Domain

roared, plunging towards the figures in the opening, pushing at fallen beams to get to them, wanting to feel their flesh open beneath his fingers.

The others heard the grinding sound and sensed the shift in weight over their heads.

'It's giving way!' Dealey screeched.

There was no need for further words. They moved as one away from the tearing, grinding noise above them, slowly at first, almost cautious as if haste would precipitate the avalanche; but as the rending and cracking became a co-ordinated rumble and the walls creaked outwards, they began to run blindly towards the rear of the building.

There had probably been screams from those trapped at the entrance, but they could not be heard as the rest of the building collapsed section by section about them. The inclination of Kate, Fairbank, Dealey, Ellison and Culver was to huddle beneath furniture or against pillars, but the crashing masonry and timbers followed them, driving them onwards, allowing no respite, jaws of an alligator snapping behind leaping toads. It was an insane jumble of movement and noise.

Kate fell, was up, not knowing if unseen hands had helped her, running, sliding, but never stopping, constantly moving ahead of the enormous surge, prodded by its cloudy draught. Towards light ahead, a sliver of light, a thin fraction of yellow-white. A door, still upright, slightly ajar, the building's lower portions protected by other buildings on the opposite side of the road, they themselves shorn of their upper floors.

Someone was pulling at the door from the inside, opening it wide, sweeping aside the clutter at its base; and Fairbank -she thought it was Fairbank - was ushering her through, telling her, she thought, to keep on running, the instructions inaudible, and she was outside, others crowding behind her, all of them running away from the crashing building, climbing the long slope of rubble opposite, not stopping until there was no breath left, no more energy to carry them on, until clouds of dust covered and choked them, making them fall and hide their faces, lying there and hoping, desperately praying that they were far enough away, that they could not be reached by crushing rubble. Waiting for the rumbling to diminish, to fade away, to stop.

And eventually, the tremors did stop.

Kate raised her head and wiped dust away from her face and eyes. Her body was at an angle, the horizon of the slope she had tried to climb ending abruptly fifty or sixty yards above her, broken parts of the building it had once been standing like monoliths along the ridge. Someone groaned nearby and she twisted to see a figure coated in what appeared to be white powder but which was, in fact, pulverized masonry, slumped as she was, and just beginning to move. It was Ellison.

Kate sat up. Below her was Dealey, he, too, barely recognizable under the dust layers. Much further down, Fairbank was beginning to rise, wiping his face with one hand, the other still clutching his axe, and turning to survey the demolition, much of the building's outer shell still standing -at least on their side.

There was no sign of Jackson and no sign of their pursuers and no sign of—

'Steve?' It was a mild question asked of the dust clouds. 'Steve!' This time Kate screamed the name.

The three men with her on the incline jerked to attention and looked at the rubble below with dismay.

No, not Culver, they needed him! The sudden loss made it clear in all their minds just how much they needed him. Dealey sat down on the slope and ran a hand through his thin and now powdery hair, his brow knotted in exasperation. Ellison shook his

head in despair; he hadn't liked Culver, yet had to admit there was something very reassuring about his presence. So much so, he wondered if they could survive without him. Fairbank's usual cheerful countenance was a mixture of grimness and incredulity, his eyes disbelieving, his mouth set straight, held rigid; Culver had come through too much to be killed in this stupid way. Kate was in shock, her senses numbed for the moment. She stared into the billowing clouds, listening to the smaller sounds of the fall-in's aftermath, the settling of stonework and glass, the sliding of objects and gravel; the tail-end of her scream had left her mouth open and her fists clenched tight before her.

The dust clouds slowly dispersed, taking with them the surrounding mist, until the scene was only thinly veiled by floating particles.

Kate broke down when Culver appeared from behind a mound that had once been a car, now half-buried in debris. Brushing powder from his head, shoulders and arms, he strode up the incline towards them.

Thought you'd lost me, huh?' he said.

It seemed that Kate's tears would never stop. The others sat some distance away, uncomfortable and anxious to move on, while Culver cradled her in his arms and did his best to stem the outpourings of her misery.

'I thought you were dead, Steve,' she managed to say between sobs. 'After everything else, I couldn't stand that.'

'It's nearly finished, Kate. We're nearly clear of all this.'

'But that can't ever be so. There's nothing left for any of us.'

We're alive. That's all that matters. You may think it's impossible, right now, but you've got to put everything else

out of your mind. Just think of living and getting through this mess; think beyond that and you'll go mad.'

'I'm close to it, Steve, I know I'm close to madness. I don't think I can take any more.'

He kissed the top of her head. ‘You're the sanest one among us.'

Her trembling was gradually subsiding. 'But what's left for any of us? Where can we go, what can we do? What kind of world's been left to us?'

'It might just be a peaceful one.'

‘You can say that after what we've been through this morning? And last night?'

This morning was to let us know that a holocaust doesn't necessarily change the nature of all men for the good. We've seen enough to know self-preservation can bring out the worst.'

The tears still flowed, but the shuddering sobs had stopped. "We realized that inside the shelter.'

‘Yeah,' he mused, 'there was a certain lack of camaraderie. But it grew from fear and desperation.'

Those people this morning didn't look desperate. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves.'

'Let's just say we've been knocked back a few thousand years to a time when other tribes are the enemy and certain breeds of animal are dangerous. We got through it then, we'll do it again.'

"You're hardly convincing.' Some of the colour was returning to her cheeks.

'I know. I don't believe it myself. But our ancestors may have had the right idea about one thing: they spent most of their time considering how to live, not why they were living. They were too busy finding food and building shelters to concern themselves with despair.'

Thank God I found the oracle to take care of me,' she sniffed. Culver smiled. 'All I'm saying is, concentrate your mind on here and now, and nothing else. The rest is too big to contemplate. Use Fairbank as an example: it's as if he's on autopilot. Maybe he'll crack up eventually, but it won't be until he's got time to, when he's in safer and more stable surroundings. As far as I understand him, he's not interested in yesterday, nor tomorrow. Only now, this moment, today.'

'It's unnatural.'

'Not for him. And not for these times.'

'But we have to think ahead if we're to live.' Her crying had stopped, and he wiped away the wetness, smearing the dirt on her cheeks.

*We think as far as a destination.'

We have one? You mean out of London?'

'Closer. You feeling a little better?'

She nodded. 'I'm sorry. I thought I'd lost you ...'

He kissed her lips. 'I'm the bad penny.'

You look terrible.'

You're no picture.'

'Are the others watching?'

They're trying not to. Why?'

'I need you to touch me.'

That's good. You're thinking for the moment'

'I'm thinking for several moments.'

'Does a good cry always make you feel raunchy?'

'More often than not.'

That's worth knowing.'

He kissed her then, and there was more than consolation in the touch. They broke away by mutual consent, neither one prolonging the sweet torment. A little breathless, Culver beckoned to the others.

'Ready to move on?' he asked them.

Waiting for you, pal,' Fairbank answered.

'Move on to where? I've been beaten almost to a pulp, dragged through the ruins and nearly crushed to death.' Ellison spat dust from his mouth in disgust. 'How much more do you think I can take?'

'None of us can handle much more, that's pretty obvious,' Culver told him, 'so you just be your usual charming self and we'll see what we can figure out.'

He looked out over the hazy ruins and wished he could see the full extent of the damage. The mist was clearing, but it was still impossible to see the small hills surrounding the rubbled city. He wondered what lay beyond.

'All right,' he said finally. We can try to make it out of what's left of the city on foot, finding food and shelter as we go. It doesn't look as if we're going to get any help from official sources and I doubt we'll find any Red Cross soup kitchens set up along the way.'

'But where is the government help?' Ellison snarled. 'Just what the fuck are they doing about all this?'

The devastation has been beyond all expectation,' Dealey began to say. 'It was all underestimated. No one foresaw—'

'No jargon, Dealey, no bloody officialese excuses!' Ellison's hand hovered threateningly over a brick by his side.

Fairbank stirred. 'Cut it out, Ellison. You're getting too much to stomach.' His words were all the more ominous for their quietness. He turned to Culver. What about the main government headquarters, Steve?

Wouldn't we be better off there?'

That's what I was coming to next. Our friend from the Ministry here and I had a quiet chat yesterday, and he disclosed some interesting details about the place. It seems it's impregnable. Bomb-proof, radiation-proof, and famine-proof.'

Teali, but is it flood-proof?' Fairbank rumbled darkly.

'Each section can be sealed by air-tight doors,' Dealey said.

You can get us in?' Ellison asked eagerly.

'He knows the entrances,' said Culver. We'll worry about getting inside when the time comes.'

Then you think we should make for the shelter,' Kate said.

Yep. Literally go to ground. It's our best bet.'

'I agree.' Dealey looked at them all individually. 'It's what I've advocated all along. Wait until the radiation has passed, then link up with main base.'

Ellison now had second thoughts. 'How do we know it really is safe? There's been no communication from them.'

Dealey answered. The fault must have been from our end, or somewhere between. Remember, we've had no contact with any of the other shelters, either. I think it's not only in our own interest to report to government headquarters, but it's also my duty as a civil servant.'

Fairbank gave him a tired handclap.

'It's a feasible choice,' said Culver. 'Agreed?'

The others nodded.

'Jackson?' said Kate.

Culver held her arm. 'He's dead, you know that. He had no chance in there.'

'It seems so cruel, after all he'd...' She let the words trail off, aware that they all sensed the futility.

Without further words, Culver helped her up and they all began to clamber over the ruins. They concentrated their efforts on not stumbling over treacherous masonry and avoiding fragile-looking structures, steering well clear of any open pits and fissures. Not far away, and protruding through the low mist, were the supports of the elegant Jubilee Hall,

beneath which had been the trendy shops and stalls of Covent Garden. Its very bleakness forced Kate to look away, for she had always known it as a lively bustling square, a favourite haunt of both tourists and young Londoners. The Aldwych was gone, its semi-circular buildings flattened, as was the once magnificent Somerset House, much of it tumbled into the Thames which it had backed on to. Surprisingly, protruding from the rubble was the steeple of St Mary-le-Strand, only the tip broken off. It presented an odd and perhaps ironic sight amid the devastation, but Kate, following Culver's advice, did not let the thought linger.

Climbing, sliding, and brushing away swarms of oversized insects, they steadily made their way towards the river. A walk that would have taken no more than five or ten minutes in normal times took them the best part of an hour. They became almost immune to the unpleasant sights they came upon, their minds learning to regard the image of mutilated, swollen and rotted corpses as part of the debris and nothing to do with human life itself. Vehicles, overturned, burnt out, or simply askew in the roadway, had to be skirted around or climbed over, their ghoulish occupants ignored. Nowhere did they find walking, moving people; nowhere was there anyone like themselves. They wondered if it were possible for so many to have been destroyed, yet when they looked around at the damage to the inanimate, they understood that very few people could have lived through such destruction.

'How much further?' Ellison complained. He was panting and one hand was clutched tight against his side as though ribs had been damaged in the beating.

The bridge,' Culver said, his own chest heaving with the effort. His cheek was caked with darkish blood and he had realized earlier that a pellet from an intruder's air-rifle must have scythed a path across it. The wound throbbed, as did

the rat-bites in his ear and temple, but no longer stung. The pain in his ankle was sharper, but did not hinder him too much.

'If we can get to Waterloo Bridge there's a staircase leading down to the Embankment. We can get to one of the shelter's entrances from there.'

They journeyed on and were shocked when they reached Lancaster Place, the wide thoroughfare leading up to Waterloo Bridge itself. They should have expected it, but somehow hadn't. And one more defilement to their city should not really have surprised them. The bridge was gone, collapsed into the river.

They looked towards its broken structure with new bitterness. The open space from bank to bank looked insanely empty. On the other side, the National Theatre was a mound of rubble.

'Please, let's not stop now,' Dealey implored, fighting his own inexplicable sense of loss. The steps may still be intact. They're in a sheltered position.'

They walked forward and it was strange, so very strange, like walking a gangplank towards the edge of the universe. The great, wide bridge stretched out over the river as if yearning to fingertip-touch the similarly outstretched section on the other side. Vapour rose from the swollen river, thicker here, and hanging heavily.

They looked towards the west and saw the broken shaft of Cleopatra's Needle.

'Oh, no,' Dealey moaned, for he was examining the area beyond the snapped monument.

Culver's forehead sank onto the wide balustrade overlooking the Embankment road.

'Steve, what is it?' Kate clutched at his shoulder. He raised his head.

The railway bridge.' He pointed. 'Hungerford Bridge.'

They saw that it, too, had collapsed into the river. The metal struts had broken in several places and it hung as if by threads, dangling into the river like a sleeping man's fishing rod, still loosely connected to the section on their side. This section had fallen onto the roadway, completely blocking it. The others looked uncomprehendingly at Dealey and Culver.

There was an enclosure, a compound, beneath the bridge,' Culver told them. 'A thick brick wall with barbed wire on the top. A mini-fortress, if you like. It's been destroyed by the bridge.'

His face set into grim lines and it was Dealey who explained. The main entrance to the shelter was inside that enclosure.'

From a distance the wreckage had looked simple, just a collapsed iron bridge, broken in sections so that one part formed a waterchute into the river, the midstream portions mostly submerged, concrete supports shattered in half. Close up, it was a complicated tangled mess of bent and twisted steel girders, scattered red brickwork, huge chunks of masonry, and riddled with cables and wires. A segment of railway line rose from the disorder like a ladder into the sky. An engine lay on its side among the jumble, carriages behind piled up in zigzag fashion, the rear compartments ripped off, the top of one protruding from the river. Culver made a point of not looking into the broken windows; he had seen enough dead for one day without searching out more. He guessed the train driver had made a desperate dash to reach the station, Charing Cross, in the hope that he and his passengers might find a last-minute refuge. Had the train been delayed on the bridge when the sirens had sounded, or was it far back on the southern side of the city? He imagined the race across the river, passengers chilled by the rising and falling sirens, helpless and depending on the driver to get them to safety. The murky grey-brown water below, the panoramic view of London, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament to the left, St Paul's in the distance to the right, renowned landmarks of an historical city that would soon

cease to exist. What must have gone through their minds in those last moments? Impotent rage, unable to help themselves, unable to run, hide, to be with loved ones? Or total, shocking fear that blanketed all thought, that paralysed their senses? It was obscenely terrible, the thought of their sterile waiting. The sudden emptiness as the sirens stopped, the terror of fellow passengers and the chuggajig of metal wheels somehow not filling the silent void. The incandescent flash that would have seared their eyeballs had they looked directly into it. The thunder that followed.

Culver shuddered. It was as though the souls of the dead were revealing their story to him, their horror still existing in the complex of torn metal, the last thoughts of the dying collected there, waiting to be absorbed by receptive minds. He shook his head, a physical act to disperse the notion.

'I know this place,' Kate was saying. The down-and-outs used to sleep under this bridge. There was a mobile soup kitchen every night. But I was never aware of any compound.'

Dealey spoke with some satisfaction. 'Nobody was meant to. It's surprising how anonymous and innocuous these enclosures are.' He corrected himself. 'Were. The tramps actually wrapped themselves in cardboard and slept against the very walls of the compound. They presented a perfect camouflage.

The bridge overhead was thought to be adequate protection in the event of a nuclear explosion.'

'Looks like someone goofed again,' Ellison said bitterly. 'Is there any way we can get through to the entrance?'

‘You can see for yourself. It's buried beneath hundreds of tons of rubble,' Dealey replied.

'But there are other places.' Culver was alert once more. ‘You told me there were other entrances.'

This was the obvious one, the one I planned to use. It was the most protected. The others are mostly inside government

buildings, and they, of course, will have been covered by the ruins, just as this has.'

They must have realized what would happen,' Fairbank said. They had to have other escape routes.'

'In the main, the other exits are outside what was considered the danger zones.'

Culver frowned. Wait a minute. Yesterday you told me there were other, smaller points of access along the Embankment.'

Yes, yes, that's true. But I'm not sure that we can get into them, even if they aren't covered by debris.'

'Can't we just knock?' Fairbank asked wryly.

You don't understand. These entrances are meant for maintenance inspection and are really only narrow shafts and tunnels.'

We're not choosy.'

Tm not sure we'll find a way into the main complex.'

'It's worth a try,' said Culver.

'How the hell do we get past all this?' asked Ellison, indicating the massive debris before them, then pointing towards the even bigger mass that was the destroyed Charing Cross railway station. 'I don't have the strength to walk around that lot -1 think a couple of my ribs are fractured.'

We'll work our way through here,' said Culver. 'It might be dangerous, but it'll save time. Are you up to it, Kate?'

She gave him a nervous smile. ‘Ill be fine. It's strange, but I feel so exposed out here.'

That's what comes from living underground for so long.'

"Yesterday it was different. I felt free, liberated, glad to be out of the shelter. Since this morning, though, since we were attacked...' She did not bother to complete the sentence, but they all knew what she meant; they shared her feelings.

Culver took her hand and led her towards the beginnings

of the wrecked bridge. The others followed and began to climb, Fairbank giving assistance to Ellison in the more difficult places.

'Keep away from anything that's loose,' Culver warned. 'Some of this junk doesn't look too solid.'

The smell of oil and rusting metal was everywhere, but it was a relief from the other odours they had been aware of that day. Culver chose the easiest route he could find, wary of touching anything unstable.

The climb was arduous in the damp heat, but not difficult. Soon they were on a level section, overlooking the continuation of the road they had just left. Culver paused, giving Kate a chance to rest and allowing the others to catch up.

Below, the wide roadway curving slightly with the river was jammed with scorched, immobile traffic.

Another road, equally wide, veered off to the right towards Trafalgar Square. The mist was minimal now, but Nelson's Column could not be seen. Victoria Embankment, running alongside the Thames, was relatively free of debris (apart from vehicles), for the offices on the north side had been set back from the thoroughfare, gardens and lawns between. As expected, the buildings were no more than crushed ruins: the Old War Office, the Ministries of Defence and Technology - all were gone. The Admiralty at the beginning of the Mall should have been visible since nothing obscured the view but, of course, that had vanished too. He briefly wondered if all the works of art in the National Gallery, which was on the far side of Trafalgar Square, had been destroyed beneath the deluge. What significance did they have in the present world, anyway? There would be little time to appreciate anything that was not of intrinsic material use in the years ahead. As he knew they would be, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, at the end of the road

he faced, had been totally destroyed. Peculiarly, the lower section of the tower housing Big Ben was still erect, sheered off at a hundred or so feet; the top section containing the clockface protruded from the river like a tilted, rock island. And again, surprisingly, only the southern end of Westminster Bridge had collapsed. It defiantly spanned the river, just failing to reach the opposite bank.

The sun's fierce rays sucked up moisture from the Thames, so that it looked as if the water were boiling. Somehow it appeared to him that here were the intestines of the city's torn body, exposed to the light and still steaming as all life gradually diminished. Masts of sunken, ancient boats, those that had been converted into smart bars and restaurants, jutted through the rolling mist. Pleasure boats, their surfaces and passengers charred black, drifted listlessly with the current, the longboat funeral pyres of a modern age. A stout wall, still unbroken, lined the riverbank, and the waterline was high, lapping over the small quaysides that were situated near the broken bridge. Much of the gardens on the other side of the road from the Embankment wall were buried beneath fallen office blocks, but here and there a tree stuck through the debris, protected from the worst of the blast by the very buildings shattered around them, leaves washed clean of dust by the constant rain, and flourishing under the humid conditions. Culver's eyes moistened at the sight.

Someone tapped his arm. Dealey pointed into the distance. 'Look there, you can just see it as the road curves.'

'D'you want to tell me what I'm looking for?'

'Don't you see it? A small, rectangular shape set in the pavement quite near the river wall.'

Culver's eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve got it. Like a tiny blockhouse, is that what you mean?'

That's it. That may get us inside the shelter.'

Culver shook his head. So many everyday sights, ignored, not even wondered at, all part of the big secret. He recalled mild curiosity when coming upon the odd ventilation shafts around the city, but always assuming they were for the Underground railway system or low-level car parks. It was only when viewed subjectively that they obtruded from the general background and took on a special significance - like the stockade over the Kingsway telephone exchange and the one they now stood over, crushed beneath Hungerford Bridge. He supposed the art of concealment was to make something commonplace, unnoticeable.

'Let's get to it,' he said and, containing their eagerness, they scrambled down from the wreckage.

The going was easier once they were on the ground, only human remains, carrion for colonies of feverishly crawling things, marring their progress. They had still not become used to the legions of insects, but fortunately the swarming droves were concentrated on less resistant entities.

They were passing over a long grating set in the pavement, when Fairbank brought them to a halt He knelt, peering down through the iron slats.

'Listen!' he said.

The others knelt around him and saw there were thick pipes running horizontally a few feet below ground level.

"What are they?' Kate asked, slightly out of breath.

Dealey told her. 'Ventilation pipes, conduits containing cables, wiring. The complex is directly below us.'

Fairbank hushed them again. 'Listen!'

They held their breath and listened.

It was faint, but definite. A humming vibration.

'Generators!' Ellison proclaimed excitedly.

They looked at each other, a gleaming in their eyes.

'Jesus, they're functioning.' Fairbank was triumphant. There are people down there!'

He and Ellison let out whoops of glee.

'I told you,' Dealey said, surprised at their outburst, but smiling nevertheless. 'I told you this was the main government headquarters. Didn't I tell you that?'

You told us that.' Kate was laughing.

Wait!' Culver held up a hand. 'Is it me, or is the sound getting louder?'

The group listened more intently, Fairbank putting his ear against the grille. 'Seems like the same pitch to me,' he commented after a few seconds. He twisted his head to look up at Culver.

But Culver was watching the sky.

The others noticed and followed his gaze.

The humming became a drone, a sound different from the one below them, and the drone grew louder.

There!' Culver stabbed a finger at the sky.

They saw the aeroplane at once, a dark smudge in the hazy sky, flying low from the west. Slowly, as if sudden movement would disperse the image, they rose to their feet, their faces upturned and with stunned expressions, none of them daring to speak.

It was Dealey who broke the silence, but only with a whisper. 'It's following the river.'

The aircraft was drawing nearer and Culver saw it was small, light.

'A Beaver,' he said, almost to himself.

The others looked at him in puzzlement, then quickly returned their gaze.

'An Air Corps Beaver spotter plane,' Culver expanded. 'On bloody reconnaissance - it has to be!'

The tiny aircraft was almost over their heads. Fairbank and Ellison began to shout as one, waving their arms to attract the pilot's attention. The others instantly joined in, leaping in the air, running back along the Embankment in a vain attempt to keep up with the machine, calling at the top of their lungs, flapping their arms, desperate to be noticed.

'Can he see us, can he see us?' Kate was clutching at Culver. 'Oh God, make him see us!'

Then it was gone, taking their spirits with it. They watched until it became a smudgy speck. They waited until it could no longer be seen.

'Shit, shit, shit!' Fairbank.

'He couldn't miss us!' Ellison.

'He may not have spotted us through the mist.' Dealey.

'It's clearer here. There's a chance.' Culver.

Weeping. Kate.

Culver put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. 'It doesn't matter whether he did or not.

We're safe now. Once we're inside the shelter, we'll be okay. And there's a whole tunnel network down there - a way out of London.'

'I know, Steve. It's just that for a moment we almost had contact with ... with ...' She found difficulty in choosing the right word. 'I don't know - civilization, if you like. Something beyond all this.' She gestured at the ruins.

We'll have real contact soon, I promise you that.'

'Do you suppose the plane will come back?'

Who knows. The pilot might choose another route; he'd want to cover as much ground as possible.'

She nodded and wiped a hand across her nose. 'It's my day for crying.'

He smiled. ‘You've pulled through so far. Just a little longer.'

They returned to the grille set in the pavement and passed over it, no longer interested in the faint thrumming sound emanating from its depths.

Reaching the grey-stoned block, they studied its rough surface, walking all around, bemused at first and soon worried.

Terrific,' Fairbank said, wiping sweat from the back of his head. 'No opening. How the fuck do we get inside, Dealey?'

The object, massive and dark, a strange monolith, remained impassive and seemingly impregnable. At least twelve feet long and five or six feet wide, it resembled a huge tombstone. Or a sacrificial altar, thought Kate.

There's a hole in the top,' Dealey announced simply.

The others looked at each other and Fairbank grinned. The stone blockade was six feet high, perhaps more, and the engineer had scrambled up before anyone else could move.

'He's right,' Fairbank called down. There's a part at the end here that isn't covered. It's cunning, you'd never know. And there's a door.' He pulled the axe free of his belt. 'It looks as if it's locked, but I think I can handle that.' White teeth split his grime-covered face in a grin as he surveyed them from his lofty perch. 'Care to join me?'

Culver stood below helping up the others, Fairbank pulling from above. He scrambled up after them and looked down into the opening.

What is this thing, Dealey? It can't be newly built.'

'No,' Kate said. 'I've passed this spot many times over the years and never even given it a second glance, never even wondered what its purpose was.'

'It was an air-raid shelter during the war,' Dealey told them, brushing away a buzzing fly and wiping his face with a discoloured handkerchief. 'At least, it led down to an air-raid shelter. I explained to Culver yesterday that the original

underground chambers, built many, many years ago, have been expanded through the decades.'

Well, we can see how much for ourselves,' said Ellison, growing impatient. 'For God's sake, let's get inside.'

'Right,' Fairbank agreed. He slipped down into the opening, and examined the lock. 'Don't you have a key?' he called back to Dealey, who shook his head.

'Not for this place,' he said.

'Okay, it shouldn't be too much of a problem anyway.' He swung the axe.

It took no more than four solid blows to open the door. It swung inwards and a chilling coldness sprang out like an escaping ghost.

Culver shivered. The dank cold seemed more than just released air. It brought with it a sense of foreboding.

The coolness inside was a relief from the humid atmosphere above ground. They descended the stone steps, Fairbank in the lead, axe tucked back into his belt. The air was musty, the smell of disuse, and the concrete walls were rough to the touch.

Fairbank paused. There's no light down here.' He rummaged in his pockets and passed back two small bright tubes. Ticked these up yesterday,' he told them. 'Figured they might come in handy for lighting fires.' He flicked on the cheap throwaway lighter he had kept for himself. The flame, weak though it was, gave some comfort.

Culver passed his over his shoulder to Ellison, who was bringing up the rear.

‘I’ve got one,' the engineer said. 'Maybe you'd better pass it down to the front, though, and let me have one of those midgets.' He handed the lighter to Culver, who passed it on. 'It's the one I found yesterday,'

Ellison explained. The flame's stronger.'

They continued, the lighter casing growing hot in Fair-bank's hand. Their footsteps were hollow-sounding and loud. It was a long climb down and, inexplicably, Culver's unease increased with every step. He wondered if the others felt the same. Just below him, Kate let both hands slide against the close walls, as if afraid she might stumble and fall. Her

hair was tangled, dark in the feeble lighter glow, and her shirt was torn and still covered with dust. He squeezed her shoulder and she briefly touched his hand with her fingertips, but did not turn around.

Fairbank eventually stopped and brushed away cobwebs from the opening before him.

There's a big room here.' His words had a slight echo. He waved the light ahead of him. 'Seems to be empty.'

They crowded in behind him, branching out so that their lights covered more of an area. Other rooms led off from the first chamber and Ellison poked his head through a doorway to one.

'Nothing,' he pronounced, disappointed.

This one too.' Fairbank was at another doorway.

They're all empty,' said Dealey, walking to the far end. This is just part of the old air-raid shelter system. As you can see, it hasn't been used since the last war.' He reached an opening and called back to them. This way.'

They quickly hurried to him and he led them through what seemed a labyrinth of corridors with empty rooms branching off. He finally stopped beside a square doorway set into the wall two feet from the floor.

We'll need your axe again to force it,' he said to Fairbank.

The engineer slid the sharp end of the tool into the crack, close by the lock. He exerted pressure and the door easily snapped open. Inside they could see thick piping, some at least a foot in diameter, and heavy cables. The thrumming was louder, more distinct than when they had listened at the grille above ground.

'Maintenance entry,' Dealey said by way of explanation as he stepped through.

Inside, the narrow corridor with its wall of pipes and cables extended in both directions. Dealey took them to the right.

‘You sure you know where you're going, Dealey?' came Ellison's voice from the rear.

'Not a hundred per cent, but I think this way should take us close to the new complex.'

The darkness and the narrowness of the passageway began to have a claustrophobic effect on Kate.

Outside she had felt exposed; down there she felt threatened. She kept close to Culver, who was now in front of her.

Dealey had stopped once more and was kneeling, holding the small flame towards a two-by-two-foot grid in the floor. He inserted his fingers between the meshwork and pulled; it swung open like a trapdoor.

They saw metal ladder rungs disappearing downwards.

'It should take us down to shelter level.' The warm glow from the tiny flames softened Dealey's features, but to Culver the man looked ten years older than when he had first laid eyes on him. Odd that he'd only just noticed.

Culver squeezed past Fairbank and knelt on the opposite side of the opening to Dealey. 'How far down does the shaft go?'

Tm not sure. We must be fairly near.'

'Is it safe?'

Dealey looked at him sharply.

'Vermin, I mean,' Culver said.

They all tensed in the silence that followed.

Finally, Dealey said, There's no way of knowing. But what other choice do we have?'

The usual. None at all.'

Culver went in first, exchanging his weaker lighter for Fairbank's and wincing at the hot metal. He climbed down, holding the lighter between thumb and index finger, his other fingers curled around the upright support so that both hands were used. The shaft was circular and metallic, and the hum of machinery grew louder the lower he went, although it was still muted. He heard the others climbing into the shaft after him. It seemed a long time before he touched down in another passageway, this one wider than the one he had just left. Some of the piping and cables ran along its ceiling. There was water on the floor.

Dealey reached him, then Fairbank, followed by Kate. Ellison arrived clutching his side and breathing heavily. 'Christ!' he uttered when his feet became soaked.

'Maybe this place was flooded, too,' said Fairbank.

'I doubt it,' Dealey replied, touching the walls. They're not damp. Very cold, and I suppose dankish, but you'd expect that at this temperature. Not soaked, though. I think the water on the floor is just seepage, nothing to worry about.'

'Nowadays, when a government man tells me not to worry, I worry,' Fairbank retorted without rancour.

Culver held his light to the left, then to the right. Which way?'

'It probably doesn't matter. These maintenance corridors skirt the headquarters; they're part of a larger system that protects the main shelter. Either way should lead us somewhere useful.'

'Okay, let's take the left.'

They went on, splashing water, all of them becoming chilled with the cold. There were one or two turns in the passageway, but never right-angled, only bearing to the right, then reverting to the previous direction. Culver guessed they were still heading west, although he admitted to himself he could be entirely wrong. They passed ladders leading up into other shafts and, here and there, large junction boxes into which the cables and wires disappeared, to emerge on the other side. The flames the men carried were fading.

Fairbank's was the first to shrink to nothing. He tossed it away and they heard the plop as it struck water.

Dealey's was next.

Soon they were groping their way along, barely able to see, hands against the walls for guidance. The idea of trying to find their way in total darkness terrified them all. Culver heard the trickling of water just ahead, but there was not enough light to see where the sound came from. He discovered its source when the ground felt different beneath him. He crouched.

There's a drain here.' He felt with his fingers, cold air was rising from the slats. 'Looks like quite a big one.'

'It'll lead down to the sewers,' said Dealey. 'Being so near the river, there must be a constant seepage into the tunnels.'

'Steve, let's keep moving while we still have light,' Kate urged.

He straightened and they moved on.

Ellison stared miserably at his sinking flame and drew in a sharp breath when it finally went out. A little further on, Culver stopped again and cupped a hand around his lighter, the only lantern they had left.

Ellison bumped into Dealey. What the hell are you doing?'

'Shut up.' Culver was peering ahead into the darkness. 'I think I can see a glow.'

They crowded round him. "You're right, Steve,' said Kate. 'I see it, too.'

Thank God for that,' Ellison breathed.

Their pace quickened and soon the faint glow in the distance grew stronger, became a long sliver of pale light. As they approached, they were able to distinguish a door. It was slightly ajar, the light coming from inside. The corridor ended there.

The door was solid, made of thick metal painted green.

There were flanges around its sides, like the doorway of the Kingsway exchange, to provide a tight seal when closed. Culver pushed against it, cautious for some reason. Beyond he could see dimly lit grey walls, another passageway. The heavy door resisted his push. There was something behind it.

He shoved a little harder and something moved inside.

Culver looked around at the others, then snapped the lighter shut. He put it in his pocket. Using both hands, palms flat against the smooth surface, he eased the door wider. The light illuminated their faces.

When there was enough room, he slipped through.

The body - what was left of it - was slumped against the door, one hand, much of the flesh gone, still gripped tight around the six-inch bar that was the door's handle. Culver felt himself sway a little, even though he should have been accustomed to such atrocities by now. It could once have been a man, although it was hard to tell. The corpse had been fed upon. The head was missing.

One hand holding the door open - the corpse seemed determined to push it shut - Culver quietly called the others in. You first, Dealey. You next, Kate, and don't look, just keep your eyes straight ahead.'

Of course she looked and immediately moved away, her chest heaving.

'Oh shit,' said Fairbank when he saw the headless body.

Ellison visibly sagged and Culver thought for a moment the engineer would crumple. Ellison leaned weakly against the wall and said, They're down here.'

Nobody disagreed.

He staggered back towards the open door. We'd better get out. We can't stay here.'

Culver caught him by the shoulder and allowed the door

to close. It did not shut completely, but stayed ajar, just as they had found it. The corpse's hand released its death grip, the arm slumping to the floor.

We can't go back,' Culver said steadily. We don't have the light. And besides, the rats may be out there.'

‘You think this ...' Dealey averted his gaze'... this person was trying to keep them out?'

'I don't know,' Culver admitted. 'Either that, or he was trying to escape.' He had decided that the body was that of a man, for the tattered remnants of what looked like olive-green overalls or a uniform of some kind still clung to it.

Fairbank seemed fascinated by the spectacle. The head,' he said, 'why's the head gone?' The stench was there, but it was not powerful, not cloying. The man had been dead some time, the worst of the smell long since dispersed. 'It's like the Underground station. Remember the bodies we found? Some with heads missing?'

'But why?' asked Dealey. 'I don't understand.'

'Maybe the rats shrink 'em.' Nobody appreciated Fair-bank's macabre humour this time.

'Can't you tell us why?' Culver was looking directly at Dealey.

'I swear I know nothing more than I've already told you. You must believe me.'

'Must I?'

There's no point in my lying. There would be absolutely nothing to gain from it.'

Culver conceded. He looked along the corridor, noticing for the first time the blood smears that stained its length. 'I guess that answers one question,' he said, pointing. 'He was trying to escape from the inside.

They had him before he even reached the door. He must have crawled along as they tore him apart.'

Kate had covered her face, her head against the wall. 'It's never going to end. We're not going to live through this.'

Culver went to her. "We're not inside yet. The rats may have attacked and been beaten off. This place can hold hundreds of people, Kate, more than enough to defend themselves. And they have the military to protect them, too.'

Then why him, why this one body?'

'Maybe they didn't know he was out here. It's just a corridor, probably one of many. They may not have even known he'd been killed.' An overwhelming sense of dread was building up inside him as he spoke. It had been growing since first they had smashed open the door above ground, and now it was sinking through every nerve cord, through every organ in his body, turning them to lead, filling his lower stomach with its draining heaviness.

There's another door here!' Fairbank was standing further down the passageway, pointing to a recess on his right.

Culver gently eased Kate away from the wall and took her with him, the others already making towards Fairbank. The door was similar to the one they had just left, only wider and higher. It was open.

With increasing trepidation, they stared into the interior of the government headquarters shelter.

She stirred, restless, perceiving a faraway danger.

Her obese body tried to shift in her nest of filth and powdered bones. The sound of running water was lost to her, for she did not possess ears, yet something inside could receive the high-frequency mewlings of her subject creatures. There was no light in the underground chamber, but her eyes had no optic nerves anyway. Yet she was always aware of movement around her.

The huge, swollen hump of her body moved in a deep breathing motion, swelling even more so that dark veins protruded from the whitish skin, skin so fine it seemed the network of ridges must burst through. Her jaws parted slightly as air exhaled with a high wheezing sound; the breath also came from another source, another, misshapen mouth in a stump by the side of her pointed head. There were no teeth inside this mouth and no eyes above it. A few white hairs grew from the snout, the one that enabled her to smell, but the protuberance had little other use. Her limbs no longer supported the gross weight and her claws - there were five on each paw - were brittle and cracked, grown long and curled from lack of use. Her tail was stunted, merely a scaly prominence, no more than that. The Mother Creature resembled a giant, pulsating eyeball.

A mewling sibilation escaped both snouts and she tried to thrash around in her bed of slime, but her weight was too much, her limbs too feeble. Only dust stirred, the bones ground to white powder by her soldier rats, the sleek black vermin who guarded and protected her with their own lives.

Whom she now called to her.

There were other movements in the dark, cavernous chamber. They were the twitching, writhing motions of her fellow-beasts, those who resembled her in appearance, different from the servant and soldier vermin. Many had been produced from her own womb. And many had mated with her.

Like the Mother Creature, most were captive of their own malformation, debilitated by their own grotesqueness. And some were dead, others were dying.

She screeched, the sound of a screaming child. She was terribly afraid.

But she sensed her black legions were coming to her, winding their way through the flowing corridors, bringing food, the skulls into which her twisted tusks would bore holes so that the spongy flesh inside could be sucked out, swallowed.

She waited impatiently in the darkness, obscenely gross, body quivering, while her offspring, six of them and each one peculiarly shaped, like her yet unlike her, suckled at her breasts.

They walked through the carnage, their stomachs sickened, yet their minds somehow numbed. Perhaps their personae had already begun to adapt to such mayhem, such staggering destruction. Horror and revulsion touched, felt, insinuated itself into their consciousness, but some inner defence of the psyche, a natural yet mysterious barrier against insanity, prevented those feelings from penetrating their innermost selves.

The people of this mammoth sanctum, fugitives from the holocaust above, had been caught by surprise, unaware that another and just as deadly enemy lay within.

The first chamber that Culver and the small group of survivors found themselves in was low-ceilinged but capacious, its concrete interior dimly, though adequately, lit. It housed vehicles, many of which were strange to their eyes. Their colour, uniformly, was grey, none bearing markings of any kind. They stood in neat crammed rows, dead things like granite statues, that seemed incapable of motion. The windows of each were small affairs, mere slits in the metal bodywork, heavy-glassed and sinister. Among them were four turretless tanks of a design that none of the group had seen before. The main shells were small, unable to accommodate more than two passengers, and the long, sleek gun muzzles extended far beyond the limits of their hulls. Other

vehicles resembled army scout cars, their wheels, like the tanks', on tracks; they had few apertures and entry seemed to be through the roof. The shapes of the rest were more conventional only in that they had doors on either side and they did not run on tracks; instead, each vehicle had six extremely wide wheels.

All the vehicles (Culver had counted eighteen in all) appeared to be empty.

At the end of the long bay were two massive iron doors, both shut.

Dealey had explained there were curving ramps leading up to ground level behind the doors; there were two more sets along the way, the final pair of doors opening out into a secluded and protected courtyard. It had been Ellison's idea to leave the shelter there and then, using the ramp and possibly taking one of the vehicles, for by that time they had discovered other bodies, corpses so savagely mutilated that they were barely recognizable as human. The group had passed between the vehicles, carefully avoiding featureless cadavers that sprawled in the gangways, making for the exit. Controls for opening the huge doors were set inside a small, glass cubicle, and the panes were smeared with dried blood. Ignoring the two bodies - though the term 'bodies' was hardly appropriate for the matter that lay on the cubicle floor - Fairbank tried the switches set in the wall, assuming they would open the exit doors. Nothing had happened; the mechanism was inoperative.

They went through an area marked decontam unit, not lingering to examine the racks of silver-grey, one-piece suits, the machines that resembled metal-detecting doorways, or the gruesome things that lay on the shower floors.

It was beyond the decontamination area that Culver, Fairbank, Ellison and Kate began to gain some idea of the

immense size and complexity of the government's war headquarters. Dealey kept quiet while they expressed surprise, the horror of what lay around them momentarily lost in their astonishment.

They had found themselves in a long, sixteen-foot-wide corridor with many other passageways branching off from it. Straight coloured lines swept along its length, here and there a particular shade veering off into another corridor; they were directional colour codes and on the wall was a list of sections, all in groups and each group assigned a particular colour.

They quickly scanned the list, which ranged from clinic

to LIBRARY, from GYMNASIUM to THEATRE, from PRINT

room to fire deft. There appeared to be a television and radio centre, offices with a secretarial pool, a works area (whatever that encompassed), dormitories and even a station. The latter sign puzzled them and Dealey explained it was the terminal for the railway line that connected the shelter with Heathrow Airport.

'It's a whole bloody city down here,' Ellison had said in awestruck tones.

They had taken the central corridor and, as they had progressed, so corpses became more in evidence.

They passed a dormitory and, out of curiosity, Kate glanced in. She immediately swung away, slamming her back against the corridor wall, closing her eyes but unable to banish the sight imprinted on her brain.

The room was similar to the dormitories in the Kingsway exchange, only longer and wider, able to accommodate many more people; the bunks were three-tiered and, apart from a few stiff-backed chairs and lockers at the far end, there was little other furniture. The mass of body remains was by that far end, piled against the lockers as though those sleeping or resting had fled there, trapped by the monstrosities that had surged through the open doorway. Many had not even managed to leave their beds.

They came upon curiously small two-seater cars, abandoned in the passageways, and which appeared to be operated electrically. There were cameras at regular intervals set high on the walls. For every hundred yards or so, there were radiation meters, alarms and push-button intercoms. Dealey tried one or two of the latter, but they were lifeless. Yet the lighting and air-conditioning appeared to be functioning normally and the muted, pastel colours of their surroundings, obviously chosen for their calming effect, belied the tragically ironic fate that had befallen the occupants of the shelter.

With each section the group passed through, their apprehension grew, hysteria beginning to rise and bore through that self-protecting emotional barrier.

The carnage was everywhere, no area, no passageway, no room unblemished. It was a journey through a nightmare, a pilgrimage into Hades. And with each step, each turn of the corridor, the atrocity grew worse, for the dead became legion.

At one stage, Kate moaned, Why? Why weren't they protected? There must have been weapons.

There must have been a guard force, an army of sorts...'

The question was soon answered, for they had come to an inner core of the enormous complex.

They were at a T-junction, the corridor extending left and right, disappearing into a curve, suggesting that the shelter's centre was circular. The door directly ahead was set at least five feet back into the wall and they wondered if this was an indication of the wall's thickness. In front of the broad, metal door was a small desk mounted into the floor itself, an elaborate but compact console on its surface. There were two cameras set in the corners of the alcove and a range of

various coloured push-buttons set on one side. The sliding door had been jammed open by two bodies, and from what was left of their clothing, it was obvious they had been army personnel.

Culver stopped to pick up a lightweight weapon, a snub-nosed machine gun. 'A MAC II,' he told the others. 'An Ingram. I've seen them before.' He pointed it back along the corridor, warning his companions to stand clear, and pulled the trigger. It clicked empty. 'Pity,' he sighed, and dropped the weapon to the floor.

"What is this place?' Fairbank asked, looking through the jammed door.

Dealey was pressing the buttons of the small desk console, glancing at the door as he did so. 'Nothing appears to be operating,' he remarked, 'apart from the lighting and ventilation. The systems have either been shut down or destroyed.'

'Answer the question,' Culver told him.

This place? This is the operation centre for the shelter. If you like, it contains the vital organs of the whole complex. The generator and boiler rooms, communications and cypher, living quarters for, er, certain persons, the War Room itself. A refuge within a refuge, if you like.'

‘You said living quarters. You mean there's an elite among the elite?' Culver had asked the question.

'Of course. I don't think I need tell you who would be among that special group.'

Culver shook his head.

Kate clutched at him. 'I think we should leave, and I think we should leave now!

There will be weapons inside,' Dealey said quickly. 'And there may be other survivors.'

'As well as the vermin that did all this?'

They've gone, I'm sure of it. We've had no sight of them since we entered the shelter. I think we can assume they did their worst here, then moved on ...'

To fresh pastures,' Fairbank finished for him.

That may be exactly the case.'

'But how did they get into here in the first place?' Culver was perplexed. 'How could they possibly have infiltrated such an installation? It makes no sense.'

'Perhaps we'll find the answer inside.' Dealey went to the gap between door and wall. He disappeared through it, not waiting for a reply.

The others looked at each other and it was Fairbank who shrugged, then followed. 'What've we got to lose?' he said.

Kate reluctantly allowed herself to be helped through by Culver, gingerly stepping over the torn bodies that had prevented the door from closing. Inside, the smell of death was almost choking, even though it was old and had lost much of its pungency.

And it was inside, among the human corpses with missing limbs, many headless, organs gouged out, that they found the dead rats.

Now they sat in the vast, circular War Room, exhausted both mentally and physically, each of them trembling, their eyes shifting constantly, never relaxing their vigilance. They all clutched weapons in their laps, wrested from fingers that seemed unwilling to release their grip even though the guns had not managed to save them. Two of the group held Ingrams, which seemed to have been the standard arms for military personnel inside the shelter, while Kate and Dealey had pistols, 9mm Brownings; Ellison had managed to find a

Sterling submachine gun from the armoury - it was a weapon he had grown fond of after his earlier acquaintanceship.

They were on a balcony overlooking row upon row of matt black benches, each containing six or seven separate working units, all of which were complete with television monitors, computers, telephones, teleprinters and switching consoles. Giant screens in the curving walls dominated, even though they were blank. One had been punctured by bullet holes. Dealey had told them that when live, the screens would have shown different areas of the world, indicating nuclear strikes and strategic deployment of military task forces. A particular screen was kept solely for visual contact with Allied Heads of State and their executives, the pictures to have been beamed from satellites unless atmospheric conditions interfered, in which case contact would be maintained through cable. The ceiling lamps were recessed and subdued, each section of the benches having individual built-in lighting. Around the walls and below the screens were various other pieces of machinery, including a bank of computers and television screens. A coffee machine, dated by comparison to the hardware around it, lent the only touch of humanity. Just off the War Room was a tiny television studio containing the bare essentials for broadcasting (which included a soft-upholstered armchair and loose, deep blue drapes as a backdrop, all presumably designed to give an air of calm, even comfortable, authority). Who the hell would be sitting in front of their TV sets while the world around them had been reduced to smouldering ashes was anybody's guess. The studio, they assumed, was for broadcasting to the nation, for quite near them on the balcony was another camera, angled towards the long control table they now sat at; this was obviously used for televised conversations with the

Allies. Next to the television studio was a conference room, its walls and ceiling soundproofed. This was probably where the more 'delicate' decisions concerning the future of the human race would have been discussed and made. There were many other rooms and corridors leading off from the main concourse, the War Room itself the hub of a concrete-walled wheel, but as yet they had not investigated any of these, nor did they feel inclined to. They had seen enough.

The early Christians might well have suffered similar massacres in their own Roman arenas, mauled then torn apart by animals for the gratification of their rulers' bloodlust, but could even those occasions have been on such a grand scale? This modern arena below was almost overflowing with human remains, as though a large number of the holocaust survivors had fled here when the rodent invasion had begun, perhaps still believing that their leaders would now save them from this new, unforeseen disaster. They had been wrong. Nothing could save them from the fury of these mutant beasts, not even the rapid-fire weapons of the soldiers. How could it be so? How many, just how many, rats could have caused such massive slaughter? And how could they have got inside the top-security shelter?

It was Alex Dealey, looking weary and dispirited, all trace of pomposity gone, outweighed by adversity, who attempted to supply the answers. He was slumped in a swivel chair, leaning forward over the long table before them, one hand on his forehead, shielding his closed eyes.

The rats were already inside the shelter,' he said quietly. They were inside, waiting. Don't you see?

There are sewers below here, miles of underground tunnels, weirs that control the flow of rainwater and effluent. The rats must have roamed the network for years, scavenging where they could, feeding off the city's waste. Oh dear God.' His other hand slowly went to his forehead and he seemed to sink within himself, his shoulders shrinking. 'Food is kept below the main shelter level, a huge cold-storage chamber. It was rarely exchanged, only added to. Hardly any of it was perishable, you see? Any that was, was kept nearer to hand where it could be easily replenished. For years the rats have had an ample food supply.'

'Surely it was checked from time to time?' Culver asked incredulously.

There was no need, it was considered safe from harm. I suppose it was given a cursory examination at regular intervals, but you would have to see the vastness of the store itself to realize much was left unseen. All foodstuffs were tightly sealed, as was the storeroom itself; the thought of entry by vermin was hardly considered.'

'Not considered at all, it appears,' ventured Ellison, shifting in his seat to ease the stiffness of his ribs.

'Poisons were laid and traps were set. Nobody would have realized the unique cunning of the scavenger they were dealing with.'

'Obviously not.'

Culver was still puzzled. There had to be some evidence of these creatures. Somebody must have noticed something.'

Dealey looked up and shrugged. 'Why? These headquarters have never been occupied. Certainly maintenance work has been carried out, new, more-advanced technology installed as the years have gone by, and inspections have always been made at regular intervals; but it's obvious that this breed of rat has kept well-hidden. Its own instincts would have warned it of the treatment it would receive from its old enemy. Remember, too, the extermination of these mutant

creatures over the past decade has been carried out ruthlessly and on a grand scale. There have been pogroms against them, if you like.'

'Not ruthlessly enough by your earlier account.' The others looked at Culver with curiosity.

'What do you mean by that, Steve?' Kate asked.

'When I had my little private chat with Dealey yesterday, he told me there was considerable scientific interest in the mutant Black rat. So much so that they tried to breed them in laboratories.'

'I said that there were rumours, nothing more. But that has nothing to do with these creatures in the sewers. Nobody could have known they existed.'

Fairbank was scratching his temple with the snub-nosed muzzle of the Ingram. 'All right, so how come these bloody things didn't attack the maintenance guys or whoever did the checks on this place?'

'I told you: they were probably deeply afraid of men and much too wily to reveal themselves.'

Fairbank swept the gun around the room below. They got over their shyness fast.'

'After the bombs dropped, yes. It could be they sensed they had the upper hand. Perhaps their numbers had grown to encourage that belief, also. Another point: they may have considered the mass evacuation into the shelter as an invasion of their territory. My theory is that all these elements were involved.'

They were threatened, so they attacked.' Kate's statement was flat, toneless.

'It's all we can assume.'

They went up against firepower,' said Fairbank. 'And against an awful lot of people. They must have felt pretty confident.'

'Or they had a stronger motive.'

Once again, all eyes turned to Culver.

He shook his head. 'I don't know, it's just a feeling I've got. There's something more, something we don't know about.'

Ellison was impatient. 'I still don't understand how it was possible for the rats to overwhelm them.

Doors could have been sealed, the rats could have been contained, or closed out of any number of different sections.'

'Remember the doors where all those vehicles were housed? The big metal doors to the ramps? They didn't function. Like most things around here, apart from the lighting and ventilation, they were inoperative. I'm sure if we examined the main power switching area we'd find machinery or wiring destroyed, either by the trapped survivors when they used guns to protect themselves, or by the rats gnawing through vital cables. It's not unusual: it's a speciality even of normal vermin. There are all kinds of safeguards in this complex that need power to function.'

"Why the lights and ventilation, then?'

They're on completely different systems which obviously haven't been harmed.'

Dealey slumped back in his chair, wiping both hands down his face, the Browning placed in front of him on the table. 'It's my belief that the survivors were attacked very soon after the first bombs had dropped, when the people were in mortal fear and disorganized. Can you imagine the scenes inside this shelter at the time? Panic, remorse, total disorientation. Even the trained military personnel would have been traumatized. The survivors were confused and almost defenceless.'

'How many ... how many would have been here?' Kate's gun was held rigid in her lap as though she were afraid to

release it even for a moment. She wanted to leave immediately, but like the others she was totally drained of strength. And they needed answers before they ventured further into the shelter.

'It's impossible to say,' Dealey told her. 'Hundreds, possibly. We've seen enough dead to know there were a large number of people. Not everybody who had access would have reached the shelter by the time the bombs exploded, and of course, many - many - may have escaped when the rats attacked.'

Culver was hesitant. The, er, apartments we passed in this part of the complex: you said they were meant for certain persons.'

Dealey nodded. That was why I was so relieved that they appeared to have been unoccupied. I'm sure the Royal Family were evacuated from London long before the crisis finally erupted.'

'And the Prime Minister?'

'Knowing her, she would have remained here in the capital, inside these headquarters, from where she could direct operations.'

'Do you think there's a chance she and her War Cabinet got out?'

There was a long silence from Dealey. He lifted his hands from his lap and let them drop again, making a muffled slapping sound of despair. 'Who knows?' he said. 'It's possible. It depends on how much they were taken by surprise, or how well they were protected. I have no intention of examining all these bodies to find the answer.'

Culver found the irony of the situation incredible. A failsafe refuge had been constructed for a select few, the rest of the country's population, apart from those designated to other shelters, left to suffer the full onslaught of the nuclear

strike; but the plan had gone terribly wrong, a freak of nature - literally - destroying those escapers just as surely as the nuclear blitz itself. The stupid bastards had built their fortress over the nest, the lair -

whatever the fuck it was called - of the mutant Black rats, the very spawn of earlier nuclear destruction.

If there really were a Creator somewhere out there in the blue, he would no doubt be chuckling over mankind's folly and the retribution paid out to at least some of its leaders.

Fairbank had risen from his seat and was staring down at the ghastly scene below. Among the human remnants were inanimate black-furred shapes. He rested his hands on the balustrade. 'I don't understand.

They managed to kill a lot of rats down there before they were overwhelmed. But take a close look at some of those animal carcases. They're unmarked, and they're not in such an advanced stage of decomposition as the others. A lot of these fuckers died more recently.'

Culver joined Fairbank, interested in the engineer's speculation. 'Hell, you're right,' he said.

Kate and Ellison barely showed concern, but Dealey rose to his feet. 'Perhaps we should take a closer look,' he suggested.

They descended the short staircase into the main concourse, repulsed by the strong odours that assaulted them, and wary of what might skulk among the ruins.

'Here,' Culver pointed.

They approached with caution, for the rat looked as though it had merely fallen asleep while feeding.

Only when they drew close did they notice that its eyes were half-open and had the flat, glazed stare of the dead. Culver and Dealey leaned towards it while Fairbank kept a cautious vigilance on their surroundings.

There's dried blood around its jaws,' Culver remarked.

'It was eating flesh when it died.'

There's no marks, no injuries.' He prodded the stiff-haired carcase with the gun barrel, using considerable effort to turn the animal over onto its back. There were no hidden wounds.

'What the hell did it die of?' Culver asked, puzzled.

There's another over there,' Fairbank said.

They went to it, carefully avoiding the mouldering decay scattered across the floor. There were few insects so far below ground and that was at least something to be thankful for. Culver knelt beside the sprawled carcase and repeated the same operation. Bullet holes punctured the creature's underbelly and they realized its outer shell was a mere husk; underneath it was rotted almost completely away.

Moving on to yet another, the three men discovered this body, too, was unmarked. They averted their heads from the ripe smell.

'Could they have been poisoned?' Culver stood, his eyes ranging over other carcases. There had been more in the other sections and passageways, but the group had not stopped to inspect them closely, assuming they had been killed by the humans they were attacking; it was possible that many of these had also died from causes other than mortal wounds.

'It's possible,' said Dealey, 'but I don't see how. Why would they take bait when they had all the food they needed? It makes no sense.'

He was deep in thought for a few moments and was about to comment further when Kate called from the balcony. 'Please, let's go! It isn't safe here!' One arm was clasped around a shoulder as though she were cold; the other held the gun.

'She's right,' Culver said. 'It's not over. There's something

more in this hell-hole. I can feel it like I can feel an icy draught. The dead haven't settled.'

It was an odd thing to say, but the others sensed its meaning for they shared the same intuitive awareness. They climbed back up the steps, their pace now quickened, urgency beginning to return, renewed fear overcoming weariness. The discovery of the dead yet unmarked rats had rekindled their apprehension, its mystery instigating further, unnerving dread. The vast underground bunker had become an enigma, perhaps a deathtrap for them all. It was as if its concrete walls were closing in, the tons of earth above bearing down, pressing close, a huge oppressiveness weighing on their shoulders.

Striving to crush them into whatever lay beneath the underground citadel.

The condition of the power plant explained much to them, for it had been reduced to nothing more than a blackened shell, its complex machinery just charred, useless husks. They averted their eyes from dark mounds on the floor, shapeless forms that had once walked and talked and been like themselves.

'Now we know,' said Dealey. There was the sadness of defeat about him. They did battle with the rats here. Bullets, an explosion - a chain reaction - devastated this place. All their careful planning, all their ultimate technology, destroyed by a simple beast. They finally discovered who the real enemy is.' He leaned against a wall and for a moment they thought he would sink down. He steadied himself, but did not look at them.

Ellison was shaking his head. 'So that's why there was no communication; everything was knocked out.'

'Communications, machinery - even the doors couldn't be opened,' said Fairbank. The first one we found could be opened manually from the inside. And the second was jammed by those two trying to get out. But the others must be sealed tight. Christ, they were all trapped inside their own fortress!'

'Surely all the doors aren't electronically controlled,' said Kate.

Tm afraid they are.' Dealey still did not look up. 'Don't you see? This was a top-secret establishment, the most critically restricted place in the country; exit and entry had to be centrally controlled.'

Ellison had become even more agitated. There have to be other doors jammed open. Some of the people down here must have escaped, they couldn't all have been killed.'

'Escape into what? Into the radiation outside?'

'I still don't understand why the lighting still works,' said Kate.

'Light was the most valuable asset down here, the most protected by back-up systems. Imagine this place in total darkness.'

They tried not to.

Dealey went on. The headquarters has four generators, each of which is designed to take over should the others malfunction. If number 1 fails, 2 automatically comes into operation; if 2 then fails, 3 takes over and so on to 4. It's unlikely that all should shut down at the same time.'

Fairbank secured the axe in his belt more tightly. 'I've got no faith in "unlikely" any more. And I think we're wasting time here; let's move on and out.' He looked directly at Culver.

‘You know the place, Dealey,' the pilot said. 'Just how do we get out?'

There may be other blocked doors, as Ellison said. If not, we'll have to go back the way we came.'

Kate shrivelled inwardly at the idea, for she had no wish to retread those same abhorrent corridors.

'Let's start looking, then,' said Fairbank. This place is troubling my disposition.'

They passed on and suddenly the foul melange of smells became almost overpowering. Kate actually staggered at the

noxious fumes and Culver had to reach out and steady her as he fought down his own nausea. It was Fairbank, grubby handkerchief held to his nose and mouth, who called them forward. He was peering into a wide opening from which came the now-familiar thrumming noise.

Take a look at this!' he shouted, and there was both fear and excitement in his voice. 'It's bloody-well unbelievable.'

They approached, Culver taking the unwilling girl with him. He covered his face with a hand, nearly gagging when he drew close to the opening; the others were undergoing the same discomfort. He looked inside with considerable consternation, he, too, reluctant to witness more horror, and his eyes widened, his mouth dropped. His spine went rigid.

The ceiling of the generator room was high, accommodating the four huge machines and the largest diesel oil tank Culver had ever seen, its top disappearing into the roof itself. Overhead was a network of pipes, wiring and catwalks. The walls were uncovered brickwork with only piping and mounted instrument-gauges to break up the monotonous pattern. The lighting here was dim; several areas had their own individual sources of light, most of which were switched off. It was uncomfortably warm inside there, a factor that added to the putridness of the atmosphere.

The spacious floor area was an ocean of stiffened, black fur.

Kate reeled away, falling, but instantly scrambling to her feet, ready to run.

They're dead!' Culver shouted and she stopped. Still afraid, she went back to the four men.

It was an eerie and ugly sight. And, even though the piled bodies were those of a mortal enemy, a strangely pitiful one. The rats lay sprawled against and over each other, hundreds upon hundreds, many with jaws open, bared yellow incisors

glinting dully, others with half-open eyes glaring wickedly, although glazedly, at the human intruders.

Still more had managed to crawl along the rafters, the piping that networked the ceiling, and lay there as if ready to leap; but those, too, were lifeless, menacing only in appearance.

'What the shit happened to them?' said Ellison in a low breath.

The others were too stunned to reply. Slowly Culver walked into the generator room until he was at the very edge of the great mass of inanimate fur. A rat stared up at him with a rictus grin, taut-curled claws just inches away.

Fighting his repulsion, Culver kneeled close. Again, he saw dried blood staining the lower jaw. Culver rose, quickly scanning the humped-back shapes, as Dealey stood by his side.

'I don't understand,' Culver said.

'I think I do,' the other man replied and Culver looked at him curiously.

They're diseased,' said Dealey. The blood is from their saliva. They've been wiped out by some illness, a plague of some sort. With luck it's killed them all.' He leaned over to prod the nearest rodent with the tip of his gun barrel.

"What kind of plague?' A different wariness was disturbing Culver.

'Impossible to tell. I could hazard a guess, though.'

'I can take it.'

'Possibly anthrax.' He eased the carcase he was prodding over onto its back and made a small grunting sound. 'No pustules, and this chap hasn't any swelling of the abdomen, so I'll guess again. I'd bet on it being pneumonic plague.'

Culver quickly stepped back.

Dealey straightened, but there was no overt concern in his expression. His shoulders were still slightly stooped as though the savage intrusion upon his sacred citadel, the surviving bulwark of his own authority, had finally dispirited him, made him realize just how fragile and ultimately vulnerable that authority had been. The destruction of the city had not shaken his faith, but the annihilation of those in power, his overlords who were to rule from this surrogate National Seat of Government, had devastated him. It was, to him, the loss of his own potency.

'I thought only humans could catch pneumonic plague,' said Culver, slowly backing away.

Dealey wearily shook his head. 'No, animals too. They catch it from their own disease-carrying fleas.'

Then we ...?' Culver left the question unfinished.

We have yet another reason to leave immediately,' Dealey said, nodding.

'Bastards!' Ellison suddenly screamed from the doorway. He raised the Sterling submachine gun to chest level and began firing into the mass of stiff-furred bodies, the brick-walled chamber erupting into a cauldron of explosive sounds. Black bodies leapt into the air as though still alive. Culver and Dealey hastily jumped to one side, while Kate clasped her hands to her ears, dropping the gun she had been holding. Unable to restrain his own fury, Fairbank joined in with Ellison, the small Ingram, its firing not as loud as the Sterling, bucking in his hands with its rapid recoil.

Culver let them spend their anger and hatred, watching the vermin's dark bodies twitch and jump, their flesh torn open by the frenzy of bullets. Small limbs were severed, heads exploded. A two-foot long tail scythed into the air like a tossed snake. Ellison's weapon emptied before Fairbank's and he let it clatter to the ground in disgust. Fairbank ceased firing, a strange, icy grin on his face. The sudden silence was as startling as the thunder preceding it.

Culver walked back to them while Dealey stood and shook

his head as if to clear it of echoes. 'If you're finished, let's—' the pilot began to say when Kate screamed.

They're moving! They're still alive!'

She was pointing over his shoulder and Culver whirled, his eyes searching the heaped bodies.

He saw no movement.

And then he did.

Parts of the dark ocean were shifting, black shapes slowly disengaging themselves from the whole, creeping forward, slowly, painfully. Resolutely. Yellow eyes glittered. Hissing sounds came from cruel mouths.

Dealey turned and began to retreat when he saw the converging shapes. Kate backed away to the other side of the hallway.

The creatures were dying, some stirred by the shattering noise, others by the bullets themselves thudding into their bodies. The nearest had reached the edge of the mass, was sliding over corpses onto the floor, its long, pointed head weaving from side to side, jagged teeth bared and bloodstained. Others slid down behind it.

Culver raised the Ingram and split the first creature in two with a quick burst of bullets. The others came on, pushing themselves across the floor, sliding smoothly through the spreading blood of their companions. He fired again, the impact scattering the crawling vermin, and Fair-bank joined him, aiming his gun into the mass.

They stopped. Watched.

Still there were shapes moving forward.

'What's keeping them coming?' yelled the engineer.

Culver's reply was grimly calm, although he felt anything but. 'Hate,' he said. They hate us as much as we hate them. Maybe more - they're the ones who've always had to hide. Thank God there's hardly any strength left in them.'

'Let's thank God from the outside, huh? They may be dying but they still want to get at us.'

They let one more burst rip into the undulating bodies, then hurried through the door.

'I don't want to waste time looking for doors that may not be open,' Culver told the others. 'So let's just head back the way we came. Agreed?'

The others nodded assent and he took Kate by the wrist. They can't reach us,' he assured her. They're dying, weak; we can easily outrun them.'

She gratefully leaned against him and the five of them began their journey back through the maze of corridors, Dealey in the lead, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and the plague-ridden vermin as possible. They closed their minds to the terrible sights they had to face once more, their tiredness gone for the moment, overcome by coursing adrenalin, and tried not to think of the deadly disease they had just come into contact with. Through the War Room they went, not pausing for a second, almost oblivious to the macabre scene around them. The mutant rats had been diminished, rendered helpless, but still they felt their deadly threat. They yearned to breathe clean, fresh air again, to empty their lungs of death's odours; they needed to see the open sky, to feel a natural breeze brush their skin. They hurried, breaking into a run whenever a clear stretch of corridor, uncluttered by human remnants, presented itself. Through the shelter's central core, slipping into the opening created by the two unfortunates who had jammed the door, into the various sections, stumbling here and there, but never stopping, never pausing to draw in breath.

Finally they reached the decontamination area. They sped through and found themselves in the vast vehicle pool.

Culver brought them to a halt. Torches! We'll need torches.'

'And I know where I can find some.' Fairbank dashed off, weaving between the strange-looking parked tanks and vehicles, heading for the small glass cubicle at the far end of the chamber by the doors.

"You know, some of the survivors may have had a chance if they weren't too panicked,' Culver commented as they watched Fairbank disappear.

'How?' asked Dealey.

'Inside these machines. They could have easily shut themselves in and waited out the rats.'

'And then escaped into the tunnels?'

Culver shrugged. 'It's possible.'

'But as we said before: the atmosphere would have been thick with radiation, especially if the attack took place at the very beginning.'

'It was just a thought.'

Fairbank was returning with two heavy-duty flashlights of the kind that had been kept in the Kingsway complex. 'Here you go,' he said, handing one to Culver. 'I spotted them earlier. Guess they kept them handy for emergencies.'

The group moved towards the wide door leading to the corridor, which in turn led to the smaller outer door to the underground bunker. Culver remembered how sickened they had all been on finding the headless corpse still clinging to the green metal door; the sight barely stirred them now. He allowed Fairbank to go through first, both men switching on the flashlights. The last to enter the dark, concrete corridor, he kept his hand on the door.

'Do I close it, or not?' he said to the others. 'If I do, there's no getting back inside.'

Ellison said, 'If you don't, any rats left alive can follow.'

Kate shuddered. 'No matter what, I'm not going back inside that slaughterhouse.'

Culver looked at Dealey and Fairbank.

The former gave a small nod of his head and the engineer said, 'Shut the fucker.'

He closed the door.

The corridor was bright with the flashlights, water on the floor reflecting the beams. The coolness of the atmosphere hit them like an incorporeal wave, turning perspiration into icy droplets; air-conditioning inside the shelter had kept the temperature low, but the difference in the outside tunnels was substantial.

Each of them shivered. It was a relief to be away from the grim sight of the human massacre and the dead and dying creatures who were the perpetrators; but the chill darkness that surrounded them created its own sense of ominous menace.

Dealey broke the uneasy silence. 'I suggest we use the first upwards outlet we come to, rather than look for the ladder we came down on.'

We don't need a vote on it,' said Fairbank, already leading the way down the corridor. He moved fast and was soon well ahead of the others.

'Don't get too far ahead!' Culver called out. 'Let's stick together.'

'Don't worry, I'll stop at the first ladder,' came the hollow-sounding reply.

Kate kept close to Culver, striving to keep her mind free of the day's terrors, not contemplating what the rest of it might bring. They trudged down the dank corridor, splashing water, the noise they made amplified around them, the tenseness a shared, unifying sensation. They heard trickling water and passed over the drain they had discovered on

their way into the shelter. Ellison's breathing was coming in short, sharp gasps; with every step it felt like someone was jabbing his ribs with a knife. He needed to rest but, although he was sure the worst was over, he refused to consider the possibility while still in the confines of the damp passageways.

Perhaps when they reached the next level they could take a break. Perhaps not. Dealey was last in line, constantly casting his eyes around the pitch blackness behind as though expecting the shelter door to be flung open and hordes of squealing rats to burst through. His imagination, thoroughly aroused by now, conjured up further, grotesque visions: in his mind's eye he saw the corpses inside the shelter stirring, gathering up their scattered pieces, moulding them back into grotesque, barely-human forms, rising, many without heads, for they were lost forever, stumbling through the complex, bumping sightlessly into one another, scrabbling their way to the exits, humps of rotted flesh falling from them, staggering out into the dark corridors fringing the underground bunker, searching for those who still lived, seeking revenge for their own deaths on those who had survived...

He moaned aloud and tried to wipe the fatigue-induced visions from his mind with shaking hands. He had never thought it possible to experience a nightmare while still awake, for a dream to come so alive when one's eyes were not closed. Sometimes, though, reality created the worst living nightmares.

Running footsteps ahead, coming towards them. A blinding light, freezing them in its glare like fear-struck rabbits paralysed by on-coming headlights.

Fairbank almost ran into Culver.

The engineer leaned against the wall, shining the light back in the direction he had come. He was gasping for

breath. They're ahead of us,' he managed to say. 'I heard them squealing, moving around. They're above us, too, take a listen!'

They waited and the noise grew. Slithering sounds. Scratching. Squealing. Coming from the corridor ahead of them. And then, just faintly, they heard similar noises overhead. They became louder, exaggerated by the acoustics of the passageways.

'Back!' Culver said, pushing at Kate to make her move.

'Back where?' Ellison shouted. We can't get back into the shelter! We're trapped here!'

Culver and Fairbank, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow confines, pointed the Ingrams and flashlights into the tunnel ahead, waiting for the first sighting. It soon came.

They swarmed from the darkness just beyond the range of the beams, a squealing thronging multitude of black-furred beasts, scurrying forward into the glare, eyes gleaming. The vermin filled the corridor, a flowing stream of darkness.

Culver and Fairbank opened fire at the same time, bringing the rush to a sudden, screeching halt. Rats twisted in the air to land on the backs of others, who were themselves in death-throes. Yet more took their place, more advanced, bodies snaking low to the floor, powerful haunches thrusting them forward.

Culver stopped firing for a moment to yell at the two men and the girl.

'I told you - move back!'

They did, slowly, still watching over Culver's and Fair-bank's shoulders.

The advance stopped momentarily and the two men rested their weapons. Bloodied creatures wriggled on the floor no more than fifty yards away.

'Steve!' Kate was near to breaking. There's nowhere to go! It's hopeless!'

'Find the drain,' he said to them. 'It can't be far behind us. Find it quickly.'

More shadows rushed forward and the two men opened fire again. Bullets ricocheted off the walls, showering sparks, creating a bedlam of flashes and leaping animals.

'Give us one of the lights!' Ellison was screaming in panic.

Without pausing, Culver handed his flashlight over. Ellison grabbed it and stumbled away, aiming the beam into the puddles at their feet. The shooting stopped. The group continued their retreat.

'Here they come again,' Fairbank warned. The rats were relentless in their attack, jumping over the backs of their injured companions, only the narrowness of the passageway itself preventing the group of survivors from being overwhelmed. Both Culver and Fairbank had the same question in mind: How much ammunition did they have left?

'It's here, I've found it!' Ellison called out.

The rats were still huddling together in the full glare of the torches, hemmed in by the rough walls, neither retreating nor advancing. Culver told Fairbank to raise the beam above ground level for a moment. The two men drew in sharp breaths when the light travelled over the quivering humped backs, for the black creatures stretched far away into the tunnel, well beyond its curve.

'Oh, shit, beam me up, Scotty,' Fairbank said in hushed awe.

'Culver, we can't get it open. It's stuck!'

The pilot turned and saw Ellison and Dealey struggling with the drain cover, Kate holding the light for them. He reached for the axe tucked into Fairbank's belt and said, almost in a whisper, afraid anything louder would encourage the vermin to continue their attack, 'Start firing the moment they break.'

Fairbank did not risk looking at him; he merely grunted affirmation, finding the advice totally unnecessary.

Culver knelt beside the two men and handed the Ingram to Ellison. 'Help Fairbank,' he said, then examined the edges of the drain. 'How far down are the sewers?' he asked Dealey, still in a low voice.

'I've no idea,' Dealey's reply was equally quiet. 'I think there are channels below us, running into the main waterways, but I don't know how far down they are, or even if they'll accommodate us.'

Culver bent low and listened, but although he could hear the water trickling down the walls he could not tell whether it was running into a stream. He inserted the sharp side of the axe head into the gap between the grating and its surround. Before trying to lever it up, he scraped out mud.

Fairbank's whisper was harsh. They're coming forward again! Taking it slow this time, just creeping along. The bastards are stalking us!'

Culver shoved the blade in as far as it would go. 'Dealey,' he hissed, 'push your fingers through on this side of the drain. Pull when I give you the word.'

'Hurry it up!' Ellison's voice was a frantic whisper.

The light Kate was holding shook madly.

'Okay, now!' Culver leaned on the blade with all his weight and Dealey heaved upwards. For two dreadfully long seconds nothing happened. Then Culver felt something beginning to shift. The drain cover came up with a squelchy sucking and water ran more freely into the widening gap. After the first few inches it swung up more easily and Culver grabbed at its edge pulling it wide. The lid clanged against the passage wall, the signal for all hell to break loose again.

He snatched the flashlight from Kate and shone it into the

opening. The drain was roughly two foot square, large enough for them to climb into. About ten feet below he saw sluggish moving water.

Culver had to shout to make himself heard over the cacophony of muffled bullets and screeching rats, and even then the others could only guess at his meaning. He tugged at Dealey.

'There are no rungs! You'll have to drop down into the water - it shouldn't be too deep! Help Kate when she follows!'

Dealey needed no second bidding. He was horrified at having to jump into such a black, unknown pit, but even more horrified at the idea of being eaten alive. He lowered himself onto the edge, then sank his overweight stomach into the hole, using elbows to hold himself in that position. There was little room to spare, but he managed to scrape through. With an intake of breath, he slid down, hanging onto the edge with his fingertips. Closing his eyes, Dealey dropped.

His belly and chin scraped against rough brickwork and the fall seemed to last an eternity. He cried out as his feet plunged into cold wetness, but the sound was abruptly cut off when he touched the slimy channel bed. He found himself on hands and knees in flowing water, the level just reaching below his hunched shoulders. His figure was bathed in light from above.

'It's all right!' he shouted upwards, almost laughing with relief. 'It's shallow! We can make it through here!'

He thought he heard a shout from above and then another body was blocking out the light. Rising, Dealey realized the roof of the channel was arched, rising to no more than four feet at its apex. He now stood inside the drain shaft through which he had dropped. Loose chippings and water fell onto his upturned face as Kate's feet slid towards him. He reached up and took her weight, endeavouring to lower her gently, the effort almost too much.

Above, one of the guns had stopped firing.

Culver looked anxiously at the two men and saw Fairbank throw his Ingram away.

That's it!' the engineer shouted. 'Empty!'

'Get back here!' the pilot told him, tucking the small axe into his own belt. 'Dealey, here comes the flashlight! For God's sake, don't drop it!' He let the torch fall and was relieved when it found safe hands.

Ellison came with Fairbank, still firing along the tunnel. Fairbank dropped to one knee beside Culver and leaned close. We can't hold them back any longer! One more rush and that's it!'

'Give me the light!' Still pointed towards the vermin, the flashlight was handed to him. The firing had become more sporadic, the rats advancing, then stopping, Ellison having the sense not to waste bullets.

We'll get Ellison down there first, then you,' Culver said to Fairbank, keeping his voice low in between bursts of fire. 'I want you to stay inside the drain to support me when I come through. I'm going to have to pull this cover shut before I come down.'

That's not going to be easy.'

What the fuck is these days?'

Fairbank grunted and stood with Culver, who reached around Ellison and took the gun. 'Get in the hole!'

Ellison could not take his eyes off the sprawl of dark, inert bodies and their more lethal companions -

those who still crept forwards. They know. They know they can take us. Look at them! They're getting ready for the final attack!'

It was true; Culver sensed it. The bristling, quivering motion among the packed bodies was building to fever pitch.

Instinct, cunning, maybe just determination - something told these creatures that their enemy had become more vulnerable.

'Get into the drain,' Culver said evenly and Ellison moved away. The pilot faced the rats, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other. 'Is he down yet?' he called quietly over his shoulder.

'Nearly,' Fairbank replied.

‘You next.'

'Okay, but first back up until you're on this side of the hole. It'll make things easier for you.'

Hands reached out and guided Culver around the opening. Fairbank clapped his shoulder and wriggled into the drain.

'Make it quick,' he said before dropping from view. ‘Ill be waiting.' He was gone and Culver was alone.

Alone except for the creeping mutants.

He gently eased himself into a sitting position, gun and flashlight held chest-high, then slid his legs over the edge. Now comes the tricky part, he thought.

The rats sensed their prey was escaping. The squeals rose to high-pitched screeches as they surged forward.

Culver squeezed the trigger, knowing he would never contain this charge. Bullets thudded into rushing bodies, spinning them over, ripping them apart. But still they came, splashing through the water, a solid, heaving mass.

With a cry of fear, Culver pushed himself off the edge, his elbows catching his weight before he dropped down completely. He kept firing and the rats kept coming, pushing past those that fell, brushing aside their wounded, pure fury storming them forward.

Culver's feet scrabbled around below him until firm hands grabbed his ankles and guided them. He triggered one last

spray of bullets, then knew he had no choice. He dropped the flashlight, grabbed the drain cover and ducked.

He felt the support beneath him dropping too, giving him room to manoeuvre in the confined space. He stayed crouched just beneath the grating, knowing it had not sunk properly into its home.

Take the gun!' he called down, lowering the weapon as far as he could. Someone, probably Fairbank, took it from him. The drain was brilliantly lit by torchlight.

Culver lifted the cover just a little, pulling his fingers from the opening immediately when something sharp brushed their tips. Using the flat of his palms, he tried again. The weight above him was tremendous and he knew the vermin were swarming over the cover. He could hear their squeals only inches away from his face. He felt talon-like claws through the slits of the drain cover, tearing into his hands, and he ignored the pain, using all his strength to lift and slide the lid round. Fairbank's shoulders trembled beneath him, but the stocky engineer held firm, assisting him as much as he could.

The cover closed with a firm, satisfying thud. The rats frantically scraped at the other side, their screeching reaching a crescendo. Culver could not see them, but he felt their hot, fetid breath on his face.

He allowed himself to slowly collapse and Fairbank sensing it was all right to do so, gently lowered him.

Other hands supported him and he gratefully sank into the running water.

He rested there, head back against the slimy brick wall of the channel, brownish water flowing over his lap, his hands clasped around his knees, breathing in deep lungfuls of stale air, his eyes closed. The others sprawled in similar positions, too exhausted to care about the soaking. They listened to the scrabbling, the frustrated scraping above them while trying

to regain their breath, their composure. The squeals from the enraged vermin sent shivers running through them.

Presently, Dealey voiced what they all knew. They'll find other ways into the sewer.'

Culver opened his eyes and was relieved to see the flashlight he had dropped had been saved.

Fairbank held the Ingram above water level, his face a taut mask, eyes staring and particularly white against the contrast of his dirt-grimed face. Kate's head was against her knees, loose, bedraggled hair falling around her face. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her, knowing there was precious little time for comfort. Ellison and Dealey held the torches, the latter also clutching the Browning automatic; there seemed to be barely any strength left in either of them.

Culver stretched out a hand. 'Let me have the gun.'

Dealey hardly had to move to give it to him, so close were the walls of the channel. 'It got wet when I fell into the water; I had it in my pocket.'

Culver took the gun, praying it would still fire. 'Ellison -the flashlight.'

Without argument, the engineer passed it over.

'Any idea which way we should go?' Culver asked Dealey. The sound of his voice sent the squealing above their heads into a new furore.

'No. I don't have much idea of the sewer network and I'm completely disorientated anyway.' He glanced up nervously into the opening above.

Then we'll move in this direction,' Culver indicated with the Browning to his left. That's the way the water's flowing, so it must lead somewhere.' He rose, crouching because of the low ceiling, and climbed over the others. ‘Ill lead. Kate, you stick close to me. Fairbank, you bring up the rear.'

They all scrambled to their feet, desperately tired and

limbs aching, but keen to be moving. They waded after Culver through the filthy water, the foul smell considerably less unpleasant than the other odours of that day. It was difficult to walk, for the sluggish water leadened their feet, and the constant crouching put added stress on their legs. Yet it was a relief when the sounds of the vermin faded behind them.

They splashed onwards, water trickling through to the channel from other, smaller outlets on either side.

The curving walls were covered in lichen and repulsive to touch; here and there, brickwork had fallen inwards, leaving dark impenetrable gaps. Soon a new sound reached their ears and they paused to listen.

'It's rushing water,' Dealey said. There must be a main sewer ahead of us.'

'And a way out,' added Ellison.

'Yes, there has to be.'

Their pace quickened and the rushing noise quickly became a mild roar. They stumbled on, ignoring the small things that bumped against their shins, the occasional pocket of gaseous fumes, constantly slipping on the smooth floor beneath the water, but rising to their feet instantly, not stopping to regain breath or rub bruised knees. It wasn't long before they entered the bigger centre channel.

It was at least twelve feet across, the ceiling curved and high. On either side of the swift-moving stream, its spumes-cent surface littered with debris, were causeways wide enough to walk on. As they shone the flashlights in either direction, they saw other conduits and outlets spilling their contents into the main sewer.

They stepped up onto the causeway on their side, each of them feeling a sudden lift in spirits at this new sight.

We're lucky,' Dealey said over the noise. This tunnel

must have been completely flooded when the rainfall was at its worst.'

'I can't see any ladders.' Fairbank was shining his torch more carefully in one direction, then the other.

Culver did the same to add more light.

There'll be some further along. I would think there's a storm weir in that direction ...' Dealey indicated the water's flow'... so we may find a way out along there.'

Culver felt a hand slide round his waist and looked down to see Kate gazing up at him.

'Are we safe now?' she asked, her eyes imploring.

He couldn't lie. 'Not yet. Soon, though.' He briefly pulled her to his chest and kissed her hair. 'Keep your eyes open,' he told them all. Then he was moving on once again, the others filing close behind.

The rushing water reminded him of the flooded Underground tunnel and his mind wandered back further, to the desperate race against the fallout, the journey along the railway track - the first encounter with the mutant rats. And his first sight of the terrified, frozen girl who was Kate. He thought of the long, trouble-strewn days inside the Kingsway shelter, the first expedition into the shattered world above. The dying, begging people. The rabid dog. Bryce. He remembered the fight back against the floodwaters, the rebellion inside the shelter itself. And then the invasion of rats, the flooding of the Exchange, the terrible struggle to escape. He thought of Dr Clare Reynolds.

Strangely, this day and the day before were just a mad, turbulent blur, with no order, no sense. An insane jumble of visions and stenches. Mixed with death.

One element was common throughout, apart from the weeks of waiting inside the shelter: since the first bomb had dropped he had been running, running, running. Even now he had not stopped and he began to wonder if he ever would, for there would be more danger to face in the new world outside, where only the insects and scavenger beasts could thrive. Perhaps there were no more places left where people could rest.

'Hey! You missed something! Over there.' Fairbank was casting his beam towards the opposite causeway.

Culver aimed his own flashlight in that direction and saw the opening, a passageway beyond. He could just make out stone steps further back. 'Any idea where it could lead?' he asked Dealey.

'Impossible to say. It's not a channel or a drain.'

Culver stared down into the spume-flecked water. We can't risk crossing here. We'll have to go on.'

'Not much further, though,' Kate said excitedly. 'Look, there's a gangway across.'

Deep in thought, Culver had missed both the opening and the small, causeway-connecting bridge in the near distance. They hurried towards it, and found the structure was made of iron, narrow in width, and with just a spindly handrail on one side.

'It has to be fairly close to that passageway for a reason,' commented Ellison. 'It's gonna take us out of here, I know it'

Culver led the way across, testing the bridge's safety with every step. The metal surface was rusted but firm, although the handrail itself wobbled uncertainly. They hurried back the way they had come, this time on the opposite bank, and soon reached the opening. The passageway was at least eight feet high and wide enough for two men to walk along comfortably side by side. The glistening wet stone stairway at the end of the passage was easily visible in the illumination of both flashlights.

It led upwards, into the ceiling.

Kate clutched Culver's arm. 'It's the way out! It has to be!'

Fairbank whooped with glee and even Dealey managed to smile.

What the hell are we waiting for?' cried Ellison, and Culver had to restrain him from charging forwards.

There's a whole network of sewers, conduits and pipes all around us - not to mention passageways such as this. Those rats could be anywhere by now: above, behind or ahead of us. It's their territory, so let's just take it quiet and easy.'

He moved to the foot of the steps and shone the torch upwards. Just beyond ceiling level was another opening, a doorway. He began to mount the stairs, taking them slowly, one at a time. The others, heeding his warning but nevertheless impatient, crowded behind him.

Culver reached the top and saw the door itself was old and rotted, a rusted metal sheet battened to its surface. It was open about two feet. He shone in the beam and saw another long corridor. Like the previous one, puddles covered the floor and its walls were of old, crumbling brickwork. It appeared to stretch a long way.

Culver pushed at the metal and the door ground protest-ingly against the stone floor, shifting only a few inches. Wary of what could be on the other side, he slipped through. No half-eaten corpse held the door open.

The others came in after him, shivering anew with the dank cold. Culver examined the lock and found an open bolt, rusty with years of dampness.

This is an entrance for the sewer workers and inspectors,' declared Dealey. 'It probably leads to an exit along the Embankment, or somewhere in the vicinity.'

'I thought they used manholes,' said Fairbank.

'Of course not. They have to bring in equipment for repairs and suchlike, as well as large work crews.'

Why would the door be unlocked?' asked Culver.

'Negligence probably. You can see the door's been warped out of shape by dampness. I doubt anyone found it necessary to lock it anyway. Sewers aren't generally frequented by trespassers, are they?'

'No,' Culver agreed, 'but I'd feel safer if we got it closed. Remember what's chasing us?'

Fairbank lent his weight when Culver put his shoulder to the door. It closed reluctantly, the movement echoing back from the far end of the passageway. Culver shot the rusty bolt with some satisfaction.

Their footsteps were less hurried as they tramped along the lengthy corridor, not because their fear had left them -although it was not quite as acute as before - but because weariness was finally asserting a stronger grip, adrenalin losing its power.

Another door greeted them at the far end, and this one was locked. A hefty kick from Culver opened it.

They found themselves in a spacious room with several doorways around the walls.

'Ah, now I think I understand,' said Dealey.

The others regarded him curiously.

We've come back to a part of the old World War Two shelter. This must be the second level, just below the section we first entered. I was wrong about the passageway we've come through; it wasn't for sewer workers. It was meant as a means of escape should whoever inhabited this shelter be trapped.

The whole region is catacombed with chambers such as this. When you consider how long ag—'

Take a look!' The coldness in Fairbank's voice startled them all. He was sweeping his flashlight along the floor.

At first they thought the objects lying there were just debris, pieces of mislaid junk left by previous generations of occupiers. When they looked closer the chill inside them all deepened.

The first object to take on an identity was a severed arm, all but one of the fingers missing. The next was the remains of a head, one empty eyesocket bored into and enlarged as though something had been dragged out. A piece of putrid flesh that may once have been a thigh lay close by. The human parts lay scattered around the floor, white bones reflecting the torch lights, dried and shrivelled meat lumps standing alone like strangely shaped rocks on a desert of dust.

The familiar dread returned, only this time more potently, for they were weakened, exhausted, close to total hysteria. Culver caught Kate as she sagged. She did not faint entirely, but that unconscious state was not far away.

Ellison began to head back towards the door through which they had just arrived and Culver brought him to a sudden halt.

'No!' The pilot's voice was firm, almost angry. We're going on. We didn't come across any rats on our way into the old shelter, so I figure it's our safest way out. Nothing's making me go back into the sewers.'

The words rebounded off the empty walls, as if to mock him.

He continued determinedly, "We're going to walk straight through this, right to the other end of this room. There's a doorway there and with any luck, a stairway beyond. Just look straight ahead and don't stop for anything.'

Culver set off, supporting Kate, keeping her walking, her head tucked into his chest. The arm around her shoulder clutched the Browning, its muzzle held erect, ready to swing down into action. He kept the flashlight in his other hand aimed directly at the far doorway. Someone behind stumbled and he looked around to see Dealey on one knee, a skull, with the back of its cranium cracked open like a hatched egg, rolling to a stop a few feet away.

'Get up and keep walking,' Culver commanded, his voice tight. 'Don't stop for anything,' he repeated.

But they did stop.

As one.

When they heard the child crying.

The group stood as a rigid tableau among a macabre landscape of human remnants, listening to the pitiful crying. Culver closed his eyes against both the sound and the new pressure. He wanted to be free of this sinister madhouse, this vault of atrocities, but there was no clear escape, no relief from the mental tortures it inflicted upon them. His only desire was to take Kate's hand and run, never stopping until daylight bathed their faces, until clean air filled their lungs. Yet he knew it wasn't possible. He would have to find the child first.

They listened, feeling wretched with the plaintive cry. The wailing was high-pitched, possibly that of a little girl.

'It's coming from over there,' someone said at last.

They looked to the right, towards an opening that had been boarded up with heavy planks, the bottom section broken inwards. The wood appeared to have been gnawed.

The crying continued.

'I don't think it's wise to stay,' said Dealey, looking around anxiously at the others.

Then go to Hell,' said Culver in a low voice.

He felt a slight resistance from Kate when he moved away; then she was moving with him. The others reluctantly joined them at the boarded doorway. Culver and Fairbank shone their flashlights through the gaps between the planks

of wood and peeked in. The far wall was at least forty feet away and the room itself was bare of furniture, like the chamber they stood in. Fairbank aimed his beam low and tapped Culver's shoulder.

The stone floor of the room had collapsed inwards, leaving a ridge of jagged concrete around its circumference, with broken, exposed joists protruding. Below was a pit filled with rubble.

The sad, despairing cries tore at their nerves.

The kid's somewhere below,' Fairbank said.

Culver called out. 'Can you hear us? Are you on your own?'

The crying stopped.

'It's all right. We'll come down to get you! You're safe now!'

Silence.

The poor little sod is terrified out of her mind,' said Fairbank.

Culver began to pull at the planking. The rotted wood came away easily, breaking into long, damp splinters. The crying began again.

It was an eerie sound, the emptiness of the surroundings giving it a peculiar resonance, as if it came from a deep well.

'It's okay!' Culver shouted again. ‘You're going to be all right!' Echoes of his voice bounced back.

There was quiet from below once more.

The two men pulled away the wood, creating a hole large enough to climb through. They shone the lights in, the others peering over their shoulders.

'Construction work on the new shelter must have caused the fall-in,' Dealey said. With the continuous dampness over the years, the vibration from the new works, it's a wonder the whole bunker hasn't fallen in.'

Culver indicated the dark chasm before them. 'Maybe the nuclear bombs caused the final collapse.'

'Steve, please don't go down there.' Kate spoke in a low whisper, and there was an urgency in her request that disturbed Culver.

There's a kid inside,' he said. 'It sounds like a little girl, and she's alone, Kate. Maybe others are with her, too injured to speak, unconscious, maybe dead. We can't just leave her.'

There's something wrong. It ... doesn't feel ... right.' The first sound of the crying child had sent a harrowing and uncanny sensation spilling through her. There was something unnatural about the voice.

‘You don't really think I can walk away.' Culver's statement was flat, his eyes searching hers.

She averted her gaze, not replying.

'How can you get to her?' Ellison was still agitated, hating Culver for wasting so much time in this God-forsaken hole. "You'll break your neck trying to get down there.'

There could be a way through the sewers,' Dealey suggested. 'Underneath here must be the very basement of the old shelter, close to the sewer network.'

Culver shook his head. There's no way I'm going back there. Look.' He pointed the flashlight. There's a broken joist over there sticking up from a pile of rubble. The top end of the joist is leaning against the wall, just below the overhang. I think I can make it back up that way. Getting down is no problem; the ceilings are low in here; it's an easy drop.' He turned to Fairbank. 'I'd like to borrow the Ingram.'

The engineer surprised him by shaking his head. 'Uh-huh. I'm coming with you. You'll need a hand with the kid.'

Culver nodded gratefully and handed the Browning to Dealey. 'No point in you three waiting. Take them out of here.'

Again he was surprised when Dealey refused. We'll wait for you,' the older man said, taking the gun.

We'll be better off if we all stick together.'

You're crazy!' Ellison erupted. 'Look around you! Those bloody rats have been here, and they can get to this place again! We've got to leave now!'

He made as if to grab the gun from Dealey, but Fairbank's hand clamped around his arm.

'I've had all the shit I'm going to take from you, Ellison.' The stocky engineer's eyes blazed angrily. You always were trouble, even in peacetime, bitching, whining, never happy unless you were complaining about something. Now if you want to leave, leave! But you go on your own, and with no flashlight and no gun. Just don't go stumbling into any hungry rats in the dark.'

Ellison appeared ready to attack the other man, but something in Fairbank's glacial smile warned him off. Instead he shook his head, saying, You're all insane. You're all fucking insane.'

Culver gave Kate the flashlight. 'Keep it shining into the floor opening - we're going to need all the light we can get.'

Her quietness disturbed him, but he turned away. 'Ready?' he said to Fairbank.

Muttering something about 'another fine mess', the engineer eased his way through the gap they had created.

Both men paused on the other side, Fairbank shining the light downwards. Apart from rubble, the room looked empty. The light beam reflected off black pools of water in the debris.

'Can you hear me down there?' Culver called out, aware that it was impossible not to be heard.

The kid may be too scared to answer,' Fairbank sug-

gested. 'God knows what the poor little beggar's been through.'

They thought they heard a shifting sound.

‘You want the gun or the flashlight?' the engineer asked.

Culver would have preferred the Ingram. 'Let me have the light.'

With backs to the wall they eased themselves around the overhang, fearful that it might collapse beneath them. Streams of dust trickled into the darkness below. Kate, standing just inside the gap, one leg still in the outer room, helped guide them with her light.

Culver came to a halt. 'Okay, this is where we go down.' They had reached a corner, the flooring wider and seemingly more solid there. He could just make out the iron beam projecting beneath the overhang.

'Hold the torch for a moment,' he said, then lowered himself into a sitting position. He turned onto his stomach and lowered himself, his feet finding the angled beam. He let himself go, boots sliding down the joist, the descent to the heap of rubble not long. Steadying himself, he looked up.

Throw me the torch, then the Ingram.'

Fairbank did so and clambered over the edge himself. They were soon standing side by side.

'Easy,' acknowledged the engineer, retrieving the weapon.

Culver swept the torch around the room. There's nothing here,' he said. 'Nothing.'

He moved forward and something gave way beneath him. Fairbank tried to grab him as he fell, but was encumbered by the gun. Culver toppled, rolling in the debris, the axe in his belt digging painfully into his side. The sound of sliding masonry echoed around the damp walls. Fairbank went after him, and fell also, cursing as he went

And the crying began once more, high-pitched and fearful, the voice of a terrified child.

Both men looked towards the direction of the cries. They saw a dark doorway, another room. A familiar nauseating stench came from that room.

Dust settled around them as Kate's voice from above called out, 'Are you okay?'

"Yeah, we're all right, don't worry.'

The two men picked themselves up and noticed that, yet again, the crying had stopped.

'Hey, kid,' Fairbank yelled, 'where the hell are you?'

They heard what sounded like a whimper.

'She's in there,' Culver stated what they both knew.

That smell...' said Fairbank.

We have to get her.'

'I don't know.' Fairbank was shaking his head. 'Something—'

We have to.'

Culver led the way, sloshing through the puddles, stepping over debris. After a moment's hesitation, Fairbank went after him.

The next-door chamber was wide and long, its ceiling, fallen in many places, low. Parts of the walls had collapsed, too, creating deep, impenetrable recesses. In the distance they could hear a faint rushing, gurgling noise, the cadence of the sewers. Long cobwebs, like soot-filled lace, drooped everywhere.

Scattered on the broad expanse of floor before them were humped shapes, yellow-grey in the gloom.

Smaller white shapes glowed almost phosphorescently. Dark, less discernible forms lay between.

Both men took a step backwards, Fairbank raising the weapon, Culver reaching for the axe in his belt.

The urge to run, to flee from this stinking, horror-strewn cellar, was almost irresistible. Yet it held a peculiar, paralysing fascination. And the distressed whimpers could not be ignored.

They're not moving,' Culver whispered urgently. They're dead. Like the others in the shelter, wiped out by the plague. They must have crawled back here, their lair, to die.'

'All those skulls. Why all those skulls?'

'Look at them. They've been broken into. Through the eye sockets, between the jaws. Look there -

holes bored straight through the top of the cranium. Don't you see! They eat the brains. That's why so many corpses we found were headless. The bastards brought them back here to feed off.'

Those other things...'

Culver singled out one of the bloated, yellowish-white shapes. Its form seemed peculiarly blurred, indefinable.

•What the hell is it?'

Culver had no answer to the engineer's question. He moved closer, fascinated, despite himself.

'Oh, sweet Jes ...' The words faded on his lips.

The bloated creature barely resembled a rat. Its head was almost sunk into the obese body, long withered tusks emerging from the slack jaw. Under the strong light they saw there was a pinkishness to the fine, stretched skin, a smattering of wispy white hair its only covering. Dark veins streaked its body, blood vessels that had hardened and stood embossed from the skin. The twisted spine rose to a peak over its rear haunches; the tail curved round like a lash, its surface hard with scales. There were other projections about its body, these resembling malformed limbs, superfluous and hideous in shape. The slanted eyes glinted under the torch glare, but there was no life in them.

"What is it?' Fairbank repeated breathlessly.

'A mutant rat,' said Culver. 'Of the same strain as the Black, but ... different.' Dealey's words came back to him.

He had said there were two breeds, born of the same altered gene. 'A grotesque', Dealey had called it.

It was an inadequate description. He had implied they were undergoing some genetic transformation. Oh Christ, so this was the result!

There was a rustling, not far away.

Nerves taut, ready to snap, both men whirled around, the light beam stabbing at the darkness.

'Over there!' Fairbank pointed.

Shapes were moving. A mewling sound to their left made them turn in that direction. Other movements, scuffling in the darker corners.

'It's like before,' Fairbank said in dismay. They're not all dead.'

Culver swept the light over the sluggishly heaving forms. They can't harm us. Listen to them. They're weak, dying. They're frightened of us!'

A black shape disengaged itself from the mass. It tried to crawl towards them, hissing as it came, but it could hardly move. Fairbank aimed the gun.

Before he could fire, a squealing scream came from a far corner. The two men looked wide-eyed at each other, then towards its source.

The kid!' exclaimed Fairbank.

The torch beam reached the far corner, but too many other objects were in the way for a clear view.

'Let's get her and then get out!' Culver urged. He held the axe ready. 'Shoot at anything that moves, try and clear a path!'

They set off, both men determinedly keeping panic in check, making for the corner where the piteous crying had resumed. Only now the sound was different, more shrill... less like a child's ... more like ...

A hail of rapid phuts overshadowed the other noises as

Fairbank fired at the obscenely bloated bodies. He could not be sure that they moved, but was taking no chances. The creatures seemed to pop with small explosions.

A Black rat rose up in front of Culver, standing on its haunches so that it looked immense. It snarled and hissed at him, blood-flecked foam dripping from bared teeth, but Culver could see the animal had no strength, only instinctive hatred driving it on.

Blood splattered Culver's hand as he brought the axe down on the thin skull.

The two men kicked ground bones aside as they made their way towards the crying child, scuffing up white powder and looking away from dismembered human parts. As Fair-bank stepped over an inert pink form, the creature raised its sinister, pointed head, toothless jaws attempting to snap at his ankle.

The engineer stamped down hard and felt bones crunch beneath his foot.

The mewling increased in pitch, became an intense swell of squealing, of helpless ululation ... infantile wailing...

Childish crying...

The realization struck Culver like an icicle dagger. He almost stumbled, almost fell among the fearful writhing bodies. He tried to reach out and bring Fairbank to a halt, but it was already too late. They were there. They had reached the far corner. They had reached the Mother Creature's nest.

'Oh ... my ... God ... N0\' Fairbank sobbed as they looked down at the throbbing, pulsating flesh and its terrible spawn.

'It can't be,' Fairbank moaned. 'It ... just ... can't ... be...'

In another section not too far away, from a hole in the crumbled brick wall, came the sounds of scuffling, of scampering clawed feet.

Kate, Dealey and Ellison flinched when they heard the gunfire. Kate stood perilously close to the edge of the collapsed floor, attempting to shine the flashlight into the doorway through which Culver and Fairbank had disappeared.

'Steve!' she called, but only heard more soft gunfire. And in the pauses, an awful ululation, a strident, piercing screeching. She turned to the others. We must help them!'

There's nothing we can do,' Dealey told her. His throat was dry, he could barely speak; the hand gripping the Browning would not keep still. 'Keep ... keep the light... on the doorway as a ... as a ...

guide for them,' he stammered.

Ellison remained on the other side of the broken boards, inside the darkened room, listening to the dreadful sounds, the trembling in his legs making it difficult for them to support his body. His hands were clawed against his face, his eyes staring and seeing nothing but blackness. They were crazy, crazy to stay here, crazy not to run, to get out while they had the chance, crazy to think they could defend themselves against so many. Culver and Fairbank were finished. Nothing could save them! The rats would rip them to pieces and then come searching for the girl, Dealey and himself! Why hadn't they listened to him? The stupid, bloody fools!

He looked towards the source of light, seeing Dealey's

silhouette, the man leaning forward into the opening, clutching the gun. The gun! He had to take the gun! And the flashlight - he would need the flashlight!

Ellison moved quickly.

Dealey turned as the Browning was snatched away, tried to protest, but was pushed back against the doorway, shards of splintered wood digging into his back.

Gun held forward, Ellison made a grab for the flashlight. 'Give it to me? he screamed as Kate tried to pull away.

He caught her arm, yanking her inwards. She fell, tried to kick out at him, but a hand smacked her viciously across the face. She cried out, falling backwards. The flashlight was taken from her.

Dealey tried to intervene and Ellison pushed him away once more. He levelled the gun at him. Tm leaving!' The engineer's words were spat out. ‘You can come with me, or you can stay. But I'm getting out now!'

The others ...' Dealey began to say.

We can't help them! They've had it!'

Ellison began to back away, keeping the weapon pointed at the two figures, who were blinded by the flashlight. Then he turned and began to run, heading for the door at the other end of the room, away from the mayhem below, away from his companions. And, he foolishly thought, away from the vermin.

Fairbank shouted his abhorrence, screamed his fear, as he fired at the huge swollen mass before them.

The creature screeched, the sound of a hurt, terrified child, and attempted to lift her obese body, tried to protect herself, her two jaws snapping ineffectively, her useless limbs thrashing the ground, trampling and scattering the tiny offspring that had suckled at her breasts.

Bullets ripped into her, explosions of blood spurting out in dark jets, drenching the two men, soaking the earth around her, covering the blind, squealing things beneath her with its sticky fluid. In a paroxysm of agony, she rose up, exposing her sickening, fleshy underbelly, several of her brood still clinging to the many breasts that dangled there. A frenzied hail of bullets tore her open, a waterfall of blood gushing out, carrying with it internal organs that steamed in the dank atmosphere. Still she moved, still she writhed, falling again, but incredibly shuffling her way towards the two men.

Fairbank's howling cry mingled with the muted crackling of the weapon, his face lit up with the bright flashes, his eyes demented with loathing, with revulsion for the monstrosity coming towards them. The massive, throbbing body began to come apart, the rising curved spine shattering into splinters, bursting outwards like shrapnel; flesh ruptured and

parts pulverized as bullets tore through; one barely raised claw was shredded to pulp. Yet still it advanced.

The pointed head, its incisors like curled tusks, the eyes white, sightless, weaved in front of them; a strange stump protruded from her shoulder next to the head, an opening within it which could only have been another mouth, spitting blood-specked drool.

Culver sank to his knees, strength draining from his legs. He stared at the heinous deformity, the misbegotten grotesque, horrified, his muscles numbed. But as her foul breath and her spittle touched his cheek, the shock was punctured.

The flashlight at his knees, he raised the short axe with both hands and, with a screaming roar, brought it down with all his force.

The pointed skull before him split cleanly in two, grey-pink substance inside falling loose, liquid from the opened throat jetting out.

The piercing screech came from the stump next to the cloven head, the toothless jaws wide with the creature's pain, her scaly purple tongue stabbing frenziedly at the air.

Culver struck again, cutting through this other skull, the axe head sinking into the shoulder, into the body itself.

The squirming abomination suddenly went rigid, became frozen just for a few moments. Then slowly, agonizingly slowly, it began to slump, nerve ends twitching, torn, bloated body quivering.

But Culver was not finished. His eyes were blurred and his face dampened by tears as he attacked the litter, the smaller more obscene - much more obscene - creatures that the monster had given birth to. He hacked their pink bodies, ignoring their faint cries, striking, pummelling, crushing their tiny bones, making sure each one was dead, beating any

small movement from them, shredding them from existence, sundering them of all form, of any shape.

A hand tugged at his shoulder, the grip hard, violent.

He looked up to see Fairbank grimacing down at him.

The other rats are down here,' the engineer said through tight-clenched teeth.

Culver was hauled to his feet, his mind still confused, still dazed by the slaughter. And by what he had slaughtered. He quickly became aware of the darting black shapes in the rubble of the damp underground chamber.

The rats were in turmoil, leaping from an opening in the brick wall, scampering down the slope of debris, squealing and hissing, looking wildly around, lashing out at each other, gnashing their teeth and drawing blood. They poured through, more and more, filling the room, and somehow oblivious to the two men. The mutant Black rats fought each other, groups turning on an individual for no apparent reason, tearing it apart and gnawing at the body.

Culver and Fairbank could not understand why they were ignored as the animals swilled around the chamber, biting at the other gross forms that lay dying or dead on the floor, high-pitched squeals filling the air, the sound resembling hundreds of excited birds inside an aviary; the noise, the movement, intensifying, rising to a climax, climbing to a thunderous pitch.

Then they stopped.

They lay in the darkness, black-furred bodies quivering, a trembling, silent mass. Occasionally one would hiss, snarl, rear up, but would become passive almost immediately, sinking back among its brethren. The shaking motion seemed to reverberate in the atmosphere itself.

Bathed in blood, grimed with filth and barely recognizable, the two men held their breath.

Nothing stirred.

Slowly, wordlessly, Fairbank touched Culver's sleeve. With a slight jerk of his head he indicated the doorway they had entered by. Keeping the light beam on the floor before them, the two men began gently, quietly, to make their way through the gathered vermin, careful not to disturb any, skirting round when a pack was too thick to step over.

A rodent lashed out with its incisors, hissing at them when they trod too close. The teeth grazed Culver's ankle through his jeans, but the animal did not attack.

At one point, Fairbank tripped and stumbled into a tight group, going down on his knees among them.

Inexplicably, they merely scattered, snarling at the air as they did so.

They were just thirty yards from the doorway, both men wondering why they could not see Kate's flashlight shining into the collapsed room behind, when an eerie keening began.

It started as a single, faint, low whine; then other rats joined in, the keening growing, swelling. The sound ended in a startling unified screech and the vermin broke loose again. But they darted towards the bloody, shapeless carcase of the gross monster that the two men had destroyed, the miscreated beast who had nurtured the even more hideous newborn, pouncing on the remains, fighting each other over the scraps, covering the nest completely with their own frantic bodies.

And when there was nothing left of the malformity and her brood, they turned on their kindred, the bloated beasts who were of the same breed but perversely different, savaging them until they, too, were nothing but bloody shreds.

The two men ran, heading for the doorway, kicking aside

those vermin still standing in their path. Culver swung the axe as a rat sprang at him, catching it beneath the throat. It squealed and dropped in a limp bundle to the floor. Another leapt and caught his arm, but the leather jacket ripped and the animal fell away, Culver cracking down with the blunt end of the axe, breaking bone. Fairbank scattered four or five others that had grouped in the doorway itself.

They were through and there was still no light from above, but they heard Kate cry out Culver's name.

Fairbank whirled in the doorway, pressing a shoulder hard against the frame, the Ingram pointed back into the chamber they had just left.

'Culver, give me light!' he shouted.

Culver did so, shining the beam into the next room. The rats were swarming after them.

Fairbank fired, the weapon hot in his hands, his trigger finger stiff with the pressure. The advancing rats danced and jerked as though on marionette strings. 'Start climbing,' he called out over his shoulder. 'I can hold them without the light for a couple of seconds!'

Culver quickly climbed the heap of rubble leading to the fallen joist. His torch lit up Kate standing on the ledge above.

With no time to even wonder what had happened to her flashlight he yelled, 'Catch!' and lobbed the light towards her. She only just managed to hold it; she turned the beam back down into the pit The thing they had dreaded most of all happened. The Ingram clicked empty. With an alarmed shout, Fairbank turned to follow Culver, dropping the useless weapon into the dust.

Culver ran two steps up the angled joist, throwing the axe onto the ledge above him and grabbing at the edge just before his boots began to slip down again. Pieces of masonry fell away, but he quickly had both elbows on the overhang. His feet scrabbled for purchase.

He heard screaming from behind.

Kate was kneeling on the ledge, pulling at his clothes, trying to lift him. Dealey, too, had ventured out and had a hand beneath Culver's shoulder. The pilot's boots found a grip, enough to push upwards. He scrambled over the edge, instantly rising to his knees, grasping the flashlight from the girl.

Fairbank was halfway up the slope, his lower body engulfed by biting, scratching vermin. One darted up his back, sinking its teeth into the back of his neck. The engineer rolled over in an effort to dislodge the animal; his mouth was open in a scream, his eyes tightly closed against the pain. The rat fell away and Fairbank started to crawl again, his hands clawing into the rubble, the weight of the vermin chewing into his legs holding him back. He rose to a kneeling position, the rats clinging to his lower body. He tried to push them away and his hands came away bloody, fingers missing.

'Help me!' he screamed.

Culver tensed and Kate threw herself at him, knocking him back against the wall.

‘You can't, you can't,' she kept saying over and over again.

He tried to free himself, but she held him there, Dealey using his weight to assist her. And in reality, he knew that the little engineer was beyond help.

'Give me the other gun!' he shouted and could not understand why they did not comply, why they merely held him tight.

Fairbank was dragging the giant rats upwards with him. They covered him now, making him a creature of black, stiffened fur, a monster of their own kind. His screaming had turned into a raspy choking as they tore into his neck. One

side of his face had completely gone, the skin ripped down, taking an eye and most of his lips with it.

His nose was nothing more than a mushy protuberance. He tried to raise his arms as if still reaching for the ledge, but they could hardly move with the weight of the rats clinging to them.

Fairbank fell stiffly backwards, crashing down into the rubble, the black pools of water. His blood spread outwards, joining those pools as the vermin pushed and snapped at each other in their struggle to devour the most succulent parts.

Others were aware of the three people on the overhang above and darted up the slope, springing onto the metal beam, attempting to scramble onto the ledge.

The thing that would eventually kill Ellison was lying in the darkness. It did not move, nor even breathe.

It made no sounds, nor could it. It had been dead for some time. But still it would kill Ellison.

The corpse was that of a sewer worker, a senior repairs foreman, and as a living being the foreman had chosen this shadowy place to die. Others in his small work crew, on the day of the bombs, had elected to return to the surface, to find their families, to put their faith in the authorities. This man had had no such faith. He was old, ready - more than ready - for retirement, not just from the job he had worked at for forty-two years (some said a hundred, others said he was born in the sewers, while still others who did not appreciate his dour, often rancid, humour maintained he belonged there), but from existence itself. He may have been considered perverse in his belief that life was somehow cleaner beneath the streets than above. What he meant, but what he never told anybody, was that there was a wonderful absence of people in this permanently nocturnal underworld. And everything was more distinct down there, more defined, unlike the murky upperworld where there were shades for everything, colour, opinions and race.

In the depths, everything was black unless illuminated by man-made light; and such illumination made the blackness beyond mere black,

deeper in intensity. He had considered himself a simple man (although he was not) with a penchant for absolutes. The tunnels gave him absolutes.

And the falling bombs had provided the ultimate one. There was no more living, only dying.

He had let his workers go, not even offering advice. In fact, he was pleased to be released from them.

Then he had found his place in the dark.

The old air-raid shelter was not unknown to him, although strictly speaking it was off-limits to the sewer workers. He hadn't visited it for many years, for past curiosity had soon been diminished by the bunker's very emptiness; but once he was alone, he had sought out the refuge simply because he had preferred death without wetness. True, the old complex was damp and puddled, but there were places where the moisture at least did not run.

So he had settled down in the dark corridor, not minding when the batteries of his helmet lamp had run down, the light slowly eaten by shadows, swallowed by blackness in one quick gulp. He waited and ruminated, having no one to shed tears for (his family were not close) and little regret that it had all come to this. In a way, he was even pleased that his manner of death was of his own choosing, and not specifically laid out by the corporate authority who had ruled his destiny for as long as he could remember. He had heard that the final stages of starvation were not that unpleasant, that the mind, unrestricted, not diverted by physical needs, found a new, freer plane. If only the boring hunger pains and the agony that came from organ deterioration did not have to be endured first.

The days had passed and the old man had tried to remain still, not to maintain strength, but because stillness was close to lifelessness. He lost track of time, so had no idea of when the hallucinations began (or even of when they ended). He enjoyed most (who wouldn't mind swapping anecdotes with God, or floating through space and seeing the Earth as a tiny pinpoint of blue light?), but there were others that terrified, that made him huddle up in a tight ball and hide his face away from sights and sounds that had no place in his dimension. The scurrying noise had provoked the worst visions for, inexplicably, they seemed to draw him back to a dreamy reality. The padding, scuffling of small bodies was very close, coming from a grating that ran the length of the corridor in which he lay. He never dared look, for that would mean testing the truthfulness of the dream, and that truth might bind him longer to the existence he was trying to escape. He had lain still, not breathing, lest those underworld creatures that made such sounds impose their truth upon him.

The old man's delirium was timeless, the slide - once the worst was over - into peace, not oblivion, easy and gliding, with almost no line drawn between the two opposites, life and death. The body had straightened before the final but slurred moments, legs sprawling outwards, arms at his sides, and head slumped onto his chest. It was the way he had chosen and it had not been too unkind to him.

He had thought, mistakenly, that at least his way out was of no consequence and no bother to anyone else; but in that, he was wrong.

Had not the sewer worker chosen that particular spot in which to wither away, and had his legs not sprawled outwards, feet pointing east-west, then Ellison would not have stumbled over him, tripped and lost his flashlight, gun, and a little later on, his life.

Ellison burst through the door, his only desire to be as far away as possible from the commotion back there. He knew

the others had no chance: there would be nothing left of Culver and Fairbank by now, and Dealey and the girl would not last long on their own. He did not consider that the latter two had even less of a chance without the flashlight and gun he had taken from them. They were fools and the world was no longer fit for such; only the clear-headed and ruthless would survive. He meant to survive; he had already gone through too much not to.

Beyond the room where Kate and Dealey lay stunned was yet another room, this one smaller and square-shaped. The flashlight soon picked out a door directly opposite. He prayed it would not be locked as he hurried over, and his prayer was answered. Thankfully, he pushed it open wide and saw the short corridor beyond, another door at the end. Whoever had originally designed the crazy house must have had a mania for doors and corridors, unless (and more likely) these were added over the decades as the complex was extended. So unnerved at what lay behind and so intent on what lay ahead, Ellison failed to notice the sprawled legs, the opposite-angled feet, just inside the door. Both flashlight and gun were thrown from his outstretched hands and he landed heavily, the concrete floor rushing up to meet him and skinning his hands and knees. His surprised cry changed instantly to one of pain, then anguish when something shattered and there was no more light.

Panic, his old acquaintance and motivator, sent him fumbling around the hard concrete floor in search of the precious light. He recoiled from the stick-like leg he touched, moving rapidly away, coming up against a wall and feeling some kind of grille beneath him. The slats were wide enough for his hand to go through and, for a moment, his fingers dangled in space. He hastily withdrew them, not liking the cool draught of air that embraced his skin.

He found the torch close by, cutting his hand on the shattered glass. He pressed the switch, praying once again, but this time the invocation went unheeded: the light failed to respond.

Ellison began to whimper, occasionally a self-pitying sob breaking loose. The gun. He had to find the gun. It was his only protection. But somebody up there had closed shop: his entreaties were ignored. He searched as much as he could of the corridor, moving around on scraped hands and knees, finding only dried, brittle excreta, presumably the dead person's bequest to the world. Eventually he gave up, knowing madness or vermin would claim him if he remained in that place one minute longer. He moved to the wall on his right, feeling the grating beneath his feet - perhaps the gun had fallen into it - and touching the wall on that side with both hands he moved forward, sure that it was in the right direction, his fingertips never leaving the wall's coarse surface, blinded by bubbling fear as well as lack of light.

A corner. Moving away, keeping to the wall. A doorway. The doorway he had seen from the other end just before he had tripped. He found the handle, twisted, opened the door, went through. He had no way of knowing what kind of room he was now in. He could only keep to the wall, moving to his right, going around a long way it seemed, although he understood that blindness made distances longer, not stopping until he had found another opening. He entered this one, still keeping to the wall, stumbling onwards, travelling further into the labyrinth, unaware that if he had chosen the left-hand path, he would have come upon a staircase leading upwards.

Fairbank's screams resounded in their ears long after he was dead. As they fled from the room with its precarious ledge, the vermin leaping upwards, falling back, trying again, claws sinking into broken masonry, scrambling over the edge to give chase, the two men and the girl could not close out those horrifying shrieks from their minds. Dealey and Kate had had to drag Culver from the room, and only when the screaming stopped had he allowed them to. For a few seconds he had stood in the doorway, axe still clasped in one hand, staring down at the heaving mass covered in Fair-bank's blood. A rat had appeared nearby, its long, pointed snout sniffing the air as its claws had struggled for purchase. Another had arrived at its side and Culver had used his boot to send them reeling back down.

As they hastened across the chamber, Culver only half-hearing Kate's explanation of the missing flashlight and gun - the absconded Ellison - the vermin were steadily surmounting the overhang, ignoring the shrill combat of others who fought over the remaining human fragments. Still more found other routes from the basement chamber, their senses keen, bloodlust roused and still not sated from weeks of plenty.

Strong emotions other than fear were coursing through Culver: the deep grief for the engineer, the rending sense of having failed him, loathing for the beasts themselves coupled with a wild anger at them. It seemed that the mutant vermin were in a conspiracy with the powers who had ordered the all-out destruction of mankind: what those lunatic powers could not kill off, the rats were happy to clear up.

Kate held the flashlight Culver had thrown up to her, and she kept it pointed at the doorway Ellison had disappeared through, almost as if the beam would provide a straight, safe path to run along. They reached the doorway, passed through without pause, conscious of the squealing sounds close behind.

They traversed the smaller, square-shaped room they found themselves in, heading for an open door opposite. The first of the chasing rats was no more than twenty feet behind.

Culver pushed Kate and Dealey inside, going with them and quickly turning to slam the door shut.

Bodies crashed into it on the other side, rocking the wood in its frame. More thumps followed as the giant rats leapt at the door. Culver could see the wood bend inwards with each thump. He stiffened when he heard scratching. Then came the determined gnawing.

'Get down to the other end!' he shouted. ‘Ill hold them for as long as possible, then I'll make a break for it!' He kept his foot and shoulder to the door, feeling it move judderingly against the frame.

Kate backed away, keeping the light on Culver, on the door he struggled to keep closed against the Hell's demons outside, almost falling over something at her feet, moving away so that the circle of light grew, took in all the doorway, the beginnings of the corridor walls, Dealey, white-faced and shaking like a man with ague, the similarly white-faced corpse that smiled down into his chest.

She screamed, backed away fast, sent something behind her scudding across the floor, almost falling over it. She

turned and saw the other flashlight lying there, its glass smashed. It was next to a long grating beneath which were pipes with valves, stopcocks of some kind. She imagined the wide-spaced slats of the grille were so that maintenance men could reach through and adjust the valves. And there was the Browning lying in the shallow trench, propped up against the piping. The gun and flashlight were there in the corridor, but where was Ellison?

Her scream had caused Culver and Dealey to turn and see the starved body of a man wearing overalls, a helmet with a fitted lamp by his side. His emaciated expression seemed oddly pleased with his demise.

'Steve, the gun,' Kate said, pointing the torch through the grating. 'Ellison must have dropped it down there.'

'Can you reach it?'

'I think so. I think my hand can go through.'

The door bulged and, near the floor, the first splinter cracked inwards. Culver pushed his body hard against the wood. Try and get the gun,' he told Kate.

She knelt beside the opening and, keeping the light on the Browning, slid her fingers through the slats.

Her whole hand sank in and she pushed further until her wrist was inside too. Further still until she was stopped by her elbow. Her fingertips could just touch the gun butt.

'Hurry!' Culver urged.

Kate was careful not to topple the weapon, knowing it would never be reached if she did so. Her fingers slid down on either side and she closed them firmly like pincers, making sure she had a good grip before slowly drawing her hand upwards.

The black creature darted forward and bit into her hand before she was even aware of its skulking presence.

Kate's screams jolted the two men like rapid blows from a

hammer. They could only see her crouched silhouette, the flashlight lying on its side, shining towards the far door. Her shoulders were jerking as though she were being pulled, her head thrown back in resistance. They guessed instantly what held her there.

More splinters loosened at Culver's feet, but he was unaware of them. He ran to the struggling girl, her agonized screams dismissing any other danger from his mind. Scooping up the flashlight, he knelt beside her and grimaced when he looked down through the grating.

A rat, so big it filled the gap between the piping and the floor of the shallow cavity, had locked its jaws into Kate's hand and was tugging at it, its head moving in a swift shaking motion. Other rats were squirming beneath the piping, approaching Kate from the other direction. The concrete trench resembled a long, narrow cage filled with squealing, hissing creatures, their thin heads protruding through the bars, teeth snapping at the air, eager to reach the girl.

Culver beat at the heads nearest to her kneeling body with the axe as they tried to bite into her. They screeched as their snouts burst open.

'Steve, help me! help me!' Kate shrieked. 'Oh God they're-hurting me!'

Culver grabbed her wrist and wrenched it upwards. The rat came up with the hand, its eyes protruding, its skull pressed against the bars. He tried to hit at it, but the grille was too narrow, the angle too awkward for the blow to be effective. The beast's teeth were clenched tight into Kate's hand.

Over the deafening uproar of squealing vermin and Kate's screams, Culver vaguely heard Dealey shouting.

They're breaking through the door, Culver!'

He turned, shining the flashlight in that direction. The

lower portion of the door was beginning to give way, the wood bulging inwards. He saw slivers fall away, a black protuberance poking through, yellow teeth gnashing at the rough edges.

'Get over here and hold the light!' Culver yelled at Dealey.

The older man blanched when he saw the creatures eating into Kate's mangled hand. Even as he watched, a rat snipped off two fingers, retreating with his prize as another took its place. Blood flowed from the wounds, covering the vermin's heads, smearing their evil, yellow eyes, while Kate writhed, her screaming descending to shocked agonized moans. Culver thrust the flashlight at Dealey, then grabbed Kate's wrist with both hands. He pulled with all the strength he possessed, hoping the sudden jolt would dislodge the clinging rats.

It was no use. He tried to batter the first creature's head against the struts, but the rat still clung, its eyes shining frenziedly. Culver realized the teeth were locked into the bones of the hand - what was left of the hand - and nothing would loosen that grip, possibly not even death. He searched for the gun, but it was lost beneath black wriggling bodies.

'Culver!' Dealey was pointing the flashlight at the door once more. Culver glanced over his shoulder, still tugging at the wrist, and saw the rat's head pushing through the hole it had created, only its shoulders restraining it. Splinters fell away in a different section nearby and long talons appeared, scratching at the wood.

He sensed Dealey beginning to rise, making ready to run for the far door. He caught his arm.

Kate was moaning repeatedly, her eyes closed in a half-faint, her head rolling from side to side. Her hand was in shreds, all the fingers gone now, but the rats still pulled, still tugged, still gnawed at the bloody remnants, cracking fragile bones.

Dealey stared pleadingly at Culver.

Kate's body went rigid with further excruciating pain.

Wood split behind him.

Culver swiftly unbuckled his belt, drawing it from the jeans loops. He placed the axe on the floor, then slipped the belt around Kate's arm just below the elbow. He curled the leather over, tied a half-knot and pulled it tight so that it sank into the flesh. He completed the knot.

And picked up the axe again.

Kate's eyes opened just as he raised it high. She looked at him, momentarily puzzled. Realization pushed its way through the pain and her eyes widened unnaturally and her lips curled back over her teeth as she opened her mouth to howl.

'Nooooooooo...!'

The axe flashed down, striking her arm just above the wrist. Bones shattered, but it took another blow to sever the hand completely.

Mercifully, Kate fainted.

There was turmoil below as the rats fought over what was left of the hand. Culver picked up the limp girl and stood, the white-faced Dealey rising with him. A quick glance told them that the rat at the door was nearly through, only its haunches wedging its struggling body in the opening. It frantically scrabbled at the floor, snarling its frustration, saliva dripping from straining jaws as it tried to force a way in. More wood fractured close by and, where before there had only been a claw, there now appeared another sleek black head.

And all the while, the starved corpse of the man smiled into its chest.

Culver carried Kate to the far doorway, Dealey leading.

They hurried through just as the determined rat broke loose into the corridor, another following, then another, a stream of rampaging devils. Dealey slammed the door on them and fell away as their bodies pounded the other side.

They found themselves in a square-shaped room, another doorway opposite, to one side. But as Dealey flashed the light around they caught sight of a stairway.

Thank God,' breathed Dealey.

They did not linger. Behind them, the door was already cracking, the smell of fresh blood keen in the vermin's senses. Although Kate was not heavy, Culver was at exhaustion point. A trail of blood from the stump of her arm followed them to the stairway and formed tiny pools on the steps as they climbed.

Once, twice, Culver stumbled, and only Dealey's helping hand prevented him and the girl from tumbling down. The second time, Culver lost the blood-splattered axe, and he had to tell the other man to place it back in his hand.

They staggered upwards and found themselves in a narrow, door-less passageway. It extended in both directions.

Squealing, scurrying sounds from below: the rats were in the room they had just left.

The two men chose a direction at random, hurrying along the passage, Culver having to move at an angle to allow room for Kate's inert body. They could hear the mutant animals on the stairs.

Culver and Dealey's breathing was sharp and rasping, their chests heaving rapidly with the exertion.

Both men were ready to drop, a feeling of hopelessness, of defeat, beginning to overcome them, sapping their will and thus their remaining strength. So desperate were they that they almost missed the narrow opening. Only a fresh breeze, so different from the stagnant air they had grown used to, halted Culver. He called Dealey back and looked into the opening. He blinked his eyes to make sure. Faint daylight softened the darkness above.

It's a way out!' Dealey gasped. 'Oh, dear God, it's a way out!'

He brushed past Culver and began climbing the stone steps. Culver lowered his burden, supporting Kate in a momentary standing position; he crouched and let her slump over his shoulder. He straightened, an arm clutched around her legs, the other gripping the weapon, and began to climb, the fresh air already beginning to invigorate him, cooling the perspiration that covered his body, the breeze's sweetness a beckoning hand.

The narrow stairway curved round, spiralling upwards to lead them from the twilight depths into the bright sunlight of another world, a silent shattered landscape that offered little hope, but at least could still give comfort from maleficent darkness.

Panting for breath, they reached a strange-shaped enclosure, its ceiling high but its grey-slab walls close, a heavy wooden door set in one side. The door had a small, metal-strutted opening in its top section, and from there the sunlight poured in.

Dealey rushed at it and pulled the handle. 'It's locked!' he cried in dismay. He grabbed the struts and rattled the door in its frame.

Culver laid Kate on the stone floor and stepped towards the door, unceremoniously thrusting the other man aside. He smashed at the lock with the flat end of the axe. The lock was old, its mechanism stiff with lack of use; the wood around it chipped away and the lock itself soon clattered to the floor. But still the door would not open. It gave a fraction of an inch, but no more. Culver saw a wide but thin bar on the other side.

He stepped back and kicked, and kicked, and kicked. The gap widened, the metal bar bending outwards. A short, sharp blow from the axe loosened it completely from its mounting. The door burst open just as they heard scrabbling on the stairway.

'Get her out!' Culver shouted as he positioned himself at the top of the stairs. He allowed the first rat to reach the top step before he kicked at the open jaws, sending the animal slithering back down again, colliding with those who were just rounding the final bend. The next he sliced open with the axe. The next had its eyes slashed as the blade swept across its thin skull. It reared in the air, falling backwards with a helpful kick from Culver into those below. It lashed out, squealing in pain, flailing the other rodents with claws and teeth, causing confusion, itself coming under attack from the creatures, blocking the narrow stairway in a melee of furious bodies. Giving Culver time to run through the door and slam it shut.

His foot struck the padlock that had held it closed and sunlight stung his eyes as he desperately looked around for another method of keeping the door shut. He was on a wide stone stairway, the steps rising beyond the small structure he now pressed against. Behind him was the walkway along the Embankment and in the near distance stood the rectangular blockhouse they had used to enter the shelter.

Rain-battered litter lay scattered around the steps and walkway, scarves, hats, bags - items discarded by tourists at the first sound of sirens so many weeks before. There was nothing among them that would hold the door closed.

'Culver!' Dealey called from the Embankment wall. There's a small boat down here. We'll be safe on the river!'

It was a chance. The only chance they had.

'Get Kate onto it!' he shouted back. ‘Ill hold them as long

as I can.' He could still hear the rats tearing their fellow creatures to pieces inside the small building.

Dealey struggled with Kate down the ramp leading to the pleasure-boat jetty, water lapping over onto the landing stage. Culver waited a few moments, giving them time to get aboard the craft there, then pushed himself away from the door, leaping down the steps two at a time, trusting in God that he would not slip. He raced to the ramp and looked back in time to see the door swing open and the rats come surging out. Absurdly, he noticed something else: the building they had just fled from was the base of a monument; above, still proud although headless, Boadicea rode her stone chariot, her outstretched arm left intact, continuing to wave her spear defiantly at the collapsed Houses of Parliament.

He ran down to the jetty and looked in dismay at the large, empty pleasure boat still moored there, moving listlessly on the swollen river.

'Over here!' came the shout and he saw Dealey standing in a smaller boat further down towards Westminster Bridge. He made for it.

'Cast off!' he called out, aware that the vermin were scampering down the ramp, several leaping through the railings to get at him.

The boat would have accommodated no more than fifteen to twenty people on the benches set around its interior. A tiny white-topped cabin covered the bow, its paintwork scorched and bubbled, protection against the spray or foul weather for those tourists lucky or quick enough to find a place inside. Steering was from the stern, a simple but no doubt effective rudder fixed there, its bar ending close to an equally basic gearstick. In front of both was a pale green box that covered the engine. Not the most gracious looking of boats, it seemed to Culver in those desperate moments the handsomest craft he had ever laid eyes on. It was already a few feet away from the quayside, drifting lazily out into the current, and he had to take a running leap to reach it.

He landed on the small area of deck, sprawling over the engine box and quickly turning to face whatever followed. Two rats leapt at the same time. One just reached the side and tried to clamber over.

Culver dislodged it easily with a slashing stroke of the axe. The other had scuffled over onto the bench, jumping from there onto the engine covering. It skidded around to face Culver, hissing venomously.

Culver struck and missed as the quivering animal ran to one side. It came at him as a bundle of powerful, squirming fury, knocking him back onto the bench, rending his face with needle-like claws.

Culver sank down, the weapon falling to the deck. He pushed upwards and over, using the animal's own momentum. The rat flew over the side, splashing into the muddy water.

Culver was on his feet immediately and at the rudder and gearstick in two quick strides. Kate lay huddled on the deck, her eyes closed, her face white with shock. He knew she would not yet be in pain -

the nerve ends had been cut away and shock was its own analgesic - and was relieved to see her arm was now only seeping small amounts of blood.

From the quayside, the vermin plunged into the water and glided towards the drifting craft.

'How do we start it?' Dealey was close to weeping. There's no key, there's no damned key!'

Culver groaned, his shoulders sagging. There was now hardly any mist on the water, although the sun was hazy-bright above, and he could clearly see the sleek black shapes smoothly moving towards them.

Given time, he might have been able to open up the engine and bypass the ignition; but there was no time - the leading rats were already sinking their claws into the boat's hull.

He stooped to pick up the axe and spotted the boat-hook lying beneath the bench. 'Dealey, use that to keep them off. We may get away yet!'

Leaning over the side, he swiped at a body in the water. The distance to the water level was frighteningly short, but at least the current was taking them away from the quayside. Red liquid stained the river as the axe found its mark. Dealey had picked up the long, stout pole and was just in time to push back a rat that was clambering over the side. Another appeared in its place and snapped at the pole, sinking its teeth into the wood and refusing to let go. Dealey had to use all his depleted strength to shake off the rat, shoving it back into the water where it thrashed the surface into a foam, still refusing to release its grip. Only as air escaped its lungs did the animal relinquish the hold to swim back to the surface.

Meanwhile, other vermin had taken advantage of the struggle.

They scrambled up the side of the boat, using their powerful haunches to thrust themselves from the river.

Culver moved backwards and forwards, never stopping, knowing if he battled with one rat for too long, then others would quickly steal aboard. He thrust, cut and hacked, his face grim and a part of his mind cold, almost remote from the action. Dealey helped him, his movements more clumsy, less swift. He had learned a lesson, though, and that was to keep his jabs with the boat-hook sharp and short, never allowing the vermin to gain a grip.

The river bank drew further away, but still they came, a skimming black tide of them. The boat was drifting upriver with the tide, moving towards the bridge with its missing span on the opposite side of the river. Beyond he could see

rising from the river the peculiar rockface that was the fallen section of the ancient clock tower.

Culver realized that if the current took them fast enough they might just outdistance the swimming vermin. If only they could keep them off the boat, if only...

He froze.

He had looked up, just for a moment, a quick glance at the bridge itself. Black shapes were darting along its balustrade and the pavement below - he could just see the moving humped shapes. Many were peering through the ornate mouldings. They were lining up above him, bustling, jostling each other for position, long snouts descending, front paws already stretched downwards, balancing themselves.

Tensing themselves. Readying themselves to drop down as the boat passed under the bridge.

It was hopeless. They had no control over the small craft as the current lazily carried it towards the bridge. Still warding off boarding vermin, Dealey caught sight of Culver and wondered why the man was not moving, why he was staring ahead of them, regardless of the danger they were in. He followed the pilot's gaze and he, too, became still.

He could not speak, he could not curse, he could not even weep. Dealey had become too numbed by it all. To survive the holocaust, to struggle through the terrible aftermath, to thwart disaster at every turn -

and now this. To be destroyed by creatures that skulked in filth. A bitterly ironic death.

Culver turned, as if to warn him, and saw that he already knew. Something passed between them. A recognition of shared, impending death? That, and something more. A sudden, cognizant touching of spirits, a startling and rare knowing of each other. For Dealey, who was and always had been a pragmatist, it was a spontaneous and staggering insight not just into another's psyche, but also into his own, giving an acute awareness of his own being. The moment passed, but the sensing was indelible.

A dripping, sleek-furred rat appeared over the stern, and Culver attacked it with a grim deadly ferocity, slicing its skull in half and pushing the broken body back into the river with the end of the axe.

Feeling that same chill rage, Dealey

turned his attention back to the creatures beginning to clamber onto the deck. His anger grew as he attacked them, for he had been driven beyond fear, had reached the stage for which the very animals he did battle with were renowned; trapped, cornered, he turned on his aggressors.

Jamming the hook at the end of the pole deep into the mouth of one that had jumped onto the engine covering, he pushed against it so that the rat skidded off the smooth surface onto the bench at the boat's side. Dealey followed through, leaning over and lifting the stunned creature before it had a chance to recover. The effort took considerable strength, but he did not have time to wonder where that strength came from. Teeth sank into his ankle and he roared with anger and pain, stabbing down at the animal, battering its skull and body, forcing it to release him. The pole hook bent, broke off, and he used the jagged piece of metal that was left to stab into the rat. A jet of blood gushed as an artery in its neck punctured and the rat fled squealing. Yet another was already lunging for him. It caught him in the stomach, sending him back over the engine covering, the pole flying from his grasp. He felt his clothing tear, teeth entering his abdomen. He sank his fingers into the wet fur, digging deep, trying to push the burrowing creature away.

A shadow covered the sun and the mutant rat was wrenched from him.

Culver had the creature gripped around the neck. He pulled it back, regardless of ripping Dealey's flesh, and exposed its belly: he brought the axe down with a deep, chopping movement, then tossed the writhing animal aside.

He did not linger; he turned, lashing out, scything, racing along the deck, inflicting wounds, severing limbs and heads, never resting, never pausing, never allowing himself the time to think.

Dealey clutched the wound in his stomach for a moment, then reached for the fallen pole, picking it up with both hands and joining Culver in the fray.

Although soon only seriously wounded or dead vermin remained inside the boat, others continued to clamber over the side. The water all around had become black with them. And the bridge was only yards away.

Culver bludgeoned a rat that was stealthily approaching Kate, the stump of her arm lying exposed and enticing on the wet boards of the deck. She opened her eyes as he lifted her, only a brief flash of recognition in them before she sank back into protective oblivion. She was terribly, dangerously, pale.

Culver, in a quick moment of tenderness, kissed her lips before gently placing her on the engine box.

Then he was back, fighting, yelling, keeping the boat clear.

He sensed the huge bulk of the bridge looming over them, looked up, saw the first of the rats beginning to drop, landing with a splash in the water just ahead. The boat drifted closer. He saw their quivering, excited shapes above, crawling over the buttress near the Embankment, across the supports, poking their bodies through the thick ornamental balustrade and balancing on its broad top.

Impatient, another leapt outwards and managed to land slitheringly on the top of the pleasure boat's tiny cabin. It glared down at the two men, but did not attack.

Culver raised the axe, holding it across his chest in both hands, ready for the final onslaught. Once the boat was under the bridge, the vermin would fall on them in an avalanche. He prayed the end would be swift.

An eerie silence fell. Their squealing stopped, so did their trembling. It was as before, in the basement chamber, the lair in which the grotesque creature had suckled her young; the vermin had fallen silent then, just before they had gone mad with bloodlust. It was about to happen again.

Dealey offered up an unspoken but fervent prayer, and Kate softly moaned, still unconscious.

The rat on the cabin roof watched Culver. Its haunches began to quiver, the unsightly pointed hump above them tensing. It bared its teeth and hissed.

The roaring, whirring sound came fast, breaking the unnatural quietness with a swiftness that stunned both men and beasts. Over the deafening noise came gunfire and Culver and Dealey watched open-mouthed as chippings sprayed off the old bridge. The vermin scattered. Many were thrown screeching into the water below, bodies rent by bullets. Others leapt into the river for safety, but still the gunfire followed them, spewing tiny, violent fountains, many of those fountains a deep red.

Confused, deafened by the noise, Culver and Dealey crouched in the boat as it drifted beneath the bridge. Rats fell onto them and once more they were beating them off, the squealing audible now they were beneath the bridge, the roaring above muted. But this time the vermin were terrified, demented by the sudden turmoil, scuttling around the boat in disarray, those in the river disorientated, swimming in circles.

The two men stood before the recumbent girl, striking out at those who came too close, defending rather than attacking. Culver caught sight of the same rat still perched on the cabin roof, and still watching him. Unlike the others, this creature was not panicked. Its gleaming eyes showed that it was not even afraid. It shuffled close to the edge of the cabin roof. Its fur bristled, swelling its body. It launched itself into the air.

The rat's powerful haunches sent it clear of the engine

covering on which Kate lay. Its flight seemed peculiarly slow to Culver, the action - and his reaction -

almost leisurely. Its black shape grew languidly in his vision, claws outstretched so that he could count each one, jaws opened to reveal every yellow fang, the two incisors stained and jagged from use, eyes slanted wickedly, intent on his.

And the axe was coming up from behind Culver, a lazy, arcing motion, sweeping high to meet the floating beast.

Culver's arm juddered with the impact and he fell backwards under the animal that had been split down the middle, through the skull and shoulders, the blade travelling alongside the spine, stopping only when it reached the big bones of the mutant rat's pelvis.

Culver lay there as the creature's life substance flooded over him. He pushed the opened body away, barely able to lift it.

Daylight dazzled him as the boat passed from beneath the bridge. Yet something still blotted out much of the clear blue sky and he could not understand why, could not understand the thunderous roaring.

Dealey was near him, pointing, shouting something, but the other sounds were too great. A rush of wind, a gale-force breeze, rocked the little boat. Culver dragged himself to his feet and staggered, gripping the side of the boat to steady himself. He looked up once more.

'Pumas,' he said, the word lost in the whirlwind. He suddenly understood why they had not seen or heard the helicopters before that moment: the tilted hulk of the Big Ben tower had hidden their approach from upriver.

The three helicopters hovered over the river, one close to the boat below, their wheels retracted, their huge blades creating a maelstrom. Two of them hailed down bullets from specially mounted 7.62mm general purpose machine

guns onto the bridge and into the river, while the third manoeuvred its draught to push the boat with its three human occupants away from the bridge.

The same word kept forming on Dealey's lips: 'Incredible-incredible-incredible!'

Culver stumbled over him and grabbed his shoulder. 'It's not over yet!' he shouted close to Dealey's ear. They're still coming aboard! We've got to keep fighting them off!'

As if to prove the point, two rats appeared just in front of them, sliding over the side. The two men acted as one, kicking out at the beasts and sending them toppling back into the water. But more leapt onto the boat, using it as a place of refuge from the rainstorm of lead. Culver and Dealey attacked them before the bedraggled vermin had a chance to recover. There were still too many, though. More and more clambered over onto the benches and deck.

'It's no good, we can't hold them!' Dealey shouted, once again panic-stricken.

'Get onto the cabin roof!' Culver told him over the roar. He leapt onto the engine covering, Dealey following suit. The older man awkwardly climbed onto the small roof while Culver picked up the unconscious girl. It was difficult, but Culver managed to pass her up to Dealey, who dragged her to momentary safety. The pilot kicked at three rats that had mounted the box, one managing to grip his jeans and tear off a shred as it fell back into the well of the deck. Culver sprang up onto the cabin roof and knelt there, ready to swing at anything that followed.

Dealey, half-sitting because standing would have been too precarious on the rocking boat, tapped Culver's shoulder and pointed.

Culver looked up at the giant shadow that filled the sky above them. A man was being lowered down to them.

Culver thanked God that the Puma helicopters had been fitted with both machine guns and winches.

Feet dangled just above their heads, and then the man was down, Culver and Dealey helping to steady him.

'Not a great time for a pleasure-boat ride' the winchman yelled, and saw the two men were too weary to speak. 7 can only take one...' He noted the rats below, the man with the axe still striking at those trying to reach the cabin roof. 'Okay, I can stretch it to two, but we'll have trouble up top! Let's get the girl into the harness!'

They could hardly hear his words, but guessed his meaning. Together they lifted Kate and secured her in the harness loop, the helicopter maintaining a steady hover above them, skilfully following the motion of the boat. 'All right, one of you get behind and put your arms around my shoulders! You'll have to hold tight, but we'll soon get you up there!'

Culver indicated at Dealey to do just that. Dealey shook his head.

'You go!' he yelled.

'Don't be bloody stup—' Culver began to say.

7 don't have the strength to hold on! I'd never make it!'

'Come on, either one of you,' the winchman shouted impatiently. 'One of the other choppers will pick up whoever's left. I'm signalling for lift now before those bloody monsters start chewing my toes!'

Dealey slapped Culver's shoulder and took the axe from him. He even managed a weary smile.

Culver barely had his arms gripped over the winchman's shoulders before a thumb was offered skyward and their feet left the cabin roof. They soared upwards, moving rapidly and steadily away from the boat. He looked down anxiously and held his breath when he saw the black shapes swarming onto the white roof. Dealey was standing, swinging the short

axe with both hands, knocking the vermin aside, sweeping them overboard or back down onto the deck. But for every one ejected, another took its place. He saw Dealey's ever diminishing figure go rigid with pain as his thigh was bitten into. Another rat scurried up his back, forcing him to reach behind to dislodge it, the weapon falling from his grasp.

'Dealey!’ Culver shouted uselessly.

The second Puma swooped in, a winchman already swinging at the end of the wire. His feet never touched the cabin roof; he scooped up the blood-soaked man and pulled the rat from his back all in one movement. They swung away from the craft, two black forms still clinging to Dealey's legs. Their own weight sent the rats crashing back into the river, flesh and material stretching then parting under the pressure. Culver closed his eyes as the two figures were winched upwards. The third helicopter hovered low, using up its ammunition on the vermin. Gunfire ravaged the boat and the mutant rats that filled it, and when the bullets burst through its fragile hull, reaching the fuel tank, the little craft exploded into a thousand pieces. Culver opened his eyes in time to see the pall of black smoke billow up into the air, a miniature replica of the explosions that had destroyed the city so long, so very long, ago.

Reaching hands helped them into the helicopter, Culver hauled in first, then the girl, the winchman climbing in last.

Culver was quickly guided to a seat and he sank down gratefully into the cool shade. The big door slid shut, the interior of the helicopter still noisy but less than before. He watched as Kate was carefully lifted onto a fixed cot-stretcher and another officer, a medic he assumed, examined the stump of her arm. The man did not flinch; he had obviously treated worse injuries during the past few weeks. From a case, he swiftly took out a small phial which he broke open

to extract a syrette. Expertly, and without cutting away her jeans, he plunged the needle into a muscle in Kate's thigh, holding the syrette there for a few seconds while its fluid drained. He noticed Culver watching.

'Morphia,' he explained. 'She's lucky we got to her before she came out of shock. Don't worry, she's going to be okay - it looks like a clean severance. I'll dress it and release the tourniquet for a while. Does she have any other wounds?'

Culver shook his head, tiredness beginning to overtake him. 'Cuts, scrapes, that's all. Oh yeah ...' he remembered, '... we've been exposed to pneumonic plague.'

The medic raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'Okay, I'll give her a quick once-over. How about you?

Need some sedation?'

Again Culver shook his head. He gazed at Kate's wan face, its lines softened already as the drug began to take effect; he wanted to go to her, comfort her, beg her forgiveness for what he had had to do, but she would not hear. There would be time later. He knew there would be much more time for both of them. He turned away, looking at the tiny windows in the door, the hazy blue beyond. Another face appeared before him: the winchman.

'Flight Sergeant MacAdam,' he introduced himself.

Culver found it difficult to speak. Thanks,' he finally said.

'Pleasure,' came the reply.

'How...?'

"You were spotted early this morning.'

The plane?'

The winchman nodded. We thought you might have been from government HQ. Were you?'

'No ... no, we were trying to get into ... into it.'

The man looked keenly interested. 'Did you manage to? Christ, we've had no word from headquarters since this whole bloody mess started. What the hell happened down there?'

'Didn't... didn't anyone get out?'

'Not a bloody soul. And nobody could get to the HQ from the outside - all the main tunnels are down.

Those bastards hit us harder than anyone expected. Some of the survivors may have got out into the city, who knows? We haven't been able to search, first because of fallout, and then the freak rainstorms.

We've been patrolling this stretch of the river ever since word got back that your party had been seen.

But there was supposed to be more of you. Where're the others?'

'Dead,' Culver said flatly, thinking of those who had escaped the Kingsway shelter as well. He suddenly remembered Ellison. Torchless, weaponless. Inside the shelter. 'All dead,' he reaffirmed.

'But what did you find down there? What was inside?'

The medical officer intervened. 'Let him rest, Sergeant. He can be questioned when we get back to Cheltenham.'

The winchman still looked questioningly at him.

'Rats,' Culver said. 'Nothing but big bloody rats.'

MacAdam's face was grim. We've heard stories...'

'People managed to get out of London?'

'Oh yeah, plenty got out.'

Culver sank further back into the seat. 'But where to? What to?'

The winchman's face was still grim, but it held a humourless smile. 'It isn't quite as bad as you obviously think. The lunacy was stopped, you see, stopped before everything was destroyed. Sure, the main capitals are gone, the industrial cities, many of the military bases; but total destruction was brought to an abrupt halt when the separate powers realized the mistake ...'

'Sergeant,' the medic warned.

What mistake?' Culver asked.

You rest now; you need it. We'll soon have you back at

base where you'll be taken care of. You'll find it's still chaotic, but some order is beginning to return under military rule. And they say a new coalition government's about to be formed any time ...'

The sergeant stood, patting Culver's shoulder. ‘You take it easy.' He turned to go.

Who started it?' Culver shouted after him. Who started the fucking war? America or Russia?'

He wasn't sure if he heard right, the noise of the rotor blades almost drowning the reply. It sounded like

'China'.

The winchman was standing at the cockpit opening, the same humourless smile on his face. Culver thought he heard him say, 'Of course, there isn't much left of it any more.'

Culver returned his gaze to the small windows, eager for their light, surprised, but too weary to be further shocked. The gloom of the Puma's interior depressed him; there had been too many sunless days.

His mind roamed back, seeing images, scenes he would never be free of.

And he thought of the final irony. The slaying of those who had long before plotted out their own survival while others would perish, choiceless and without influence. The slaying of a weakened master-species by a centuries-repressed creature that could only inhabit the dark underworld; mankind's natural sneaking enemy, who had always possessed cunning, but now that cunning - and their power -

enhanced by an unnatural cause. He thought of the giant, black-furred rats with their deadly weapons, their teeth, their claws, their strength. And again, their cunning. He thought of the even-more-loathsome, bloated, slug-like creatures, brethren to and leaders of the Black monsters of the same hideous spawn.

And he thought of the Mother Creature.

The medic, intent on treating the girl's wound, glanced around in surprise when he heard the man laughing. He

quickly began to prepare a sedative when he noticed tears flowing down Culver's face.

Culver thought of the Mother Creature and her offspring, her tiny, suckling litter. The government headquarters had been attacked so ferociously because the Black rats had believed their queen to be under threat. The poor fools had been wiped out as soon as the shelter became occupied, the mutant vermin disturbed by the terrible sounds of bombs, alarmed at the sudden invasion. The onslaught had been instant and merciless.

Culver tried to stop laughing, but he couldn't. It was all too ironic. And the greatest irony of all was the Mother Creature's children. The little creatures who fed at her breasts.

He wiped a shivering hand across his eyes as if to wipe out the vision. He and Fairbank had been distraught with the discovery. Through their shock, the possibilities had assailed them, the implications had terrified them.

For the small, newborn creatures had resembled human ... human! ... embryos. They had claws, the beginnings of scaly tails, the same wicked, slanting eyes and the humped backs. But their skulls were more like the skulls of man, their features were those of grotesque, freakish humans. Their arms, their legs, were not those of animals. And their brains, seen clearly through their tissue-thin craniums and transparent skin, were too large to belong to a rat.

His shoulders shuddered with the laughing. Had mankind been created in the same way, through an explosion of radiation, genes changed in a way that caused them to evolve into walking, thinking, upright creatures? Another dreadfully funny notion: had mankind evolved not from the ape, as the theorists, those wretched interpreters of it all, thought? Had mankind . . had mankind evolved from these other foul creatures? And had that same course of evolution been unleashed once again?