Night Shift(22)

'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 jip 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 any more,' 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 towards 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.