They cleared what they could with bare hands, then struck at the more resisting blockages with their implements. They were soon forced to try elsewhere, the barrier before them too solid, and then had to abandon the next 'dig' when more debris than they had displaced collapsed in on them. More headway was made with their third attempt.
The earlier tunnels had been tried near the wide entrances to the dining hall; the latest one was where a section of ceiling had caved in, leaving a barely noticeable fissure. The gap was swiftly widened and, although the earth was damp, no water ran from it. The first man, who used to be a waiter in the once renowned and rather grand hotel squeezed through, pushing a candle before him. It was claustrophobic, but then their very existence had been so over the past month. He pressed on, digging at the rubble with a short-bladed butcher's chopper scavenged from the kitchen. Shouts of encouragement came from behind and he grinned in the gloom, sweat already clogging the dust that settled on his bare arms and shoulders. His enthusiasm almost caused another fall and he forced himself to be more patient when the danger had passed.
He stopped again when he heard something ahead of him. He listened, sure it was not from behind, the sound of others following his path. Perhaps he had been wrong, for now he heard nothing. He began to dig again, pulling brickwork away and burrowing through powdered rubble. Then he was certain he heard noises from ahead.
He called for his companions to be quiet and he waited there. The scraping noise did not seem too far away.
The ex-waiter gave a gargled whoop of joy and shouted back to the others that he was sure rescuers were on the
way, digging to meet them, obviously careful not to disturb the debris too much with their digging machines lest more danger was created.
He called out, and the others behind called with him. There was no reply except a scratching sound. He frowned. Now it sounded like ... like ... gnawing.
Scraping, slithering. Definite movement. He pushed forward.
Presently he came to another blockage and he almost wept with frustration. But then, no, he saw it was only wood, a partition, a screen or perhaps the back of a fallen wardrobe amid the jumble of masonry and rubble. He could see only a small section of the blockage, for it was framed by the rough tunnel itself.
He heard more scratching and wondered why the rescuers did not just punch a hole through the wood.
He called out again and the noise stopped.
He spoke eagerly and the scratching resumed and the wood bulged, only there was no comfort in the sound this time, for it was not human digging, it was more like the sound of claws scrabbling to break through and that high-pitched squealing was not human, but was the sound of animals, animals with sharp, scratching claws and with enough strength to push the wood inwards, to make it bulge and crack and ...
He began to back away and the man behind wondered what he was playing at, cursing the shoes that scuffed his face, the others behind him demanding to know what was going on.
The ex-waiter found he could retreat no further, that the next man was blocking his retreat. He stared beyond the candleflame at the cracking wood, a slow scream beginning.
A sliver of wood broke inwards with a crack. A talon-like claw gripped the edge of the newly formed hole. More
splinters fell away. A long pointed snout appeared and yellow teeth gnawed a bigger opening. The rat's head and gleaming eyes were the most heart-wrenching manifestation of evil he had ever seen.
His scream escaped as the rat pushed through and closed the short distance between them with a swift, scuttling movement. The light vanished as the candle was dropped and he could only feel the creature eating into his face, his hands useless against the thick, hairy body.
The vermin had known there were humans close by, their keen sense of smell, their acute instincts, attracted by the distinct aroma of living flesh and human excrement. The digging noises had alerted them and given direction.
They poured through the opening, some eating their way through the body of the first man, others tunnelling their way around him, finding more humans, aroused to an intense frenzy by their own bloodlust. They swept along the tunnel, killing and feeding until they reached the huge cavern where the people waited.
The survivors tried to hide in the darkest corners of the dining hall as the black hordes swept down. At first they did not understand what these creatures were, seeing only a flowing devil's spawn, an invasion of demonic beasts, perhaps returning to their hell's womb in which they, the survivors, had been incarcerated. The desperate screams of the tunnel-lers had forewarned of the irruption, petrifying the people in the dimly lit hall. They scattered and hid as the dark beasts scampered through the narrow opening and descended the rubbled slope, their traumatized minds unable to cope with this new nightmare, to recognize the demons for what they were. The fear would have been no less if they had.
Only when their very flesh was being shredded by flailing teeth and claws did they fully realize that vermin were to be
their final adversity, not radiation poisoning, not disease, not hunger and not despair. They hid, but the rats sought them out; they barricaded themselves behind upturned tables and chairs and the vermin squirmed their way through. The kitchens offered no refuge and those who hid in store cupboards only prolonged the waiting, lengthened the torment as razor-sharp incisors gnawed away the barriers. Those who escaped into the walk-in freezer store with its rancid meat might have found some protection had not others belatedly tried to gain entry, pulling open the big metal door and allowing their attackers to storm through.
One elderly man hid inside an oven, cramming his body in, pulling the door closed, holding on to it for dear life, panting and sobbing, legs drawn up in foetal position. Unfortunately for him, the enemy was within. His old heart had given warning twice in the past and it finally lost patience with its host who would not avoid excitement. The old man suffered an undignified death, stuffed in an oven, now his coffin, his feet and arms feebly beating at the iron walls.
An elderly woman pushed open the double-doors to the bar, the stench of the more-recentiy dead of no concern, and slammed them shut behind her. She stood alone in the total darkness with her back to the doors, listening to the frightening noises outside, her frail legs barely able to hold her weight. A bump against the door made her start; something slid down the other side. More bumping at the base of the doors as though someone was struggling there. The woman stumbled away, hands groping the blackness, heading for the mound of old and new deceased who were wrapped in tablecloth shrouds.
She fell against something and her probing hands found the nose, an open mouth, of an upturned face beneath its thin covering of cloth. She crawled onto the pile of bodies, burrowing down, pulling them around her, flinching as cold hands brushed her arms, as rigid lips kissed her cheek, as the receptive cadavers crowded in on her, hugging her close as if to steal her warmth. Like the corpses, she tried not to breathe lest the sound give her away, but it seemed that her heart beat loud enough for them all. Encased in the stifling bundles, she waited, silently mouthing prayers not remembered since childhood, corpses tight around her as if conspiring to keep her hidden. She might well have eluded the attention of the predators had not other fugitives burst through the doors. The voracious rats quickly overwhelmed them, dragging them to their knees. The concealed woman tried to close her mind to the shrieks.
A quietness eventually fell. Most of the people had been swiftly killed; those still alive could only moan helplessly as the vermin fed.
The woman thought she was safe. Until she heard the rummaging among the mound of corpses in which she lay, the scrabbling of claws, strange childlike sounds. Weight shifted around her. Something nuzzled against the loose fat above her hip. Something began nibbling at the side of her neck.
She scratched at the itch on her cheek, her eyes still closed, her other senses still captive of sleep. The insect moved on in search of less resisting prey. Kate's full awakening was sudden, eyelids snapping open like released blinds, sprung by returning fear. The white blanketing mist did not disappear with the blinking of her eyes.
It was several minutes before she was aware that the rain had stopped and the sun had turned the earth's
