely breathing.
A time passed before the thunder came, and it was a million times louder than the giant rushing things they shared the tunnels with.
It started as a low rumbling, quickly becoming a great roar, shaking their underworld, rending the darkness with its violence, tearing at the walls, the roof, causing the ground to rise up and throw the creatures into scrambling heaps. They lashed out at each other, clawing, gouging, snapping frenziedly with razor teeth.
More thunder from another source.
Dust, fumes, sound, filled the air.
Rumbling, building, becoming a shrieking.
More. More thunder.
The world and its underworld shivering.
Screaming.
The creatures ran through the turbulence, black-furred bodies striving to reach their inner sanctum within the tunnel network. Fighting to exist, deafened by the noise, squealing their panic, desperate to return to the Mother Creature and her strange cohorts.
The man-made caverns shuddered but resisted the unleashed pressure from the world above. Sections collapsed, others were flooded, but the main body of tunnels withstood the impacts that pounded the city.
And after a while, the silence returned.
Save for the scurrying of many, many clawed feet.
The first bomb exploded just a few thousand feet above Hyde Park, its energy release, in the forms of radiation, light, heat, sound and blast, the equivalent of one million tons of tnt. The sirens that had warned of the missile and its companions' approach were but a thin squeal to the giant roar of its arrival.
Within two thousandths of a second after the initial blinding flash of light, the explosion had become a small searing ball of vapour with a temperature of eighteen million degrees Fahrenheit, a newborn mini-sun of no material substance.
The luminous fireball immediately began to expand, the air around it heated by compression and quickly losing its power as a shield against the ultraviolet radiation. The rapidly growing fiery nucleus pushed at the torrid air, producing a spherical acoustic shock-front which began to travel faster than its creator, masking the fireball's full fury.
As the shock-front spread, its progenitor followed, quickly dispersing a third of its total energy. The fireball grew larger, almost half a mile in diameter, leaving behind a vacuum and beginning to lose its luminosity. It started to spin inwards, rising at an incredible speed, forming a ring of smoke which carried debris and fission-produced radioactive isotopes.
Dust was sucked from the earth as the swirling vortex reached upwards, dust that became contaminated by the deadly,
man-activated rays, rising high into the skies, later to settle on the destroyed city as lethal fallout.
The angry cloud with its stem of white heat was more than six miles high and still rising, banishing the noonday sun, when the next missile detonated its warhead.
Three more megaton bombs were soon to follow...
Miriam stood transfixed.
What was happening? Why the panic? And that dreadful wailing noise of just a few minutes before.
The sirens of World War Two. Oh no, it couldn't be happening again!
She was too stunned, too frightened, to move. All around people were pushing, shoving, running in fear. Of what? Aeroplanes with bombs? Surely that didn't happen any more. She should have paid more attention to the news. Should have listened more closely to her neighbours. Miriam recalled hearing something on the radio about tension in the Middle East; but she'd been hearing that for years an
d years.
It didn't mean anything any more. It was just news, words, items read out by smooth-voiced young men and women. It had nothing to do with shopping at Tesco's and washing dirty sheets and spoiling grandchildren and living in Chigwell. And nothing to do with her.
Sixty-seven years old, wide-eyed and bewildered, Miriam stood on the corner of Oxford Street and Marble Arch. It should have been such a lovely day: hot, sunny, June; a day out, a special treat. A whole day just wandering around the shops looking - though not intensely - for a suitable present for Becky's wedding. Beautiful grand-daughter, nice sensible chap she was marrying, a wonderful match. Arnold, God rest him, God forgive him, would have approved. The boy - not handsome, true, but life was never too bountiful - had good manners and business sense. Becky would supply the beauty in the match, and if she, Miriam, knew her daughter's daughter, the driving power behind the man. A match made in heaven maybe not, for certainly the connivance of prospective (and prospecting) in-laws had laid the foundations. Call it an old-fashioned arrangement, but there were a few good families still left who followed the old ways.
What to buy? Not to worry - money was the main present. No forced thin-lipped thank-yous with such a gift. Something in glass or something practical for the wrapped present. Both. A set of crystal glasses, that would be ideal. She had smiled at her own solution.
The smile had vanished when the wailing began.
A young couple collided with her, knocking her back against a window. The girl went down and her companion roughly jerked her to her feet, one hand pushing against Miriam's chest. He shouted something, but Miriam could not understand, for her heart was beating too loudly and her ears were filled with the cries of others. The young couple staggered away, trails of mascara on the girl's cheeks emphasizing the blood-drained whiteness of her face. Miriam watched them disappear into the crowd, her breathing now coming in short, sharp gasps. She silently cried for her late husband: Arnold, tell me, tell me what's happening. There were no more wars, not here, not in England. Why are they so frightened? What were they running from?
The sirens had stopped. The screaming had not.
Stepping away from the wall, Miriam looked towards the lush green park. She had planned such a lovely, leisurely stroll through those grounds, a journey to the lake where Arnold had taken her so many years before. Had it been their first time of walking out? Such a silly woman: who used such an expression nowadays? Walking out! But it was such a nice term. So ... so innocent! Had life been so innocent? Not with Arnold, God rest his devious soul. In other ways, a good man though. A generous man...
A push in the back almost sent her to her knees. No manners these days, no compassion for the elderly. No consideration. Worse. Rape the elderly, slash the baby, were the latest perversions. Such things!
The people were swarming down into the Underground station. Is that where I should be going?
Would it be safe there? They seemed to think so. If only I knew what I should be safe from. Let them go; no sense in an old woman like me joining them. I'd be crushed and they wouldn't care. Tears began to form in her eyes. They wouldn't care about an old woman like me, Arnold. Not these people today, not these, these...
Something made her look at the sky. Her eyes were not too good, but was there something falling? An object, moving so fast; was that what they were afraid of...?
She blinked because her tears had stung her pupils, and in the time it took for that movement, Miriam and the milling, petrified ‘Yourists and shoppers around her ceased to exist. Their clothes, their flesh, their blood, and even their bones no longer were. Miriam had not even become ash. She had been vaporized to nothing.
The garage had always sold the most expensive petrol in town, yet it had always been one of the busiest. The owner, now busily stuffing his pockets with notes from the till -mostly tenners and fivers; pounds were no good for buying petrol in these oil-starved times - knew that position was all, that a prime location was the best asset any shop, pub or
garage could have. His Maida Vale address and corner position were expensive assets rates-wise, but in business terms they could not be beat.
Howard turned sharply when a car in the forecourt tooted its horn. He couldn't believe his ears or eyes.
The warning sirens had ceased and, if it wasn't a false alarm, within a few minutes the city was going to be blown to smithereens. So this bloody fool wanted petrol! He waved an irate hand at the motorist who waved back and pointed at his fuel tank.
Howard banged the till shut, leaving loose change in there. Hell, it was only money. He stamped to the door as the horn sounded again.
'Excuse me, can you fill her up please?' The motorist had wound down his window.
'Are you fucking serious?' Howard asked incredulously.
People were running past the garage, cars were bumper to bumper trying to move out of the machine-clogged city. He could hear the rending of metal as vehicles collided.
'I'm nearly empty,' the motorist persisted. 'I haven't got enough to get home.'
Take the bloody train, mate,' Howard shouted back at him as he ran to his own car. He pulled open the door, then thought better of it. No way out in these jam-packed streets. Better to get below ground somewhere. Find a basement. Not much time. Shit, I knew it was going to be a bad day.
He ran back past the motorist who looked at him pleadingly. 'Please,' the man said, the word rising to a whine.
'For Chrissake, help yourself.'
Where to go, where to run to. Oh shit, nobody thought it would ever happen. Nobody ever really took it seriously. Everyone knew we were on the brink, but nobody considered it would really happen. It had to be a false alarm. Had to be!
'Leave the money on the counter,' he called back to the
motorist who had left his car and was holding the pump nozzle, studying it as though not sure of its function.
Howard looked right and left. Any building would do, anything with a basement. Wasn't that what they told you? Get downstairs. Paint your windows white, barricade yourself in with sandbags, get into the cellar, build a shelter, stock yourself up with food and water and stay down there until the all-clear sounded. All in the matter of four or five minutes. Oh Christ, if he only had the paint!
He reached a pub doorway. That would do, they had a big cellar, had to store the beer. He pushed at the door, but it did not budge. Bloody hell, they couldn't close, it wasn't calling-time yet! He tried the public bar and banged at the glass in frustration when he found this door, too, was locked tight.
'Bastards!' he screamed, then turned to look back at his garage. The motorist seemed to have found out how to work the pump.
Howard cursed himself for having wasted time emptying the till. Edie was always calling him tight-bloody-fisted; maybe she was right. He should have been tucked away in some nice little basement by now. Still, it could be a false alarm. Nothing had happened yet. Yeah, that was it, he reassured himself. They'd made a mistake, bloody idiots. If anything was going to happen, it would have before now. He checked his watch and shook it. Couldn't have stopped, could it? Seemed a long time since the sirens had started. He grinned. What a mug! He'd acted like everyone else, running, panicking, telling God he was sorry. He tried to chuckle, but it came out as a choking sound.
Well, I'll tell you what, matey, you're gonna pay for that petrol. Howard began to walk back towards his garage, his little empire, shaking his head in resigned bemusement at the people rushing by. His two attendants, who had fled without his authority as soon as they had heard the sirens, were in for a rollicking when they returned. Huh! He could just see their sheep's faces now.
The motorist was climbing back into his car.
'Hold up, Chief!' Howard called. ‘You owe me ...'
The blinding flash stopped his words. His legs felt suddenly weak and his bowels very watery. 'Oh no
...' he began to moan as he realized it actually was the real thing, there had been no mistake; then he, his garage, and the m
otorist, were scorched by the heat. The petrol tanks, even though they were below street level, blew instantly and Howard's and the motorist's bodies - as well as the bodies of everyone around them - were seared to the bones.
And even those hurled through the air began to burn.
Jeanette (real name Brenda) stared out from the eighth-floor window of the London Hilton, her gaze upon the vast expanse of greenery below. She casually lit the cigarette dangling from a corner of her lipstick-smeared lips while the Arab and his two younger male companions scrabbled around the suite for their clothes - the older man for his pure white robes, the other two for their sharply-cut European suits.
The buggers deserve to panic, she thought without too much rancour, a stream of cigarette smoke escaping her clenched lips. According to the newspapers, they were the cause of all this, holding the world to ransom with their bloody precious oil, sulking at the merest diplomatic slight, doling or not doling out the stuff as the mood took them. Acting like a spoilt kid in whose house the party was going on: you can have a cake, Amanda, but you can't, Clara, 'cos I don't like you this week. Well now they'd all paid the price. The party was over.
She studied the scurrying people in the street below, the riders spurring their horses along Rotten Row, the lovers running hand-in-hand through the park. There were some, resigned like her, who were just lying down in the grass, waiting for whatever was on its way. Jeanette flinched when a pedestrian trying to cross the traffic-filled Park Lane was tossed over a car bonnet. The person - no telling whether it was a man or woman from that height - lay by the roadside, not moving and with nobody bothering to help.
At least he or she was out of it.
Behind her the Arabs were screaming at one another, pulling on trousers, shirts, the old, fat man the first to look decent because he only had his long frock to wriggle into. He was already heading for the door, the other two hopping half-undressed behind him. Fools. By the time the lift came up it would be all over. And they wouldn't get far down the stairs.
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