As Kate stood she realized why. She shrank away from Culver, her eyes searching out the black shapes creeping overhead, backing into Fairbank who was preparing to climb down a ladder close by.
He glanced around, up, lips forming a single-syllable word, and swiftly lowered himself onto the first few rungs of the ladder. He looked up once more just before his head and shoulders disappeared from view, his gaze catching Culver's and a knowing look passing between them. The understanding was of cold desperation.
Kate slid into the opening after Fairbank and froze when she saw the foaming water beneath her feet.
A less than gentle shove from Culver set her moving again. Icy wetness gripped her, closing around her thighs, her stomach, stealing her breath, pulling and tugging in an effort to dislodge her from the ladder.
Yet she felt the current was not as strong as before; the waters flowing from separate sources were now fusing with less force. However, it still needed Fairbank's strength to keep her steady once she had stepped onto the floor.
Culver joined them in time to see Ellison take aim at the ceiling again. The engineer released a short spurt of bullets
and Culver was surprised when a grimace that could have only been a smile appeared on Ellison's face.
'Where're Dealey and the others?' he called across to the engineer, who lowered the submachine gun towards him before indicating the Operations Room with the barrel. Ellison raised his eyes towards the ceiling again and Culver was strangely reminded of the bloodless eyes of a pike searching for stickleback.
Ellison appeared eager to kill and Culver was relieved that only vermin were the targets. Instability, neuroses, and even a touch of madness had become part of the bunker ambience, the effects of grief, claustrophobia, and the knowledge that permanent safety no longer existed. Only the symptoms varied.
There were figures already emerging from the doorway of the Operations Room, struggling through the current and staring with disbelief at the chaos that confronted them. Dealey was among them and he had that same frightened look he had worn when Culver had first laid eyes on him just, it seemed, a few centuries ago. Culver let go of the steadying ladder and made his way towards the group, Fairbank and Kate following close behind, the girl clinging to the engineer for support. Debris floated by - pieces of equipment, paper, books, chairs - spinning with the converging currents. The body of a dead rat, its belly exposed and ripped where bullets had torn through, bumped against Culver's hip and he hastily pushed it from him. He reached Dealey as more gunfire opened up, but this some distance away in another part of the complex. As if encouraged, Ellison resumed shooting.
Culver almost knocked Dealey over as a sudden surge carried him forward into the group; Farraday, close behind the Ministry man, was able to hold them both.
'Can the shelter take it?' Culver shouted, bracing himself against the flow. Will it be completely flooded?'
Tm not su - God, yes, if the flood doors in the tunnels haven't been closed—'
They won't have been!'
Then it depends on how heavy the deluge is.'
'Are we above the sewers?'
Dealey shook his head.
'Okay, our best chance is up on the machinery and the catwalks. We'll have to turn the power off, though, before everything blows. And we need guns to protect ourselves from the rats!'
'No, we can't stay here, we must leave!' Dealey tried to move away from Culver, but the pilot held him.
There's no way. Water's coming through the tunnel exit - we'd never get through!'
There's another place, another way out we can use!'
Culver moved his grip to the other man's jacket lapels, angrily pulling him close. What? You crazy bastard, did you say there's another way out?'
Dealey tried to disengage himself. There might be! At least it will get us above ground level!'
Where is—'
'Oh my God, look!' Farraday was pointing towards the corridor leading to the dining area and kitchen.
For the moment, Culver forgot Dealey and drew in a sharp breath when he saw Clare Reynolds pushing through the water, sliding against the smooth wall for support, leaving a smeared trail of blood in her wake. Her mouth was wide as if in a silent scream and her eyes, spectacles gone, were staring wildly ahead. Her body was slightly arched, head drawn backwards; a black creature clung to her back and chewed into her neck.
Two, three, four - Culver counted five black shapes -glided past her, headed in the direction of the canteen, ignoring the agonized doctor as if the fellow creature already lodged on her had made its claim.
Or perhaps they sensed further helpless prey not too far away. More torpedo-like forms appeared, coming from the switching-unit area beyond which lay the artesian well. That had to be the shelter's weak point, Culver surmised; both the floodwater and the vermin must have gained entry from there. Even as these thoughts were rushing through his head, Culver was rushing forward to reach Clare Reynolds, treading high and brushing a path through the water with his hands as if pushing through a wheatfield.
Tiny water gushers exploded before him, beating their own splattering trail towards the swimming rodents, and Culver turned to roar at Ellison, to warn him off, for Clare was too near, too exposed.
Whether the noise in the flooding complex - the meshing water, the shouts, the screams, the fizzing, sparking electrical equipment, the crashing of uprooted machinery and furniture, the crackle of machine-gun fire itself - drowned Culver's voice, or whether Ellison was too frightened or too crazed to hear, there was no way of knowing; the bullets continued to create a field of miniature eruptions between Culver and the doctor, who was feebly trying to reach behind and pull the gorging rat from her neck.
Dark bodies leapt from the water as bullets struck them, high-pitched, child-like screeches piercing the overall wall of sound, throwing others of their kind into mad confusion so that they lost direction, scrabbled around in tight, disorientated circles, squealing their own terror. Two approached Culver, eyes insane, teeth bared, incisors high above the water line.
A spray of bullets pulverized the skull of one and almost tore the other in half. They disappeared beneath the surface in a dark spreading cloud of blood.
Culver moved forward again, wary of the gunfire and praying that Ellison would keep his aim as far away from him as possible. Meanwhile, Fairbank had seen the danger and was trying to reach Ellison.
He was only a few feet away when a human body, floating face downwards, spun into him, turning over as it did so to reveal an open crimson mess in its shoulder and throat.
The jolt sent Fairbank reeling backwards, causing him to lose balance, to fall into the turbulent water, the outstretched arms of the dead man becoming entangled in his own so that the corpse sank with him, plunging down in macabre embrace. Fairbank screamed below water and his throat was filled, choking him, sending him spluttering and heaving to the surface, thrashing out blindly to regain his balance.
Culver was still five yards from Clare when her body jolted rigid and holes punctured her chest, rapidly moving upwards, the last appearing in her turned-away cheek before continuing a splattering pattern in the painted plaster behind her. She turned her head, the rat and the searing pain forgotten in the all-encompassing white shock. Although dying's full agony would take a few moments to touch her, red stains swiftly spreading outwards from the deep wounds, Clare was fully aware of what had happened, could see the gunman some distance away (strangely hard-edged clear despite the loss of her glasses), the ugly, lethal machine he held now quiet, Ellison's staring eyes filled with their own shock, the fusing bubbling water, each ripple visible and individual, each spark from the malfunctioning equipment a separate shooting star, a curving pellet of incandescence, each face that watched her sharply defined, each emotion
from them sensed by her. She was even aware of the teeth locked into her neck, immobile now for the rat had been shot, too, although not mortally wounded. Fear had gone as though released by the killing wounds, exorcized by the oncoming of death itself. All that remained was recognition, a fleeting insight to what was, what is, what always is; the acceptance before closedown. This, coupled with the knowledge that nothing was final.
The intense pain came, but it was brief.
Clare's eyelids covered the already fading scene as she slid down the wall into the water. Only the clinging thing, trapped by its own frozen grip, struggled feebly to rise to the surface once more.
