The effect was explosive. A hail of bullets whined off metal surfaces, smashed into the banks of machinery, scattering the black mutants, hitting many, propelling them into the air, wounding and destroying, but mainly causing panic. And a newfound respect in the vermin for the human aggressor.
Culver stopped firing, his eyes ever-watchful, and quickly told the others of Dealey's disclosure. If their circumstances had not been so critical he thought the three men would have grabbed Dealey and held him under water until he drowned. And he, Culver, might have helped.
'Collect anything you can to use as weapons!' he told them. The armoury must be flooded by now, not that we have time to reach it, anyway. Anyone you can find still carrying a gun will be an asset, so go look. Now! Get to the main shaft as quickly as you can, but try to find as many others as possible.'
We can't go looking for them!' Strachan was visibly shaking. We must get to the vent right away.'
Culver lowered the gun so that it was aimed at a point between Strachan's eyes. 'I'm just telling you to take the long way round.' He didn't shout, but his words were heard plainly enough.
We need some protection,' Ellison pleaded. 'Let me take the gun.'
Culver altered his aim. 'No chance,' he said coldly.
Strachan and Ellison saw something in the pilot's eyes that was as frightening as the danger around them; they pushed themselves back in the water, watching Culver all the time, then disappeared into a channel between equipment racks.
Fairbank regarded Culver with raised eyebrows. 'I'm with you, remember?'
Culver relaxed as much as circumstances would allow. ‘Yeah, and it's good to have you. Let's move.'
He pushed himself away from that side of the aisle, allowing the current to carry him at a slight angle towards Dealey, Kate and a small group of others who had gathered in the vicinity of the Operations Room. Fairbank followed.
Culver steadied himself by grabbing hold of the same catwalk support that Kate clung to, the arm bearing the submachine gun encircling her shoulders. She leaned against him, her eyes searching his. Her lips formed the name 'Clare' and he could only shake his head.
'Dealey!' he shouted. We need torches.'
Dealey pointed into the doorway. 'In there, on the shelves!'
At a flick of the head from Culver, Fairbank dived through, pushing away floating furniture and scanning the
shelves lining the walls for lamps, flashlights, and anything else that might be useful as a weapon. His eyes lit on something stashed away on the top of a long, fixed grey metal cabinet in a corner to his left. If a certain part could be broken off, it would make an effective weapon. He climbed onto the photocopier by the cabinet, its surface almost a foot beneath the water, and reached up.
Outside, Culver was moving the group of huddled survivors towards the passageway that would lead them to the main ventilation shaft. There were five others apart from Dealey, Kate and himself: four engineers and the caretaker. They had formed a chain across the corridor leading to the dining area and kitchen, the currents there particularly fierce as floodwater from separate sources converged.
Culver was leading, his hand gripped tightly around Kate's wrist. Behind her came the black maintenance engineer named Jackson, then Dealey. The other three engineers were spread across the open corridor, struggling to keep upright in the current, the caretaker, backed against a wall on the other side, acting as anchor man.
Culver's right elbow was bent, the gun pointing upwards. Every so often he released a round of bullets, sending the gathering vermin scurrying back into darker hiding places. But they seemed less afraid, returning to their previous positions more speedily, slinking forward in packs as if sensing their enemy's vulnerability. Culver groaned when the weapon clicked empty.
The main ventilation shaft was not far away, just along the passageway, then left towards the switching units, but he wondered if they could make it, whether it would be the rising water or the vermin that would defeat their purpose.
He breathed in acrid fumes and began to choke. Smoke spread rapidly across the ceiling and swirled downwards,
creating a thick, churning fog. Oh shiiiiit! There were other alternatives. They could also be suffocated or burned to death.
The explosion seemed to rock the very foundations of the complex and water either jumped above his head or he slipped down into it - Culver couldn't be sure which.
When his head and chest came clear again, the shelter was almost in total darkness. The red flickering glow from another part of the Exchange, a glow that moved and spread, drawing closer by the second, dimmed only by swilling smoke, reminded him that the worst could always get worse.
For Bryce, the reality was more horrendous than any nightmare he had ever known. He had come to after his sedation with the full knowledge that the disease had him. It was too soon for the full symptoms to be evident, but the dryness in his throat, the feeling of burning up inside, and the fierce headache, were the indications and the forerunners of the agony to follow. In a few days' time there would be agitation, confusion and hallucinations; then muscle spasms, stiffness of the neck and back, convulsions and perhaps even paralysis. He knew the symptoms - Civil Defence staff were made aware of them in their training - and he dreaded the inevitable pain he was promised. He would not be able to drink and the inability to swallow properly would cause him to foam at the mouth, to be mortally afraid of liquids, to be terrified of his own saliva. The fits, the madness, would eventually lead him into a coma, a pain-filled exhaustion and, mercifully, death would come soon after.
His hand was numb at the moment, but the memory of Dr Reynolds' quickly administered treatment sent fresh nausea sweeping through him.
After injecting him against the pain, she had squeezed the stumps of his fingers, encouraging them to bleed a little more. Then, using a syringe, she had forced benzalkonium, an antiseptic detergent, into the open wounds, after which,
and despite his moaning protests, she had carefully applied a small amount of nitric acid. He was weeping by the time she injected the antiserum around the wounds, and ready to collapse when a further dose was injected into a muscle in his wrist.
And he was pleading by the time she had administered the vaccination, puncturing the side of his abdomen below the ribs fourteen, fifteen, sixteen - he lost count after seventeen - times, quietly explaining to him that the treatment was absolutely vital if he were to survive, ignoring his protests which grew more desperate yet more feeble each time the needle pierced his skin, telling him that each 2ml. subcutaneous injection was an attenuated virus prepared from the brains of rabid animals - as if he really cared. When Dr Reynolds was through, Bryce really couldn't care less about anything, anyone, or himself even; he had swooned back onto the bunkbed and sunk into sweet oblivion.
To wake later, sensing the first pangs of the disease upon him (knowing it wasn't only the after-effects of drugs, or the side-effects of the antiserum, that the treatment hadn't worked, that the disease was in him, feeling it spreading, flowing with his own blood) and slowly becoming aware that something more was wrong, lying there in the subdued lighting of the sick bay with other ailing survivors, listening to the screams and shouts beyond the closed door, the strange rushing sound, the lapping of water around the cot beds inside the medical room itself. Sharp sounds that sounded like ... sounded like gunfire.
Bryce sat upright and others around him, those whose sedation allowed, did the same, all of them confused and more than just frightened. A woman shrieked as water drenched the mattress she lay upon.