Peeps

Still struggling, it let out another scream, this one purposeful and harsh. The hum of turbines and giant fans above grew louder, but before they overwhelmed my ears I heard the rustling of a brood on the move below, like a lawn full of leaves stirred by an impatient wind.

At the last flight of stairs, I paused to peer back down. Rats streamed upward, shimmying along the handrails like tightrope walkers, bounding up the stairs, stumbling over one another in a boiling mass of fur and claws.

I dashed across the exhaust building, the image of stampeding rats spi

And that went even for normal rats, without the brood bonds and hyperactive aggression of the parasite. The army pursuing me had a master to protect; this was evolutionary perfection trailing me, hungering to tear me to pieces.

The tu

The cat screamed again and struggled harder, and I fell something wet and warm against my chest. It was pissing on me as I ran! Leaving spatters of its scent on the floor, an unmistakable trail for the horde to follow.

“You little shit!” I yelled, leaping up into the exhaust tu

The cat got one leg free and lashed out at my face, getting a single curved claw into my cheek, rapier-sharp and fiercely painful. I dropped the flashlight and grabbed hold of the cat with both gloved hands, pulling it away from me with a rip of skin that felt like yanking out a fishhook.

“Ow!” I screamed at it.

It hissed back at me.

The flashlight lay at my feet, but the rumble of turbines behind me was now joined by the rush of tiny claws—they’d almost reached the tu

Then I saw something horrible ahead … light. Sunlight.

I stumbled to a halt.

It didn’t make sense. The only light down here was at the far end of the tu

I swallowed. Had I gone too far already? Maybe the tu

I ran a few more steps forward; then I saw them handcuffed on the sunlit ground: Patricia and Joseph Moore. This was the other end of the tu

I felt a low rumbling overhead—the transport squad in its garbage truck, getting ready to collect the peeps—and my heart leaped for a moment. Allies were only a few yards away.

But a steel grate still stood between me and them. By the time they cut through it, the horde would have torn me to pieces.

I had to get back to the swimming pool.

I turned from the light and ran, the murmur of the rats building in front of me, thousands of little claws on stone, like the sound of distant surf. The peep cat growled happily in my arms; it could smell its brood approaching.

The blackness before me began to glitter—the glow of sunlight at my back catching a swarm of reflective, night-seeing eyes. The brood filled the tu

I tore the remaining shreds of hazmat suit off and wrapped the cat in them to silence it, then pulled out Dr. Rat’s Essence of Cal. You don’t want to cause a rat riot, she had said.

Maybe I did.

I knelt on the ground, facing away from the horde, my body wrapped tightly around the cat. Its muffled growls rumbled like a hungry stomach.

Twisting the cap from the bottle, I hurled it spi

Seconds later, they flowed over me, rat claws nicking through the Garth Brooks T-shirt like an Astroturf massage, their thin cries building as they scented what was ahead.

Rats are smart. They learn, they adapt, they know to be suspicious of free peanut butter. But these weren’t rats anymore—they were a mob, whipped into a frenzy, ru

When the last few had passed, I leaped to my feet, keeping the cat clutched tightly to my chest. It growled uselessly. The brood had found the bottle and fallen upon it in a churning mass.

I dashed back toward the swimming pool, half suffocating the peep cat to keep it silent, knowing they would be following me again in a few moments.

This time, I didn’t miss the echoing presence of the pool overhead. I climbed up into the deep end, then headed for the stairs, grabbing the duffel bag I’d left the night before. A few rats scented their master, but they had hardly begun to stir by the time I got the heavy metal door open. From the other side, I shoved it closed again hard, stuffing steel wool back into the cracks, securing the snipped chains with a Night Watch deadbolt and squishing through the poisonous peanut butter to safety.

When the locker door slammed shut behind me, I collapsed on the floor, shaking in the darkened health club. The peep cat heaved as I loosened my grip to let it breathe again. It growled once, low and long.

You’re dead meat, its eyes said.

“Oh, yeah?” I answered. “You and what army?”

Possibly the army I’d just run from like a headless chicken.

When I’d stopped shaking, I stood up and emptied the duffel bag onto the floor. Stuffing my struggling captive into it wasn’t easy, but I finally zipped the bag closed, muffling its yowls.

I was still panting, still half in shock, but as I pulled off my gloves I realized that I’d escaped. My clawed cheek felt like a pencil had been shoved through it, but the mission into the Underworld had been a success.

And the peep cat wasn’t so tough after all. Maybe Dr. Rat was right, and this new mutation was no big deal, just another evolutionary experiment gone awry.

It was still pissed off, though. The bag danced, needle-sharp claw tips poking through the vinyl. Not the best confinement system, but it would do for the moment. I only had to make it to the transport squad, a few blocks away. They would have a proper cage, and in any case, I had to drop by and warn them about the loose brood rampaging in the tu

And that other thing, the big breathing thing, whatever the hell that was …

Ma

“Are you okay, man?” he said.

I shrugged. “Yeah. But I wouldn’t go down there if I were you.”

His gaze went from my shredded hazmat coveralls to my bloodied face, then fell on the struggling bulge in the duffel bag. “What the hell is that?”

“Just one less thing for you to worry about, Ma

“Jesus, it looks as big as a cat!” He sniffed the air, smelling the tu

“Just got a little ugly is all. But it’s under control.”

One hand went to his face. “Maybe you should go to a doctor, man.”

I nodded, realizing that Dr. Rat would be with the transport squad. “Yep. That’s right where I’m headed.”

I left Ma

On the way, I spotted a stray cat lurking in the lengthening shadows. A block farther, another peered out from beneath a Dumpster full of garbage. I began to walk faster.