recognizable. There was torn, mangled clothing, another shoe a man's this time what looked like a pair of women's tights hanging loosely from a twig. A gold wristwatch. Why would someone leave a gold ? Whatever had caused the mental delay, it was gone now and he realized the full horror of what surrounded him.
Deep red bloodstains smeared everything: the ripped clothing, the blanket, the shoes, the earth even leaves on the undergrowth were discoloured. He knew the white gleaming objects were bones and the lumps of mushy substance that clung to them were flesh, but he could not understand why the bones did not form a recognizable shape; he failed to see that they had been torn apart, that the deep indents and the jagged endings had been caused by gnawing teeth.
He opened his mouth to scream but, partly because he was too stunned and partly because he still wanted to escape, no sound emerged.
Instead, he began to sob again and, when he finally found the courage to take his hands from his face and look around once more, an irrational question entered his mind and he began searching the clearing. Although their bones were scattered, they could still be pieced together and buried complete; but after a while he gave up. He couldn't find them. He sat and wondered where the heads had gone.
Ken Woollard trudged across the muddy farm towards the farmhouse. His usual ill-tempered disposition had been worsened by the unwelcome visit from the 'authorities'. One of them had been the head keeper, Denison, a busybody if ever there was, and the other a man from Ratkill, the pest exterminators. Asking bloody fool questions, meddling. Of course he had problems with bloody vermin what farmer didn't? But nothing he couldn't handle himself. He'd laid down poison two days before, immediately he'd discovered the remains of one of his cats. Lord knows what had happened to its companion he hadn't seen hide-nor-hair of it since. Anyway, the fluoroacetamide hadn't been touched and he'd discovered no new evidence of rats in the area, so why should he report any trouble to the two snoopers? The cat could easily have been killed by dogs. Or maybe a fox had been crazed enough to have a go. Or a badger. He didn't know of any badgers in this part of the woodlands, but with Epping Forest, anything was possible; new breeding grounds were always springing up. Some said they'd even seen a white deer roaming free in the forest lately. Yes, a badger could have caused the damage to the cat. Violent bloody creatures they were, when aroused.
Powerful. There were rats around, all right the loop smears in the barn were proof enough of that but not the big ones, not the Black rats. No, he'd have seen 'em. Big as dogs, they said. No way they could run around without being seen. Nelly had wanted him to report the trouble, but then she always panicked, the silly woman. She was a countrywoman, born and bred, and had never feared any living creature.
Until the London Outbreak, that is. That had shook her bad. She couldn't even stand mice after that. Just as well the two snoopers hadn't gone up to the house and asked her questions! She'd have told
'em, all right. She'd have blurted out everything. A good strappin'
was what she wanted. That'd make her hold her noise. Been what? seven years since he'd given her a strappin'. Ten years since he'd given her a good layin'. The land took it out of a man.
No, no trouble 'round here, misters, he'd told 'em. Nothing he'd call trouble, anyway. Of course he'd contact The Warren at any signs of unusual vermin activity. Be in his own interests, wouldn't it? The two men had departed satisfied, leaving the farmer sitting on his tractor staring thoughtfully at their backs.
Well, more poison would go down tonight, and a stronger dosage, at that. He'd take all the necessary precautions, but he wouldn't be panicked by them who knew nothing about working the land. He could take care of his own. Thing to take care of now was his belly. He was starvin'.
The farmer stomped his boots down hard on the cobbled yard, unloading the mud clinging to the under soles He wouldn't mention the two men and their questions to Nelly, she'd only get into a tizz and start naggin' again. He tramped across the yard, muttering to himself, wondering why he hadn't had the sense to pack up farming thirty years ago when he was a young man. His two sons, miserable bleeders both, had gone off as soon as they saw the sense of it. Merchant navy, the two of 'em. Should have been here helpin' him out. That's what education did for you. He paused at the front door of the farmhouse, an aged and crumbling two storey building, and lifted one booted foot, a hand held against the door-frame for balance. With a grunt, he jerked off the boot and let it fall to the ground.
It was while he stood there, balanced on one leg, that he became aware of the unusual silence in the farmyard. Not that farmyards were noisy places, but there was usually some activity going on. Now there wasn't a sound. Not even from the birds. Except... His head swung round to the door and he stared at the wood panelling. Except... for the faint scuffling noise from inside the house.
Curious, he placed his ear against the wood and listened. More scuffling noises, the sound a cat makes when scuttling across the floor after a ball of paper. Or after a terrified mouse. Perhaps the surviving prodigal cat had returned. Yet the noise was too great to have been made by one animal. Woollard stood erect and cursed himself, annoyed at the silly way he was behaving. He was acting like an old woman, listening at bloody doors! It was those two snoopers they'd put the wind up him with their bloody stupid questions about bloody stupid rats! He grabbed the door handle and pushed hard, barging into the narrow hallway without further thought.
'Oh, Lord God...' he said quietly, for once his anger overwhelmed by what he saw. The hallway was filled with black, furry bodies that wriggled and climbed over each others' backs, that scuttled in and out of doorways, that leapt up at the walls as though trying to escape from the squirming, tightly pressed mass, that ran up the stairs and tore flesh from the bloody shape that lay sprawled there.
Nelly's eyes stared down into her husband's, but there was no life in them. A hand still clutched at the bannister rails and held her in that position, halfway up the stairs, on her back, as though she had slipped while fleeing, turning and grabbing for a rail as the rats dragged her back down, nipping at her legs, running up her body, sinking their teeth into her breasts.
Even as he watched, her fingers began to open as one creature ate its way into the tendons of her wrist, and she began to slide down, the dark bodies coming with her, refusing to let go of their prey. Her head was held up as though she was unwilling to take her eyes off him, but he saw it was because of the rat burrowing under her chin, pushing up the jaw as it worked its way inside.
She slumped to the bottom of the stairs, her knees high, feet held by the mass of bodies in the hallway, her head now rolling sideways, mercifully breaking the spellbinding gaze on him.
The farmer ran forward, his anger finally breaking forth, the one boot he wore stomping down on the vermin's backs. He slipped, for there was no firm footing, the floor a moving carpet of bristling fur, and his hands clutched desperately at the walls for support. He was on his knees, trying to crawl forward through the creatures, but they struck out at him with sharp incisors, clinging to him as their companions had clung to his wife.
The farmer moved forward, slowly, painfully, his exposed foot already torn and shredded. He tried to keep them away from his face, but his hands were weighed down by bodies and he was unable to even lift them from the floor. He became motionless, resting there in the hallway on hands and knees, unable to see his wife beneath the sea of black creatures. Soon the weight of the rats on his back crumpled his body into a heap and he too disappeared beneath the ever-moving mass.
NINE
