Pestilence (36 page)

Saracen nodded. “She must have been trying to crawl through the gap and got herself stuck between the rats and freedom.”

“Is she dead?” asked MacQuillan.

“She’s dead.” replied Saracen who had been searching for a pulse.

“Oh my God,” said MacQuillan mesmerised by horror.

“The rats are still trapped inside,” said Saracen. “We’ll have to be careful when we pull her body out.”

MacQuillan did not need the warning for his imagination had gone into overdrive. They pulled hard and moved Claire’s body back through the gap slowly and paused before the final tug. “Ready?” asked MacQuillan.

Saracen nodded and they moved Claire’s body so that a gap between her shoulder and the roof of the gap appeared. As soon as it did a rat flew through the space and spread-eagled itself across Saracen’s face visor before scrambling down over his shoulder and off into the blackness. Saracen looked down and saw a rat still fastened to Claire’s face. He overcame a tide of nausea and swung his torch at the thing sending it flying across the room. Several other rats joined in the exodus from the chamber and then there was silence.

Saracen looked at Claire and had to swallow hard to contain the urge to vomit. He heard MacQuillan do the same. “God and she was so beautiful,” he whispered looking down at the featureless tissue. MacQuillan turned away.

When they had both sufficiently recovered MacQuillan said, “You’ve got your rat.”

Saracen followed MacQuillan’s torch beam and saw that it was resting on the rat that he had hit with his torch. It was lying in a bundle in the corner. MacQuillan fetched it and Saracen prepared his equipment. He opened the lids of several containers in readiness and then removed the guard from a scalpel blade as MacQuillan held up the animal to expose its throat. Saracen cut straight across it and collected the blood, filling one container after another until the animal was completely exsanguinated then MacQuillan tossed the carcase away.

Saracen was packing the bottles into his bag when he heard MacQuillan say, “Good God, look at that!”

Saracen saw MacQuillan reach through the gap where Claire had been trapped and remove something. He held it up and shone his torch on it. It was a gold chalice encrusted with rubies as big as birds’ eggs. “So that’s why she was trying to get in there,” said MacQuillan. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? It must be worth millions.”

“Leave the damned thing,” said Saracen. “God knows how many people have died for it.”

“Let’s not over-react,” whispered MacQuillan, examining the chalice from every angle. Surely you don’t believe that old curse nonsense.”

“Let’s get this blood back. We’ll take Claire’s body with us.” said Saracen, arranging the body so that he could grip her arms. “You take her feet.”

MacQuillan stuffed the chalice inside his protective suit and gripped Claire’s ankles. “Ready.”

They had almost reached the iron gate when they heard footsteps coming towards them. It was the soldiers and they had brought more rat traps. Saracen thanked them but explained that they had managed to catch a healthy rat. He handed the blood samples to the sergeant, telling him to get them to Beasdale as fast as possible. “He knows where they have to go.”

“And the traps sir?”

“Just leave them.”

As the soldiers took charge of Claire’s body and turned to head back along the passage the air was filled with a rumbling sound from above. It grew louder and they could make out the characteristic throb of a diesel engine. Saracen looked at the sergeant in alarm and said, “You did warn them about not crossing the line of the tunnel?” He could see by the look on the man’s face that he had not. The man turned on his heel and started running back to the entrance while the soldiers bearing Claire’s body followed as quickly as they could.

As the truck passed overhead the roof of the tunnel collapsed. It was quite sudden; there was no warning trickle of dirt, no creaking sounds. The roof just imploded some thirty metres from where Saracen and MacQuillan stood.

Saracen stared at the wall of rock in stunned silence. The sergeant, the soldiers, Claire’s body, the blood samples were all gone, buried under tons of black stone. Two more stone sets fell from the roof and broke the spell. “The rest is going to go!” Saracen yelled. They turned to run but MacQuillan tripped and fell. The chalice he had been clutching flew from his grasp and sailed between the bars of the gate. “Leave it!” urged Saracen but MacQuillan was determined. He crawled over to the bars and stretched his arm through to grope blindly for the lost chalice in spite of Saracen’s warning.

Instead of the chalice MacQuillan’s hand found the rat trap that he had set earlier by the gate. The hammer released and smashed down on his fingers making it impossible for him to pull his hand back through the bars. He cried out in pain as he tried to free himself and overhead the roof began to move. One stone fell, then another. Saracen threw himself backwards as the whole lot collapsed. As he did so he caught a glimpse of the terror on MacQuillan’s face just before a huge stone fell and crushed him.

Saracen was alone in the infirmary of Skelmoris Abbey save for fifteen skeletons and the rats. He was exhausted physically and mentally and could not be certain how long he had been sitting there in the darkness. He had switched off his lamp to conserve the batteries after a fruitless search for another way out. Was there any point in going on, he wondered. The odds were hopelessly against him and time was running out. He brought out the revolver that the soldier had given him and weighed it in his hand while he considered his position. God, he was tired. Revulsion, fear and anguish had conspired to drain him of every last vestige of hope. He brought the cold muzzle of the gun to rest against his temple and curled his index finger lightly round the trigger. He caressed the curved steel and flirted with an increase in pressure. The thought of Jill stopped him.

Ye Gods! How clear it all seemed now. The hurt and pain that Marion had caused him had been much greater than he had ever cared to admit. His reluctance to concede that he had fallen in love with Jill had just been fear that it might happen all over again. Claire had been right about that. He did love Jill. Of that he was now very sure. The guilt he felt after his fling with Clare should have told him but he had fought against it and now it was too late. He would never be able to look into Jill’s beautiful face and tell her how much he loved her, how much he adored her and wanted her. The thought of her hair on the pillow and her face smiling up at him filled him with an almost unbearable sadness.

The spectre of death was returning to court Saracen when the sound of scurrying paws startled him out of his trance. He whipped the gun round and blazed away at where he thought the sound had come from.

The chamber was transformed from being a silent tomb into an echo chamber filled with endlessly reverberating thunder and the blackness was punctuated with flashes of orange lightning. “Bastards!” Saracen yelled. “Stinking, verminous bastards!”

He started to tremble all over and hysteria made his breathing erratic. Curses were interspersed with sobs as he dropped the gun and placed both hands over his face, taking what comfort he could from the feel of his fingertips massaging his skin. The moment passed and he came back from the brink. “For God’s sake get a grip,” he muttered as he got to his feet. If only he could find a way out there might still be time to destroy the rat colony before Beasdale acted.

If only. He reloaded the gun, picked up his lamp and returned to the North wall of the cellars.

At the end of another fruitless search where he had felt his way along each stone from ground to shoulder level along the entire North face of the Abbey cellars Saracen sat down to rest. The silence was broken periodically by the sound of running feet in the blackness but he had now come to terms with this. As he sat there listening, it occurred to him that the movement of the rats was not entirely random. There seemed to be a constant East to West movement along the corridor outside the chamber where he sat. He tested his theory by waiting for the next sound. There it was again! Two animals running east to west along the passage. Where were they going?

Saracen got up and followed the passage along to the last chamber. It was at the North-West corner of the cellars and seemed to have been some kind of wash or bath house for there were five large stone troughs standing in line, each with its own spur to a main water channel. A rat scurried across the floor and over Saracen’s feet making goose flesh spring up on his neck. He swore to maintain his fragile courage and break a silence that threatened to smother him. Another rat shot across the floor going in the opposite direction from the one that had hurdled his feet. He squatted down cautiously to see if he could see where it had come from.

Saracen’s pulse raced as his torch beam picked out an opening in the wall under the end trough. It was not difficult to work out what the opening had been for; it was the drainage channel for the troughs but it was much bigger than it had to be for the volume of water it had been liable to encounter. It was about two thirds of a metre high in the centre and slightly narrower in width. At a pinch a man could crawl inside and escape to the outside world. This was the decoy tunnel!

As yet another rat flew from the mouth of the drain Saracen knew that he had found the primary entrance and exit that the rats used and the thought filled him with dread. He had found his way out but it was going to be full of rats. Once committed there would be no room for manoeuvre inside the channel because it was too narrow and his body would practically fill it. Rats would be coming towards him and up behind him. The image of Claire’s face after the rats had finished with her haunted his subconscious like a vision of hell. Did he have the nerve?

Saracen sat down with his back against one of the stone troughs and took deep breaths. He moved his head restlessly from side to side as variations on a nightmare invaded his mind. But it was the only way. There was no alternative.

He crawled back to the entrance to the drain and rested his hand on the stone above it. Was it his imagination or was the air sweeter here? Fresher? The thought of sky and fresh air stiffened Saracen’s resolve. He would do it. He had to. But first he would do something about improving the odds. If he could somehow block up the entrance to the wash-house he could eliminate the possibility of rats coming up behind him in the tunnel when he could not turn round. That would leave the ones coming towards him but for them he would have the gun. He would hold the lamp in one hand and the gun in the other as he wriggled along on his belly. There might even be a chance that oncoming rats would turn and flee when they saw him coming and that would be much better than having to use the gun.

He set about blocking up the entrance to the chamber with whatever came to hand and discovered that it was difficult because anything that remained in the cellars after all these years tended to be hard, wood, stone, iron. There was nothing soft that he could use to plug up small gaps with. He did what he could with the materials to hand and consoled himself with the thought that the barrier did not have to last long, just until he had crawled along the length of the drainage channel. He tried not to dwell on the fact that he had no idea of how long that was going to be.

Saracen’s throat was tight as he checked the pistol for the last time and dispensed with the remaining cartridges because, once inside the drain, there would be no room to draw his arms back to re-load again. He could feel the blood start to pound in his temples as he knelt down in front of the channel entrance and, frightened to delay too long in case his nerve snapped, he slid his arms into the mouth and wriggled inside. Almost immediately he hit trouble; his face visor prevented him from raising his head to see where he was going. He withdrew and tore it off to throw it across the chamber in anger, venting his pent up frustration with every obscenity he could think of and several that didn’t make sense.

As he calmed down and steadied himself on his emotional tightrope he could hear scratching at the barrier he had erected. The rats were trying to get through it already. He went over to it and shouted and banged to scare them off then all went quiet and he entered the drain again.

He had moved forward about twenty metres when he had to stop because his elbows and knees demanded a break from the pain of continual bruising against the unforgiving stone. He comforted himself with the thought that, as yet, he had seen no rats. On the other hand there was nothing but blackness ahead of him in the tunnel. How long was the channel going to be and what if the exit should be barred with an iron gate? It was the first time he had considered this possibility and it ate at his stomach like acid. He had rested enough. He gripped the lamp and the gun and started crawling again.

The lamp picked out two eyes in the darkness; there was a rat five metres ahead! Saracen’s sense of fear was already on overload so he could find no extra emotional response. He stared at it then yelled at it and the creature turned and fled. He crawled on for another ten metres. Another two eyes, no this time there were four. He shouted again and two disappeared but two remained.

Saracen yelled again but the eyes did not move. This was a braver rat. He inched forward but the animal held its ground so Saracen’s fingers left the lamp and moved across in front of him until he held the gun in both hands. He looked along the barrel and held the front sight between the glowing embers. The index finger of his right hand squeezed harder and harder until a deafening report pained his ear drums and the rats head exploded on impact.