Empire's End by David Dunwoody Page B

Some
of ‘em get mashed up together and twisted—tangled, their tails,
their legs—and they just go on like that. They become this one
thing that just goes around taking care of itself. A rat king.”
    “You mean like a huge ball of rats?” Jarrett
sputtered.
    Keane nodded. “It probably happens.”
    “It probably happens that they get all
tangled up and can’t separate,” Alex said, “but I don’t think they
become one entity or whatever. They just struggle and die.”
    “Why not?” Keane asked.
    “Because all every rat cares about is taking
care of its own self.” Alex found a brittle sheaf of papers; they
could be moistened and used as bandages or cloths down the line.
Maybe he’d even do a little writing. “Each rat for itself. Rat king
wouldn’t work. It’s not nature.”
    Jarrett looked troubled. Alex gave him an
inviting smile, wanted him to speak up; but he didn’t.
     
    * * *
     
    The basement was a parking garage, empty.
Beyond that was sewer access.
    “I say we check it out,” Keane said.
    “What’re we gonna find? Hundred-year-old
crap.”
    “New York sewers aren’t just pipes, man!
There could be another fucking building down there. Let’s just look
for fuck’s sake.”
    “Okay. Lay off the ‘fucks’?”
    “Why? No one’s around.”
    “I’m around.”
    “It’s just a word.”
    “I’m tired of words that mean things like
fuck and shit and all of that. If you’re in a good mood then talk
like it, okay?”
    Keane shrugged at Alex. “Right. All
right.”
    A ladder went down to the sub-basement in
place of the long-dead elevator, and from there was a door. An
actual door into the sewers.
    “Why would they put a door?” Alex asked.
    “Because there’s more than shit—I mean
garbage—down there.” Keane rapped the bat on the old metal door.
The room was small and dark and there was no echo. “Who knows? A
vault or a bomb shelter or a
god-please-let-there-be-a-pot-garden.”
    “What’s pot?” Jarrett asked.
    “Nothing you need to know about,” Alex said,
and approached the door. “Take a torch, Keane. You’re on point
right?”
    “Right.”
    The door sounded like a banshee’s dying cry.
Jarrett covered his ears while Alex lit a torch and shouldered his
axe. “I’ll take the rear, Jarr. You go after Keane.”
    There were stairs; wet stairs, Alex noticed
immediately, old carved stone steps that collected tepid little
pools of water from some unknown source. Had to be the humidity. It
was hot and fucking damp in that narrow stairwell. Drip-drip-drip from down below rattled the nerves. Jarrett
was breathing hard, looking from side to side at the flat black
walls as they descended the winding staircase, Alex and Keane each
holding a torch and a weapon. Jarrett was approved for weapons, but
all he had was a length of pipe tucked against his calf, down in
that one old holey sock he wore on his right leg. He knew to strike
them in the eyes and teeth. Blind them, disable them, evade them.
Rotters weren’t to be messed with. It wasn’t Man’s cause to seek
out and slaughter the living dead. Just stay out of their damn way
and let them rot.
    “I almost hear a rumbling,” Keane said.
    “Well, do you or don’t you?” Alex
whispered.
    “I don’t know. It’s kinda in my feet, you
feel that?”
    “I don’t feel anything. And I don’t hear
anything. We’re down in solid rock here, Keane, I don’t think
you’re really feeling anything moving about.”
    “Just the earth?”
    “I don’t know. Your imagination. Your
heartbeat.”
    “So dark,” Jarrett breathed. “How far do you
think these stairs go?”
    “Don’t know, son,” Alex replied. He was
beginning to feel claustrophobic, despite being the rear guard, and
he thrust his torch toward the ceiling. “Flame’s dancing a little.
I think there’s some air coming up from below.”
    Keane nodded. “It’s getting a little less
damp. We’re onto something.” He grinned at Jarrett.
    The stairs ended.