Domain

'Is it relevant?'

'I can't say until we know. We are a small group and any individual skill could be useful for our survival.

There will undoubtedly be other groups - whole communities, in fact -and I would hope eventually all our resources will be pooled. For now, though, we have only ourselves to rely on.'

Culver smiled. 'I don't think my, er, particular occupation will help in those circumstances.' He added, almost apologetically but still smiling, 'I fly helicopters.'

Dealey leaned back in his seat and said, 'Ah,' the sound an interested sigh.

'Had my own outfit, nothing big. Just me with a partner to run the business side of things. Another pilot and a small ground crew. Nothing fancy.'

What did you carry?' Farraday asked.

'Freight mostly, passengers now and then. We operated out of Redhill, convenient for London and the South, but I wouldn't say we were a threat to Bristow, the big helicopter company based in the same area.' He was smiling wryly.

Farraday was interested. What type of machines do you have?'

'Only three. Like I said, we're a small company. Our biggest is a twin-engined Westland Wessex 60, which we use

- sorry, I keep forgetting - used for carrying freight and aerial crane work. It could take up to sixteen passengers, so it came in handy for transporting businessmen, trade delegates, or work crews across the country. We've even carried a few rock bands and their entourages to gigs, not just for speed and convenience, but because I think they liked the impression it made. There was a smaller machine, a Bell 206B, that we used for smaller jobs, mostly surveys and freight It carries four passengers, so we used it as our "executive" transporter.'

For a moment, Culver looked wistful. The baby was my Bell 47, just big enough to carry two. I've taught a lot of people to fly in that old machine, maybe not up to CAA-approved standards, but good enough so they'd never be a danger to themselves or anyone else. I rigged it up so I could spray crops too, and got a lot of work from local farmers.'

He found Dealey gazing at him in a peculiar way and realized the man was literally seeing him for the first time (unless he had visited him in the sick bay, which Culver somehow doubted). Whatever physical attributes Dealey had associated with Culver's voice were now being confirmed or denied.

'Just as a matter of interest,' Farraday said, 'what brought you up to London last Tuesday?'

'I've been trying to raise money for a new chopper, an old Bell 212 that Bristow was selling off. They weren't interested in leasing so I had to scrape up the cash. My bank was finally convinced the company was good for it.'

‘You were asking for a loan from your bank wearing a leather jacket and jeans?' Dealey asked incredulously.

Culver grinned. 'Harry - my business partner - was the man who wore the suits. Besides, most of the begging had been done; the idea of the meeting was to clinch the deal.'

The grin disappeared. 'I was running late, something Harry couldn't stand too well. He must have been there, at the bank, waiting for me. Probably apologizing to the manager.'

'He may have been safe inside the building,' Dealey said, realizing what was going through Culver's mind.

Culver shook his head. The bank was close to the Daily Mirror offices. When we were out there I saw there wasn't much left of the Mirror, nor the buildings around it.'

A silence hung in the air, a silence that Culver himself broke. 'So what happens now? I assume the reason for this meeting is to discuss our future.'

Farraday moved away from the wall and sat on a corner of Dealey's desk, his arms still folded. That's correct, Mr Culver. We need to formulate a plan of action to cover not just the weeks we'll have to stay inside this shelter, but also when we leave.'

Culver looked around the room. 'Shouldn't everybody be involved in this? It concerns us all.'

Bryce, the CDO, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'I'm afraid a situation is developing between us, the

"officials" if you like, and the Exchange staff. It's quite uncanny, but it's almost a minuscule encapsulation of how governments, since the last World War, have foreseen civil insurrection in the aftermath of a nuclear war.'

‘You may have noticed,' Dealey put in, 'how many latter-day government buildings resemble fortresses.'

'I can't say that I have.'

Dealey smiled. The fact that you, and the public in general, haven't is an achievement in itself for the various governments who commissioned such buildings. They were built, of course, as strongholds against civil uprising or attempted coups d'etat, and not just in the event of revolution following a nuclear war. Several even have moats around

them - Mondial House in the City is a good example - or they may have recessed lower floors to make entry difficult. The most obvious is the Guards barracks in Kensington with its gun slits built into its outer walls.'

'Hold it.' Culver had lifted a hand. ‘You're telling me there's a revolution going on down here?'

'Not yet,' Clare Reynolds broke in. 'But there is a growing resentment among the engineers and staff of the telephone exchange. They've lost so much, you see, and we, the "authorities", are to blame. It doesn't matter that we've lost everything too, and that we, personally, are not responsible for this war; in their eyes, we represent the instigators.'

'Surely not you, a doctor?'

They're suspicious of anybody in authority.'

'Meetings like this, where they're shut out, can't be helping matters.'

We've no choice,' Dealey said brusquely. *We can't possibly include everybody in policy decisions. It wouldn't be practical.'

They might feel that's how the world got into this sorry mess in the first place.'

Dealey and Bryce glanced at each other and the former said: 'Perhaps we were wrong about you. We thought as an outsider - a "neutral" if you like - you would be useful in bridging this unproductive division that's presented itself. If you feel you can't cooperate ...'

'Don't get me wrong. I'm not against you. I'm not against anyone. What's happened has happened, nothing's going to make it different. I'd just hate everything to continue the way it has in the past, in a way that's led us to just this point. Can't you see that?'

Tes, Mr Culver,' Farraday replied, 'we understand your intent. Unfortunately, it isn't as simple as that.'

'It never is.'

Dealey interjected: 'On your first day inside this shelter you witnessed for yourself the dissension among them. You saw how many wanted to leave, only Dr Reynolds' good sense dissuading them. We cannot shirk our responsibilities towards everybody, including ourselves, by allowing mob rule.'

'I wasn't talking about mob rule. What I'm referring to is group decision.'

There'll be time enough for that when the crisis has passed.'

This is a crisis that isn't going to pass.' Culver could feel his anger growing and he remembered Dealey urging him to leave Kate to the mercy of the rats in the tunnel. Throughout their ordeal, his priority had been one of self-preservation. We've all got a stake in this, Dealey, me, you - and those poor bastards outside that door. It's not for us to decide their future.'

‘You misunderstand us,' Bryce said placatingly. *We intend merely to plan, not decide. Our ideas will then be presented to everyone in this complex for discussion. Only after that will any decisions be made.'

Culver forced himself to relax. 'Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into this. It could be that yours is the only way, that we shall need some kind of order. But let me just say this: the time for power games is over.' With those words, he stared at Dealey, whose face was expressionless.

We can take it, then,' Dealey said, 'that you will support us.'

‘Ill do what I can to help everyone in the shelter.'

Dealey decided it would be pointless not to accept the rather ambiguous statement. He had hoped to find an ally in Culver, for any addition to their small nucleus of authority would help in the imbalance of numbers. If events had worked out as intended, many other 'outsiders'

would have reached the shelter, and this particular problem would never have arisen. He was disappointed, imagining that perhaps earlier circumstances might have created a bond between himself and Culver, but he could see that the pilot distrusted him. Culver was no fool.

'Very well,' he said, as if to dismiss the dispute. 'Before you arrived we were pinpointing the city's shelters and their linking tunnels. The other maps around the walls locate the country's thirteen sites for regional seats of government and various bunkers, most of which will have been immune from nuclear attack, provided there were no direct hits. The grids indicate the communications lines between RSGs and sub-RSGs.' Dealey pointed to a particular chart showing the southwest of England. 'Over there you can see the position of HQ UK Land Forces, operating from a vast bunker at Wilton, near Salisbury.'

'Is that where the government will operate from?' Culver was already beginning to be intrigued.

'Er, no. There are several locations for the National Seat of Government, Bath and Cheltenham to name just two.' He appeared hesitant, and Culver saw Bryce give a slight nod of his head. Dealey acknowledged and went on. 'Although the facts have been carefully kept from public attention, several more-than-educated guesses have been made concerning the whereabouts of the government's secret emergency bunker. Most have been correct, but none has understood the magnitude, or the complexity of such a shelter.'

Culver's voice was low. 'Where is it?'

Dr Reynolds struck a match and lit a cigarette that had danced lifelessly in her mouth for some time.

Farraday moved away from the desk and leaned against a wall, his arms unfolding, hands tucking into his trouser pockets. Bryce looked pleased, as though he personally had played some considerable part in the survival of his paymasters.

'Under the Victoria Embankment,' Dealey said mildly. 'Close to Parliament, and within easy reach by tunnel from the Palace, Downing Street, and all the government buildings packed into that rather small area of the city. The shelter itself stretches almost from the Parliament buildings to Charing Cross where another tunnel, one that runs parallel to the Charing Cross/Waterloo tube tunnel, crosses the Thames.'

There are two tunnels?'

Tes. The second, secret tunnel, is a bunker in itself, and provides a quick and safe means of crossing the river should the nearby bridges be destroyed or blocked.'

'How could such a place be kept quiet? How could it be built without people knowing?'

'Have you ever wondered why most of our cable tunnels and new Underground railway lines inevitably run over budget, and invariably take longer to build than planned? The Victoria and Jubilee lines are prime examples of excavations that have far exceeded their financial allocation and completion dates.'

‘You mean they were used to cover up work on secret sites?'

'Let's just say that room for more than just Underground railway lines was made. And all the construction workers -at least those employed on the more sensitive sites - were sworn to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act before they were assigned.'

'Even so, there must have been leaks.'

'Quite so, but the D Notice prevented any media exploitation.'

Culver released a short, sharp sigh.

'So the elite got themselves saved.'

'Not the elite, Culver,' Dealey said icily. 'Key personnel and certain ministers who are necessary to pick the country up off its knees after such a catastrophe. And members of the Royal Family, naturally.'

"Would they have had time to reach the shelter?'

'Such provisions are always made possible for Cabinet Ministers and the Royal Family in times of foreign aggression, no matter what particular location they happen to be in. From the headquarters itself an escape route stretches for miles underground. It emerges beneath Heathrow Airport. From there, one can escape to any part of the world.'

'Unless the airport has been destroyed,' said Clare Reynolds, cigarette smoke streaming from tight lips.

'In which case, transport can be provided to another part of the country,' Dealey replied. He tapped unconsciously on the desktop with his fingers. 'As yet, we have not been able to communicate with the Embankment headquarters, and it's vital we make contact soon. We intend to send out a small reconnaissance party to explore the conditions above us when the fallout level permits. We also need to evaluate the state of the tunnels, which may provide a safer route to the main government shelter.'

He stared directly at Culver. We hope you'll agree to be part of that reconnaissance group.'

'Are you hungry, Steve?'

'Since you mention it, yes, I am.' He grinned at Clare Reynolds, who had asked the question. 'In fact, I'm starving.'

'Good, that's how it should be. You'll be good as new in a day or two.' She nodded her head in the general direction of

the canteen. 'Let's get you something to eat, then I want you to rest for a while. No sense in overdoing things.'

She led the way, Kate and Culver following close behind. 'I could use a stiff drink after that long meeting,' she said, looking back at them over her shoulder. 'It's a pity the hard stuff is being rationed so frugally.'

'I could use a drink myself,' Culver agreed. 'I guess they didn't store much away down here, right?'

Wrong,' said Kate. There's plenty, but Dealey thinks it wise to keep it under lock and key. Too much firewater no good for natives.'

'He may have a point,' the doctor said. The natives are restless enough.'

'It's really that bad?'

'Not that bad, Steve, but it's not good. Dealey may be suffering under a slight persecution complex because most of the resentment is directed towards him as the token government man. But large though this complex is, there's a certain amount of claustrophobia prevailing, and that coupled with a general feeling of melancholia, even repressed hysteria, could lead to an explosive situation. Too much alcohol wouldn't help.'

Culver silently had to agree. The atmosphere in the shelter did somehow feel charged and he could understand Dealey's nervousness. He felt tired once more, the meeting they had just left draining much of the buoyancy he had felt earlier. Culver had been surprised at the elaborate contingency plans that were regularly scrutinized, amended, modified and put into action throughout the decades of the cold war and detente eras, a festering, unspoken conflict, insidious in its durability. Now it had ended, mass destruction the terminator.

Dealey had once again defined the chain of command, but giving more details than he had at the first briefing Culver had attended.

The country would now have been split up into twelve regions, and each one could operate as a separate unit, a self-reliant cell. Under the National Seat of Government would be the twelve regional seats, under these, twenty-three sub-regional headquarters, which would issue orders to county controls, down to district controls and sub-district controls. At the bottom of the list, the last in the pecking order, were the community posts and rest centres.

Each region had its own armed forces headquarters, the regional military commanders and their staff housed in deep bunkers: these forces, working with police and mobilized Civil Defence units, would ensure the new emergency laws were obeyed. Warehouses, pharmaceutical and otherwise, even supermarkets, would now be under strict local government control. Certain buildings, motorways and key roads would be commandeered by the military. Mass evacuation had not been planned. In fact, it would be openly discouraged, for it would cause too much disruption in an already disrupted world, too much disorder to carefully laid-out plans.

Culver shuddered to contemplate the New Order that must have already taken over. Unless of course, the damage had been far greater than anyone had ever anticipated, the world itself dying and unable to respond to any kind of organization.

His thoughts were interrupted. The doctor had come to a halt as an engineer approached her and said something in a low, agitated voice. He turned without waiting for a reply and quickly strode back the way he had come.

'What's wrong?' Culver asked.

Tm not sure,' Dr Reynolds replied, 'but there seems to be something interesting going on. Ellison wants me to hear something.'

She followed the retreating figure and came to the ventilation plant room.

A group of men, some wearing white overalls, others in ordinary clothes, were gathered around a large air duct, the shaft of which, Culver assumed, rose to the surface. He guessed filters removed any radioactive dust from the air intake. Fairbank was among the group.

'Something we should know about?' Dr Reynolds asked of no one in particular, and it was Fairbank who replied. There was a brightness to his eyes, but also an uncertainty.

'Listen,' he said, and turned back to the air duct.

Above the hum of the generator they could hear another, more insistent sound. A drumming, a constant pattering.

"What is it?' Kate asked, looking at Culver.

He knew, and so did the doctor, but it was Fairbank who answered.

'Rain,' he said. 'It's raining up there like never before.'

Two: Aftermath

Their time had come.

They sensed it, they knew.

Something had happened in the world above them, a holocaust the creatures could not comprehend; yet they were instinctively aware that those they feared were no longer the same, that they had been damaged, weakened. The creatures had learned from those who had hidden in the tunnels, killing and feeding upon the humans, satisfying a lust that had lain dormant for many years, repressed because survival depended on that repression. The bloodlust had been revived and set loose.

And the tunnels, the sewers, the conduits, the dark holes they had skulked in never knowing nor craving a different existence, had broken, allowing the world of light to intrude upon their own dismal kingdom.

They crept upwards, stealthily, sniffing the air, puzzled at the relentless drumming sound, emerging into the rain that drenched their bristle-furred bodies. The brightness dazzled their sharp eyes at first, even though it was muted an unnatural grey, and they were timid, fearful, in their movement, still hiding from human eyes, still apprehensive of their age-old adversary.

They moved out from the dark places and stole among the ruins of the city, rain-streaked black beasts, many in number, eager for sustenance. Hunting soft flesh. Seeking warm blood.

Sharon Cole thought her bladder might easily burst if she didn't do something about it soon.

Unfortunately, the dark frightened her and she knew that beyond The Pit the darkness was absolute. All the others appeared to be sleeping, their breathing, their snores, and their murmured whimpers filling the small steep-sloped auditorium with sounds. If you couldn't sleep, the horror was ever-present; yet sleep and the nightmares allowed no peace.

They knew it was night only because their watches told them it was so, and dutifully, by agreement made between them all in the first days, they endeavoured to maintain a natural order, as if adherence to ritual would bring a semblance of normality to abnormal circumstances.

Only three precious candles kept complete darkness at bay, the men deciding the torch batteries were more precious and not to be wasted in hours of inactivity. One or two had suggested a total blackout at night, but the majority, as many men as women, had insisted on keeping some light through the sleeping hours, perhaps believing, like their Neanderthal forefathers, that light held back any oppressive spirits.

Most rationalized that there should always be some light source in case of emergencies, and it made sense, but each of them knew they drew comfort from those small flickering flames strategically placed around the underground cinema.

Sharon shifted uncomfortably in the three seats she was sprawled across, the movement only causing the uneasy weight inside to press more insistently. She groaned. Oh God, she'd have to go.

'Margaret?' Sharon whispered.

The woman who lay in the same row as her and whose head almost Touched Sharon's did not stir.

'Margaret?' she said, a little louder this time, but there was still no response.

Sharon bit into her lower lip. She and the older woman had formed an unspoken alliance over the past few weeks, a bond of mutual protection against the embarrassments as well as the hazards of their predicament. They were among a group of survivors, fewer than fifty in number now that several had recently died. Sharon was just nineteen, a trainee make-up artist from the theatre on the upper level, pretty, slim, and a pseudo-devotee to the arts; Margaret, fiftyish, round, once jolly, and a member of the brown-smocked corps of cleaners to the huge concrete cultural and business complex. Both had offered reciprocal comfort when the stresses of their existence had become too much, their frequent (but becoming less so) breakdowns managed as if by rota, relying on each other to be strong while one was temporarily weak. Both assumed their families - Margaret a husband and three grown-up children, Sharon parents, a younger sister as well as several boyfriends - were lost to the bombs, and both now needed a support, someone to cling to, to rely on. They had become almost like mother and daughter.

But Margaret was sleeping deeply, perhaps for the first time in so many weeks, and Sharon did not have the heart to waken her.

She sat and looked down at the dim rows, each one filled with restless bodies. One candle glowed in the centre of the

small stage, its poor light barely reflected from the grey screen behind. To one side lay the hastily gathered and meagre provisions from the destroyed cafeteria two levels above the tiny, plush cinema known as The Pit. The food had cost dearly.

A security guard had led six others, all men, on a forage after one week's confinement, driven out by hunger. They had brought back as much unspoilt food as they could carry, as well as torches, candles, buckets (to use as water containers), a first-aid kit (which they had yet to use), disinfectant, and curtains for blankets. They had also brought back with them the cancer that was the nuclear bombs' deadly aftermath.

It was two days before they would talk about the destruction they had witnessed above - no living person had been found, but there had been an abundance of mutilated bodies in the rubble - and three days before the first of them went down with the sickness. Shortly, four were dead, and within days the last two were gone. Their corpses were now lying in one comer of the foyer outside, the curtains they had brought back their shrouds.

And the toilets were also in the black tomb of the foyer.

For Heaven's sake, Margaret, how could you be sleeping when I need you?

The reception area outside the theatre was regarded almost as an airlock between the survivors and the dust-diseased world above, only to be entered when necessary, the cinema doors kept permanently closed, to be opened briefly for access and then just enough for a body to squeeze through. The danger from radiation out there seemed minimal, for the main staircase, a narrow enough spiral, was blocked by debris (the search party had used the staff staircase which was behind a heavy door). Contained in the foyer were the telephone booths, long, curved seats around small fixed coffee tables, a bar (the stocks of liquor had been transferred to The Pit itself), the lift shafts and the invaluable public conveniences. The latter were invaluable because they provided a source of water (any day now the survivors expected the flow to trickle to a stop) and they meant sanitary hygiene could be maintained. In an effort to preserve the supply, flushing was allowed only at the end of every two days, and the possibility that the drinking water could itself be radiation-contaminated was disregarded on the grounds that if they didn't drink they would die anyway.

So, Sharon knew she would have to go out there into the high-ceilinged tomb where the dead men lay and walk by candlelight to the toilet. Alone.

Unless another female among the slumbering audience was awake and also needed to pee.

Sharon stood and hopefully scanned the rows of seats, peering through the gloom in search of another upright body. She coughed lightly to gain attention, but nobody acknowledged. It was strange how many hours most of them slept, albeit fitfully, despite the long days' inactivity. She supposed it had some psychological basis, an escape from the real, shattered world into another of dreams. Pity the dreams were usually so bloody awful.

Her bladder insisted time was running short.

'Hell,' she whispered to herself and carefully edged her way towards the aisle, avoiding contact with the occupants of the mauve and green seats. The row she had chosen with Margaret as their resting place -

strange how each survivor had marked out their own territory - was close to the exit/ entry doors, so there were not too many stairs to climb to reach the back of the auditorium. The material of her tight jeans stretched against her knees and thighs as she cautiously mounted the steps, one hand using the wall on her left for guidance and support. She reached the candle burning by the door and dutifully lit another beside it from the flame, ignoring the flashlight placed alongside for emergencies.

Sharon opened the door a fraction, just enough for her slim body to slide through, the tips of her breasts brushing against the edge. The door closed behind her and she raised the candle high to look around the cold mausoleum.

Back inside the theatre, a figure quietly rose from the darkness.

Fortunately for Sharon, the feeble light did not reach the draped corpses in the far corner, but the smell of their corruption was strong. She quickly crossed the thick-carpeted floor, her steps leaving unseen footprints in the dust that had settled into the pile, heading for the closest toilet, the men's, desperate to relieve herself and equally desperate to be back among the breathing. The bodies could have been left inside the lift shafts or the staff stairwell, but everyone was reluctant to open any doors leading to the outside since the contaminated search party had been taken ill. Pushing briskly through the toilet door, relieved to be separated from the corpses, Sharon passed by the urinals and washbasins, making for the two cubicles at the far end. The mirrors above the basins reflected the candlelight and ghosted her presence.

Both cubicle doors were ajar and she was glad that tonight had been flushing night: the stench wasn't too bad. She entered one and, decorum unaffected by circumstances, pushed the bolt to behind her.

Retracting her stomach muscles, Sharon released the top button of her jeans, unzipped, and gratefully settled onto the toilet. She sighed deeply at the relief. She gazed at the candle glow by the gap beneath the cubicle door for several long moments after the flow had stopped. The flame held faces, images, the pattern of her own life, all swimming incandescently before her in that small fire. People and memories, now consumed by a greater fire. Her eyes misted, the glow becoming softer, its edges even less defined, and she forced herself to stop thinking, to stem the spilling tears. There had been too much of that. When the sirens had sounded outside the concrete walls of the Barbican Centre, her only thoughts had been of her own survival. Nothing else - no one else - had mattered. The rush through the panicked crowds, running down the stairs, falling, picking herself up, ignoring the pain, intent on reaching the safest place in the entire complex, the underground cinema. The dash from the huge hall across the covered roadway to the staircase leading down, not using the lifts, knowing they would be crowded, fearing they would become jammed between floors. Others had the same idea, but not many. Fortunately not many. Crowding into the steep-tiered cinema, the blast rocking the foundations of the whole centre, shaking the walls, throwing the ground upwards, the incredible roar, the stifling heat, the ...

The candle flame leaned towards her, flickering wildly. Disturbed by a draught. She thought she heard the swish of the main door as it closed automatically.

Sharon stood, pulling the jeans over naked hips. She zipped up and listened.

A footstep?

'Hello?' Sharon listened again. 'Hello? Is someone out there?'

Imagination?

Her own nervousness?

Maybe.

She stooped to pick up the candle, then unbolted the cubicle door. Her arm was outstretched, pushing the light into the darkness as she stepped through the door.

Sharon paused, listening once more. The blackness around her was more oppressive; the feeling of confinement, the sensing of millions of tons of broken concrete bearing down on the underground theatre, was almost unbearable. She suddenly felt that the air itself had become thick, somehow sluggish in her lungs, but sensibly told herself it was all nerves, that distress was the instigator and her own imagination was gullible to its suggestions.

But someone was in there with her.

She could hear breathing.

A harsh, short breath and the candle was out. Acrid smoke from the expired flame. A scuffing sound against floor tiles. A quavery sucking in of air. The stale smell of another body.

A hand Touching her face.

Her scream was cut short as strong fingers covered her mouth. Another arm reached around her, enclosing her ribs. The expired candle fell to the floor as a head pressed against her own.

'Don't struggle,' came the urgent whisper. ‘Ill hurt you if you do.'

It was then she knew the intent.

She panicked, her legs kicking empty air as her body was lifted. Sharon tried to scream again, but the grip over her lips was too tight. She bit down hard and tasted blood.

The man who had followed her from the cinema, the man who had covertly watched her through the traumatic weeks of their forced internment, who knew that civilization was at an end, that there was only death awaiting them all, who

knew there was no law to punish him, nothing left to prevent him taking what he wanted, cried out in pain, but did not relax his hold.

One of Sharon's feet touched the edge of the washbasin and she pushed backwards with all her strength, sending them both crashing back into the cubicle she had just left. The man grunted as they went down, his head cracking against wall tiles. Yet still he clung to her.

The girl struck him with her elbows, squirming her body in an effort to wriggle free. His hand had left her mouth and his forearm was locked around her throat, squeezing her windpipe, frightening her even more.

'Please don't...' she managed to beg, the sound wheezing, the words barely audible. 'Please ... don't...

kill... me.'

His other hand was fumbling beneath her sweater, reaching for her uncupped breasts. Fingers closed around one risen nipple and the pain was excruciating as he squeezed. That same pain galvanized an instinctive reaction.

Their two bodies were half-slumped against the toilet wall, the back of Sharon's head against her assailant's chest. Her heels pressed hard against the floor, sending her body upwards and back in a violent motion, the top of her head cracking against the man's jaw, sending his head snapping backwards to hit the wall yet again. He howled and his grip loosened.

Sharon slid away, slithering along on her back, brushing off his clutching hands. She turned, was on her knees, her hand reaching out to feel a wall for guidance, the total darkness confusing, adding to the terror. Her fingers curled around the edge of a urinal and she pulled herself forward, making for where she knew the main door had to be.

She screamed loudly as his weight bore down on her.

He had landed on her legs and was slowly crawling up the length of her body, using his weight to pin her against the floor. She felt his hands on her back, on her shoulders, fingers now curling in her hair, pulling her head back. Then down, her nose bursting against the hard floor tiles. And again, her senses reeling with the blow. Resistance momentarily left her, although her arms still flailed limply. His hot breath was against her neck, his staleness smothering her. He pulled her round to face him and her nails tore at his eyes. He slapped away her hands and pulled at her sweater, exposing her body though it was unseen in the impenetrable blackness. She screamed again and a fist squelched against her already bloodied nose. Sharon groaned as invisible hands groped at her clothing.

Neither of them heard the scratching at the door.

The man lowered his head and his teeth found the soft flesh of her stomach. He bit her and she shrieked. His mouth left a sticky trail of saliva across her skin as his lips sought her nipples. A hand pulled at the button of her jeans and they opened, the zip descending halfway. Trembling fingers pushed it further. The same hand probed and she tried to squeeze her thighs together, but his leg, thrust between her knees, thwarted her. A new pain as the rough fingers entered.

In the darkness behind them, the door leading into the foyer slowly opened under the gathered pressure of the black-haired creatures. A sleek, hump-backed body crouched low against the floor, eased its way through the gap. Others, excited by the fragrance of sweet, running blood, pushed from behind. The corpses on the far side of the foyer, their curtain shrouds torn away, their white bodies covered with smaller, moving shapes that chewed and gnawed their rotting

flesh, were now forsaken for something more alluring, a sustenance the vermin were becoming familiar with: the moist freshness of living organs.

The man had raised himself to his knees and was tearing at his own clothing, ripping off buttons, shoving underpants and trousers down over his hips in one movement, the total darkness stimulating him to an even greater frenzy, his mind creating the image that lay beneath him, his touch realizing its substance.

Sharon's eyes were closed, though it made no difference in the absence of light, and blood flowed into her mouth. She heard his movements above her, his grunts, the murmured animal sounds. And part of her was aware of the draught that tickled at her scalp.

The man began to lower himself and she felt his warm, dribbling penis settle against her stomach. She moaned and turned her head away from his foul breath, her cheek scraping against his rough beard.

'Please ... don't...' It was almost a whisper, a last desperate pleading. Briefly, and in a distant area of her mind, a place where situations can be considered with detachment, aloofness its own protection, she wondered why she cared after all that had happened. With so many hundreds of millions dead, why should her single feeble body be sacrosanct? The answer was obvious, and she knew it before the question was really begged. Because it was hers! They could kill off the whole fucking world, but her body belonged to her!

As the tip of his penis pushed against the tender opening between her thighs, one hand grabbed at his hair and yanked, twisting his head round; the stiffened fingers of her other hand jabbed wildly for his eyes. She felt sickened when the untrimmed nail of her index finger sank into something soft and movable.

He lurched away, his turn to scream, his pulped eye popping from its socket as the girl's finger withdrew. The eye lay on his cheek, hanging there by the threads of its retaining muscles. He fell into the space beneath the wash basins, hands reaching for the dangling eyeball.

But the rat reached it first.

The muscles were severed by a clamping of jaws and a rapid shaking of the vermin's head, and the eye was swallowed virtually unscathed. The creature, whose natural habitat was darkness and shadows, lunged with barely a pause for the opening from which bloody juices streamed. It buried its pointed snout deep into the empty socket.

Sharon thought the man's screams and thrashings were because of the injury she had caused him. She kicked out at his body, not realizing she was striking other, scuttling forms. Sobbing, she pulled at her jeans, tugging them back over her hips, her back against the smooth floor. Something sharp snapped at a leg and she thought he had bitten her again. Her other foot struck out and connected with something solid. Her leg was released.

She staggered to her feet, a urinal giving her support. Blindly, she hurled herself towards the door, praying she was moving in the right direction. The man's screams filled the small toilet, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, amplified in the tiled chamber, and she felt no remorse for the injury she had dealt him.

Through her own sobs and his screams she failed to hear the squealing.

She tripped against something low to the ground, imagining it was one of his flailing limbs, and her head struck the edge of the half-open door. Only momentarily did she wonder why the door was still open, for her main thoughts were on reaching the safety of the cinema where the other survivors would protect her, where Margaret would comfort her, would

rock her soothingly to and fro just as her own mother had done when she was little and helpless.

But her mind could no longer ignore the squirming, wriggling creatures beneath her feet, the high-pitched squealing, the sharp, tearing pain as daggers ripped at her legs.

She saw light, for the cinema doors had been opened by those inside who had heard the terrible screams, who were now screaming themselves as a thick, black-running river poured into the small theatre.

Sharon staggered over the flowing bodies, running with the rats, all control completely gone, not knowing what else to do, just flowing with the stream.

And when she toppled over the top stair of the steeply-tiered theatre, the jaws of one creature clamped around an arm, another clinging to her back, teeth and claws entwined in her hair, it was like cresting and plunging with a small but forceful waterfall.

A black, consuming waterfall.

The weight of the .38 Smith and Wesson Model 64 strapped inside its holster was uncomfortable against the side of his chest, but then Culver was unused to carrying such a weapon. Dealey had informed him it carried six bullets rather than the five its predecessor, the Model 36, had carried. Culver saw no reason for his having to fire off even one bullet: the war had already been fought and there could be no enemy and surely no victor. Dealey had agreed but had added that the dangers would be from within.

Culver felt disinclined to pursue the point.

He shone the flashlight ahead, its beam reflecting goldly off the water-dripping tunnel walls. The others

- Bryce, Fairbank, and the ROC officer, McEwen - waded behind him through the knee-deep water, wary eyes constantly seeking out cracks or niches in the curved brickwork where dark creatures could lurk.

Mercifully, the murky water covering the Underground railway tracks also hid the rotted remains of those who had been slaughtered near the shelter's secret doorway. It had been unfortunate that Fairbank had accidentally kicked something loose beneath the surface, for white bones had risen like ghosts from a liquid grave. The four men's steps had been more careful after that, each one pushing from his mind the thought of skeletal hands reaching for them from the dirty, flowing water.

Despite their trepidation, however, it was a relief to be beyond the confines of the shelter. In the four weeks they had been trapped inside, morale had sunk even lower and attitudes had varied between deep despair and sluggish apathy. Until the past few days, when a bitter tension had replaced both moods.

Many of the engineers and exchange staff resented Dealey's refusal to allow them to leave, particularly when Bryce had admitted that the extraordinarily heavy rainfall that had not ceased for a moment since it had begun weeks before, should have all but washed away the worst of the fallout.

Yet Alex Dealey had insisted that everyone should remain where they were and wait for the all-clear sirens. If the unremitting downpour could be heard by means of the air shafts, then so would the sirens.

But Culver sensed there was more to the Ministry man's objections, almost as though giving way to the mob meant relinquishing not just his own self-given authority, but the power of government rule itself.

And only chaos would take its place.

As yet, retention of command had not quite become an obsession with Dealey, but it had certainly developed into a capricious objective. Perhaps, too, this pursuance of a familiar and orderly regime was a way of saving himself from complete despair, for it seemed that each survivor, prisoner to the holocaust, strove to find some semblance of their old existence in this new world. It showed in various ways: Dr Reynolds practised her profession with dedicated care, even though her attitude at times seemed cynical; Farraday worked at his machines, keeping them running, urging his staff to help him make the breakthrough in communications,

even issuing a work rota so that no engineer had a completely idle day; Bryce constantly checked the stores, the weaponry, consulted emergency documents, even maps as though they would provide a sensory link with other survival stations; Kate helped Clare Reynolds, helped Farraday, helped Bryce, helped Dealey, kept herself constantly busy, a personal assistant to all of them.

Culver did not think too much of the past. But even he did not change into the other clothes provided from the shelter's stores; he kept his torn jeans and worn leather jacket.

The idea of the reconnaissance was to boost morale a little, possibly to dissipate some of the tension, rather than just an attempt to make contact with the outside world. Culver realized it was too soon for the latter, that if there were survivors above, they would still be in a state of shock. And many would be dying. Yet he was glad to go. Before, when the idea had first been mooted, he was reluctant and might even have refused if a decision had had to be made there and then; but now the Exchange, huge though it was, was like a prison to him. It was the same for many others, for there had been no shortage of volunteers for the mission. Dealey had been selective, using Bryce as representative of authority, McEwen almost in a military role, Fairbank as worker delegate, and Culver as a neutral, perhaps even an intermediary. It was a nonsense to Culver, but he was prepared to go along with Dealey's little games if it meant breaking free of the shelter for a short while. In fact, the group's time limit was two hours, and if the ionization instrument carried by McEwen registered an unhealthy amount of radiation still around, then their return to the Exchange was to be immediate.

Yet their departure had not raised the spirits of the other survivors as much as Dealey and his closer associates had

hoped. Culver had felt uneasy as he prepared to leave and had studied the faces of the engineers and workforce as they gathered round to wish the departing team good luck. They showed interest but little excitement. Perhaps there was some dread in their gaze.

In Kate's eyes there had been fear, and the fear had been for him alone.

'I think I can see the station!'

It was Fairbank who had called out, jerking Culver from his thoughts. All four men shone their flashlights straight ahead.

"You're right,' Culver said, his voice low, not reflecting Fairbank's excitement. 'I can make out the platform. Let's get out of this water.'

Their pace quickened and the tunnel echoed with splashing sounds. In his eagerness to be free of the overwhelming darkness and the sluggish, black water that was a tangible part of it, Bryce tripped over a concealed track, going down heavily, but just managing to keep his torch above the surface. Culver and Fairbank waited as McEwen, nearest to him, helped the Civil Defence officer to his feet.

Take it steady,' Culver warned them. 'No point in busting something before we even see daylight.'

They proceeded more cautiously, walking single file in the middle of the flowing stream, keeping between the unseen rails. The stench in the tunnel was foul and the other three had no wish to take a similar ducking. Culver only moved to the side when the platform was close. He paused, climbed up and shone his light along the platform while the others waited. The station appeared to be empty.

He turned to the others and found he had nothing to say. It was Bryce who suggested they move on.

Culver helped each one onto the platform and they did not stop again until they had reached the opening leading to the escalators. The only sound was that of flowing water, a disturbed hollow gushing that echoed eerily around the tiled walls. They turned their lights on posters announcing new films, the finest whisky, the prettiest stocking-tights, and felt acutely saddened for things past. An Away-day was now a journey beyond existence, not a trip to another town, another county.

Culver remembered the screams, the panic cries, of just a few weeks before and his chest ached as though there was pressure from within. He had half expected the platform to be filled with bodies, perhaps even one or two survivors among them; the emptiness was somehow more frightening. The sudden thought that possibly there had been survivors who had returned to the surface, who had already begun to adapt, had even begun to rebuild some kind of life, cut into his fear; not decisively, but enough to raise his hopes just a little. That barely formed optimism lasted but a few fleeting moments.

'Oh my good God!'

They turned to see McEwen standing by the corner of the small exit archway. He was aiming his torch towards the escalators beyond. The three men approached McEwen slowly as his hand began to rise, the torch beam travelling up the stairway. Fairbank moaned aloud, Bryce sagged against a wall, Culver closed his eyes.

Bodies were sprawled on the stairways as far as the light would reach. There were more, many more, piled up at the bottom of the three stairways, dishevelled bundles, decomposing, stains of dark blood, dry and crusted, spilling like frozen lava from the heaped forms. And even from where the four survivors stood they could see the corpses were not intact and that their mutilation had little to do with rotting flesh.

Limbs did not decompose before the rest of the body. Surface organs - noses, ears and eyes - did not just fade away. Stomachs did not split as though intestines had broken free from dying hosts.

Bryce had begun to vomit.

'What happened to them?' Fairbank asked incredulously. There's no bomb damage down here, nothing to cause those inj...' He broke off abruptly, realizing what the others already knew. 'No, it couldn't be!

Rats wouldn't attack this many people.' He stared wildly at Culver. 'Not unless they were already dead.

That has to be it! The radiation killed the people first and the rats fed off them.'

Culver shook his head. There's dried blood everywhere. Corpses don't bleed.'

'Sweet Mother of...' Fairbank's knees began to sag and he, too, leaned against a wall. We'd better get back to the shelter,' he said quickly. They may be still around.'

McEwen was already backing away towards the platform. 'He's right, we've got to get back.'

'Hold it.' Culver grabbed his arm. 'I'm no expert, but by the look of them, these people were attacked some time ago. If the rats were still around I think there'd be a lot less left of the corpses. They'd be ...'

he fought down his own nausea '... a regular food supply for the vermin. My guess is that they've moved on, maybe searching for fresher food.'

‘You mean they can afford to be choosy?' Fairbank's voice was too weak to sound scornful.

'I think we should go on. If the bastards are anywhere, they'll be behind us in the tunnels.'

'Oh, great. That'll give us something to look forward to.'

The engineer shone his torch back in the direction they had come from.

Bryce, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and still using the wall for support, said, 'Culver is right: we should go on. These vermin have existed in the darkness for so long the world above will be alien to them. They'll hide where they feel safe and attack only the weak and defenceless. These poor unfortunates may have already been dying before they were set upon.'

He managed to straighten and his face looked haunted in the torchlight. 'Besides, two of you have guns; we can defend ourselves.'

Culver could have smiled at the thought of two handguns fighting off hordes of monster vermin, but the effort would have been too much. We've come so far, almost to the point of no return, if you like. If we go back now, we'll have achieved nothing. If we get to the top of those stairs, then at least we'll have some idea of what the world has left to offer. Who knows, it may be teeming with human life again.

Perhaps they're even creating some order out of the mess.'

Yeah, I'd love to believe it but I'd have to be fucking mad.' Fairbank slapped the palm of his hand against the smooth wall. You're right in one thing, though: we've come this far so let's go on. I want to see daylight.'

'But we'd have to climb through those dead bodies.' McEwen looked at the other three as though they were insane.

'Keep your eyes off them,' Fairbank suggested.

'How d'you stop smelling them?' There was more than a hint of hysteria in the ROC officer's plaintive cry.

Culver was already walking away. You've got a choice: come with us or walk back on your own.'

Bryce and Fairbank pushed themselves away from the

wall and followed. After a brief moment of hesitation, a moment when his face pinched tight and his bowels considerably loosened, McEwen went after them.

Culver could not keep his gaze from the first few bodies; they held a peculiarly morbid fascination for him, a compulsion to see how much damage could be inflicted upon the human frame. It was the things that crawled between the openings, the gashes, the empty eye sockets, that made revulsion the catharsis of his curiosity rather than the mutilated flesh. He tried not to breathe in too deeply.

They climbed the stairs, forcing themselves to step between the corpses, deliberately keeping their eyes unfocused, their torch beams never lingering too long on one particular spot. Culver wondered how long the generators operating the emergency lighting had continued to run: had these people died in total darkness, feeling only the slashing jaws and talons, or had they witnessed the full terror of their assailants?

Which would have been worse: unseen demons gnawing away at your squirming body, or black carnivorous beasts, seen and thereby understood, tearing you apart? Culver slipped and his knee thudded against the chest of a man whose face was just a gaping hole.

Culver recoiled, almost backing into Bryce who was just below him on the stairs. Bryce grabbed the handrail for support, preventing them both from toppling back down the escalator. Recovering, Culver continued to climb, but an abhorrent question could not be pushed from his mind: why would the creatures burrow so deeply into a man's head when softer flesh and organs were more accessible?

He stopped and surveyed the pile-up of bodies before him. They would have to be lifted clear and the idea of touching them did not appeal.

'Help me,' he said to Fairbank, who was next in line

behind the Civil Defence officer. Bryce moved aside to let the engineer pass.

'Christ, do we have to?' Fairbank complained. 'Can't we climb over?'

'And risk all of us tumbling down to the bottom in an avalanche of corpses?'

'Since you put it that way..."

The first body they lifted was that of a woman and, with nothing much left inside her open abdomen, she was as light as a feather. They carefully avoided looking at the featureless face.

'Put her onto the section between escalators - she'll slide down.'

Fairbank did as instructed and watched the body swiftly descend into the darkness below. There's a ride she couldn't enjoy,' he said, and froze as Culver looked at him sharply. He cast his eyes downwards, avoiding Culver's icy gaze. 'Sorry,' he mumbled. 'It's ... it's bravado, y'know? I'm shit-scared.'

The other man turned away, reaching for the next corpse. It was another woman, but this one had some substance to her and was not as easy to lift, even though her breasts were gone, her stomach hollowed. Both men grunted with the effort and when an arm fell around Culver's shoulder in a lover's casual embrace, he had to bite into his lower lip to prevent himself from screaming. All her fingers were missing.

When her body had careered off into the blackness, twisting sideways as it sped down, they reached for the next. For a few seconds they could only look at the tiny child, her curled body untouched. The heavy woman had protected the little girl from scything teeth, but her weight and the weight of others had been suffocating.

Culver knelt and brushed a lock of pale yellow, almost white, hair from her cheek. The others watched, not knowing quite what to do. Fairbank looked at Bryce, who gave a slight shake of his head.

Finally, Culver laid the child on her side and arranged her unmarked limbs so that her body was at rest.

Perhaps the others expected to see tears in his eyes when he rose, perhaps remorse, his face crushed with grief; they were not prepared for the tight-lipped grimness, the anger that exuded a frightening coldness. For the first time Bryce saw something more in this somewhat laconic stranger who had arrived in their midst so dramatically just a few weeks before, something he realized Dealey had appreciated from the beginning. Dealey had tried to use Culver during their time of self-enforced internment, had tried to gain his confidence, make him part of the 'officials' team, but Culver would have none of it. Neither would he side with the others, those whom Dealey secretly referred to as 'the civilians'. He remained his own man and, as such, was trusted by both parties, if not accepted. Bryce thought that Culver could not have cared less, mistaking his attitude for apathy; now, for the first time, he saw that Culver's impassivity paradoxically covered an intensity of feeling which only a moment such as this could unveil. Once seen, you were aware that it had always been there and was the quality that made you feel slightly uneasy in his presence. It was a subtle thing and Bryce guessed only extremes made it recognizable. He could not understand why this sudden revelation had assumed a special importance to him, but Bryce was somehow relieved to know the man was far more complex than he had been given credit for. Strangely, he felt safer in his company.

Culver was pulling at another body, this time a man whose eye socket was enlarged as though something had bored

straight through. Fairbank moved forward and helped the pilot lift the body onto the makeshift slide. As he did so, he glanced upwards towards the top of the escalators, a movement catching his eye.

"What's that?'

The others followed the direction of his gaze. A black shape was moving towards them, sliding down in the same manner as the corpses they were disposing of. It gathered momentum as it drew nearer.

Fairbank backed away from the handrail, fearing the worst. McEwen drew his revolver.

Culver raised a hand as if to stop the ROC officer firing. 'It's okay, it's a body.'

Fairbank gave a quick sigh of relief and stepped towards the handrail again, hands outstretched to catch the sliding figure.

'Let it go,' Culver said quietly but urgently.

The engineer raised his eyebrows in surprise and withdrew his hands. As the sliding figure went by he understood Culver's command. The corpse was headless.

This time he staggered back from the handrail. They all followed the descending body with their torch beams.

What could have done that?' Fairbank asked breathlessly.

The same that did all this,' Culver said, waving his torch at the carnage above and below them. 'Come on, there's room to get through now.' He stepped over two corpses, using a handrail for balance.

Wait a minute,' said Bryce. They could still be up there. Something caused that body to move.'

Culver went on, his pace quickening. 'Maybe we disturbed it,' he called back over his shoulder. 'It could have been resting on the handrail and movement down here made it shift. Or maybe it just rotted itself free.'

The three men left behind glanced anxiously at each other, then moved as one after Culver. McEwen kept the .38 clear of its holster.

There were two more human blockages before they reached the top and these were cleared quickly and with little thought. Bryce wondered how soon the mind adapted itself to circumstances, how quickly it impersonalized itself from such enormous tragedy. The aching sickness was still there, but they were gradually becoming anaesthetized to the horror. Not completely, but enough not to be distracted by it.

At last they were at the barriers leading to the escalators. They shone the lights around the circular ticket hall and their spirits sank still further as the nightmare was reinforced.

The round chamber, sunk just below the city streets, was nothing more than a huge open grave. Culver rejected the idea: it was more like a slaughterhouse.

There were two entrances where a steady torrent of rain poured through, diffusing the greyish light of day. The tangled shapes before them could have been hewn from rock, so still, so colourless, were they.

Many of the blast survivors had obviously staggered or dragged themselves down into the station, seeking refuge from the killer dust they knew would soon fall. He remembered those whom he and Dealey had met fleeing from the tunnels; had they thought it safe to linger here in the ticket hall, that their very numbers would keep the vermin away? It would have been packed with the injured, the dying. The smell of fresh-flowing blood would have been overpowering, attracting the creatures below.

There were doors leading off from the hall - he and

Dealey had entered one when they had first fled from the holocaust - and several were jammed open with the bodies of those who had tried to escape. He wondered how the station worker who had told him where to find the flashlight had fared, and turned the torch on that particular door. It was off its hinges.

Fairbank had walked over to the ticket office, a long isolated booth near the centre of the round hall, careful to step over husk-like corpses and brushing away flies that buzzed greedily over them. He detested these swarming parasites as much as the creatures who had wrought such slaughter. And almost as much as the men who had sent the missiles.

The office door was open, a man's body sprawled half-out as though he had tried to flee from something inside. Fair-bank pushed at the door until it nudged against something solid on the other side.

The gap allowed him to see all he wanted to.

Terrified survivors must have cowered inside when the vermin had attacked, assuming they would be safe, that the creatures would not be able to break through the booth's toughened glass. But he saw that two panes were completely shattered while others had cracks from top to bottom. The explosions above had probably caused the cracks, weakened the glass, to break through must have been relatively easy for the rats.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell spilling from the confined space and saw something that momentarily stopped his breathing, if not his heart.

'Jes - hey, over here!'

The others, preoccupied with their own disturbing observations, turned towards the booth. He waved them over.

They crowded into the doorway, their combined lights showing every detail of the carnage inside the ticket office. They soon spotted what had taken Fairbank's breath away.

The black rat was huge, almost two feet in length. Its scaly curved tail offered at least another eighteen inches. Its fur was stiffened, dull and dry with death, its massive haunches still hunched as though the rodent was ready to leap. But there was no life in the evil yellow eyes, no dampness to the mouth and incisors. Yet still it emanated a deadliness, a lethal malevolence that made three of the men shudder and back away, even though its neck was twisted at an awkward angle, its skull indented unnaturally.

Only Culver moved forward.

He stooped and examined the dead beast closely. Someone had fought back, had battered the rat to death. That person was probably also dead, killed by the creature's companions, but at least he or she had not given in easily. Possibly there were other dead vermin out there, lying among the bodies of the humans they had attacked, corpses of both species decaying together.

There seemed to be little weakness in the creature, even in its present state. Yet the skull was caved in.

How hard had it been struck? He touched the outer rim of the dent, and the bone beneath his fingers moved inwards. It was brittle and thin. And there was no sign of blood. The blow had not even broken the skin, yet it had presumably caused the rodent's death. Culver turned the body over and found no other wounds. So possibly the vermin had paper-thin skulls - at least, this one had. Where did it leave him? Nowhere. It might be feasible to win a battle with one or two of these creatures by crushing their heads, but they moved around in packs - large packs.

He straightened and coldly kicked the bristle-furred corpse before leaving the booth.

His companions were watching the booth warily as Culver carefully picked his way towards them. He slapped away flies and other insects, averting his eyes as they landed in the open wounds of the dead and laid their eggs. How fast would these insidious insects multiply now they had no opponents? And what epidemics would they carry and spread among those left to survive? Once the rain had stopped, this other, tiny-sized menace would take to the air to breed, develop and devour. Only winter would stem their tide, and then only temporarily.

Culver faced Bryce. 'How many of these vermin have been living in the sewers and tunnels? And for how long?'

The Civil Defence officer had to look away; once again the glint in Culver's eyes was intimidating. The voice was low, controlled, but the anger was barely suppressed.

'I don't know,' he answered, frightened by everything around him and frightened by Culver's tone.

There were no reports of them that I know of.'

"You're lying. They're too big and too many to have stayed concealed for this long.' His face was only inches away from Bryce's. The other two men looked on, themselves interested in the answers.

'I swear I know nothing of them. There were some rumours, of course ...'

'Rumours? I want to know, Bryce.'

'Nothing more than that! Just hearsay. Stories of large animals, perhaps dogs, roaming the sewers.

Nobody gave the stories any credence. In fact, the reports were that rats were becoming scarcer down there in recent years.'

‘Yeah, ordinary rats. Didn't anybody stop to wonder why?'

You ... you mean these creatures drove the others out?'

'It's possible. Come on, Bryce, you're a government man - you must know more. Were there any disappearances, sewer workers and the like going missing?'

That's always happened, Culver, you must understand that. There are hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath the city, and the sewers have always been dangerous through flooding, cave-ins. And animal life has always existed down there. God alone knows what has prowled the tunnels through the decades...'

'Bryce...'

'I'm telling you the truth! I work for Civil Defence, nothing more! If anyone knows something, it'll be Dealey.'

Culver stared at the older man for a few more moments before the tenseness left his body. 'Dealey,' he said, almost as a sigh. He suddenly remembered again the flight into the tunnels just after the nuclear bombs had detonated, when he had told Dealey, then blind, that there were huge rats around them.

Dealey asked if they were black-furred, and had said something like, 'No, not now,' as if he knew of them. He might just have been referring to the previous times when the mutants had rampaged; or he might have known they were still in existence.

'Maybe he'll do some explaining when we get back,' Culver said and turned away from Bryce. 'Let's see what's left upstairs.'

Together they clambered over the dead, each man keeping a wary eye for any black moving shapes among them. They saw one or two rat carcases lying among their victims, but Culver noticed something more. He looked around at Bryce and their eyes locked. Something passed between them, a sensory acknowledgement, and neither one mentioned their observation to the other two who were more interested in the opening ahead.

The rain bounced hard off the metal-edged steps and fallen masonry, sending up a low splattering spray. The sound was intense, almost violent.

They've destroyed the skies, too.'

It was a strange and poignant thing for Fairbank to say, and it sent a shiver through each of them. They stood by the opening, becoming damp with reflected rain, even though not exposed to its full force.

Bryce spoke to the ROC man. 'Check the geiger. In here first, then outside.'

McEwen switched on the machine hanging over one shoulder by a strap, realizing he should have checked the atmosphere for radiation at each stage of their exploratory journey. Too many shocks had overwhelmed such a precaution.

Brief, separate clicks came from the ionization instrument's amplifier and McEwen quickly reassured Culver and Fairbank. 'It's normal. It's just picking up very high-energy particles natural to the atmosphere. See - it's irregular, weak, nothing to worry about.'

'Care to take a shower?' Fairbank pointed with his thumb at the pouring rain.

McEwen looked less sure of himself. He took the geiger counter from his shoulder and pushed it out into the downpour.

'It's warm, the rain's warm!' He quickly withdrew his arms and brushed off droplets as though they were acid.

'It's all right,' Bryce quickly said. 'Nothing's registering on the counter.'

Then why is it warm?' Culver asked, regarding Bryce suspiciously.

The older man shrugged. Who knows what's happened in the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere.

Perhaps the rain is cold around the equator now.' He became a little angry. ‘You keep treating me as though I'm in some way to blame for all this. I'm just a tiny, insignificant cog in a huge government wheel, Culver. My job has always been to protect lives, not destroy them, and as such I've had more battles with Whitehall ministers than I'd care to relate to you. The Civil Defence Corps was due to be scrapped totally just a few years ago, until we roused public opinion enough to prevent it.'

Culver was about to respond when Fairbank interrupted, nodding towards the rain-soaked stairway and saying in a no-nonsense voice: 'I'd like to take a look up top.'

Culver's smile was slow in coming, and his eyes neither changed expression nor left Bryce's. ‘Yeah,' he said. 'I think we'd all like to see what's left.'

He stepped out into the rain.

It felt good, so good. A cleanser, a purifier. He turned his face upwards, closing his eyes, and the heavy raindrops pelted his face. McEwen was right; it was warm, unnaturally so. But it was alive and it was wonderful. He climbed the steps, the others close behind.

Culver reached the top and stopped while the others caught up with him. They looked around, their faces white with shock, the warm rain battering their bodies, its sound the only sound.

It was Bryce who fell to his knees and cried, Wo, no, no...'

Many years before, when Culver was no more than a boy, someone had shown him a sepia print of Beaumont Hamel, a small town in a sector of the Somme front. The old photograph had been dated November 1916 - the time of World War I - and the image had stayed frozen in his mind ever since.

The battle long over, just thin trees remained, bare and stunted, without branches, their tops jagged charcoal. No grass, not one solitary blade poking from the solid mud. No buildings, just rubble. No birds. No growth. No life. Only desolation, total, unremitting. And unforgiving.

If he could have stepped into that picture, if he could have actually stood in that granite mud, breathed the charred and gas-tainted air, he had known that nothing would have stirred, the scene would have remained a frozen still, the reality imitating the reproduced image.

He had just stepped through that frame and found the concrete equivalent to the sepia waste.

The ruined city lay humiliated and crumbled around them, nothing moving except the relentless rain.

Not every building had been completely demolished, although none had escaped anything less than excessive damage; those remaining stood like broken monoliths amid the mountains of rubble, misshapen parodies of man's construction powers. Some rose up

with innards exposed, gigantic doll's-houses with one wall removed so that furniture and decor could be viewed; all that was missing were the tiny dolls themselves. Of others, only skeletal frames were left, the steel girders twisted, buckled, yet still proclaiming their resistance to whatever forces their makers could thrust upon them. There appeared to be no definite order by which one building had collapsed completely while another had remained partially erect, although the damage seemed worse in the distance, as it the power of the Shockwaves had reduced as they swept outwards, each preceding office block or dwelling absorbing a fraction of the force, dissipating the fury, affording a small protection to its neighbour.

Among the rubble, like tossed-away toys, lay cars, buses, other vehicles, some merely black-stained husks, completely burned out, others smashed into irregular shapes. The roads - what could still be discerned as roads - were metal graveyards, full of silent, defunct machines. Most lamp posts were bent, many doubled up like matchstick men with stomach pains; some, torn from concrete roots, lay stiffly across other wreckage, defeated but unbowed. Office equipment, furniture, television sets, tumbled from the debris, shattered and somehow incongruous in their exposure.

Also shattered, but far less incongruous because the search party had almost become used to them, were the misshapen bundles that had once been living, moving humans. They lay everywhere: in cars, in overturned buses, among the debris, in the roads. Many were huddled in doorways - whatever doorways were left - as if they had crawled there to await the poisoned air's descent.

The four survivors were relieved that the insects were held at bay by the rain torrent Shock upon shock hit them, sweeping through in waves,

their numbed minds mercifully dulling the rapid, horrifying visions. Yet the full impact of one sight could not be defused, for it was literally a panoramic statement of what had come to pass, a cruel affirmation of the devastation's magnitude.

Standing at street level in the heart of the nation's destroyed capital, they could now see the land's natural horizon, a view that before had always been obscured by a raggedy, concrete skyline, a growth-chart of varying greys against a blue background. Gentle hills that encircled much of London were no longer hidden, and to the east and west there was open space, broken only by a few upright buildings and the higher mounds of rubble.

It was awesome, and it was intimidating. And each man experienced a terrible loneliness, a longing for the world they had lost, for the people who had died.

Above them the sky was black and low, the new horizon silver. The warm rain drenched them and could not wash away their fears, nor their deep-felt misery.

Bryce was on his knees, his bowed head against the litter-strewn pavement.

McEwen's tears mingled with the rain on his cheeks.

Fairbank's eyes were closed, his head tilted slightly upwards, his body stiff.

Culver looked around, his feelings locked inside.

To the east he could see the round structure of St Paul's, its dome gone, the walls cracked and broken, huge sections missing. He was puzzled, for although there had been little time for observation when he and Dealey had fled after the first explosion the damage had not seemed this bad. Then he remembered that other bombs had been dropped - five had been estimated - and was then surprised the city had not been totally flattened. There seemed to be less damage to the east and sections of the south-west, but the rain made

everything too hazy to be sure. The lower portions of several buildings within the immediate vicinity were fairly intact, although mounds of rubble that had once been their upper floors created slopes from them.

In the distance he could just distinguish red glows where some parts still burned, or where fresh fires had broken out As if to confirm his thoughts, light flared from the north as though an explosion had occurred. The heavy rain was fortunate, not just because it helped clear the radiation dust, but because it had also kept the fires under reasonable control. What was left of the city could easily have become one raging inferno.

He walked over to McEwen and prodded his arm. Try the geiger, see if anything's registering.'

The ROC officer seemed glad to have something more to think about. A surge of clicking erupted from the machine and the needle flickered wildly for a second or two. It's okay,' McEwen quickly reassured him. 'Look, it's settled down. There's a certain amount of radiation around, but it's below danger level.'

He wiped his face to clear its wetness, the tears and rain.

'Fairbank?' Culver glanced at the engineer standing nearby.

There was a strange smile on Fairbank's face when he opened his eyes and turned towards the others.

It was sad, yet a peculiarly satisfied expression, almost as though the tragedy was no surprise to him.

What now?' Fairbank asked.

'Let's get Bryce to his feet, then have a quick look round. I don't want to stay out here any longer than necessary.'

Together they lifted the Civil Defence officer, who leaned against them for several moments for support. His strength returned slowly, but his spirit would take much longer.

'Any suggestions/ Culver said, 'as to where we should look?'

Bryce shook his head. There's nothing left to see. There's no hope for any of us.'

This is just one city,' Culver replied sharply, 'not the whole bloody country. There's still a chance.'

Bryce merely continued to shake his head.

There's a store over there,' Fairbank said, his voice loud so that it could be heard over the downpour.

'It's a Wool-worth's - I used to pass it every day. There'll be food, clothing, other things that might be useful.'

We don't need anything for the shelter yet, but it might be worthwhile taking a look,' Culver agreed.

'Leave me here,' said Bryce. 'I've no stomach for rummaging among the dead.'

'No chance. We're sticking together.'

'I won't be able to make it. I'm ... I'm sorry, but I must rest. My legs seem to have gone. The stress...'

Culver looked at Fairbank, who shrugged and said, 'He'll only slow us down. Leave him.'

'Stay here, then. But don't wander off. We're going straight back into the tunnel when we return.

Remember, the idea was to get back within two hours - we won't have time to start looking for you.'

Yes, I understand. I won't move from this spot, I can promise you that.'

You might be better off out of the rain. Try one of the cars over there, but keep a lookout for our return.'

Bryce nodded, relieved to be left alone. He watched the others making their way through the ruins of what once had been one of London's busiest thoroughfares. Clambering over rubble, weaving between inanimate traffic, their figures soon blurred by the rainfall. Then they were gone and the acute loneliness they had all felt only moments earlier pressed harder on him, almost crushing in its ferocity.

The feeling of being the last person alive on the chastised planet was overwhelming, even though he knew his companions were not far away. His whole being cried out, in pity, in anguish; but mostly in despair. How much was there left of the human race, and what could its future be? Slow oblivion? Or would eventual procreation breed generation upon generation of debilitated and atrophied offspring, possibly even mutants, degenerates? Who would survive in the plague-stricken lands where even food that could be scavenged might contain the very seeds of lingering death? There was no way of knowing how massively destructive the conflict had been, whether any nations had been left unblemished, any countries untouched. They had failed even to learn the extent of their own homeland's ravagement.

The rain was like thousands of question-marks saturating his mind. There were no answers. Not yet.

And perhaps, for this small band of survivors, there never would be.

Bryce pulled up his coat collar, clutching the lapels to his chest, a symbolic gesture; the downpour was tepid, but it chilled his inner core.

There were many vehicles to shelter in; he walked over to a car nearby, its door hanging open as if the owner cared little for security as he fled the havoc - Bryce almost smiled at the thought of someone meticulously locking his vehicle while the city crumbled around him. The windscreen was shattered and he brushed glass fragments from the front passenger seat, relieved to find no bloodstains among them. He climbed in and the rain rattled its steady drumbeat on the metal over his head, splatters still reaching him through the opening, but adding no discomfort to his already soaked person.

A folded newspaper lay at his feet, sodden pages merged into one soft, mildewy lump. He glanced down, then bent to retrieve it, perhaps wistful for a remnant of natural order, a memento of yesterday's comfortable existence. All crispness long-vanished from its malty-grey leaves, the midday Standard threatened to disintegrate when he picked it up.

At first he frowned at the 72-point headline that said: PM URGES: STAY CALM.

Then he began to laugh.

And he laughed so much that tears flooded his eyes, and they were tears of mirth and bitterness, neither emotion giving way to the other.

And his shoulders jerked with the effort.

One leg stamping at the footwell.

Making the car judder.

Causing something in the back seat to stir.

Fairbank was the first to slip through the opening leading down onto the store's shopfloor. Mounds of debris, a hazardous mixture of masonry, powdered concrete and glass, had all but covered the wide display windows and swingdoors, but the three men had clambered up towards the dark opening heedless of the danger. Fairbank's enthusiasm to taste once again the confectionery delights denied to them among the shelter's plentiful but unexciting rations, to don a clean shirt, put on fresh underwear, was too keen for him to be discouraged by his two more cautious companions. And Culver himself had to admit the prospect appealed after their weeks of austere confinement.

He warned, however, that everything could be spoiled by now, and that clothing and other items might well have been ruined by fire.

'Just one way to find out, Culver,' the engineer had replied, grinning, the earlier emotional shock apparently overcome for the moment. Culver surmised that the man was either completely insensitive or a natural survivor, his durability perhaps a strong quality in such times. He had followed Fairbank's scampering figure up the incline.

At the top, Culver turned to McEwen. We'll need the geiger counter in here; the place could be full of radiation.'

Somewhat reluctantly, the ROC officer climbed the slope.

They watched Fairbank slither down the other, much steeper side, using their torches to guide him.

He settled at the bottom, waving his own torch around. 'Christ,' he exclaimed, 'the stink in here!'

We can smell it from here,' Culver told him before sliding into the gap. McEwen quickly followed and all three squatted in the disturbed dust, peering into the gloom, their lights penetrating the darkest corners.

'Ceiling's caved in at the far end,' McEwen observed.

'Everything looks safe otherwise,' said Fairbank. His voice took on a lighter tone. 'Hey, d'you see what I see?' His beam had caught multi-colour wrappers in its glare. He was up and at the sweets counter before the other two had a chance to rise.

'Don't scoff them all, Bunter, you'll make yourself sick,' Culver advised, unable to stop himself from smiling.

'Crunchie bars, Fruit and Nut, Walnut Whips - Christ, I'm dead and this is Heaven.' They heard him chuckle and began to laugh themselves.

'Bournville Plain, Dairy Milk, Pacers, Glacier Min—' his voice broke off.

By then, Culver and McEwen had joined him and they, too, were examining the array of bright wrappers that a fine layer of dust only faintly subdued. They soon discovered what had brought his exaltation to a sudden halt.

'Someone else has been at 'em,' McEwen commented.

'Someone or something.' Culver picked up a loose wrapper, a vision of black-furred creatures snuffling their way through the chocolate bars and sweets sending a prickly coolness along his spine.

'Rats?' Fairbank regarded him with wide eyes.

'Maybe.' Culver popped open the small restraining strap of the shoulder holster.

They'd have done more damage, made a bigger mess,' said McEwen.

'He's right,' Fairbank agreed, but there was still a nervousness to him. 'Let's grab as much as we can carry and get out.'

Thought you wanted a new shirt?'

'I can live without it.' He began to stuff chocolate bars into his overall pockets.

Wait a minute.' Culver stayed Fairbank's hand midway between counter and trouser pocket. 'If it's not vermin it may be something more important.'

'People?'

Culver shone his torch along the litter-filled aisles. The store's interior stretched a long way back, opening out halfway down in an 'L' shape. No light came through the collapsed ceiling in the far corner, off to his left. The smell that assailed them had become all too familiar over the past hour or so, and Culver had no real desire to investigate further. Unfortunately, conscience told him he had to. Maybe a morbid curiosity added its weight, too.

His footsteps sounded unnaturally loud in the store that had now become a vast cavern.

Fairbank shrugged and went after him, still snatching goodies from the counter as he passed and squeezing them into his already full pockets. He spied a set of shelves containing handbags, holdalls and -

even better - suitcases, and made a mental note to grab one on their way back.

McEwen found the idea of being left alone in the shadowy consumer grotto unacceptable and swiftly caught up with the other two.

Culver in the lead, they drew near the corner where the store widened. An electrical department came into view, plastic-coated wires hanging loosely from their spools like oversized cotton thread, light sockets, switches and lamps lying scattered as if swept from their displays by angry hands. Beyond that, the record and hi-fi department looked as if the choices had not been appreciated: album sleeves littered the floor, stereo equipment lay scattered. Bodies, some still moving, lolled in the mess.

Damp fingers, disembodied by the darkness, curled around Culver's wrist.

He recoiled by instinct, the others intentionally, for they had seen the hideous figure just before it had touched him.

Culver wrenched his arm free and staggered back against a nearby counter, but the figure went with him, unbalanced, claw-like hands clutching at Culver's clothes. The man fell to his knees, preventing himself from sinking further by hanging weakly on to the pilot's leather jacket.

The man's voice was a thin, rasping sound. 'Help ... us...'

Culver stared down at the emaciated face with its wide, staring death-camp eyes, the torn lips, cracks filled with dry blood, gums exposed and teeth decayed brown. A few sparse tufts of hair clung to the man's scalp. His skin was puckered with fresh sores and there was a thin line of dried blood trickling from both ears. Fright gave little room for pity in Culver.

The man groaned, although it was more of a throat-singed croak. He seemed to shrivel before them.

Overcoming his revulsion, Culver caught the collapsing figure, and gently lowered him to the floor. The man's clothes were torn and bedraggled; they smelled of excrement.

'Please ...' The voice was weaker this time, as though the effort of seizing Culver's wrist had taken most of his remaining strength.'... help ... us.'

'How many are left alive here?' Culver said, his mouth close to the dying man's ear.

'I... don't...' His head lolled to one side. 'Don't...'

Culver looked up at his two companions. 'Radiation sickness,' he said unnecessarily. 'He won't last much longer. Try the geiger, see how bad it is in here.'

McEwen switched on the machine and they jumped when its amplifier discharged urgent, burring clicks. The needle jumped wildly before settling just beneath the quarter-way mark.

Too many rems,' McEwen told them hastily. 'It's dangerous, we've got to leave immediately.'

'I'm on my way,' Fairbank said, beginning to turn.

Wait!' Culver snapped. Take a look at the others. See if we can save any of them.'

‘You gotta be kidding - oh shit, look...'

They followed Fairbank's gaze and saw the shuffling shapes emerging from the shadows, most of them crawling, some stooped and bent, stumbling as if with age, a whining coming from them that was more frightening than piteous. In that moment of abject fear, it was hard to think of these unsteady, shambling figures as fellow humans, wretches who had had no time to shelter properly from the disaster and its disease-carrying aftermath, for they came at the three survivors like lepers escaping their colony, like hunched demons rising from unhallowed earth, like the undead reaching out to embrace and initiate the living ...

It was too much for Fairbank and McEwen, one trauma too many in that day of traumas. They backed away.

The ravaged faces, fully revealed in the torches' combined glare, pleaded for pity, for compassion, for relief from their suffering.

'Culver, there's too many of them. We can't help them all!' Fairbank's voice was shaky with its own special pleading.

"We can't stay here,' McEwen added from further away. The radiation count is too high! If we don't leave now we'll end up like these people!'

One figure, a woman, finding some last vestige of strength, lurched forward and clung to Fairbank.

'... nnleasennnnnn ..' she implored.

He reflexively pushed her away and she fell to the floor, a weak cry escaping her. Fairbank took a step towards her as if instantly regretting his action, a hand reaching out. The moans of others changed his mind.

'It's no good, Culver,' he said wearily. "We can't help them. There's too many.' He turned and broke into a stumbling run towards the front of the store, chocolate bars and sweets tumbling from his overloaded pockets.

A hand scraped against Culver's cheek. He flinched, but did not pull away from the feverish man he knelt beside.

'Don't... leave us ...' the man whispered.

Culver took the hot trembling fingers from his face and held them. There's nothing we can do for you right now,' he told him, and added lamely: We've got a doctor among us. If she's agreeable, we'll bring her back; she may be able to do something for you.'

The man's grip suddenly strengthened. 'No ... no ... you can't...' His other hand, wavering but determined, clutched at Culver's collar.

Another weight fell across the pilot's shoulders.

Culver toppled onto his side, the other person bearing down on him, the man beneath pulling, refusing to let go. Culver groaned, a sharp, harsh sound, almost one of pain, and he struggled against them, quickly shrugging the weight

from his shoulders, grabbing the other man's wrists and slowly prising the hand away from his jacket.

The man's other hand, still gripping his, was less easy to dislodge and for one insane moment Culver considered using the gun. It would have meant instant release for him and instant relief for the radiation victim. But whatever it took for such an act, it was not in him. Not yet.

He squeezed the man's wrist unmercifully, and the claw-like fingers gradually opened. Culver broke free, rising to his feet, almost stumbling over a figure that had crawled up from behind. He avoided the grasping hand.

Tm sorry!' he shouted, and then he was running, staggering after the others, his only thought to be away from this dark limbo between life and death and away from these poor wretches whose best hope was to die sooner rather than later.

He heard their wailing cries, and he thought he heard footsteps coming after him, but he did not stop to look around until he was at the foot of the slope. His two companions were already through the narrow opening at the top, Fairbank reaching back to help him, his face a confused mask of fear and shame.

This is crazy, Culver told himself. They're just people, our own kind, injured and disease-ravaged; not lepers, not unclean, and not dangerous. Why then were he, Fairbank and McEwen so afraid? He looked back and the answer was there. The shuffling, imploring figures were the incarnation of extreme human distress, the material results of the long-awaited, feared and fearful holocaust. The nightmare come true.

And who could face their own nightmare?

Culver leapt at the slope, Fairbank grabbing his hand and yanking him upwards. He was through the opening, warm

rain and grey light enveloping him as he rolled down the other side, not stopping until he had reached the bottom, and even then rolling to a crouched position, facing the store as if expecting the dream to follow. Only Fairbank came sliding down to join him. McEwen stood a few yards away, poised to run.

'I guess there were just too many, right?' Fairbank said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Culver shuddered. ‘Yeah, too many.' He straightened. We'll get back to them. Dr Reynolds can give them drugs, medicines, anything to ease it for them.'

'Sure,' Fairbank replied.

'Maybe one or two will pull through.'

Fairbank wiped rain from his forehead and nose. He spat into the muddied dirt at his feet. We'd better get to the shelter.'

He walked away leaving Culver staring up at the few visible letters of the store name and the narrow gap beneath. The mausoleum's name was wort.

Culver caught up with the others as they squeezed between a bus, all its windows smashed, red paint in the front blistered and flaky, and a sky-blue van, the bottom of its side panels already showing rust. He tried to avert his eyes from the rotted corpse of the bus driver, thrown back in his cab, hands still on the driving wheel as though he had insisted upon carrying his passengers right up to the very doors of eternity. Culver tried not to look, but eyes can be skittishly curious. Glass shards impaled the figure, gleaming from the body like diamonds in an underground rock face, the largest segment neatly dividing the man's face in half. Something low in Culver's stomach did a mushy backflip and he forced himself to concentrate on the two men in front. McEwen was walking unsteadily, using the bonnets and tops of cars for support, geiger counter slapping against one hip, rain-soaked shoulders hunched forward.

Fairbank, who had turned to see if Culver was following, was white-faced, deep creases stretching from cheekbones to jawline making his normally broad countenance seem suddenly thin, almost gaunt. He opened his mouth to speak, but a distant muffled krumpf had them all staring towards the west.

Less than half a mile away, the remains of a partly-demolished building were collapsing completely, the exposed floors tumbling in on one another like a card-player's thumb-shuffle. Clouds of dust billowed into the air, the rain only slowly beating them back to earth, the building becoming a pile of concrete and rubble amid a landscape of similar piles. Anything could have caused its surrender - an explosion of gas, the last rending of twisted and overloaded metal, the exhaustion of its own concrete structure. The building's final acceptance of the inevitable was like a death-knell.

The urge to return as quickly as possible to their sanctuary was strong within them, for more than ever it represented a form of survival. They hoped.

Skirting a five-car collision that resembled an artist's metal sculpture, they climbed another hill of debris and were relieved to see the Chancery Lane underground sign once more, a section of its blue and red symbol missing.

'It ain't much, but it's home,' Fairbank said weakly, in an effort to shake off his own despondency.

'Can you see Bryce?' Culver peered at the cars below, rain bouncing off their roofs forming misty haloes.

Fairbank shook his head. 'He can't be far - he looked pretty done-in when we left him.'

Culver noticed that McEwen was visibly trembling. ‘You going to make it?' he asked.

'I just want to get away from here, that's all. It's like ... like one massive graveyard.'

'Pity some of the dead won't lie down,' added Fairbank in unappreciated black humour.

Culver ignored the remark. They all had different ways of coping; Fairbank needed to make jokes, no matter how lame, nor how tasteless.

There he is.' Fairbank pointed, then frowned. 'At least I think it's Bryce.'

They descended warily, not risking a fall on the unstable slope.

'Over here,' the engineer said, leading the way through the tangle of machinery. Culver spotted the Civil Defence officer on the entrance platform of an empty double-decker bus. His feet were in the road, his body hunched forward over his lap, oblivious to the pounding rain. He appeared to have stomach cramps, but as they drew nearer, they realized he was clutching something.

McEwen caught sight of a familiar form sheltering in a doorway not far from the Underground entrance.

For the first time that day he managed to smile. There wasn't much left of the building above the doorway, for the blast had sheered off the roof and upper floor but, although wrecked, the shops below remained, and it was here, in an open doorway, that the dog shivered over a scrap of food lying at its feet The mongrel - McEwen was no expert, but it resembled a German Shepherd mostly - looked forlorn and weak, its fur bedraggled, almost colourless with grime, ribs showing like struts through stretched canvas. Saliva streamed from its mouth, soaking the meagre rations it had managed to salvage from somewhere, and McEwen's heart went out to the

dishevelled animal. After witnessing so much human suffering, the dog's plight stirred deep emotions in him for, unlike its masters, this creature was blameless, having no say in its own destiny, innocent of all guilt for the destructively sick world it inhabited. McEwen squeezed between two cars and made towards the animal.

The dog's head was bent low, too concerned for the raw meat at its feet to notice the man's approach.

Poor little bastard, the ROC officer thought. Half starved and probably still bewildered by everything that had happened.

He watched it wolf down one of the sausage-like scraps between its front paws. The food was red, bloodied, and McEwen wondered where it had found such fresh meat.

'Good boy,' he said, moving forward cautiously, not wishing to frighten the animal. 'Good old boy,' he repeated soothingly.

The dog looked up.

Bryce was in pain. He moaned and his body rocked quickly backwards and forwards in swift rhythm that sought to ease the hurt.

Culver and Fairbank saw there were scratch marks on his neck, blood flowing from the wounds with the rain. They rushed to him, Culver kneeling and grasping the CDO's shoulder.

'What's happened to you?' he said, using pressure to get the man to straighten. 'Did you fall?'

Fairbank looked around uneasily, then bent closer, hands resting on his knees.

Bryce looked at them as if they were strangers, a terrified, glazed expression in his eyes. Recognition slowly filtered through.

Thank God, thank God,' he moaned.

They were shocked when they saw his face. The neck wounds stretched round to his cheek, where they became large gashes from which blood flowed freely. The thin line of blood, dotted with small bubbles of drying blood, stretched across the bridge of his nose as if he had been slashed with wire. One eyelid was torn, blood clouding the eyeball beneath red. 'Get me back to the shelter. Get me back as quickly as possible!'

'What in hell did this?' Culver asked, reaching for

a handkerchief to stem the seeping tide from the man's neck.

'Back, just get me back! I need help.'

'Culver, there's something wrong with his hand.' Fairbank had moved closer and was reaching for Bryce's arm. He tried to ease the injured man's hands from his lap, but met with surprising resistance.

'Bryce, were you attacked by rats?' Culver asked. 'Jesus, we thought you'd be safe out here.'

'No, no!' It was a shout born out of acute pain. 'Please take me back to the shelter.'

'Show me your hands. Let me see them.'

Culver and Fairbank pulled at the arms together.

Bryce had been clutching one hand with the other and, when they were withdrawn from between his blood-drenched lap, they came apart. The other two men flinched when they saw the fingerless right hand.

Fairbank turned away from the bloodied stumps, pushing his forehead against the coolness of the bus.

Culver held the wrist of Bryce's injured hand. He folded the handkerchief, now rain-sodden, over the finger stumps, pressing them against the protruding bones.

'Hold the handkerchief against them,' he told Bryce. 'It'll stop the bleeding a little.' He guided the hand towards the other man's chest and placed the uninjured hand over it. 'Keep it there. Keep your elbow bent and your hand pointed upwards. Try not to move it.' He quickly ran his eyes over Bryce, checking for further wounds. He found them, but none was as bad. "Where were they, where did they attack you from?'

'No, not rats.' It was an effort for Bryce to speak. 'It was a dog. A ... mad ... dog in the car. Rabid. It was rabid. That's why you've got to get me back.'

Culver understood and it was almost a relief. Bryce had come across a wandering dog and it had attacked him. Not rats. Not bloody mutant rats, but a lost, probably starving, dog! But if it had rabies, then Bryce was in even more serious trouble. No wonder he wanted to get back to the shelter -Dr Reynolds would have an antiserum, something that might save his life. If she didn't - Culver tried to push the thought away - then Bryce would be dead within four to ten days.

'Can you stand?' he asked.

'I... I think so. Just help me up.'

Fairbank forgot his nausea and helped Culver lift the injured man to his feet.

'Okay,' Culver assured Bryce, We'll get you back. There's bound to be an anti-rabies vaccine in the medical supplies, so don't worry. The sooner we get you there the better.'

'It's essential ... that I'm treated before the symptoms begin to show. Do you understand that?'

'Sure, I understand. Try to keep calm.'

Through his pain, Bryce remembered the bitter irony of the newspaper headline he had read in the car just before the rabid dog had snapped its jaws into his neck. Keep calm, that was only annihilation knocking on the door. Keep calm, that was only Death tapping you on the shoulder. He began to weep and it was not just because of the throbbing pain.

They half carried him towards the Underground entrance, keeping a wary eye out for the animal that had caused the injury, avoiding open car doors where possible, kicking them shut first if there was no option but to pass by. The rain pounded ceaselessly, and even though it was warm, Culver felt a chill creeping into his bones. The outside world was as bad as they feared it would be; the city was not just crippled, it was crushed.

Culver and Fairbank both saw McEwen at the same time.

He was leaning forward, one hand extended, reaching for something crouched in a doorway.

Something that was partly obscured by his own body.

McEwen smiled at the dog as he tried to coax it from the doorway. 'Come on, boy, no one's gonna hurt you. You just finish your food and then we'll see what to do about you. We could do with a rat-catcher.'

A low, warning growl came from the dog. Its head was still bent close to the food, and its eyes looked up at him with distrust. McEwen noticed there was a moroseness in those large brown eyes.

"Yeah, I know you're starving. I'm not going to take your food away from you. You just gobble it down, there's a good boy.'

Before the final scraps disappeared into the dog's jaws -snapped up and swallowed whole, as if it feared they would be taken away - the ROC officer noticed something odd. One of the two slivers of meat had what appeared to be a fingernail attached to it.

He hesitated, his hand poised in mid-air, suddenly not so sure that the animal should be patted. It looked a little wild-eyed now. And it was trembling, and its snarl was not encouraging.

There were red blood specks in the foamy white substance drooling from its mouth.

'McEwen!'

His head whirled round and he saw Culver running towards him through the rain, reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster. Everything became slow motion, the running figure, the turning-back to the dog, the animal quivering, moving forward, its back legs stiff as though semi-paralysed, the hunching of its shoulders, the bristling

of its damp fur, the wide gaping jaws and blood- and saliva-filled mouth...

Culver stopped and aimed the gun, praying he wouldn't miss from that range. The dog was tensing itself to leap, but something was wrong with its haunches. Its own madness carried it through. It was in the air, yellow teeth exposed, ready to clamp down on the man's outstretched hand only inches away.

Culver fired and the shock wave jerked his arm back.

The mad dog spun in the air and landed writhing at McEwen's feet, jaws snapping, yelping, screeching.

McEwen stepped back, his feet moving rapidly over the wet pavement. He tripped over rubble, sprawling backwards.

The animal, mortally wounded, tried to reach him, crawling forward, its howls diminishing to a low snarling.

Culver moved in for the kill.

He aimed at the dog's head. Fired.

Then again, into the jerking body.

Again, and the body went rigid.

Again, and the body went limp.

He let his breath go and bolstered the weapon.

McEwen was slowly rising to his feet and wearing a stunned, disbelieving expression when Culver reached him.

'Did it bite you?' Culver asked.

McEwen stared at him before answering. 'No, no, it didn't touch me. I didn't realize ...'

'It attacked Bryce.'

'Oh, shit.'

'Help us get him back.' Culver had already turned away and was walking over to Fairbank and Bryce.

McEwen studied the inert canine body and bit into his lower lip. He had been so close, so fucking close. The

realization dawned on him that nothing could be taken for granted any more, that the ordinary could never again be trusted. That was a legacy that had been left them. Just one of the many.

As with Culver, the chill was now inside McEwen. He hurried after the three figures as they disappeared down the steps leading into the station's ticket hall.

The sweet, putrid smell hit them before they had even reached the bottom step. Eagerness to get back into the shelter's cocoon safety, the same feeling a rabbit had for its burrow when a fox was on the prowl, battled with their reluctance to enter the gloomy interior with its infestation of glutted insects and rotting human cadavers. Bryce's moaning urged them on.

The awkward descent down the corpse-crowded escalator was almost surreal now that their initial horror had been muted by an excess of shocks. They had the feeling of creeping into the pit of Hades and that the dead littering their path were those who had tried to flee, but had not managed to reach the sunlight. Paradoxically, the four men realized that the hell was above them.

At one point, Fairbank and Bryce stumbled, nearly tumbling in what would have been a snowballing fall

- the snowball comprised of gathering corpses - if Culver hadn't grabbed a handrail and used his strength to hold back the others. They rested for a short while before continuing, each man drained by what had proved to be a harrowing and arduous reconnaissance. They were mentally tired, too, for the trauma had its own special debilitating effect.

Nevertheless, none of them was keen to spend too long on the escalator: the slumped half-eaten shapes above and

below were a gruesome reminder that they were not yet safe. They journeyed on, Bryce supported by Culver and Fairbank, McEwen leading the way, torchlight sweeping the stairway before them.

They heard the peculiar rushing noise long before they reached the bottom, and looked at each other quizzically before resuming the descent. The sound was emanating from the archway leading to the eastbound platform and as they drew nearer the four men began to understand its source. McEwen anxiously hurried ahead, the others hampered by the injured man.

The sound became a roar as they rounded the corner into the archway. McEwen's lone figure was standing at the edge of the platform, his torch held low. They reached him and they, too, shone their lights down into the raging torrent, its sound amplified by the circular walls and ceiling of the station platform.

'The sewers must have flooded!' McEwen shouted above the roar. 'All this rainfall must have been too much.'

'Too many cave-ins, caused by the explosions' Fairbank agreed. 'The water's had nowhere to run.'

'We must get back!' There was panic in Bryce's voice.

'Don't worry, well make it.' Culver shone his torch into the eastbound tunnel, from which direction the water was pouring. 'It's not too deep, not waist-high yet. We can use the struts and cables inside the tunnel to pull ourselves along.'

'What about Bryce?' said Fairbank. 'He won't be able to use his hand. I doubt if he's strong enough to fight the current anyway.'

'We'll keep him between us, help him along. One in front, two behind. He'll be okay.'

Fairbank shrugged. 'If you say so.'

'McEwen, you get behind Fairbank, help him support Bryce

as much as you can.' Adrenalin flowing through him once more, reviving his beleaguered body, Culver prepared himself for the ordeal ahead. 'We'll use just my torch - that'll leave your hands free. You set?'

Fairbank and McEwen nodded, tucking their torches into their clothing. Bryce's had long since disappeared.

They walked to the end of the platform and Culver dropped down into the tunnel.

The water was icy cold and took his breath away for a moment. The current tugged at his lower body and it was an effort to move against it, much more so than he had expected. He grabbed one of the metal struts that ribbed the arched tunnel and pulled himself along, struggling to maintain his balance, hindered by the torch in his right hand. He stopped when the other three had dropped into the water. Bracing his back against the wall, he turned to them. It was difficult to talk, not just because the confined space reverberated with the rushing sound, but also because it was difficult to regain his breath. His legs were already numbed by the chill.

'Put your left arm through my right,' he told Bryce, crooking his elbow, still holding the torch in that arm. Bryce did so and Culver gripped tight so that their arms were linked. That way he could keep the light shining ahead while still supporting the injured man, and use his other hand to grab any holds along the tunnel wall that he could find. Providing both he and Bryce kept their backs against the wall, they would be all right.

They moved off once more, a bedraggled procession, the force against their legs becoming greater as they waded deeper into the tunnel. It was soon evident that Culver would not be able to use the torch and support Bryce at the same time; the weight on his arm was too great.

He brought them to a halt. 'You'll have to use your torch, McEwen' he shouted. 'Try to shine it ahead of us, against the wall on this side.'

McEwen's light flicked on and Culver tucked his own torch into the waistband of his jeans. He linked Bryce's arm again, this time keeping his fist tucked tight against his own chest.

Perspiration was soon pouring from him with the effort of pulling both himself and the injured man along, despite the numbing coldness in his lower body. The first journey into the tunnel ran through his mind, the deep, hollow silence, the discovery of the bodies, the gorging mutant rats, the petrified girl.

Kate! God, he wanted to see her again.

Bryce began to slip from his grasp.

'Hold him!' he shouted back to Fairbank as the injured man started to sink.

Fairbank grabbed Bryce beneath his shoulders and heaved him upwards. He held him against the wall, Bryce's mouth wide open against the dirt-grimed brickwork, gasping for breath. He tried to speak, but they could not hear his words.

'He's not going to make it!' Fairbank shouted to Culver.

Culver, too, rested against the brickwork and tried to recover his breath. He leaned close to Bryce and spoke into his ear. 'Not far now, only a little way to go. We can do it, but you've got to help.'

Bryce shook his head. His eyes were closed and he looked as if he were moaning.

Culver slid one arm from his jacket and slipped off the shoulder holster. Pulling the jacket sleeve back on, he tossed the flashlight into the swirling water, knowing there would not be room enough for both torch and revolver. He took the gun from its holster and tucked it securely into his jeans.

Somehow it was more important to him than the torch. He reached for Bryce's uninjured arm once more and tied the leather straps of the holster around his own arm and the Civil Defence officer's.

'You've got to help me, Bryce!' he yelled. 7 can't do it on my own. Lean into me and don't let the current pull you away! Fairbank, keep close! Keep bloody close!'

'I'm up your arse,' Fairbank assured him, even managing a grin.

It was like travelling uphill with a typhoon around their legs and a dead weight pulling against them, but inch by inch, foot by foot, groan by groan, they made progress. After a while they saw that the floodwaters ahead were bubbling foam and the wrenching grip was now around their hips. The water was rising.

'We've got to cross the tracks, get over to the other wall,' Culver shouted back to the others, inwardly cursing himself for not having thought of it when the going had been a little easier. The rushing, liquid roar was almost deafening and he wasn't sure that the others had heard him. He pointed to the opposite wall and Fairbank nodded.

Culver let go of the thick cables that ran along the wall at shoulder level and, taking a deep breath in case he should fall, stepped out into the flow. He almost lost his footing immediately, so strong was the current. He staggered back, but hands reached out to steady him.

'Let me go first,' Fairbank shouted into his ear. 'We'll form a chain. Me, then Bryce with you hanging on to the cables at this side. We should be able to stretch right across. McEwen can go with Bryce, keeping behind him to hold him steady.'

Culver gripped the top of the fixed cables and braced himself. 'Go ahead.'

Holding on to the wrist of Bryce's injured hand, Fairbank

waded into the water, body leaning into the flow, McEwen stretching out from behind to help. Careful not to trip on the tracks hidden below, the engineer reached the centre of the tunnel, Bryce supported by the ROC officer, left arm still strapped to Culver's, going with him. Fairbank paused, struggling against the tide to maintain his balance. He felt as if icy arms had wrapped themselves around his legs and were trying to drag them backwards, maliciously eager to unbalance him. He knew if he were to make it to the other side he would need all his strength and manoeuvrability; he'd have to release the injured man's wrist.

'Hold him!' he shouted to the others, then plunged towards the opposite wall, jumping forward slightly, knowing the current would carry him back. The idea worked, but he had trouble finding a handhold, for he was down in the water, the current sweeping around his chest. He was carried several yards back before finding something to grip. There was a small recess in the curved wall and he grabbed its edge gratefully. Dragging himself up, he rested there for a short while, catching his breath, chest heaving. He could make out the shapes of the others, silhouetted by McEwen's unsteady torch. Bryce would not last long out there in midstream, for McEwen was having problems himself. Fair-bank used the cables on that side to haul himself back.

When he was level with the other three men he took a firm grip on the top cable and stretched his body out towards Bryce, bending into the current as he did so. There was a gap of several feet still between them.

'McEwen, you next. Grab my hand.'

The ROC officer moved from behind the injured man, working his way steadily towards Fairbank.

Once the gap had been bridged, they could all move across providing the engineer had the strength to hold them all.

His fingertips touched Fairbank's, palm slid across palm, fingers curled around wrists.

'The torch, pass me the torch' Fairbank ordered. He uncurled his grip from around the other man's wrist and splayed his fingers.

Still holding on to Fairbank's arm with his right hand, McEwen placed the torch in the engineer's open palm, the movement slow and deliberate, the current threatening to dislodge them at any moment. The positioning was awkward and the light was never still, but it afforded them some visibility.

The strain on Culver at the opposite side of the tunnel increased, for only his strength now held Bryce.

He could feel the Civil Defence officer weakening by the second.

‘Hurry! he shouted across to the others. 'He can't last much longer!'

McEwen grasped the injured man's wrist, keeping his eyes off the bare stumps of the fingers, the makeshift bandage long since gone, concentrating only on pulling Bryce towards him.

Culver moved away from the brickwork, a foot brushing against a rail beneath the swirling dark waters.

He stepped over it, nudging Bryce ahead of him, his body angled against the current. He let go of the cables, stretching his arm forward for balance. The pressure was tremendous and he noticed that the water was up to his waist.

Fairbank pulled and Culver pushed and they might well have made it had not something rammed into McEwen's midriff. The object spun around so that its length jammed against all three men midstream.

When McEwen looked down and saw the wide rictal grin of the dead man, the lifeless eyes somehow conveying the

agony of drowning, something snapped inside. He screamed and both hands lost their grip.

The merciless water snatched him away before he could regain his balance.

The sudden total burden of Bryce's weight was too much for Culver's own precarious balance. Both he and Bryce plunged backwards.

Fairbank, shoved against the wall, could only watch in dismay as the three men hurtled back along the tunnel, only heads and occasionally shoulders bobbing above the surface. McEwen's screams could be heard over the roar.

He pressed himself back against the shiny brickwork and closed his eyes. 'Oh Jesus,' he said. 'Oh Jesus.'

Culver went under, his body spinning beneath the churning surface. Something was pulling him down, a weight that hardly struggled against the force that tore at them. Whether Bryce was unconscious or merely shocked into immobility there was no way of knowing, but regret that he was tied to the injured man stabbed at Culver's disordered thoughts like a taunting barb. He choked on the water that filled his throat, his lungs, forcing his way back above the foaming surface, spluttering, coughing, wheezing for breath.

He pulled at the limp body, dragging it up, Bryce's head rising next to his, unseen in the darkness but jerking violently as if he too were gasping for air.

Culver felt the straps around their arms loosening, Bryce's body beginning to slip away. It would have been a relief to have let the burden go, to use all his unencumbered strength to reach safety, but old, unrelenting memories stirred inside, rising through the panic like dark shadowy ghosts.

He reached beneath Bryce's shoulder and struck out for the side of the tunnel, digging his heels into the firm ground below. Carried along by the momentum of the water and his own efforts, he crashed into the wall. He desperately clung to the other man as their bodies were spun round, once, twice; on the third spin his grasping hand found purchase. They had been swept back as far as the metal-ribbed section of the tunnel, the station platform probably just a short distance away in the darkness. Culver clung there, holding Bryce to his chest with his other arm, gasping in air and praying that the surge would not grow any stronger.

When he had regained his breath, he called out for McEwen, but there was no answer. Maybe he couldn't hear above the noise. He might have found a hold somewhere and be hanging on for dear life just out of earshot. Culver doubted his own hopes, for inside the station itself the walls were smooth with nothing to cling to. Unless McEwen had managed to scramble onto the platform, he had no chance of preventing himself from being swept through into the next tunnel. light suddenly skimmed along the surface of the broiling water from the other direction, the glare dazzling him.

Fairbank! Fairbank was still back there! This time he called out to the engineer, but again doubted his voice could be heard.

Bryce began to stir and Culver drew him upwards, so that their faces were level.

'Can you move, Bryce? We've got to get back along the tunnel before the water rises any further.' A thought struck him, one that he pushed away, refusing to worry over it at that stage. One thing at a time, Culver, just one thing at a time.

Bryce tried to reply, but the words were inaudible.

Holding the Civil Defence officer's arm tightly, Culver began to edge his way forward once more. A shape rushed by, reflected highlights from the torchlight giving it some form. Another shape, and this time its face was pointed upwards, protruding from the water like a death mask. Oh God, thought Culver, somewhere else in the lower regions of the city others had been taking shelter, perhaps in another station further along the line, perhaps in the tunnels themselves - possibly even the sewers - and they had been flushed out by the flood. Another body sped by, arms outstretched and hands clawed as if the corpse was still angry at its fate. Perhaps by now the whole of the Underground system had become one vast catacomb.

The light was closer and Culver realized that Fairbank was coming back for them. He renewed his efforts, fighting against exhaustion as well as the tide. Fortunately, Bryce had revived enough to help himself a little.

The journey was easier for Fairbank, who was travelling with the flow, and soon he was next to them, shining the light directly into their faces.

'Thank God you're all right,' he yelled. 7 thought that was the last I'd see of you.' He shone the torch past them. 'Where's McEwen?'

Culver could only shake his head.

Fairbank stared into the distance, hoping to see the lost man. He soon gave up the search. 'You ready to try again?' he asked Culver.

7s there a choice?'

'None at all.'

'Then I'm ready.'

As the engineer turned away, Culver held his arm and pulled him close. 'I thought of something a moment ago.'

'Oh yeah?'

"What...' Culver struggled to voice the concern. 'What if we can't get back inside? What if the shelter itself is flooded?'

'Didn't you notice the door we left by? It's sealed. It'll hold out any water.'

'Not if they have to open it for us.'

Fairbank thought about it, then yelled back, 'Like I said, we got no choice.'

Culver eased Bryce around him so that the injured man was in front. They kept him sandwiched between them as they made their way forward again.

It was a long, long, painstaking haul, but mercifully the force against them did not increase. They were aware of more bodies floating by, but by now corpses had become nothing new and nothing to spend thought on.

It couldn't have been hours - it only felt like it - when they reached the recessed door. They collapsed into the opening, careful to keep their feet and relieved that some of the pressure decreased slightly.

Fairbank began pounding on the metal surface with the end of his torch.

Culver felt Bryce beginning to sink once again and he held on to him tightly, knowing he would not be able to keep his grip for too long; now that they had reached comparative safety his strength was fading fast. Last time it had been fire he was trying to escape from, this time it was its opposite -water.

'Open up, you bastards!' Fairbank was yelling. 'Open this fucking door, you shitheads!' He pounded harder, rage giving him the energy.

Bryce was slipping away and Culver resolutely held on to him. He suddenly felt incredibly weak, as though his last remaining ounce of strength had decided enough is enough, there was no more.

He forced himself to stay erect by sheer willpower and it was only when that instinct had also decided to desert him that he felt the metal behind him giving way.

The door opened and he, Bryce and Fairbank were washed through with the torrent.

Hands reached for them as they tumbled over the floor. Culver came to rest between a large locker and a concrete wall and he lay there, resting his back in the corner, watching the figures struggling to close the metal door against the floodwater. It was a hardfought battle, the water cascading in and threatening to flood the whole complex.

More figures rushed forward to help and he saw Dealey standing nearby, watching anxiously, water already lapping around his ankles.

Culver's tired mind could not understand why the man standing next to Dealey was holding a gun on him. Why yet another man, the engineer called Ellison, was also pointing a gun, this one directed towards Culver himself.

Would someone tell me what the hell is going on?'

Kate passed a steaming hot mug of coffee to Culver which he accepted gratefully. He sipped, the liquid burning his lips, but tasting good, warming. He was still soaking wet and had not yet been allowed to change into drier clothes. The faces surrounding him in the Operations Room were neither hostile nor friendly; they were curious.

What happened to McEwen?' asked one of the engineers whom Culver knew as Strachan, ignoring the pilot's own question. Strachan was sitting in the seat behind the room's only desk, the one usually occupied by Alex Dealey. Culver noted that there were no longer any guns in evidence, but the shift in power was obvious without them.

We lost him,' Culver answered. His hair was damp and flat over his forehead, his eyes heavy-lidded, an indication of his exhaustion.

'How?' Strachan's tone was cold.

'In the tunnel. He was swept away with the floodwater.' He tasted more coffee before adding, There's a chance he's still alive out there. Now would you mind telling me what this is all about?'

'It's about democracy,' Strachan replied, his expression serious.

'Lunacy, more like it.' Dealey was sitting on one side of the room, agitated and looking as if ready to erupt.

Farraday, leaning back against a wall map behind the desk, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows and hands tucked into his trouser pockets, said, 'Perhaps not, Alex. Their attitude could be the correct one.'

Culver noticed Farraday's shirt collar was open at the neck, his tie hanging loosely against his chest. It was the first time he had seen the senior engineer appear so untidy. Farraday had maintained his own rigid discipline in the shelter, shaving every day, shirt and tie always neatly in place, even if the collar had lost most of its crispness of late.

That's nonsense,' Dealey retorted. There has to be some kind of order, some voice of authority—'

'Some ruling power?' Strachan smiled and Culver thought the smile didn't look good on him.

Wait a minute,' the pilot interrupted. 'Are you saying you're taking control, Strachan?'

'No, not at all. I'm saying there'll be a majority decision from now on. We've seen what bloody power-mad individuals can do, and that all ended with the first bomb.'

Dealey's tone was acid. 'Government by consensus, if I understand you correctly. Well, we had a little example of that just a short time ago, didn't we?' He turned to Culver, who did not enjoy his smile either.

'Do you know they had to take a vote on whether or not to let you back into the shelter? They were worried it would be flooded once they opened that door. You were lucky they wanted any information you had gathered.'

Culver looked at Strachan, then around at the others who had managed to cram into the room. He said nothing, just sipped the coffee. The revolver had disappeared from his waistband and he wondered if he had lost it in the tunnel or

if it had been taken from him while he lay exhausted on the floor near the tunnel doorway.

Strachan betrayed only a hint of anger.

'From here on everything's to be decided for the common good. If that sounds like Marxist or Trotskyist phraseology, then it's your own blinkered thinking that's telling you so. There aren't enough of us left any more for hierarchy, or government by a few fools. Your kind of politics are over, Dealey, and the sooner you realize it the better it will be for you.'

'Are you threatening me?'

'No, I'm not bloody threatening you. I'm explaining the situation.'

'Do you mind telling me what you've got in mind?' said Culver, impatient with the argument.

'Autonomy for—'

Culver interrupted Strachan. 'I'm not interested. I want to know what you plan to do about the situation we're in.'

Ellison spoke. We're going to abandon this shelter, for a start.'

Culver leaned back in his seat and sighed. That may not be a good idea.'

Would you tell us why you think that?' asked Farraday.

This time it was Fairbank who answered.

'Because there's hardly anything left up there, you silly bastards.'

There was a stunned silence before Strachan said, Tell us exactly what you found. We've already decided on our course of action, but it would be helpful to know what we've got to face.'

"You've decided?' Fairbank shook his head in mock dismay. 'I thought this was a democracy. What happened to our vote?' He pointed at Culver and himself.

'It's a majority decision.'

Without proper consultation and, more importantly, without all the facts,' said Dealey.

The most important fact is that most of us want to leave.'

'It's not safe, not yet,' said Culver, then began to tell them of their expedition, the sheer horror of their discoveries. They listened in wretched silence, each man and woman lost in their own personal despair.

There were no questions when he had finished, only a heavy quietness hanging in the room like an invisible, oppressive cloud.

Finally, Strachan broke the silence. 'It changes nothing. Most of us have families we have to get to. I accept that not many may have survived in London itself, but not all of us had homes in the city. We can get out to the suburbs, the home counties, find them.'

Culver leaned forward, wrists on his knees. 'It's up to you,' he said calmly, 'but just remember: there are rabid animals out there, people who are dying and who are just too many to help, and buildings -

those left standing in some form -are collapsing all the time. Nothing's solid above us, and the rain is making it worse.'

He drained the last of the coffee and gave the cup to Kate to be refilled.

'Disease is bound to spread,' he continued, 'typhus, cholera - Dr Reynolds has already listed them for you. If that isn't enough, you've got vermin roaming the tunnels, maybe even above ground by now. We saw one or two dead rodents in the station and we saw the damage they'd inflicted. If you come up against a pack of them, you'd have no chance.'

'Listen to him, he's right,' Dealey said almost triumphantly. 'It's what I've been telling you all along!'

'Dealey,' Culver warned, well aware that the man's attempt to dominate, to run things to his order, had led to this

confrontation. Law and Order did not exist any more, and Dealey had no force behind him to back up his command. As far as Culver could tell, those who had been aligned with him had soon defected; Farraday was a prime example. 'Just keep your mouth shut.'

Dealey's mouth closed, more in surprise than in obedience. Culver stared at him directly, trying to convey that the situation was more threatening than it appeared; he sensed the mounting tension despite his own tiredness, an hysteria that had steadily risen during the weeks of their incarceration. The fact that these men had used arms as an aid to their 'coup' was an indication of just how high emotions were running. And there was a gleam in Strachan's eye that was as unwelcome as his grin.

Well, isn't this cosy.' Clare Reynolds pushed her way through the cluster of bodies around the doorway. She cradled a brandy bottle in one arm. Thought you two could use some of this,' she said, making her way over to Culver and Fairbank. She uncorked the bottle and poured stiff measures into their coffee mugs. ‘You ought to get out of those wet clothes right away. I've treated Bryce's wounds and given him his first rabies shot, but it looks like he's in for a rough ride over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, for him, his incubation period could last from anything to ten days, a month - maybe even two years if he's really unlucky.'

The doctor turned towards the men seated around the desk. 'So how's the revolution going?'

Take it easy, Clare,' Strachan told her. ‘You were just as disgusted with Dealey's imposed regime as any of us.'

'I didn't like his high-handed ways, sure, but his objectives made some sense. One thing that disgusts me above all else, though - and particularly after all that's happened - is the use of force.'

We didn't use force,' Ellison snapped.

"You used weapons, and in my book, that's force! Haven't you learned anything?'

We've learned not to listen to bastards like him!' Ellison pointed at Dealey.

She sighed wearily, knowing it was pointless to continue the argument - she had tried that just before and after the take-over. 'Bryce was able to tell me a little of what it's like up there: can you fill in the details?'

Culver repeated his story, giving an even more graphic account of the radiation victims' condition.

That settles it, then,' the doctor said when he had finished. There's no way you can leave the safety of this shelter. If all the other factors don't destroy you - including the flooding in the tunnels - then the vermin will.'

The water will subside once the rain stops,' Strachan said quickly. 'And it may even have done us a favour.'

All eyes turned towards him.

'It will have flushed out the rats, destroyed their nests,' he told them. They won't be a threat any more.'

'Don't be so sure,' said Dr Reynolds. She lit a cigarette. These creatures can swim.'

'Not in the conditions out there,' countered Ellison.

'All the tunnels may not have been flooded.'

'She's right,' said Dealey. 'Many of the tube tunnels and sewers have flood doors that would have been closed shortly after or before the bombs dropped.'

'More government precautions to save the elite,' sneered Strachan.

Dealey ignored him. 'And other tunnels would be well above sewer level.'

Clare Reynolds exhaled cigarette smoke into the tightly packed room. 'I think it's time we learned a little more about

these Black rats. Did you come across any live vermin, Steve?'

Culver shook his head and Fairbank added a Thank God'.

She regarded Alex Dealey coldly. 'And what does - did -the government know about them? You see, I found poisons in the supply store that could only be used against rats, as well as the antitoxin I administered to you and Steve when you first arrived at the shelter. That antitoxin was specifically for the disease carried by this particular strain of mutant Black rat, so I figure their threat was still known and still feared. Was the government aware the problem hadn't been completely eradicated, that these creatures still existed in our sewers?'

'I was just a Civil Servant, Dr Reynolds, and not one to be taken into ministerial confidence,' Dealey replied uneasily.

‘Your office was the Inspector of Establishments and you yourself admitted that a large part of your duties involved fallout shelters. You must have had some knowledge of it! Look, Dealey, try to understand that we're all in this together; the time for "official secrecy" is long past. Just tell us what you bloody-well know, even if it's only to prevent people leaving this shelter.'

Dealey looked more irritated than intimidated. "Very well, I'll tell you what I know, but believe me it isn't much. As I implied, my position was not very high in the Civil Service echelon - far from it.'

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'I'm sure most of you know that during the first London Outbreak

- that was what the Black-rat infestation of the capital became known as - it was discovered that a certain zoologist by the name of Schiller inter-bred normal Black rats with a mutant, or possibly several mutants, he had brought back from the radiation-affected islands around New Guinea. The new breed soon

proliferated and spread throughout London, a stronger and much more intelligent animal than the ordinary rat with, unfortunately, an insatiable taste for human flesh.

'Most were exterminated quickly enough, although the havoc they caused was severe—'

You mean they killed a lot of people,' Strachan interrupted bitterly.

Dealey went on: 'It was thought at the time that all the vermin had been eliminated, but several must have escaped. In fact, the new outbreak several years later occurred just north-east of the city, in Epping Forest.'

'I seem to remember we were told the problem was solved permanently at that time,' said Dr Reynolds.

Yes, it was believed to be so.'

Then how d'you account for those bloody things out there?' Fairbank's eyes were narrowed, anger boiling in his usually genial face.

'Obviously some escaped the net, or had never left the city in the first place.'

Then why wasn't the public informed of the danger?' asked Strachan.

'Because, by God, nobody knew!'

Then why the antitoxin, the poisons?' Dr Reynolds asked calmly. There's even an ultrasonic machine in the supplies store.'

They were provided as a precaution.'

Ellison's fist thumped against the desktop. You must have known! D'you think we're really that simple?'

Some of Dealey's composure had gone. There have been rumours over the years, that's all. Perhaps one or two sightings, nothing—'

'Perhaps?' Strachan was furious and so were others in the room.

'Nothing,' Dealey continued, 'definite, certainly no attacks on anyone working in the tunnels or sewers.'

'Any disappearances?' Culver sipped his coffee-mixed brandy as he awaited the answer to his quietly put question.

Dealey hesitated. 'I have heard of one or two workmen going missing,' he replied eventually. 'But that wasn't unusual. Sewers flood from time to time after heavy rainfall, tunnels collapse—'

'How many exactly?' Culver persisted, remembering Bryce's earlier conjecture that Dealey would know.

'Good Lord, man, I can't give you figures. It was hardly my department.'

'But you were involved in the building of new shelters and extending and updating old ones. Any records of men disappearing while that kind of work was going on?'

There are always accidents, deaths even, involved in underground excavation.'

'Disappearances, though?'

This is getting—'

'Why so evasive, Dealey?' Clare Reynolds asked. 'What are you hiding?'

'Nothing at all. It's just that I don't see the point of all this. Certainly, several people have been lost in the tunnels over the years, but as I've stressed, it's nothing unusual.'

Were their bodies ever recovered?' persisted Culver.

'Not all, but yes, some were.'

'Intact?'

Dealey shook his head in frustration. 'If they weren't found until weeks, perhaps months later, then of course you'd expect the bodies to be decomposed.'

'Eaten?'

A snort of annoyance. 'I'm not denying there are rats

living beneath the streets, but not of the mutant kind. We've never had evidence of that.'

‘You said earlier there'd been sightings.'

They could have been anything - cats, even lost dogs. And yes, I admit, large rats. Not monsters, though, as you're suggesting.'

Clare Reynolds' cigarette was almost singeing the filter, but still she did not extinguish it, conscious of just how low the supply was running. 'Autopsies must have been carried out on the remains that were found, so I'd imagine the existence of the mutant Black would easily have been determined.'

That may be so, but I was never privy to such knowledge.'

'So you say,' remarked Ellison.

"Why should I lie?' Dealey snapped back.

To protect yourself.'

'From what, exactly?'

The silence had an ominous hollowness to it.

Dr Reynolds quickly stepped in, striding to the desk and regretfully stubbing the meagre remains of her cigarette into an ashtray lying there. The real point is that if we're to deal with these overblown rodents we need to know as much about them as possible, and what poisons are most effective.'

'I promise you,' said Dealey, 'I know no more than I've already told you.'

The doctor's words were measured, each one a single capsule, as though she were speaking to someone whose slow-wittedness demanded uncomplicated syllables: 'Have you any idea how many mutant rats are living in the sewers?'

There can't be a great number, otherwise there would have been much more evidence of them.'

'How d'you explain the slaughter we saw outside?' said Fairbank. 'Just a handful couldn't have done that.'

Dr Reynolds looked around the room. 'Does anyone here know the breeding habits of rodents?'

A small man, unshaven and with skin nearly as pale as the white smock coat he wore, nervously raised a hand, almost as if the sudden limelight would shrivel him up completely. Clare Reynolds knew him as one of the shelter's caretakers-cum-maintenance men. 'It's - it was - my job to keep this place free of the buggers, being below ground en'all, with the tunnels nearby, and the drains. Never had any big uns, though, not like you're sayin'.'

'But you have some knowledge of rodents?' the doctor urged.

'No, not much, not really. 'Cept I read a bit about 'em when the Black uns were runnin' riot around London. It made it a bit iffy bein' down 'ere, y'know?' He tried a grin, but the others were more interested in hearing what he had to say than in joining in.

Well, I know all rats breed five, mebbe more, times a year and can have as much as twelve in a litter.'

'He's talking about normal rats,' Dealey hastened to say. 'As I understand it, the breeding ability of the mutant was nowhere near as great as the ordinary rodent's. One can only assume its very uniqueness played some part in its reproductive output'

'It's just as well,' someone else remarked. 'Otherwise the sewers would have been over-run with them years ago.'

Other voices murmured mutual alarm.

Dr Reynolds addressed herself to the caretaker once more. 'Have you seen any indications of these larger-sized rats over the years?'

The small man shook his head. 'Can't say that I have. I've

killed off a few of the other kind, but I couldn't say this place has been plagued with 'em.' Scratching his nose reflectively he added, 'Surprisin' really, considerin' the amount of outlets - pipes and cables and tubes and things. Poisons have kept 'em down, I suppose.'

'Have you ever used gas?' Clare Reynolds asked. She had seated herself against the edge of the desk, arms folded, back towards Strachan and Ellison.

Farraday answered the question. That wouldn't have been allowed, not with so many people working in the vicinity. Besides, gas is only normally used in sewers.'

Clare craved another cigarette, but she had just used up that hour's ration. 'It's only that I found a proprietary powder among the supplies, the kind that produces hydrogen cyanide when exposed to dampness.'

'I don't see where this is getting us,' said Ellison. 'If we're going to leave the shelter we won't have to bother with putting down poisons. When we get on the outside we'll have guns to protect us.'

Dr Reynolds whirled on him. 'Do you really think that kind of weapon would save you if a pack of rats

- or even a pack of rabid dogs - attacked you? It's about time you faced up to the truth of the situation, you idiot—'

Ellison pushed back his chair, but did not rise. 'Look, just because you're a doc—'

Culver did rise, but it was a tired movement. ‘You figure out what you're all going to do, I don't give a shit one way or the other. I've told you what it's like out there, so you can make your own choice. As for me, I'm beat.'

Fairbank stood as if in agreement.

Both men made their way towards the door and Culver turned before pushing his way through the throng. 'One thing I remembered when you were discussing the bodies that had been recovered from the sewers over the years.' He ran a hand around the back of his neck, twisting his head to relieve a creeping stiffness. 'I don't know what it means, or even if it's particularly relevant, but I noticed something odd about a lot of the bodies we found on the escalators and in the station itself.'

Kate Garner, already shocked by his revelations, felt a fresh shiver of anticipated dread rush through her. Could there really be anything worse to hear, more suffering to contemplate? Perhaps not, but what he told them added a touch of the macabre to an already horrific account.

The heads of many of the corpses were missing,' Culver said before leaving the room.

Something, someone, was pounding him. His name was being called from a long way off, drawing closer, insistent, piercing the sleepy folds of exhaustion he had drawn around himself.

'Steve, wake up for God's sake, wake up!'

Culver tried to push the tugging hands away, unwilling to relinquish the soft respite, but other parts of his consciousness were aroused, alerted, already instigating the waking process. He stirred in the narrow bunkbed and protested at the unrelenting prodding. Still fully clothed, too exhausted to remove them hours before when he and Fairbank had slumped onto the beds - stacked three-high in the men's cramped dormitory - he forced" his eyes open.

Kate's face hovered above him, its edges blurred by his own sleepiness. He blinked his eyes several times and the face finally focused.

'Steve, get up, right now,' she said, and her urgency quickly dismissed the remaining vestiges of tiredness.

He raised himself on one elbow, his head almost touching the bunk above. What is it?'

Noises intruded from the open doorway - shouts, even screams, and an all-too-familiar rushing sound; Fairbank was awake, too, on the opposite bunkbed, staring confusedly across. Culver recognized the background noise before Kate spoke.

The shelter's being flooded!'

His stockinged feet were over the side almost before she had time to give him room. Cold water swirling around his ankles completed his revival.

Where the hell's it coming from?' he shouted, grabbing his boots, the only items he'd bothered to remove before lying down, and pushing his soaked feet into them. Opposite, Fairbank was following suit.

The well!' Kate told him. The artesian well has flooded. The water's pouring through.'

Culver did not take the time to wonder how such a possibility could occur - with the damage sustained to the surface and the sewers below, it required little reasoning to understand how the earth's very structure could easily have been harmed; he stood, Kate rising with him, and stepped out into the corridor, water dragging at his feet.

Wait!' Kate grabbed his shoulder. There's worse—'

But he had already seen with his own eyes.

Water gushed towards him from the opening further down the corridor, the switching unit area, figures thrashing around in the bubbling torrent, fighting against the flow. There were other shapes in that churning mass, though; sleek black projectiles that torpedoed through the water, seeking targets.

Culver watched almost in fascination as one rat reached its victim and clambered up the unfortunate man's leg, claws tearing as they gripped, open jaw reaching upwards, ready to clamp tight when they reached their goal. The man tried to hold the creature away, but its impetus was too great and the victim too unsteady on his feet. Culver saw the rat nuzzle beneath the man's chin, a spurt of blood immediately jetting outwards, the man falling, the water around him churning red.

Kate and Fairbank were behind Culver, the girl clinging to the pilot, the engineer bracing himself against the doorframe.

'How did they get in?' yelled Fairbank.

'Maybe from the well, maybe from the pipe inlets!' Culver was pushed aside as two figures, a man helping a panic-stricken woman, splashed their way down the corridor, something black following in their wake.

Culver, Kate and Fairbank shrank back into the dormitory and watched another of the water-sleek rats skim by. They heard distant gunshots.

'I thought these shelters were supposed to be impregnable,' Culver said to Fairbank.

This is a communications centre as well as a shelter - I suppose it was never completely sealed off.'

The girl tugged at Culver's sleeve. The water level's rising. We have to get out!'

'It'll be okay,' Fairbank told her. 'I don't think we'll be completely flooded.'

'D'you want to stay and take the chance?' Culver asked. He peeked around the doorframe into the corridor again. The flow seemed even more forceful than before. He turned back to say something to the others when suddenly the lights dimmed.

For a few frigid seconds the light fluctuated between dim and bright before settling for bright once more.

Fairbank cursed. 'If the generator goes, we're really in trouble. We won't even have emergency lighting.'

Culver pulled Kate closer to him. Where were Dealey and the others when you last saw them?'

'Back in the Operations Room, still fighting it out between them.'

'Okay, that's where we'll head for.'

•Why there, for fuck's sake?' Fairbank demanded to know. 'Let's just get outa here.'

"We need weapons, that's why. We won't stand much chance without them. We can cut through the carrier section, then back to the Operations Room.'

Fairbank shrugged. 'Okay, lead on.'

He waded over to a metal locker and reached for a heavy-duty lamp perched on its top - torches and lamps were kept all around the shelter for lighting emergencies. We may need it,' he said and all three hoped they wouldn't.

Culver fought for balance as he stepped back into the corridor. One hand stretched for the far wall as the water, now past his knees, endeavoured to unbalance him. Kate held on to his other arm and Fairbank kept close behind, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure no dark creatures were swimming towards them. Something nudged the back of his leg and he was relieved to see it was only an empty shoe. Ownerless, it swept by.

Sparks suddenly sprouted from machinery just ahead. 'Christ!' Fairbank shouted. 'If it goes, we'll all be electrocuted!'

The other two heard him but no reply was needed. Culver just hoped that someone had the sense to shut down all the unnecessary machinery. He pushed between two towering racks of telecommunications equipment, pulling Kate in with him. Fairbank, still busy looking over his shoulder, would have passed the opening had not Culver reached out and yanked him in. Figures raced by at the other end of the narrow alleyway they had taken refuge in.

'Looks like they're making for the door to the Underground tunnel!' Fairbank shouted over the noise.

That might make matters worse,' Culver replied and Fairbank understood what he meant. The flooding in the

tunnel could be even greater than before. A deeper sense of dread surged through them, for they realized that was their only way out.

Culver pushed on, setting himself only one objective at a time, the acquisition of firearms being the first.

Guns would give them some protection against the rats, though they would be useless against too many.

Then perhaps they could find high ground - on top of machinery possibly - where they could be above the water level and in a position to hold off any clambering vermin. Culver knew that the Exchange had two other entrances, but both had been sealed by fallen buildings; how the government planners had been so stupid as not to have foreseen such an event, he could not fathom -perhaps they felt the tunnel exit was safeguard enough.

He stepped out from the narrow, machine-created passage into a wider area where the crushing water had become a torrent. On the opposite side was a metal catwalk, just seven or eight feet above floor level, which enabled the engineers to reach the upper parts of communications equipment built into the wall there. If they could get to the catwalk ladder just a few yards ahead of them, then the narrow platform would provide an easy passage for some considerable distance. Culver pointed to the ladder and the others nodded vigorously, failing to see the black vermin that raced towards the pilot.

One was on his shoulders before he had even realized it had clawed its way up his body. Another bit into the hem of his short, leather jacket as he pitched forward into the water.

Kate screamed, involuntarily shrinking back into the slightly calmer current of the passageway they had just passed through. Culver's body thrashed around in the water, two scrabbling black shapes clinging to it, a wild foam created around them.

Fairbank leapt into the melee, raising the heavy-duty lamp high and swinging it down onto the back of the creature that was about to tear into the pilot's neck. He thought he heard the rat squeal in pain, but the overall noise was too great to be sure. Its grip loosened and Fairbank, now on his knees, water seeping around his upper torso, swung at it again. The rat fell away, but immediately lunged for its assailant.

Culver coughed water, aware that the paralysing grip around his neck had been released, but not understanding why. He pushed himself upwards, bursting through the foamy surface. Spluttering and gasping for air, he tried to regain his feet, but something else encumbered him, something that dragged at his jacket like a lead weight, one with sharp, scudding claws. Almost without thinking he slipped an arm from the jacket, turned, and used the tough material to smother the thrashing rat He bore down, water cascading over his back and shoulders, using his weight to keep the lethal-clawed creature below the surface.

The vermin's strength astounded Culver and it was all he could do to keep a grip around its squirming shoulders. He could feel its head twisting round beneath the surface, trying to reach him with those razor teeth, and he was glad the tough leather of the jacket provided some barrier. But his hold was slipping; he could feel the rat slithering from beneath him. Drawing in a huge breath, Culver lunged down, covering the animal entirely with his own body, using his full weight, fighting the current and the rat, both trying their best to dislodge him, natural force combining with animal strength as if in league against man himself.

Culver clenched his hands tighter around the wriggling bundle underneath, resisting the grey, swirling claustrophobia. Huge, single bubbles of air fought their way from beneath the jacket, becoming a frothy stream of efferves-cence, finally exploding into a gush of larger bubbles as the struggles beneath him grew weaker, began to fade, became almost still. Ceased.

He rose up, his own lungs spurting their protest, falling backwards, rising again, trying to gain his feet.

Arms reached for him, and he gratefully used Kate's support to draw himself up. Before he had fully risen, he saw Fairbank's head just above water, resting against a bank of machinery, hands desperately holding away the snapping jaws of a mutant rat. Culver realized Fairbank must have pulled the animal off him, and now the creature had turned its attack on the engineer himself. Culver plunged for the animal, rage burning inside, loathing for these grotesque creatures overcoming the fear.

He pulled at its body, gripping it beneath the shoulders, heaving and taking the weight from Fairbank's bloodied chest. The engineer twisted free, keeping his hands around the rat's throat. They could see its snapping teeth below the surface, the evil slanted eyes staring at them with a malevolence that held no fear, no acceptance of its inevitable fate, no surrender.

The two men pressed hard, Culver using one knee to pin the powerful hindquarters, avoiding the frenzied claws that turned the water white with their scrabbling. They slowly pushed the head down until it was against the floor, both men relieved they could no longer distinguish those glaring, hate-filled eyes.

Air rose to the surface and it was fetid, an evil smell befitting the monster it escaped from. Soon the creature no longer struggled, no longer twitched. They released it and the body drifted away with the current.

Culver and Fairbank rose, breathless and shivering, both leaning back against the machinery. Kate allowed them no respite.

'It's getting deeper!' she cried. We have to get away from here!'

Culver blinked water from his eyes and looked back along the wide corridor in the direction of the Operations Room. It was not just the rising water that alerted him further, for where the corridor opened out to accommodate the repeater power plant there was total chaos. Figures attempted to run through the water, fleeing from the vermin which skimmed towards them. One of the engineers held what looked to Culver like a submachine gun and was desperately fiddling with its mechanism as though unable to understand how it operated, while a rat stealthily crept along the top of a bank of lifeless television monitors behind him.

Culver shouted a warning, but the man was too far away and the noise too great for him to hear. The rat's front paws slid over the edge of the monitors and it quivered there, held by its huge hindquarters, tensing itself to leap. It sprang, jaws open and aimed at the back of the engineer's exposed neck. The jaws closed almost completely as the incisors crunched into the cervical vertebrae.

The man's mouth opened in a scream, the scream lost in the clamour of other sounds; his back arched and his arms were thrown outwards. The gun, too late, fired. Bullets sprayed, thudding into the ceiling, tearing into machinery, causing minor explosions and spark showers. The firing continued as the man sank into the water, reaching lower targets, his fellow engineers and one or two women who were among them.

The water frothed as he disappeared, the submachine gun becoming silent once more. The man rose just once, his back crimson with his own blood, the rat still clinging fiercely, before sinking to his death.

Only the rodent's snout broke

surface again, thwarted of its prey by the lack of air; it glided off in search of fresh victims. Of whom there were plenty.

Light abruptly faded, returned, faded again, then remained a dim twilight for long, terrifyingly long, seconds. Something shattered in the complex machinery, an explosion of glaring light and blue smoke.

They saw the flame lick and looked aghast at each other.

This place is finished, Culver!' Fairbank shouted. We've got to get out – now!'

The lights revived, then flickered before they resumed their normal brightness. Culver saw the dark shapes gliding from the narrow passageway they had themselves used only minutes before.

'Onto the catwalk, quick!' He grabbed Kate and pushed her ahead of him, wading through what had now become a wild bubbling waterway.

Fairbank noticed the rats - three, four, five, oh Christ, six of them! - swimming from the gap. Had he looked up he would have seen many others crawling through the wires and machinery behind them. He raced after Culver and the girl, taking big strides in the current, arms outstretched to maintain his balance.

Kate reached the metal ladder leading up to the catwalk and Culver, with a brusque push, urged her to climb. He looked to see if Fairbank was with them and drew in a breath when he saw the closely-packed group of rats bearing down on the engineer.

Clinging to a lower rung of the ladder, Culver stretched out his other arm towards Fairbank. 'Hurry!' he yelled.

The engineer must have seen the warning in Culver's eyes, for he made the mistake of turning his head to look behind. He staggered when he caught sight of his pursuers.

A deluge of water surging from the opposite direction saved him.

Culver realized that someone, in an effort to escape the flooding shelter, had opened the door to the railway tunnel allowing more floodwater to pour in. Now they did battle with the contraflow, a fresh sweeping tide that met and pushed back at an opposing force, creating a violent meshing, a rolling turbulence.

He just managed to grab Fairbank's outstretched hand before the tidal wave submerged him. The vermin were swept back, twisting and squealing in the foam, kicking out frantically with useless paws as they were smashed into machinery and tossed like flotsam along the wide corridor.

Culver tugged at the dead weight, its pull nearly wrenching him from the ladder. Water cascaded over him, taking his breath away, blurring his vision. Resolutely he drew the floundering engineer towards him while Kate watched helplessly from above. Fairbank half swam, half waded towards the ladder, his feet constantly slipping from beneath him, but aided by Culver's firm grip. He gratefully grabbed a ladder rung when he was within reach and hauled himself forward until he was able to cling there without Culver's help. Bald patches showed through his soaked hair and there were deep lines in his face that had never been evident before. There was a bulbous quality to his eyes that registered shock, yet still he managed a panting grin. He uttered something that Culver couldn't catch and pointed with his eyes to the top of the ladder.

'You first!' Culver yelled and Fairbank did not argue.

Kate, already on the catwalk, helped him up the last few rungs. He lay there, gasping for breath, like a floundering fish just hooked from the river. .

Culver watched as other bodies were swept past, their

impetus too great for him to reach out and pull them in. The floodwater wasn't too deep yet - perhaps just below chest level - so they would have a chance provided they were not knocked unconscious by unyielding objects. The waters should settle down to a degree once both flows had ceased to fight against each other. The big question was, how flooded would the underground shelter become? Would it be completely filled, or would the level gradually subside? He wasn't keen on waiting to find out.

He climbed the ladder, perching on the edge of the opening for a few moments to catch his breath.

Looking back, he saw the water still raged along the corridor from the section where the tunnel door was housed. Anything loose was flowing with it, and that included more bodies. Culver clambered to his feet and pushed his arm through the jacket sleeve that was still hanging loose.

The catwalk was narrow, just wide enough to take one person at a time, the railing on the outside single and frail-looking. The grilled walkway beneath them trembled with their weight.

Fairbank was already up, but still gasping. He squeezed past Kate and began to make his way along the catwalk, heading in the direction of the Operations Room. Culver wiped strands of hair away from the girl's frightened eyes, then nodded after Fairbank. She moved, clutching at the railing with one hand, her fingers never losing contact with it. Culver followed, gently urging her along, his eyes constantly alert.

He shouted a warning when he saw the creeping thing on the conduits above Fairbank's head.

The rat dropped, but the engineer was ready. He caught the creature in mid-air, its weight sending him back against the wall of instruments, slashing teeth just inches away from his face. Fairbank heaved the abomination from him, his

strength gained from sheer fright, and the rat hurtled over the railing into the waters below.

There were more dark shapes crawling through the pipe network and wires in the ceiling, and the three bedraggled survivors wasted no more time in moving along the thin, precarious platform. Ahead, they heard the sound of machine-gun fire.

Dr Clare Reynolds had just finished her third cup of coffee and fourth cigarette when the water had poured into the canteen. Sick and tired of reasoning with the rebel engineers, who were now adamant about leaving the refuge despite the dire warnings, dismayed at the continuing duplicity of Dealey - a small example of this was his insistence that there were ample drugs and medicines to provide for virtually any situation, any illness or epidemic that might break out among them, all of which was blatantly untrue; yet he had persuaded her to keep quiet over the inadequacies of the medical supplies 'for the good of all', as he put it - Clare had forsaken her rigid rule of cigarette rationing for the moment. What the hell, if the shelter was abandoned, there would be a glut of tobacco among the ruins upstairs and never enough people to smoke it all. She supposed it wasn't much of an example for someone in her profession to be setting, but that had never bothered her in the past, so why now? The message would have to read differently from this point on: danger:

GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING: CIGARETTES AND RADIATION can seriously damage your health. And hydrogen bombs can burn you from existence, disease and malnutrition can give you time to think while you fade. She had stubbed out half of her cigarette and lit another.

The powdery ash in the small dish before her seemed

symbolic of all that was left. She stirred it with the glowing tip of her cigarette and it was insubstantial, a miniature pulverized waste. Like her own shattered life.

It was funny how people seemed to dismiss the personal emotions of certain professions - an airline pilot was supposed to think only of his passengers' lives in a crisis, never his own; a priest wasn't allowed to brood on personal problems, only on those of his parishioners - and the medical profession (vocation, some would call it) evoked a similar regard. A doctor was not a machine, but they functioned on a level higher than normal human emotion. Or were supposed to. The attitude could be even more outrageous: a doctor would never catch leprosy through treating lepers, would never develop lung disease by helping sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis, would never catch a cold from a sneezing patient. They were supposed to be immune. She allowed a small ironic smile as she remembered one or two doctors she had known who had succumbed to mild doses of herpes.

Physically and mentally they were meant to be a race apart. But—

(How many psychiatrists had mental breakdowns? Plenty.)

(How many priests committed grievous sin? Enough.)

(How many lawyers despaired at court injustices? Well, there were always exceptions.) People failed to see beyond the robes of office, the professional façade. Few cared to - they had their own problems, which was usually why they came in contact with the other professions anyway. Only one person in the shelter had concerned herself with Clare's personal loss, and that was Kate Garner. In fact, more than once they had cried on each other's shoulders. No one else had even asked.

She huffed steam onto her spectacles and wiped them with a piece of tissue. There were others in the canteen, but an empty coffee cup and a half-filled ashtray on the yellow Formica table top were her only companions. Still, that was of her own choosing. Although there was a high degree of casualness in her medical manner, she retained a studied measure of aloofness, a mild authority that forbade disintegration on either her part or those around her. It was a role she played to the hilt, a beautiful performance by any standards - Olivier's or Kazan's - but one that was slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to crumble, her dreams the sly and guileful wrecker. For the dreams sent Simon to her, presenting him as whole, complete, approaching in his own easy, restful way, brushing aside with casual waves of his hand each gossamer veil that was somehow not of material but of hazy smoke layers, speaking her name softly, lovingly, and sometimes reproachful that they had been apart for so long, and he would draw nearer; yet she could not move towards him, could only reach out with her arms, her hands trembling and eager, tingling with anticipation, fingertips sending forth an aura that only the Kirlian process could register, strands of loving magnetic energy drawing him inescapably closer to her, until just a few veils drifted between them. In the dreams, his figure, his mutilated body, would grow sharper, its abnormalities focused, the empty eyes where small things glutted, the fleshless grin that was only a grin because the lips were not there to give expression, for they had burned away with other parts of his body, gone with tissue, muscle, leaving bones that were charcoaled black, his clothes tattered and gaping, still hanging loosely from his frame, an incongruous ball-point pen protruding from his lapel pocket, tie dangling like a limp noose from around the bones of his neck as though he had just been cut down from the gallows.

And the

hand, the skeletal hand that had so casually brushed aside the veils of atomic vapour, would reach towards her, palm outstretched to take her hand, bones clicking - rattling -with the movement. The faceless skull that had his hair, although there were only thin, windblown strands left, but they were his colour red, his laughingly carroty red, swaying before her, the mouth opening as if in greeting, the bugs that fell from the widening jaw—

Clare's glasses fell with a clutter onto the yellow table top. Others in the canteen looked around in surprise and resumed their own conversations when she quickly donned the spectacles and tapped her cigarette into the ashtray.

Her eyes blurred behind the lenses and the gesture of fiercely inhaling cigarette smoke enabled her to keep some control. Simon, her husband, her constant friend and never-failing lover, was dead. The cruel dream only confirmed what she already knew, for there was a hurting loss inside her that transcended any need for evidence. It was intuition based -and she had to face it - on a pretty conclusive presumption.

Simon, who was - had been - a surgeon, a saver of lives, a giver of hope, a cutter-away of malignancy, had been on duty at St Thomas's on the day of the bombs, and she knew, she positively knew, he would have had no chance. The initial Shockwave would have demolished the building totally. God rest you, Simon my love, I pray it was instant.

When she had woken screaming from the first nightmare, Kate had been there to hold her, to rock her in her arms until the shaking had calmed and the corpse image had retreated to the shadows just beyond her own rationality. Others had stirred in the small dormitory the few women survivors shared, but nightmares and screams in the night were commonplace; they turned on their sides and went back to sleep. She and Kate had shuffled their way down to the

canteen where lights were always kept burning (others in the shelter worked on dimmers to conserve energy, and were kept to a minimum during the sleeping hours) and coffee always on the boil. They had talked for hours, Clare laying her particular ghost for that night, not then knowing it was to return on other occasions. Kate's sympathy and her understanding were something to be cherished, their role-reversal a switch that Clare needed and appreciated. Tomorrow she could be stolid, unbreakable (if a little cynical) Dr Reynolds once more; that night she was a frightened, lonely woman who required a shoulder to cry on, a friend to listen.

It had been - how long? Four weeks? - trapped inside this sterile sanctum, an eternity of minutes and seconds, of vacuous moments, of torment-filled hours. Perhaps they were right in wanting to leave. Could life outside - could death -be worse than this limbo?

A man at a table nearby (she knew all their names, but couldn't for the life of her remember his at that particular moment) was leaning forward and stroking the hand of a woman opposite. The woman, who had previously worked in the Exchange's large switchboard area, smiled secretly at him, a plain smile that at another time would have held little lure for any man; things were different now, the balance had altered.

Any female body was a prize, no matter how awkward, heavy or even advanced in years. The situation had caused jealousies to spring up, rivalry to rear. Its very explosiveness had had much to do with the mutiny - no, mutiny was too strong a word, assertion was better; the assertion of the masses (ha! funny word under the circumstances) over figurehead authority - for it had increased tension, set the men on edge.

The man nearby was running his fingers lightly up and

down the fleshy part of the woman's arm in an overtly sexual manner, and Clare turned her head away, not in disgust, or envy, but because the gesture inspired certain thoughts that she had tried to ignore.

Thoughts that concerned her own sexuality.

The relationship between Simon and herself had been fulfilling on many levels, aesthetically and physically. He had never been a marvellous lover in certain terms, never a superstud, a cocksman, but he had been consistent and warning, and rarely, hardly ever, selfish. Their mutual professions were exhausting and demanding (and all-consuming, hence the lack of little Reynoldses) but they had their moments together, and oh such wonderful, giving moments. She had enjoyed their sex, but in the days, the weeks, following the disaster, she had not even thought of her physical needs, for nothing had stirred inside, not even in the loneliness of the sleepless nights, no hunger had caused any secret moistening, no breast tingle. Except in the dreams.

In the nightmares.

When her dead husband had come for her, had raised his skeletal hand to take hers, his body was burnt away, the parts not seared from his bones eaten by the squirming things that moved around inside him. Nothing left—

Except his genitals, the proud and erect penis that pushed from the tattered clothing and was the only part of him that was alive, that was not gristle, was not bitten into. The only part that throbbed with pulsing, life-giving blood.

She pushed the vision away, unnerved, more unsure, more vulnerable than at any other time. It was there in all the dreams, but never realized, until that small discreetly carnal gesture at the nearby table had released it. Oh God, it wasn't that important, it wasn't that important!

Clare knew that human survival instincts roused such

feelings, that imminent death inspired procreation in the living, but why now, why had it taken this long?

Because certain body appetites had eventually to be nourished, and particular tensions released. But that did not explain the obscenity of her dreams.

And then she understood, or at least thought she did. The world itself had become an obscenity, the things she loved and cherished destroyed or marred, somehow made impure. Contaminated. What was left to respect in the human race when you knew it had pulled the trigger on itself? What satisfaction from a work of art when it was reduced to ash? What joy in a cool breeze when killer particles floated with it?

What sustenance from another body when it was cold and rotting? Yet the need was still there, subconsciously stimulated by the annihilation above. They said Jewish couples made love in the tightly-crammed railway carriages on their way to Auschwitz, perhaps their subliminal way of attempting to cheat Death. Roman noblemen had encouraged their gladiators in sexual activities the night before arena combat, those old-time voyeurs confident that the preceding evening's sport would be as exciting as the following day's, so rampant would their fighters be. And hadn't snuff movies been the latest turn-on?

Clare tapped ash once more. She had even examined a corpse, impossible though it should have been, with a healthy erection.

She had to smile wryly at her own maudlin thoughts. Hell, why was she inventing excuses for her own naturally reviving horniness? She had gone a long time without and even grief could not hold it down forever. Ask any widow. Unfortunately, there was no man in the shelter she felt inclined to sleep with.

None at all. For, simply, she did not want a penis. She wanted warmth, loving, and touching. But not fucking.

A slight, though not alarming, bewilderment. A small amount of confusion in her emotions as she realized the only person she wanted for that warmth, that loving - and yes, that touching - was Kate Garner. The implication did not startle her although it troubled her a little, for lesbianism barely entered her thoughts - at least, it did not taint them. It was solace and caring she sought, and physical gratification played a minor, although integral, part. Doctor Indomitable, as she knew she had been dubbed, had her flaw (if it could be termed as such) and had at last exposed it to herself. She craved - no, too strong a word again - she wished, for comfort.

Sadly, she doubted it would be forthcoming, at least not wholly. Kate would provide comfort, but Clare was sure it could only be emotional, not physical. She smiled grimly; c'est le holocaust.

She stubbed out the cigarette, breaking it at the filter. Enough of this, Dr Reynolds. Others need your professional services. Time to close tight the self-scrutiny bottle; you can take a few snorts later, in private. Alistair Bryce needed checking again (oh God, how he would soon be suffering!) and there were one or two who needed their nightly sedation (perhaps on this particular night, she would allow herself a couple of pills). Luckily, the dosimeter badges of the three men who had returned from their venture into the grave (some joke, some pun!) new world had not registered any severe radiation, so Bryce's wounds, if not his condition, should be controllable. If not, she held no reservations about helping him ease his way out. She would prescribe her own 'Brompton Cocktail', a euphoric killer made up of heroin, cocaine and gin. Her medical supplies lacked the cocaine, but there were other ingredients that could take its place. No, if there was no choice, she would not let Bryce die in agonizing pain. And then there was still some convincing of others to be done, explaining further to certain stupid individuals the wisdom of remaining insi—

That was the moment Clare heard the shouts of alarm. Motion and conversation froze in the canteen as the few insomniacs and those still on duty (routine was still adhered to, although somewhat sloppily -

most of them should have been manning the communications systems rather than passing away the nightshift in the leisure area) listened and wondered. The floodwater announced itself by bursting through the swing-doors.

Pandemonium greeted the announcement.

Tables and chairs were swept back with the tide, cups dancing on the water like floating plastic ducks waiting to be hooked. The wave hit Clare, throwing her backwards onto the next table. She fell to the floor when this, too, was tipped over. She suddenly found herself fighting for air, her head crashing into something, stunning her. Other objects, other flailing arms and legs, were all around, unable to resist the deluge, tossed in its fierce tide.

Once the first wave had made its way down the length of the canteen, smashing itself against the far wall to turn back on itself, the very worst of its force spent, those people who could rise did so. Those who couldn't, the unlucky ones who had been knocked unconscious or whose limbs had been snapped, drowned in a few feet of rising water, unless their companions spotted them and dragged them to safety.

Clare Reynolds rose unsteadily, the choppy floodwater reaching a point just above her knees. Her spectacles were gone and blinking water from her eyes only improved her vision to a degree. A floating table bumped against her and she grabbed one of its upturned legs for support. It afforded little stability and she soon let the table drift away.

The water continued to cascade in from the open swing-doors and she was aware that there were only two ways out: through those doors or through the kitchen area next to it. If the canteen filled to a level of five or six feet, then whoever was trapped inside would most probably die there. She began to wade towards the exit. Others followed, keeping to the right-hand wall for support, pushing away floating chairs and tables, helping the injured.

The lights dimmed and a woman - possibly the same switchboard girl who had been making eye-contact love to the engineer earlier - screamed. Everybody became still for a few heartstopping moments before the power regenerated.

Clare breathed a sigh of relief and edged her way forward, keeping her back to the wall and legs stiff against the fast-flowing current. There was no one behind the wall-length kitchen window which acted as a self-service counter, and she could not remember if any staff had been on duty there when she had helped herself from the chrome coffee machine. Probably not, not at that time of night. Would it be easier to escape from that exit? The floodwater was rushing down the corridor so that its full force pushed against the canteen's swing-doors; the kitchen door was further back and to the side - the pressure would not be as great. It might just be the best bet, even though it meant crossing the worst of the current to get to the open counter.

She turned to the man directly behind her and shouted her intentions over the roar. He wiped water from his face and nodded agreement. Clare did a quick body-count of those in the canteen, several still floundering among the floating

furniture nine, ten, eleven. Eleven. That was it. And a few

floating face-downwards. Those who had survived the initial burst looked dazed and unsure. A sardonic thought flitted through her own fear: the choice of whether to stay inside or leave the shelter was no longer theirs. The problem now was, could they get out?

Clare Reynolds heaved herself away from the wall, splashing wildly as she struggled to keep her balance. The current was swilling around her thighs, tugging, pushing, a relentless bully. She almost slipped, went under, but strong hands held her. Clare looked up into the face of the man whom she had spoken to only a few moments before.

Thanks, Tom!' she shouted and added, We've got to get the others to follow. I'm sure we'll have more chance going through the kitchen.'

Others were following already, though, realizing what the doctor had in mind. Those too injured for rational thought were helped by colleagues and a human chain was soon formed across the room. The rising water had begun to swirl around the canteen in a whirlpool effect and the battered group had to avoid dangerous objects rushing at them.

A section of the chain went down, and the two men who had been carrying a semi-conscious woman between them were swept round in the vortex. One of the men managed to rise again, coughing and spluttering, but the other man and the woman disappeared beneath the jumble of canteen furniture.

'Keep going!' Clare yelled at those behind her. The water's still rising. We've got to get out before it's too late!'

It seemed an eternity, an inch-by-inch stagger through a foaming maelstrom, clinging to those who fell, preventing them from being swept away, but still losing one, and then two, then more.

Finally they were only a few feet away from the counter and Clare gratefully clutched at the shiny rail that served as a queue barrier. She hauled herself in, others who were near enough following her example, the water spilling almost

around their hips. Looking into the bright kitchen interior she noticed that the door at the far end was open wide. No matter, it would still be easier to get out that way.

The man next to her hoisted himself over the barrier and reached for the counter. Several others did the same, one actually ducking below the waterline to slip between the horizontal rails, coming up on the other side spitting water.

Clare had no intention of immersing herself intentionally and stood on tiptoe to slip over the top rail.

Tom helped her and as her legs returned to the numbingly cold water she reached out a shaking hand towards the counter. But stopped. And sagged back against the rail. And stared at the black creature as it scurried onto the yellow-topped counter.

Squatting there, sleek and black.

Watching her with deadly, slanted eyes.

Wet fur rising like sharp needles.

Claws splayed into talons.

To be joined on the yellow surface by another of its kind. And another. Another.

Clare screamed as the lights danced their crazy, tormenting flutter.

Ellison had never held a gun, let alone used one before that day. It was a new feeling to him and, he discovered, a pleasurable one. Many hours earlier, when they had taken the keys to the armoury from Dealey and had surveyed the range of weapons thoughtfully provided and updated by successive governments who had obviously been nervous of insurrection in the ultimate crisis, he had viewed the weapons with both fear and growing excitement, the dull shine in his eyes matching that of the black weapons themselves, a peculiar affinity in their muted glow.

Farraday, having spent several youthful years in army service (a conscript who had signed on for yet more), and who had maintained a keen interest in military hardware since, had given names to the various guns and somewhat reluctant instructions on how they worked.

There had been but one choice for Ellison. He had viewed the submachine gun with an excitement that almost bordered on sexual arousal, and the feel of its smooth body heightened that feeling. Its loading and operation were relatively simple, and Farraday warned more than informed that the 9mm Sterling submachine gun's effect was deadly, although not highly accurate. There was no denying the sense of power it gave Ellison, a feeling that his body aura had expanded, strengthened, the weight in his hands somehow relating to a

new consciousness of the weight between his legs. The psychiatrist who had divined that a gun acted as an extension of the penis might have had something. At least, if not an extension, it was a pleasing accessory.

Included in the small but comprehensive arsenal were self-loading rifles and 7.62mm general purpose machine guns, .38 Smith and Wesson model 64 revolvers, plastic-bullet firing rifles, stun grenades and CS gas canisters. There were other items such as infra-red intruder systems, portable communications apparatus, gas masks and even plastic shields, but it was the weapons that provoked the real interest.

Strachan, who had become unofficial leader of sorts to the engineers, did not bother to arm himself, but others in the group readily picked up weapons, peering down gun-sights and pulling triggers, laughing like schoolboys at the sharp clicks.

The guns had hardly been necessary for their minor 'coup', but Ellison and several others had been worried about the reconnaissance party's return and their attitude towards the take-over, particularly that of Culver, who during the weeks of confinement had remained an unknown quantity. He was friendly enough, but seemed indifferent to their arguments, their complaints. And there was something faintly daunting about the pilot, even though he seldom showed aggression. Perhaps he appeared too self-contained when the rest of them desperately needed collective support. It had been a relief that he had offered no resistance on his return to the shelter, for Ellison was by no means sure he could have pulled the trigger on the man, even though he enjoyed the power that went with the weapon. To threaten was fine, to actually kill was something else. However, times had changed (drastically) and Ellison was changing (rapidly). To some, after such mass genocide, one more death would be infinitely tragic, whereas to others it would have become insignificant. Ellison found himself leaning towards the latter point of view. To be ruthless was to survive, and he wanted, and how he wanted, to survive.

The nucleus of mutineers, those in fact who had incited the low-key revolt, had returned to the Operations Room to resume discussions with Dealey and the on-the-fence Farraday. Only Ellison had felt the need to carry a gun, not because he thought the confrontation would require its threat, but because it felt good to him.

Now, as water swirled around his waist, he had found a target. In fact, many creeping, darting, swimming targets.

He concentrated his fire on the rats that were above, crawling through the pipe and wire network or over the tops of machinery, the bullets thudding into soft bodies, screeching off metal, embedding themselves in the concrete ceiling. The vermin he hit were knocked squealing from their perches, plummeting down to thrash around in the fast-flowing water, red bloodstains billowing around them like octopus fluid. One creature somehow became entangled in wiring torn loose from its connection by stray bullets, and it writhed in mid-air, jaws snapping frantically, while electricity surged through its furry body.

There were more dropping onto the catwalk over Ellison's head and he waded into the corridor, breaking a path through the still-rising torrent, quickly reaching out for machinery on the other side to support him before he was swept away. He leaned back against a rack, legs braced firmly against the current, and began firing towards the shapes scuttling along the catwalk, only aware of the three people running up there with them as he squeezed the trigger.

Culver pulled Kate down as bullets spat into the ceiling

just a few feet over their heads. Fairbank had seen the figure below pointing the gun towards them as the lights had begun to flicker, and had ducked low, shouting a warning to his companions. He cursed loudly as something tore through the metal gridwork just a few inches from his left leg.

Something caused the narrow footway behind Culver to judder and he quickly turned. The rat was only a short distance away from his legs, a deadly grinning creature whose eyes glinted with malice, even though the lights dimmed. Culver tensed, waiting for the attack, ready to kick out at the vermin when it sprang forward. But the rat did not move. It lay hunched, teeth bared in a silent snarl, eyes glaring, yet no life in them. It lay dead.

Another black creature fell from overhead and Kate screamed as it landed on her back. It squirmed against her, neck twisting wildly and needle-sharp claws scratching at her clothing. Culver raised himself to his knees as the lighting soared to its full strength once more and winced when blood smeared Kate's torn blouse. He quickly realized that the blood was from the creature itself, pumping from its body in several places. Grabbing at the wet fur, careful to avoid gnashing teeth, he lifted the rat and tossed it between the thin bars of the railing, watching the wriggling beast until it disappeared into the water where its death-throes continued.

Mercifully, Ellison had ceased firing and was staring at him in alarm. Culver turned away to tend to the girl, but Fairbank leaned over to inform the man below of his considered, if screamed, opinion of him.

Kate was shaking as she clung to Culver, but when he lifted her chin to look at her face he saw no hysteria, just fear and perhaps despair. There was no time for comfort, no time for encouragement. The floodwater was still rising and the lights were liable to fail completely at any moment. He pulled her into a sitting position and spoke close to her ear. We've got to go back down into the water!'

Why?' Now there was panic in her expression. There's nowhere to go, we can't get out!'

'If we're going to stay above water level we'll have to find weapons to fight off the rats! And we'll have to do that before the water rises too high!' He failed to mention the black shapes he could see continuing to climb through the pipe network and wiring.

'Let me stay here!' she cried. 'I can't go back down there!'

Culver began to lift her. 'Afraid I can't do that.'

As Kate stood she realized why. She shrank away from Culver, her eyes searching out the black shapes creeping overhead, backing into Fairbank who was preparing to climb down a ladder close by.