Alan could only grunt, the sound muffled, for his head was snuggled against her breasts beneath her coat. He felt utterly exhausted and his lips were sore.
Babs ducked under the coat and lay her head close to his. 'Didn't you think it was lovely?' she said.
Alan stretched his legs down and the grass tickled his feet. He quickly drew his knees up again. 'Yes, Babs, terrific.' But now, satiated and beginning to feel cold, he thought about getting home; he'd told Marjie he wouldn't be too late.
Babs lifted her head to kiss his cheek, then turned and lay on her back, limbs stretched akimbo, a contented smile on her face. Her body was still warm from their lovemaking and even her exposed feet refused to acknowledge autumn's frigid presence. Something prickled one foot and she moved it away, closer to the other.
'Darling,' she said, watching a cloud swallowing the moon, 'have you ever wondered why it's so good with us, I mean.' She lifted the edge of the coat and looked down at him, waiting for an answer.
'No, Babs,' he replied.
She returned her gaze to the heavens. 'It's never been this way with Reg, not even when we were first marrried.'
The top of Alan's head appeared as though he were testing the air before emerging fully. 'I suppose we're just physically compatible,'
he said. 'Some people are. Some are compatible mentally, others physically. Me and you are physical.'
'Not just that, Alan.' She was a little hurt at the suggestion.
'Oh, no, not just that, Babs,' he quickly assured her. 'It's just that some people are more, er, more energetic than others. But I think our minds are tuned in as well. We do seem to understand each other.' He wondered if he could sneak a look at his watch without her seeing.
Babs tucked her arms beneath the coat, the chill beginning to reach her. Why fool herself? Alan wanted one thing from her and she wanted one thing from him. Sex was also a thing of the mind, and that was where they both tuned in mentally. She wondered if Reg had given the boys their dinner yet.
Something prickled her foot again and this time, her senses beginning to lose their dullness, she became alarmed.
It might not just be a leaf, or grass, or a twig touching her; it might be an animal.
'Alan!' she said sharply and began to sit up, the coat falling and revealing her ample breasts. It took a fraction of a second to register the pain, then she screamed and jerked her leg up, reaching for her injured foot, and she screamed again, louder, when she felt the two bloodied stumps that were left of her toes.
Alan jumped up, frightened by her cries, and looked around, trying to see what had happened, what had hurt her.
'Babs, what is it?' He grabbed her shoulders and tried to hold her still. What happened? Tell me!' His own voice had risen to a shriek.
'My foot! Something's bitten my toes off!' she screeched.
'Oh God! It's all right, Babs. Calm down. Let me have a look!'
But there was no time to look, for the rat, excited by the blood, ran forward and attacked her foot again, sinking its incisors deep, through the hand that clutched the injured limb, and into the foot itself. Alan shrank away when he saw the black creature, not knowing what it was, thinking it must be a wild dog because of its size. The moon suddenly burst from its cloud covering and dread hit him as he recognized the beast. The pointed nose, the long sleek body with its hunched lower back, the stiffened tail it was a Black rat!
Babs' screams startled him from his paralysis; he grabbed the rat at a point near its neck and pulled. The screams reached a new pitch as Babs' flesh was ripped and Alan fell backwards, the struggling creature still in his grasp. It twisted its head and bit into Alan's thigh, gnawing at the flesh and swallowing blood as it burrowed deeper. The main artery was severed and more blood gushed into the rodent's throat, almost choking it, forcing it to withdraw its head. The blood jetted from the wound in a high arc and the air was full of its smell.
'Oh, no, no!' Alan cried, for he knew damage to that artery could be fatal. He clutched at the leg to try and stem the flow, but the blood spurted through his fingers and splattered his face. The rat, squirming between his legs and expelling Alan's blood from its throat, turned and leapt at his chest, raking the skin down to the bone with its claws. It clung there and, as Alan toppled backwards, it began to snap its way into his throat. The others, those that had been more hesitant, crept out from beneath the clearing's surrounding undergrowth, still cautious, for the fear of man was inbred, but becoming bolder as the sweet blood aroma aroused them.
Through tears of pain, Babs saw the approaching black shapes, and she too knew their meaning. She wanted to help Alan, but she was too afraid; she wanted to run, but her fear made her freeze. All she could do was bury herself beneath the coat, her knees tugged up into her chest, her hands clutching at the material, holding it tight around her. The pain in her foot was excruciating and the terror in her mind incapacitating. She prayed, the words tumbling from her lips in a garbled flow, that the creatures would leave them, would fade back into the night, would return to the hell they had come from. But Alan's screams told her they wouldn't. And the tugging at the coat, the sudden sharp, exploratory nips, told her the rats wouldn't leave until she and Alan had been devoured.
As the bites began to puncture her flesh and the agony made her body unfold and writhe, she saw Reg and the boys sitting around the dinner table, Kevin, the youngest, saying, 'Mum's late, Dad ... Mum's late ...
Mum's late ...'
It was past midnight and no sounds had come from the inside of the tent for at least an hour. It stood alone, like a canvas sentinel, in a corner of the wide field, the forest a dark backdrop. Liquid, almost frozen, clung to the stiffened blades of grass around the tent, but inside it was snug and warm, heat from the boys' bodies providing its own central heating. A small night-light glowed weakly in the centre of the floor space, the seven slumbering boys and their supervisor spread around it in giant cocoon shapes, dreading the cold dawn which would force them to shed their sleeping-bag skins.
Gordon Baddeley, the supervisor, slept to one side, a one-foot gap between him and the nearest boy as though the dividing line were a wall behind which authority rested. Gordon maintained that such abstract symbolism was important.
The boys, their ages ranging from twelve to fifteen, were all from a Barnardo's home in Woodford, and this
