survivors among them; the emptiness was somehow more frightening. The sudden thought that possibly there had been survivors who had returned to the surface, who had already begun to adapt, had even begun to rebuild some kind of life, cut into his fear; not decisively, but enough to raise his hopes just a little. That barely formed optimism lasted but a few fleeting moments.
'Oh my good God!'
They turned to see McEwen standing by the corner of the small exit archway. He was aiming his torch towards the escalators beyond. The three men approached McEwen slowly as his hand began to rise, the torch beam travelling up the stairway. Fairbank moaned aloud, Bryce sagged against a wall, Culver closed his eyes.
Bodies were sprawled on the stairways as far as the light would reach. There were more, many more, piled up at the bottom of the three stairways, dishevelled bundles, decomposing, stains of dark blood, dry and crusted, spilling like frozen lava from the heaped forms. And even from where the four survivors stood they could see the corpses were not intact and that their mutilation had little to do with rotting flesh.
Limbs did not decompose before the rest of the body. Surface organs - noses, ears and eyes - did not just fade away. Stomachs did not split as though intestines had broken free from dying hosts.
Bryce had begun to vomit.
'What happened to them?' Fairbank asked incredulously. There's no bomb damage down here, nothing to cause those inj...' He broke off abruptly, realizing what the others already knew. 'No, it couldn't be!
Rats wouldn't attack this many people.' He stared wildly at Culver. 'Not unless they were already dead.
That has to be it! The radiation killed the people first and the rats fed off them.'
Culver shook his head. There's dried blood everywhere. Corpses don't bleed.'
'Sweet Mother of...' Fairbank's knees began to sag and he, too, leaned against a wall. We'd better get back to the shelter,' he said quickly. They may be still around.'
McEwen was already backing away towards the platform. 'He's right, we've got to get back.'
'Hold it.' Culver grabbed his arm. 'I'm no expert, but by the look of them, these people were attacked some time ago. If the rats were still around I think there'd be a lot less left of the corpses. They'd be ...'
he fought down his own nausea '... a regular food supply for the vermin. My guess is that they've moved on, maybe searching for fresher food.'
‘You mean they can afford to be choosy?' Fairbank's voice was too weak to sound scornful.
'I think we should go on. If the bastards are anywhere, they'll be behind us in the tunnels.'
'Oh, great. That'll give us something to look forward to.'
The engineer shone his torch back in the direction they had come from.
Bryce, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and still using the wall for support, said, 'Culver is right: we should go on. These vermin have existed in the darkness for so long the world above will be alien to them. They'll hide where they feel safe and attack only the weak and defenceless. These poor unfortunates may have already been dying before they were set upon.'
He managed to straighten and his face looked haunted in the torchlight. 'Besides, two of you have guns; we can defend ourselves.'
Culver could have smiled at the thought of two handguns fighting off hordes of monster vermin, but the effort would have been too much. We've come so far, almost to the point of no return, if you like. If we go back now, we'll have achieved nothing. If we get to the top of those stairs, then at least we'll have some idea of what the world has left to offer. Who knows, it may be teeming with human life again.
Perhaps they're even creating some order out of the mess.'
Yeah, I'd love to believe it but I'd have to be fucking mad.' Fairbank slapped the palm of his hand against the smooth wall. You're right in one thing, though: we've come this far so let's go on. I want to see daylight.'
'But we'd have to climb through those dead bodies.' McEwen looked at the other three as though they were insane.
'Keep your eyes off them,' Fairbank suggested.
'How d'you stop smelling them?' There was more than a hint of hysteria in the ROC officer's plaintive cry.
Culver was already walking away. You've got a choice: come with us or walk back on your own.'
Bryce and Fairbank pushed themselves away from the
wall and followed. After a brief moment of hesitation, a moment when his face pinched tight and his bowels considerably loosened, McEwen went after them.
Culver could not keep his gaze from the first few bodies; they held a peculiarly morbid fascination for him, a compulsion to see how much damage could be inflicted upon the human frame. It was the things that crawled between the openings, the gashes, the empty eye sockets, that made revulsion the catharsis of his curiosity rather than the mutilated flesh. He tried not to breathe in too deeply.
They climbed the stairs, forcing themselves to step between the corpses, deliberately keeping their eyes unfocused, their torch beams never lingering too long on one particular spot. Culver wondered how long the generators operating the emergency lighting had continued to run: had these people died in total darkness, feeling only the slashing jaws and talons, or had they witnessed the full terror of their assailants?
Which would have been worse: unseen demons gnawing away at your squirming body, or black carnivorous beasts, seen and thereby understood, tearing you apart? Culver slipped and his knee thudded against the chest of a man whose face was just a gaping hole.
Culver recoiled, almost backing into Bryce who was just below him on the stairs. Bryce grabbed the handrail for support, preventing them both from toppling back down the escalator. Recovering, Culver continued to climb, but an abhorrent question could not be pushed from his mind: why would the creatures burrow so deeply into a man's head when softer flesh and organs were more accessible?
He stopped and surveyed the pile-up of bodies before him. They would have to be lifted clear and the idea of touching them did not appeal.
'Help me,' he said to Fairbank, who was next in line
behind the Civil Defence officer. Bryce moved aside to let the engineer pass.
'Christ, do we have to?' Fairbank complained. 'Can't we climb over?'
'And risk all of us tumbling down to the bottom in an avalanche of corpses?'
'Since you put it that way...'
The first body they lifted was that of a woman and, with nothing much left inside her open abdomen, she was as light as a feather. They carefully avoided looking at the featureless face.
'Put her onto the section between escalators - she'll slide down.'
Fairbank did as instructed and watched the body swiftly descend into the darkness below. There's a ride she couldn't enjoy,' he said, and froze as Culver looked at him sharply. He cast his eyes downwards, avoiding Culver's icy gaze. 'Sorry,' he mumbled. 'It's ... it's bravado, y'know? I'm shit-scared.'
The other man turned away, reaching for the next corpse. It was another woman, but this one had some substance to her and was not as easy to lift, even though her breasts were gone, her stomach hollowed. Both men grunted with the effort and when an arm fell around Culver's shoulder in a lover's casual embrace, he had to bite into his lower lip to prevent himself from screaming. All her fingers were missing.
When her body had careered off into the blackness, twisting sideways as it sped down, they reached for the next. For a few seconds they could only look at the tiny child, her curled body untouched. The heavy woman had protected the little girl from scything teeth, but her weight and the weight of others had been suffocating.
Culver knelt and brushed a lock of pale yellow, almost white, hair from her cheek. The others watched, not knowing quite what to do. Fairbank looked at Bryce, who gave a slight shake of his head.
Finally, Culver laid the child on her side and arranged her unmarked limbs so that her body was at rest.
Perhaps the others expected to see tears in his eyes when he rose, perhaps remorse, his face crushed with grief; they were not prepared for the tight-lipped grimness, the anger that exuded a frightening coldness. For the
