‘Davey!’ screamed the bald headed scientist. ‘Davey!’
His beloved eight year old Siberian husky had run off into the ruins of the old quarantine building not far from the Polar Bear Conversation. The building had crumbled into piles of rubble with only the corners still standing. The scientist slowed down as he entered the ruins, treating the fragments of brick littering the ground with the caution afforded a minefield, for a twisted ankle now would take his chances of survival to virtually zero. Nonetheless, he loved his dog enough that he could not shake the instinct to pursue him.
‘Davey,’ he said, trying to moderate his voice – no easy task considering his heart was thumping his ribs, adrenaline flooding his system. The rat storm through the camp had been a horror beyond compare. Years of patient, dedicated research had been lost in a moment as the rodents feasted with manic ferocity on the polar bears and their handlers. Even the dominant male polar bears had been defenceless against them, bucking and fighting until the weight of numbers finally became too much to bear. The scientist’s name was Len Carlisle and he had been lucky to be on the far side of the camp when the attack came. He could have made Dr Flist’s all-terrain tractor, only Davey had been spooked and ran off. And when Davey ran, it sometimes took the end of the island to stop him. Anyway, once he had the lead on, that’s where they’d go. He needed time to think, to take in what had happened. He was an Associate Professor of Zoology at Chicago University, he had the deductive skills to understand a rat plague, to survive it. There would be precedents and theories. And opportunities: tragedies had led to some of the very best science.
He stepped into the centre of the ruins and looked around him. ‘Davey?’ There came the noise of scurrying from amidst knee-high rocks at what appeared to be a lost doorway. To his disappointment it wasn’t his Siberian husky that came running but rather a giant rat. It ran up to his feet and started sniffing inquisitively. It might have looked cute if not for the blood on its teeth and the tip of its nose. It was quickly joined by another and then another and they were also both sporting blood. Dr Carlisle turned and started to run but tripped over and cut his hands on the brick shards and when he looked up all he saw was rats, hundreds of them. He screamed and tried to fend them off as they leapt up onto his face and neck. But then they were biting his hands as well. And all he saw was rats.