The Beneath (25 page)

CHAPTER 23

Rats.

A seething sea of hundreds and hundreds of huge and hungry-looking rats.

They stood in a semicircle around us, teeth bared, sheltered between the columns. Some were still shaking their heads a bit at the sudden light, and all were swishing their snake-like tails. Hardly daring to move my head, I scanned around. They ranged in size from fairly normal-looking to monsters the size of small dogs with long, thick tails.

They made no sound except the creepy slithering of the tails on the stone floor; no squeaking or growling, just silence. Their yellow eyes watched us without blinking, mirroring the hideous yellow colour of their teeth – some of which were nearly as long as my fingers. The thought
of what those teeth were about to do crystallised the fear inside me. I couldn’t speak or move, and I was having trouble breathing. Everything was starting to go black around the edges and I could feel that I was beginning to sway. If I fainted, maybe I wouldn’t feel the teeth. It wasn’t much comfort.

I shook myself and tried to focus. Blacking out wasn’t going to help Will, and if Dane was right, I had the ability to control these beasts.

I looked at their horrible eyes and picked one of the larger ones.
BACK
, I shouted in my head.
Leave us alone!
But, as I expected, absolutely nothing happened. How on earth was this Affinity supposed to work?

“Get back!” I shouted out loud, hoping that they would respond to my voice, but that did nothing either.

“Lily!” called Will, tugging at my hand as the Crop edged towards us. “Come on, we have to run for it!”

The Farmer laughed.

“And where exactly do you think you’ll be running to? You can’t deny the Crop their meal, not now they’re expecting you.”

That was an odd thing to say.

“What do you mean, expecting you?” I asked. “Was that why they didn’t attack before?”

“Maybe not as slow as we thought,” he said. “Exactly right. It really wasn’t so surprising that you got down to us, not when they can be anywhere in their tunnels. But no one can escape once I’ve called them. Now they’re
just waiting for the command to feed.”

I looked at him closely in the lamplight.

“But you don’t have an Affinity with them, do you? No secret power? You just have a way of controlling them.”

I pointed to his hand, which was still clutching something.

“Keep him talking, Lily,” hissed Will. “They’re not coming any closer.”

“So what is it?” I asked, bargaining on the fact that he would like to brag. “Have you trained them from birth to obey your commands?”

“Training is the domain of the Farmers.”

“So all you’re doing is ensuring that your offspring remain in control!” interrupted Will. “There is no ‘Affinity’; you’re just running a dictatorship, and passing on the secret from father to son.”

“Very clever,” said the Farmer. “None of my people have made that connection, and you’ll not live long enough to tell them.”

“Another reason for keeping them ignorant and contained,” I said.

I shook my head and looked out across the sea of rats that were poised just metres away. There must be something I could do to stop them, to stop the wave of fur and teeth and long, slithery tails that were waiting to engulf us. All the Farmer had to do was … what? Whistle?

I knew what I had to do.

I grabbed at my necklace, hidden as usual beneath my
T-shirt, scrabbling along the familiar trinkets until I came to the small silver whistle. It had never worked, not on human ears anyway.

I saw the Farmer’s eyes widen in shock as I lifted the whistle to my lips. He groped for his, but I was quicker. I blew through the tiny mouthpiece as sharply as I could, and the effect was electrifying. The rats instantly stopped their fidgeting and turned, and hundreds of beady yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on us.

“Keep going, Lily!” cried Will, leaping towards the Farmer as I took another deep breath.

The Farmer got his whistle to his mouth but Will was there, knocking it out of his hand. It skittered sideways, chinking on the stone. The rats were standing perfectly still watching us, waiting to do what they had been trained to do.

“Back to me, Will, quickly!” I cried.

Will leapt back beside me, and I blew again and again. I just didn’t know what command I was giving. One of the largest rats sat back, lifting up its front legs, nose quivering in the air.

“Attack them!” screamed the Farmer, flapping his arms towards us. “Them! Over there!”

“Stay absolutely still,” I whispered to Will.

I gave another swift blow on the whistle, which was obviously making sounds that only they could hear. The big rat that was sitting up sprang up on its back legs and started racing towards the Farmer. A wave of
others followed. The Farmer turned and ran, a swarm of scuttling bodies chasing after him. I grabbed Will and held him close as the sea of stinking rats pushed past us, their bodies horribly warm against my legs and their tails whipping us. The noise of those slithering tails grew to hideous levels as hundreds – thousands – of rats shot in and out of the circle of light. Their sheer volume was mind-numbing, and Will and I stayed as silent and still as possible as the swarm disappeared into the dark, following the Farmer wherever he had gone.

My heart was hammering and my legs began to shake uncontrollably. I had to sit down before I fell.

“That was horribly, horribly close,” said Will, helping me down. “How on earth did you know how to do that?”

“Just a sec,” I breathed.

I put my head between my knees to stop myself feeling so sick. In a few moments the nausea passed and I sat back, pulling the hair back off my damp face.

“Nan always tells me that if you’re in trouble, you should whistle, and I remembered this.” I lifted up the chain to show him the little silver charm. “I used to blow it as a child but it never made a sound. I guess the pitch is right for their ears.”

“Wow. That’s a bit freaky.”

I thought so too.

“Where would Mrs W get a whistle like that?”

“No idea. She gave me this necklace years ago.”

“I can’t believe you remembered it. That was so close.”
He sat down beside me, giving me a weak smile. “My legs don’t seem to be working so well. Shaking a bit.”

“That’s not all she gave me,” I said, thinking aloud. “She had all the medicines too.”

For a second we were both silent.

“So she happened to have the exact antibiotic you needed?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. Exactly. She always has a huge cupboard of medicines. For emergencies, she says. She buys them off the Internet.”

“Your Nan knows too much.”

I was thinking the same. So did that mean Dane was right after all – that I was in some way destined to be here?

“Let’s get back up there, then ask questions, I think.”

“Good idea.”

He stood up and held out his hand. I took it eagerly, testing my wobbly legs as he pulled me to my feet. Once I was upright he stepped closer, folding me into his arms.

“No more heroics, Lily. I don’t think my heart can take it.”

He obviously saw the confusion that flashed across my face. “Sorry,” I mumbled, looking away. He reached for my chin and lifted my face up to his again, then stroked my cheek briefly.

“When we get home can we have a normal date or something? Get a coffee or go to the cinema? Somewhere people aren’t constantly trying to kill us?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“I … I thought you liked Aria?”

His hands were still warm on my back and I didn’t want him to move.

He laughed. “I do, but not like that. I like you, Lily, I have for ages. Why else do you think I came all the way down here with you?”

I looked up into his eyes and could see that he was telling the truth. He leaned down, brushing his lips across mine before burying his face in my hair.

“You still smell good. I don’t dare kiss you properly yet. I must smell disgusting.”

My lips still tingled where he had touched them, and I couldn’t think of anything sensible to say. I just held him tighter, enjoying the moment.

“Now,” he said, pulling back and giving me a smile, “do you think we could get out of here before those monsters come back for more?”

I finally found my voice.

“OK, good plan. Can you get the lamp?”

We started working our way back to the lift and then around towards the stairs.

“Do you think that he’s dead?” I asked as we searched for the right way to go. “I mean, if he is, what are the Community going to think? Who will lead them? Who will contain the Crop?”

“Let’s get out of here first and then worry about that.”

We were so busy talking and peering round the
columns that we didn’t notice the change in atmosphere until it was too late. Violently bright lights snapped on, blinding us and stopping us in our tracks. A voice thundered around and bounced off the walls.

“This is the police. We are armed. Put your hands in the air NOW!”

Will carefully put the lamp down before he raised his hands. As he did, a small canister was thrown past us, and rolled into the dark, hissing.

“How many more of you are there? Come on, out with it!” barked the voice.

“Here? Just the two of us,” I yelled back.

“We’re the ones you’re looking for,” called Will, ducking as another hissing canister was launched over our heads.

I could feel my eyes begin to sting, so I shut them tightly for a moment. Not being able to see was even worse, so I opened them again, just a tiny crack.

“Is that tear gas?” Will shouted. “Do we look like we’re about to make trouble?”

As he spoke a figure moved forward from the light, the silhouette clear.

“Lily, I’m Detective Inspector Harding. You talked with my colleague Constable Clark yesterday at your house. Are you OK?”

Her voice sounded odd, but relief washed over me – we no longer had to do any of this alone.

“Yes, we’re fine.”

“You’re going to need these,” she said, holding something out to me.

She moved closer towards us and I could see that she was wearing a gas mask, and in her hand were two more. The mask was muffling her voice. I put one on and it helped my eyes adjust to the brightness of the two banks of lights. Will took the other.

“Is anything else here?” she asked, scanning around behind us.

“No, not now. But there are rats – lots and lots of rats. Big ones. They will eat you, given half a chance.”

I was suddenly too weary to worry about the fact that it all sounded mad.

“So we heard. It’s one of the reasons why we brought the tear gas.”

“And the guns,” muttered Will.

She was wearing body armour, a helmet and a holster.

“We’ve been very worried about both of you, Will. Your mother is frantic.”

“She’s not here, is she?” There was panic in his voice. “Please tell me that she didn’t come down? It’s not safe!”

The police officer put her hand on his arm.

“We know, Will. No civilians are with us, not even your guardian,” she added, turning to me, “which really upset her.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, imagining the argument.

As we were speaking, the area around us had filled up with more and more armed police in gas masks, and
more of the lights on tripods had been moved further into the chamber and around towards the lift. Cables snaked across the stone floor. The clouds of gas streaming out of the canisters were quickly spreading away between the columns. In a few moments the air cleared and Detective Inspector Harding took off her gas mask. Will and I loosened ours too.

“How did you know we were here?” I asked.

“Mrs Wakefield told us everything you told her, and then directed us to the entrance above. She warned us about the defences too.”

That puzzled me – I’d not told Nan anything.

“What are you going to do now?” Will asked. “Where are those guys going?”

“We need to control the rats. They’ve got motion and heat detectors that will find them pretty quickly.”

“I’m not sure you have enough men,” I said dubiously, thinking back to the sea of rats that had surrounded us not long before.

“We know what we’re doing. We have other means of dealing with the rats,” she said. “And the people. We just need to get them out.”

“Hang on a sec, you can’t go barging in there. They won’t be happy about it.”

“People can’t live underground commanding packs of flesh-eating rats.”

An edge of steel was just detectable under her friendly and comforting tone.

“But what if they don’t want to come? They’ve been down there for generations. You have to understand that they feel let down by us, the Aboves, and they’re living their lives quite independently from us.”

“Well, that’s not quite true, is it? They send raiding parties up every night for food, I believe.”

“Food that’s been thrown away by the supermarkets and the fast-food shops, that’s all! The only person who was dangerous to us has gone, and is probably dead by now. The rest of them aren’t doing anyone any harm, are they?”

Detective Inspector Harding stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head at me.