Chapter 6
IT HAD BEEN a long, difficult day for Carla Evans. Her four-year-old daughter had measles, and her six-year-old son had been a holy terror, teasing his sister unmercifully. The news of the plague unnerved her, in the bargain. Don had assured her over the phone that he was in no danger, despite his proximity to all the plague victims in the hospital.
"It's the rats who spread it," he told her.
Rats! The very thought of the horrible creatures made goose pimples rise all over her body. They made her breasts all prickly, and she had to stick her fingers down inside her bra and rub the itch away. Sheepishly, she felt her nipples stiffen. It was a heck of a time to get sexy, she thought
Just before supper, little Wendy had started screaming hysterically. Carla bolted up the stairs and into her room, her heart hammering in fright. The fright turned into anger when she saw her son hiding under the bed, pretending to be a rat. After soothing the sick child, she yanked Bobby across her knees and pulled down his pants. She planted six sound slaps across his bare bottom and left him screaming more loudly than his sister. By the time they were in bed, she was exhausted. She undressed and took a cold shower. Afterward, she sat naked on her vanity bench and combed out her fluffy blonde hair.
Carla Evans was not a beautiful girl, but she had a wholesome prettiness about her. Her blue eyes were clear and wide-set, and her small nose turned up at the tip. She had a generous mouth that ripened sensually when she smiled. Her body was svelte, but not voluptuous. Her medium-sized breasts were perfect cones, her waist very slim. She had good legs, and thighs that tapered into slender hips. Not boyish hips, because her buttocks were plump and rounded.
As she brushed her hair, Carla studied her naked body in the mirror. She liked her body. Her bones were small and not at all prominent under the flesh. From head to feet all of her contours flowed together smoothly, as if she had been molded from styrene plastic. She rubbed her thighs together, stimulating the pleasant sensation that had been glowing in her loins most of the day. She wondered whether Don would be too tired to make love to her when he got home.
When her hair was brushed, she tied it back with a ribbon and put on a satin nightgown that fit her trim body like a sheath from breasts to below her knees. It was one Don particularly liked. She was lying on her bed, reading a magazine when she heard the noise in the cellar. Frowning, she got out of bed and put a negligee over her nightgown. She went downstairs and opened the cellar door. Her hand turned the light switch.
Carla screamed and clutched the door jamb for support, There, on the landing below her, crouched a huge rat. It was bigger than a cat. The body was fat, the long tail lashing the landing like a whip. The face was hideous, malevolent, with pointed, furry ears and long whiskers that vibrated as it squealed angrily at the woman. The mean little eyes gleamed red in the light. She slammed the cellar door shut and locked it. Terror tore at her vitals.
She rushed to the phone and started to call the hospital, then stopped herself. She could not add to Don's already overwhelming problems. Instead, she dialed the Shaws, their neighbors. Bob Shaw answered, and she told him about the rat.
"Must be a stray that was driven up from the lake," he said. "They're burning them out down there. I'll be right over."
Minutes later, the door chimes rang. She fell into Bob's arms gratefully. "I'm so scared, Bob. It might get at the children."
"Take it easy, Carla," he said. He disengaged her arms gently. The feel of her warm body underneath the thin gown and negligee made him uncomfortable. Bob Shaw was a big, broad-shouldered man, well over six feet, and all muscle. He like to look at pretty women, but kept them at a distance. His wife, Dale, was all the woman he needed or wanted. A moral man, he never entertained lascivious thoughts about the wives of his friends and neighbors.
He held up a long, wicked-looking bayonet. "This is the best weapon I could find. It's a war souvenir. Now, where is that rat?"
She pointed to the cellar door. "Down there. Please be careful. He looks so dangerous."
"With this baby, I'll be more than a match for him," he assured her. He walked to the door and opened it cautiously. The rat literally exploded out of the darkness, squealing in fury. It struck his legs and sent him slamming back into the wall. He felt its teeth clamp on the fat part of his thigh, like a steel trap. Cursing, Bob carefully placed the tip of the bayonet against the rodent's side and jammed it in as hard as he could. The sharp blade sliced clean through the fat, furry body, its tip emerging on the other side. Screeching in agony, the rat let go of the man's leg and twisted its head to bite at the instrument of its pain.
At the unexpected, shocking onslaught of the creature, Carla had stumbled back frantically. The heel of her slipper caught on one of the children's toys, and she tumbled to the floor. The robe fell open, and her nightgown slipped up high on her thighs. Bare legs askew, she lay there petrified with terror, watching the quick, violent battle between man and rat.
Shaw stood braced against the wall, holding the impaled rat at arm's length. Mortally wounded, it nevertheless refused to die. The sight of it wriggling on the bayonet and snapping futilely at the hard steel was grotesquely horrifying. Its fur was red and glossy with blood around the wounds where the blade entered and exited its body. Its jaws were gory from biting at the steel. The little, maddened eyes regarded Shaw balefully.
The man looked imploringly at Carla, sprawled out on the floor. The sight of her jolted him. His eyes were magnetically drawn to her lovely, bare legs, to her bare, rounded thighs exposed so immodestly below the rumpled skirt of her nightgown. Powerless to avert his gaze, he peered beneath the gown, into the alluring shadows beyond. It had been a long time since Shaw had seen a woman that way other than his wife. The vision flustered him badly.
As her shock Wore off, Carla became abruptly aware of her abandoned posture. Flushing, she clamped her knees together and tugged down her nightgown. Trembling, she got to her feet. The incident was eclipsed for both of them by the increased exertions of the rat to free itself.
"Why won't it die?"
"I guess I didn't hit a vital spot." Shaw shuddered. "We've got to do something. This gives me the creeps. Does Don have an ax? Maybe I can finish him off with that."
"The garage," Carla stammered. He followed her out of the side door, across the breezeway to the garage. Shaw stood in the middle of the garage, holding the rat at arm's length while Carla searched frantically for an ax.
A tremor shook the man as he realized that the tip of the bayonet no longer protruded from the far side of the rat. In some way, it was managing to work itself gradually free. The bloody jaws reached out toward him viciously.
"We've got to do something fast!" Shaw yelled. "I think he might get loose!"
Carla gasped. "I can't find it! Maybe the cellar!"
"No time!" Shaw's frantic eyes lit on a can of gasoline standing beside the power mower. "Grab that fuel can!" he ordered.
The girl was horrified. "Oh, no! You couldn't!"
"Grab that can, woman, and douse this critter before it gets loose! Hurry!"
Revulsion made her nauseous, but she obeyed. The rodent screeched in anguish as the gasoline deluged it.
"It almost sounds human," Carla said.
Shaw ran out into the breezeway and fumbled for his lighter. Flicking it into flame, he held it cu-: toward the frantic rat. The high-test gasoline exploded all around the doomed creature. Carla wanted to turn away from the horrendous sight, but a strange force compelled her to watch the cremation. It continued to twist and dance on the end of the bayonet in the middle of the fiery ball for a long time. Carla touched her hand to her throat, where her pulse beat wildly. Absently, the hand slid down her neck and up the creamy slope of her chest. She clutched at her right breast. It lay in her hand, heavy and soft through the layers of satin around it. Her fingers touched the nipple, and it sprang to life between them.
The rat seemed to get smaller and smaller as the flames consumed it. It was still now, and the sickening odor of its burning flesh drifted to her nostrils. Vomit gushed up her food pipe in a bitter geyser, and Carla turned away to the bushes.
When she had recovered and washed her face, she went into the kitchen. Shaw was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and swigging whiskey from a bottle he had found in the den. High on his right thigh, his trousers were stained with blood.
"Oh, Bob!" Carla said in distress. "I forgot you were bitten!"
"It's nothing," he said.-
"Nothing! Nothing but the plague, you mean! You've got to have it attended to immediately!"
He shrugged. "Dale is out with the car, and I don't feel like hiking all the way to the hospital."
"Oh, dear!" she said. "Our jalopy is in the service station. Don dropped it off on his way to work this morning, and he was going to pick it up after work."
"I'll go home and put some iodine on it."
"No, wait a minute!" Carla had an inspiration. "Don has everything we need in his office. I'll cauterize the wound for you, and then he'll look at it later when he gets home!"
Shaw stirred nervously. "What do you know about cauterizing?"
She laughed. "Don't be silly! I was a nurse before I married Don."
She led him into her husband's examination room, and indicated the big leather-topped table. "Take off your pants, Bob, and climb up on the table."
Shaw swallowed hard. "My pants?"
"Of course."
Blushing, the big man turned away from her and unbuttoned his trousers. He stepped out of them, feeling awkward and silly, standing before her in his jockey shorts. He stretched out on his back on the table and looked up at her. When she had been a nurse, Carla had grown accustomed to seeing dozens of men nude and semi-nude. The male body was not novel to her. But, for some reason, seeing Bob Shaw in his underwear made her feel warm and embarrassed. She focused her attention on the rat bite on his right leg. It was an ugly, jagged wound, clotted with rusty blood.
She frowned. "It doesn't look good, Bob. I'm going to have to bleed it some more to clean it out."
"Okay," he said hoarsely. His heart was beating faster, not out of fear or nervousness about his wound, but at the close, perfumed presence of Carla Evans hovering over him. Sweat beaded his forehead as he remembered how she had looked sitting spraddle-legged on the floor with her nightgown pulled high over her knees. Desire stirred faintly in his loins, like a snake waking from a coiled sleep. He battled it desperately, closing his eyes against the tantalizing memory. If that happened in front of Carla, he'd never be able to face her again!
"Get on with it," he said, impatient to feel the cleansing pain.
Carla was the efficient nurse again. She gathered her tools around her, cauterizing iron, needles, antiseptic, gauze and a sharp scalpel. She sterilized the scalpel and bent over his wounded leg. His thighs were hairy and thick with muscle, she noted.
"Brace yourself," she warned him. "This will hurt." She spread the jagged bite with the tip of the knife. Expertly, she cut away the loose skin and mangled bits of tissue from around the rough edges. A pulse on the inside of his leg quivered beneath her gentle fingers. Shaw was fascinated by the white, slender fingers splayed on his brown, corded flesh. As she worked, the hand slid higher.
Oh no! he prayed silently. Not any higher, please! I couldn't stand it!
In his mind, he saw the white hand moving higher and then closing around him. The snake of lust stirred more restlessly this time. He got a reprieve as she cut deep into the maw of the bite to start the flow of blood again. Intense pain penetrated to his thigh bone and radiated along his nerve endings, down his legs and high into his belly. He gritted his teeth.
The bright spring that welled up inside the wound made Carla a little dizzy. Ordinarily, she had a strong stomach, and this was, after all, only a minor thing. She guessed it was the cumulative effect of all the pressures of her day. First plague, then the nagging kids, the rat and the horrifying spectacle of it writhing in fiery torture on the bayonet. She became aware of the feel of his leg under her fingers. His flesh was hard, masculine, hot. A chill rippled down her spine from the base of her neck to the globes of her buttocks. A warm flush spread across her belly and her bottom. She forced her mind back to her task.
"It's not bleeding enough," she told him. "I'm going to have to help it along. Lie still and relax."
Shaw stared incredulously as she slipped out of her robe to give herself more freedom of movement. Her naked body was maddeningly defined under the sheer, tight nightgown. He could see the red points of her breasts poking against the satin. It spanned her belly, showing the dimpled navel. His eyes dropped lower to the tantalizing shadows at the apex of her thighs and belly. With her arms braced on either side of his thighs, she bent her lips to his wound.
The room spun dizzily before his eyes. His breath choked in his throat. Her mouth was fixed like a suction cup on the bite, drawing out the rodent's venom. Her sweet lips made his flesh tingle blissfully. Her soft breasts were compressed against his thighs, only a flimsy layer of satin separating them. With a moan of resignation, Shaw surrendered to the overpowering desire that tore at his vitals.
The girl looked up, with blood on her lips, to the sight of his bursting virility. She swayed drunkenly and brushed a strand of limp, blonde hair out of her eyes. It was so hot, so very hot. Her flesh was burning. She was on fire inside and outside. Warm honey was trickling down her body underneath her nightdress, flowing between her breasts, coating her nipples, skimming over curved belly and funneling down into the pulsing well between her quivering thighs. There was a madness in the air.
A montage of vivid images swept before her eyes. The rat's red, hate-filled eyes. The plump body squirming on the cruel lance, its red blood dripping onto the kitchen linoleum. Its inhuman cries of agony as it burned alive. The raw, jagged edges of the bite in Shaw's virile thigh. The flow of his blood as the scalpel bit deep.
Her vision cleared, and she looked down upon the big male animal preened in all his male splendor, the way a peacock flaunts his magnificent tail to lure the females.
Her mouth was dry as she whispered, "Take off your clothes." With a supple motion, she slipped the nightgown over her head.
In a trance, Shaw took off his shirt and shorts. Naked, his body seemed gargantuan. Carla experienced a feeling of lusty abandonment so exquisite that it took her breath away. Laughing softly, she bent over him again. Her fingers and lips adored him. There was a mystic quality about her acts. She felt as though she had been transported back to some ancient time when naked maidens paid homage to the fertility gods by worshipping at pagan phallic altars. The pipes of Pan sounded hauntingly in her ears.
"Now!" she sobbed, lifting her head. "Quickly!" She scrambled up on the table and mounted him. She plunged down with a wild scream of erotic triumph.
The world spun faster and faster. Now she was the rat impaled on a cruel bayonet. She squealed and squirmed as the blade sent fire through her body. The spark was struck, and flame exploded all around her, sheathing her breasts, belly, buttocks, limbs in a fiery cocoon. The ultimate pain. The ultimate pleasure. Pleasure and pain, the acme of erotic splendor. She shriveled up into fine, dry ashes.
After it was over, the two of them were speechless with shame and regret. Carla sobbed hysterically into her hands. "What's wrong with us? You and I aren't really like this, Bob. We're respectable people. You love your wife. I love my husband. I never wanted any other man but Don in all our married life. Why?"
Shaw lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. "I remember in the war, the terrible things that decent men did. A whole squad of soldiers raping a German girl fifteen years old. They left her torn and bloody. Afterward they rationalized it, pointed out the millions the Nazis had murdered in their damnable ovens. Justifying one act of sadism and brutality with another act of the same thing. And there were other girls who gave their bodies freely for a cigarette, a bar of chocolate. Was it because they were starving for candy and cigarettes? I think not. It was an act of glorious self-debasement. People! I shudder to think of the capacity each of us carries buried within us for evil. War triggers our basest desires. Fear, savagery always unleash our worst emotions. This plague, it's like a war, in a way. Coaltown is a beleaguered city. It's got all of us in a state of hysteria."
"Words, words, what do they mean?" she asked dully. "It's no good knowing why we do these things. They're done. Nothing can ever change that."
"No," he admitted, "nothing can change it." He fingered the wound on his thigh. "Everything leaves a scar. Both of us, we're casualties of the plague just as rightly as the poor devils who are burning up with fever at the hospital."
She nodded sadly. "Here, let me finish binding up your wound."
This time her fingers were dead, lifeless digits on his flesh.
Along the lake shore the scene had the exciting madness of a Bosch mural. The rat-hunters had grown into a great restless, unmanageable army. Men, women, young children joined the fray. Their eyes and teeth gleamed insanely in the flickering light of the torches. Their cries of sadistic pleasure mingled with the agonized screeching of the rodents. Weapons ran the gamut from sticks to guns.
A dark-haired girl, with one breast hanging out of ' her halter, held aloft a sharpened broomstick with a rat impaled on the point.
A blonde woman waded knee-deep in the water, pursuing a swimming rat with raised ax. Her skirt was pulled up and tucked down inside the waistband of her panties. The men studied her bare thighs with lascivious eyes. She caught the rat and cleaved it in half with a blow of the ax. The men surrounded her, congratulating her, patting her with sly hands. She felt one hand squeeze her round bottom. Another slipped up inside her blouse and fondled a breast. She felt something poking urgently into the soft flesh of her belly. She reached down and felt it, teasing and caressing. Other hands were pulling down her panties. She giggled and protested, but did not object when the hands pulled her into the shadows of a dock. They put her down on the sand and gathered around her. She moaned in delight as a faceless man settled in the bower of her thighs. The others couldn't wait. They pushed themselves at her from all directions.
Her shrill laughter floated over the lake. "Please, boys, one at a time!" Then she was inundated, it seemed, in hot pulsating flesh.
Sam Lutz stumbled along the waterfront, a shocked spectator to the slaughter and debauchery. He passed a dark doorway in which a male and female were convoluting in an upright embrace. The woman's panties were tangled about her ankles. She lifted her head to gasp for air, and a beam of light struck her face. With a jolt Sam recognized her as one of the secretaries at his department store.
Further along, a crowd of screaming people were gathered around a small boathouse. A family of rats was held at bay underneath it by a ring of torches. Men and boys were sluicing gasoline into the crawl-space from tin drums. Then some woman threw a flaming torch under the building. Flames belched out on all four sides, driving the mob back. In seconds the building was enveloped in fire.
Burning alive, the pain-crazed rats blazed a trail through the people, leaving fiery, zigzag wakes. They looked like crazy comets as they streaked down the beach and through the streets. Sick to his stomach, Sam staggered into a crowded bar and order a double Scotch.
He downed it in one gulp and ordered again. While the bartender was pouring it, he became aware of a firm, warm pressure against his thigh. He turned his head and looked into a pair of green cat's eyes. She was a girl no older than his own Sissy. In fact, he thought, she looked like Sissy. Her blonde hair was hanging in two ponytails down her back. Her little breasts surged up in her sweater like turrets. His eyes were drawn to her thighs, glistening with sweat below the hem of her scandalously short dress. Sam looked away guiltily.
Her knees nudged his thigh again. "Got a match?" she asked, sticking a cigarette between her red lips.
Sam nodded and took out his lighter. He lit her cigarette, frowning at her. "You don't look old enough to be drinking in bars," he said, addressing her as if he was talking to his own daughter.
She laughed merrily and placed a small hand on his thigh. "I'm old enough to drink and to do lots of other things, Pops!" she said. "How about buying me a drink?"