"James Herbert - Rats 02 - Lair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert James)

Mice and rats. The stains looked too big to have been caused by
mice.

"Bloody cats aren't earning their bloody keep," he said to himself.
Turning and walking from the gloomy building, he examined the floor for
droppings. He found none, but it was hardly reassuring. The vermin
were there all right, the smears were proof enough. Well, the poison
would go down tonight, no messing about waiting for serious damage to
be done. Farming the land was hard enough without pests destroying
anything edible they could find. Fluoroacetamide should do the trick,
no sodding about with pre-baiting. A good dose of it, clear them out
right away.

The bright October sunlight made him narrow his eyes as he paused at
the barn door. Have to report it, I suppose, government law after the
Outbreak. They'd gassed the buggers then, but they were still nervous
it might start all over again. Still, that was the city, a great big
filthy breeding-place for vermin animal and human. Unfortunately,
Epping Forest was close enough to London for them to get the willies
again. They'd be down, snooping around, putting the whole bloody farm
into quarantine until they were sure it wasn't the bloody rats.

Fuck 'em. Got no time for that nonsense. Get rid of them before all
the fuss starts. Where's those bloody cats?

Woollard trudged through the mud of the small farmyard hissing through
his teeth to attract the two cats he kept not as pets, but as working
animals. Until now they had managed to keep the number of rats down
you could never keep them away altogether but the vermin were now
getting into the buildings, and that could lead to big trouble.
Woollard's weathered face was creased into deep trenches of anger as he
turned the corner of an outbuilding, when suddenly he caught sight of a
small white object lying in the mud. At first he thought it might just
be a bird feather, but the tinges of red along one edge aroused his
curiosity. He squinted as he approached, deciding it wasn't a feather
at all but a tiny, obviously dead, animal. He was used to finding dead
mice around the place, for his cats usually did their job well enough.
This time, though, there was something odd about the furry corpse.

Stooping to examine the body more closely, he suddenly drew in a sharp
breath. He reached for the object he now knew was not a dead mouse.
Blood had matted the fur at one end and two of the claws at the other
end were missing. He dropped the cat's paw in disgust.

Pushing himself erect, he quickly searched the area around him for the
rest of the cat's body. The stupid bloody creature must have got
tangled up in some farmyard machinery, or maybe some wiring, and had
the paw torn from its body. It must have crawled away somewhere to
nurse its wound or die, most likely. It was then he saw the
blood-streaks against the wall of the outhouse.