Page 37 - SK -1978 - Night Shift (20 short stories)

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mewling noise. Their queen, then, themagna mater. A huge and nameless thing whose progeny might some day
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, squealing, 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 any more. 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 inEast of Eden), then bawl some more. Happy-time
stuff like that. One day he sang Bringing in the Sheaves' in a cracked, mouldy voice that sent Needles and me into
hysterics.

The Massachusetts station was better, but we could only get it at night. It was a bunch of kids. I guess they took
over the transmitting facilities of WRKO or WBZ after every-body left or died. They only gave gag call letters, like
WDOPE or KUNT or WA6 or stuff like that. Really funny, you know - you could die laughing. That was the one we
were listening to on the way back to the beach. I was holding hands with Susie; Kelly and Joan were ahead of us, and