Night Shift Page 8

  Two A.M., Thursday.

  Hall and Wisconsky were working with the trucks again, picking up junk. The pile by the west airshaft had grown to amazing proportions, but they were still not half done.

  "Happy Fourth," Wisconsky said when they stopped for a smoke. They were working near the north wall, far from the stairs. The light was extremely dim, and some trick of acoustics made the other men seem miles away.

  "Thanks." Hall dragged on his smoke. "Haven't seen many rats tonight." "Nobody has," Wisconsky said. "Maybe they got wise."

  They were standing at the end of a crazy, zigzagging alley formed by piles of old ledgers and invoices, moldy bags of cloth, and two huge flat looms of ancient vintage. "Gah," Wisconsky said, spitting. "That Warwick--"

  "Where do you suppose all the rats got to?" Hall asked, almost to himself. "Not into the walls--" He looked at the wet and crumbling masonry that surrounded the huge foundation stones. "They'd drown. The river's saturated everything."

  Something black and flapping suddenly dive-bombed them. Wisconsky screamed and put his hands over his head. "A bat," Hall said, watching after it as Wisconsky straightened up.

  "A bat! A bat!" Wisconsky raved. "What's a bat doing in the cellar? They're supposed to be in trees and under eaves and

  --"

  "It was a big one," Hall said softly. "And what's a bat but a rat with wings?" "Jesus," Wisconsky moaned. "How did it--"

  "Get in? Maybe the same way the rats got out."

  "What's going on back there?" Warwick shouted from somewhere behind them. "Where are you?" "Don't sweat it," Hall said softly. His eyes gleamed in the dark.

  "Was that you, college boy?" Warwick called. He sounded closer. "It's okay!" Hall yelled. "I barked my shin!"

  Warwick's short, barking laugh. "You want a Purple Heart?" Wisconsky looked at Hall. "Why'd you say that?"

  "Look." Hall knelt and lit a match. There was a square in the middle of the wet and crumbling cement. "Tap it." Wisconsky did. "It's wood."

  Hall nodded. "It's the top of a support. I've seen some other ones around here. There's another level under this part of the basement."

  "God," Wisconsky said with utter revulsion.

  Three-thirty A.M., Thursday.

  They were in the northeast corner, Ippeston and Brochu behind them with one of the high-pressure hoses, when Hall stopped and pointed at the floor. "There I thought we'd come across it."

  There was a wooden trapdoor with a crusted iron ringbolt set near the center.

  He walked back to Ippeston and said, "Shut it off for a minute." When the hose was choked to a trickle, he raised his voice to a shout. "Hey! Hey, Warwick! Better come here a minute!"

  Warwick came splashing over, looking at Hall with that same hard smile in his eyes. "Your shoelace come untied, college

  boy?"

  "Look," Hall said. He kicked the trapdoor with his foot. "Sub-cellar." "So what?" Warwick asked. "This isn't break time, col--"

  "That's where your rats are," Hall said. "They're breeding down there. Wisconsky and I even saw a bat earlier." Some of the other men had gathered around and were looking at the trapdoor.

  "I don't care," Warwick said. "The job was the basement not--"

  "You'll need about twenty exterminators, trained ones," Hall was saying. "Going to cost the management a pretty penny. Too bad."

  Someone laughed. "Fat chance."

  Warwick looked at Hall as if he were a bug under glass. "You're really a case, you are," he said, sounding fascinated. "Do you think I give a good goddamn how many rats there are under there?"

  "I was at the library this afternoon and yesterday," Hall said. "Good thing you kept reminding me I was a college boy. I read the town zoning ordinances, Warwick--they were set up in 1911, before this mill got big enough to co-opt the zoning board. Know what I found?"

  Warwick's eyes were cold. "Take a walk, college boy. You're fired."

  "I found out," Hall plowed on as if he hadn't heard, "I found out that there is a zoning law in Gates Falls about vermin. You spell that v-e-r-m-i-n, in case you wondered. It means disease-carrying animals such as bats, skunks, unlicensed dogs-- and rats. Especially rats. Rats are mentioned fourteen times in two paragraphs, Mr. Foreman. So you just keep in mind that the minute I punch out I'm going straight to the town commissioner and tell him what the situation down here is."

  He paused, relishing Warwick's hate-congested face. "I think that between me, him, and the town committee, we can get an injunction slapped on this place. You're going to be shut down a lot longer than just Saturday, Mr. Foreman. And I got a good idea what your boss is going to say when he turns up. Hope your unemployment insurance is paid up, Warwick."

  Warwick's hands formed into claws. "You damned snot-nose, I ought to--" He looked down at the trapdoor, and suddenly his smile reappeared. "Consider yourself rehired, college boy."

  "I thought you might see the light."

  Warwick nodded, the same strange grin on his face. "You're just so smart. I think maybe you ought to go down there, Hall, so we got somebody with a college education to give us an informed opinion. You and Wisconsky."

  "Not me!" Wisconsky exclaimed. "Not me, I--" Warwick looked at him. "You what?" Wisconsky shut up.

  "Good," Hall said cheerfully. "We'll need three flashlights. I think I saw a whole rack of those six-battery jobs in the main office, didn't I?"

  "You want to take somebody else?" Warwick asked expansively. "Sure, pick your man."

  "You," Hall said gently. The strange expression had come into his face again. "After all, the management should be represented, don't you think? Just so Wisconsky and I don't see too many rats down there?"

  Someone (it sounded like Ippeston) laughed loudly.

  Warwick looked at the men carefully. They studied the tips of their shoes. Finally he pointed at Brochu. "Brochu, go up to the office and get three flashlights. Tell the watchman I said to let you in."

  "Why'd you get me into this?" Wisconsky moaned to Hall. "You know I hate those--" "It wasn't me," Hall said, and looked at Warwick.

  Warwick looked back at him, and neither would drop his eyes.

  Four A.M., Thursday.

  Brochu returned with the flashlights. He gave one to Hall, one to Wisconsky, one to Warwick.

  "Ippeston! Give the hose to Wisconsky." Ippeston did so. The nozzle trembled delicately between the Pole's hands. "All right" Warwick said to Wisconsky. "You're in the middle. If there are rats, you let them have it."

  Sure, Hall thought. And if there are rats, Warwick won't see them. And neither will Wisconsky, after he finds an extra ten in his pay envelope.

  Warwick pointed at two of the men. "Lift it."

  One of them bent over the ringbolt and pulled. For a moment Hall didn't think it was going to give, and then it yanked free with an odd, crunching snap. The other man put his fingers on the underside to help pull, then withdrew with a cry. His hands were crawling with huge and sightless beetles.

  With a convulsive grunt the man on the ringbolt pulled the trap back and let it drop. The underside was black with an odd fungus that Hall had never seen before. The beetles dropped off into the darkness below or ran across the floor to be crushed.

  "Look," Hall said.

  There was a rusty lock bolted on the underside, now broken. "But it shouldn't be underneath," Warwick said. "It should be on top. Why--"

  "Lots of reasons," Hall said. "Maybe so nothing on this side could open it--at least when the lock was new. Maybe so nothing on that side could get up."

  "But who locked it?" Wisconsky asked.

  "Ah," Hall said mockingly, looking at Warwick. "A mystery." "Listen," Brochu whispered.

  "Oh, God," Wisconsky sobbed. "I ain't going down there!"

  It was a soft sound, almost expectant; the whisk and patter of thousands of paws, the squeaking of rats. "Could be frogs," Warwick said.

  Hall laughed aloud.

  Warwick shone his light down. A sagging flight of wooden stairs led
down to the black stones of the floor beneath. There was not a rat in sight.

  "Those stairs won't hold us," Warwick said with finality.

  Brochu took two steps forward and jumped up and down on the first step. It creaked but showed no sign of giving way. "I didn't ask you to do that," Warwick said.

  "You weren't there when that rat bit Ray," Brochu said softly. "Let's go," Hall said.

  Warwick took a last sardonic look around at the circle of men, then walked to the edge with Hall. Wisconsky stepped reluctantly between them. They went down one at a time. Hall, then Wisconsky, then Warwick. Their flashlight beams played over the floor, which was twisted and heaved into a hundred crazy hills and valleys. The hose thumped along behind Wisconsky like a clumsy serpent.

  When they got to the bottom, Warwick flashed his light around. It picked out a few rotting boxes, some barrels, little else. The seep from the river stood in puddles that came to ankle depth on their boots.

  "I don't hear them anymore," Wisconsky whispered.

  They walked slowly away from the trapdoor, their feet shuffling through the slime. Hall paused and shone his light on a huge wooden box with white letters on it. "Elias Varney," he read, "1841. Was the mill here then?"

  "No," Warwick said. "It wasn't built until 1897. What difference?"

  Hall didn't answer. They walked forward again. The sub-cellar was longer than it should have been, it seemed. The stench was stronger, a smell of decay and rot and things buried. And still the only sound was the faint, cavelike drip of water.

  "What's that?" Hall asked, pointing his beam at a jut of concrete that protruded perhaps two feet into the cellar. Beyond it, the darkness continued and it seemed to Hall that he could now hear sounds up there, curiously stealthy.

  Warwick peered at it. "It's . . . no, that can't be right." "Outer wall of the mill, isn't it? And up ahead . . ."

  "I'm going back," Warwick said, suddenly turning around.

  Hall grabbed his neck roughly. "You're not going anywhere, Mr. Foreman."

  Warwick looked up at him, his grin cutting the darkness. "You're crazy, college boy. Isn't that right? Crazy as a loon." "You shouldn't push people, friend. Keep going."

  Wisconsky moaned. "Hall--"

  "Give me that." Hall grabbed the hose. He let go of Warwick's neck and pointed the hose at his head. Wisconsky turned abruptly and crashed back toward the trapdoor. Hall did not even turn. "After you, Mr. Foreman."

  Warwick stepped forward, walking under the place where the mill ended above them. Hall flashed his light about, and felt a cold satisfaction--premonition fulfilled. The rats had closed in around them, silent as death. Crowded in, rank on rank. Thousands of eyes looked greedily back at him. In ranks to the wall, some fully as high as a man's shin.

  Warwick saw them a moment later and came to a full stop. "They're all around us, college boy." His voice was still calm, still in control, but it held a jagged edge.

  "Yes," Hall said. "Keep going."

  They walked forward, the hose dragging behind. Hall looked back once and saw the rats had closed the aisle behind them and were gnawing at the heavy canvas hosing. One looked up and almost seemed to grin at him before lowering his head again. He could see the bats now, too. They were roosting from the roughhewn overheads, huge, the size of crows or rooks.

  "Look," Warwick said, centering his beam about five feet ahead.

  A skull, green with mold, laughed up at them. Further on Hall could see an ulna, one pelvic wing, part of a ribcage. "Keep going," Hall said. He felt something bursting up inside him, something lunatic and dark with colors. You are going to break before I do, Mr. Foreman, so help me God.

  They walked past the bones. The rats were not crowding them; their distances appeared constant. Up ahead Hall saw one cross their path of travel. Shadows hid it, but he caught sight of a pink twitching tail as thick as a telephone cord.

  Up ahead the flooring rose sharply, then dipped. Hall could hear a stealthy rustling sound, a big sound. Something that perhaps no living man had ever seen. It occurred to Hall that he had perhaps been looking for something like this through all his days of crazy wandering.

  The rats were moving in, creeping on their bellies, forcing them forward. "Look," Warwick said coldly.

  Hall saw. Something had happened to the rats back here, some hideous mutation that never could have survived under the eye of the sun; nature would have forbidden it. But down here, nature had taken on another ghastly face.

  The rats were gigantic, some as high as three feet. But their rear legs were gone and they were blind as moles, like their flying cousins. They dragged themselves forward with hideous eagerness.

  Warwick turned and faced Hall, the smile hanging on by brute willpower. Hall really had to admire him. "We can't go on, Hall. You must see that."

  "The rats have business with you, I think," Hall said. Warwick's control slipped. "Please," he said. "Please." Hall smiled. "Keep going."

  Warwick was looking over his shoulder. "They're gnawing into the hose. When they get through it, we'll never get back." "I know. Keep going."

  "You're insane--" A rat ran across Warwick's shoe and he screamed. Hall smiled and gestured with his light. They were all around, the closest of them less than a foot away now.

  Warwick began to walk again. The rats drew back.

  They topped the miniature rise and looked down. Warwick reached it first, and Hall saw his face go white as paper. Spit ran down his chin. "Oh, my God. Dear Jesus."

  And he turned to run.

  Hall opened the nozzle of the hose and the high-pressure rush of water struck Warwick squarely on the chest, knocking him back out of sight. There was a long scream that rose over the sound of the water. Thrashing sounds.

  "Hall!" Grunts. A huge, tenebrous squeaking that seemed to fill the earth. "HALL, FOR GOD'S SAKE--"

  A sudden wet ripping noise. Another scream, weaker. Something huge shifted and turned. Quite distinctly Hall heard the wet snap that a fractured bone makes.

  A legless rat, guided by some bastard form of sonar, lunged against him, biting. Its body was flabby, warm. Almost absently Hall turned the hose on it, knocking it away. The hose did not have quite so much pressure now.

  Hall walked to the brow of the wet hill and looked down.

  The rat filled the whole gully at the far end of that noxious tomb. It was a huge and pulsating gray, eyeless, totally without legs. When Hall's light struck it, it made a hideous mewling noise. Their queen, then, the magna mater. A huge and nameless thing whose progeny might someday develop wings. It seemed to dwarf what remained of Warwick, but that was probably just illusion. It was the shock of seeing a rat as big as a Holstein calf.

  "Goodbye, Warwick," Hall said. The rat crouched over Mr. Foreman jealously, ripping at one limp arm.

  Hall turned away and began to make his way back rapidly, halting the rats with his hose, which was growing less and less potent. Some of them got through and attacked his legs above the tops of his boots with biting lunges. One hung stubbornly on at his thigh, ripping at the cloth of his corduroy pants. Hall made a fist and smashed it aside.

  He was nearly three-quarters of the way back when the huge whirring filled the darkness. He looked up and the gigantic flying form smashed into his face.

  The mutated bats had not lost their tails yet. It whipped around Hall's neck in a loathsome coil and squeezed as the teeth sought the soft spot under his neck. It wriggled and flapped with its membranous wings, clutching the tatters of his shirt for purchase.

  Hall brought the nozzle of the hose up blindly and struck at its yielding body again and again. It fell away and he trampled it beneath his feet, dimly aware that he was screaming. The rats ran in a flood over his feet, up his legs.

  He broke into a staggering run, shaking some off. The others bit at his belly, his chest. One ran up his shoulder and pressed its questing muzzle into the cup of his ear.

  He ran into the second bat. It roosted on his head for a moment, squeali
ng, and then ripped away a flap of Hall's scalp.

  He felt his body growing numb. His ears filled with the screech and yammer of many rats. He gave one last heave, stumbled over furry bodies, fell to his knees. He began to laugh, a high, screaming sound.

  Five A.M., Thursday.

  "Somebody better go down there," Brochu said tentatively. "Not me," Wisconsky whispered. "Not me."

  "No, not you, jelly belly," Ippeston said with contempt.

  "Well, let's go," Brogan said, bringing up another hose. "Me, Ippeston, Dangerfield, Nedeau. Stevenson, go up to the office and get a few more lights."

  Ippeston looked down into the darkness thoughtfully. "Maybe they stopped for a smoke," he said. "A few rats, what the hell."

  Stevenson came back with the lights; a few moments later they started down.

  NIGHT SURF

  After the guy was dead and the smell of his burning flesh was off the air, we all went back down to the beach. Corey had his radio, one of those suitcase-sized transistor jobs that take about forty batteries and also make and play tapes. You couldn't say the sound reproduction was great, but it sure was loud. Corey had been well-to-do before A6, but stuff like that didn't matter anymore. Even his big radio/tape-player was hardly more than a nice-looking hunk of junk. There were only two radio stations left on the air that we could get. One was WKDM in Portsmouth--some backwoods deejay who had gone nutty-religious. He'd play a Perry Como record, say a prayer, bawl, play a Johnny Ray record, read from Psalms (complete with each "selah," just like James Dean in East of Eden), then bawl some more. Happy-time stuff like that. One day he sang "Bringing in the Sheaves" in a cracked, moldy voice that sent Needles and me into hysterics.