‘I gave the word. In we marched. The populace dropped their bags, gobsmacked and agog. Next thing they’ve lost their marbles, running around hither and thither, and letting loose with such a damned caterwauling… We were an impressive phalanx: we spewed in and didn’t stop till the whole town was chock with me and my boys and girls. We herded the squealing civvies into the square, and they stood clutching their pathetic duds and children. We were bushed, been on the go a long time, but we pulled ourselves up proud in the sun and our teeth were magnificent.’
‘They tried to give us the heave-ho, flailing around with torches ablaze and paltry little shovels. So we bared our teeth, sank them in deep, and they ran screaming like yellow-bellied ponces, disappearing as quick as you like. We had the square to ourselves. I called the troops to order. "Right," I says, "quick march. This town is ours. This is Year One: this is the Year of the Rat. Spread out, make your mark, set the stage, find your places, eat your fill, anyone gives you any gyp, send them to me."’
‘An explosion of little lithe bodies, and the square’s empty.’
‘Rats in the rub-a-dubs, the houses, the kazis, the dews-a-vill, the orchards. We gave them what for. I did walkabouts, with nary a word said, but all and sundry knew who ran things. Any burgher raised a hand against one of my own, I took them down. People soon clocked the rules.’
‘And that was how the rats came to Hamelin.’
‘Saul, Saul, you should’ve seen us. Good times, chal, the best. The town was ours. I grew fat and sleek. We fought the dogs and killed the cats. The loudest sound in that town was rats talking, chattering and making plans. The grain was mine, the gaffs were mine; the tucker they cooked, we took our cut first. It was all mine, my Kingdom, my finest hour. I was the Kingpin, I made the rules, I was Copper and jury and Barnaby and, when occasion demanded, I was Finisher of the Law.’
‘It turned famous, our little town, and rats flocked to us, to join the little Shangri-La we put together, where we ruled the roost. I was the boss-man.’
‘Until that Ruffian, that bastard, that peripatetic fucking minstrel, that stupid tasteless shit with his ridiculous duds, the prancing nancy, until he strolled into town.’
‘First I knew of it, one of my girls tells me there’s a queer cove with the mayor, furtive at the gates, dressed in a two-tone coat. "Hallo," says I, "they’re about to have a go. They think they’ve a trick up the sleeve." I settled back to piss on their parade, and it all went a little sorry.’
‘There was a note.’
‘Music, something in the air. Another note, and I prick up my ears to hear what’s going on. Little sleek brown heads appear from holes all over town.’
‘Then the third note sounds, and apocalypse begins.’
‘Suddenly I could hear something: a body scraping tripe from a bowl, a huge bowl. I could see it! I heard apples tumbling into a press, and my Plates start moving forward. I could hear someone leaving cupboards ajar, and I knew the jigger had been sprung on the Devil’s own pantry… the door was wide open, and I could fair sniff the scran inside, and I had to find it, and I had to eat it all.’
‘I started forward and I could hear a rumble, a shaking, a scamper of a hundred million little feet and I saw the air around me heaving with my little minions, all shouting for joy. They could hear the food too.’
‘I do a leap from the gables into the Frog. Splashdown in a stream of rats, all my little boys and girls, my lovers and my soldiers, big and fat and small and brown and black and quick and old and slow and frisky and all of them, all of us after that food.’
‘And as I troop ravenous onwards, I suddenly feel queer horror in my gut. I was using my nous, and I saw there wasn’t no food where we were going.’
‘ "Stop," I shrieks, and no one listens. They just bump my bum from behind to get past. "Don’t," I yell, and that starving stream just parts around me, rejoins.’
‘I felt that hunger waxing, and I scamper over and sink me Hampsteads fast into the wood of a door, hard as you like, holding myself back with my good strong gob. My pegs are dancing, they want that music, that food, but my mouth’s holding strong. I feel my mind go slack and I gnaw some more, locking my jaw… but disaster strikes.’
‘I take a bite from the door. My mouth snaps free and, before you can say knife, I’m in the stream of my subjects, my brainbox weaving in and out of hunger and joy for the tucker I can all but taste — and the despair, I’m King Rat, I know what’s happening to me and my kind, and no one will listen. Something dire’s in the offing.’
‘On we march, willy-nilly, and from the corner of my eye I can see the people leaning out the windows, and the bastards are clapping, cheering, giving it all that. We’re trotting in time, all four legs stately and sharpish to that… abominable piping, tails swaying like metronomes.’
‘I can see where we’re headed, a little journey to the suburbs I’ve taken more times nor I can think, on a beeline for the grain silos beyond the walls. And there behind the silos, bloated after the showers, hollering like the sea, roaring and pelting down through the dews-a-vill, wide and rocky, filthy with swirling muck and mud and rain, is the river.’
‘There by the bridge I catch sight of the swine playing his flute in his fatuous duds. His Loaf bobs up and down, and I clock a revolting grin all over his North while he plays. The first ranks of rats are at the bridge now, and I can see them troop calmly to the edge, nary a hint of disquiet, eyes still narrowed on that lovely mountain of scran they’re headed for. I can see them getting ready and I’m screaming at them to stop, but I’m pissing in the wind, it’s a done deal.’
‘They step off the stone walls of the bridge into the water.’
‘The most almighty cacophony of squeals starts up from below the bridge, but none of the sisters and brothers can hear it. They’re still listening to the dance of the sugarplums and bacon rind.’
‘The next in line jump on their comrades, and more and more — the Fisherman’s is seething. I can’t bear it, I can hear the screams, every one a blade in my gut, my boys and girls giving up the ghost in the water, fighting to keep their Crusts over the waves, good swimmers all but not built for this. I can hear wails and keens as bodies are swept downriver, and still my goddamn fucking legs keep moving. I pull back through the ranks, trying to turn round, going a little slower than the others, feeling them pass me, and the squire on the bridge looks at me, that infernal flute still clamped to his gob, and he sees who I am. I can see him see I’m King Rat.’
‘And he smiles a little more, and bows to me as I march on past onto the bridge and into the river.’
Loplop hissed and Anansi breathed something to himself. The three were locked into themselves, all staring ahead, all remembering.
‘The Fisherman’s was icy, and the touch of it cleared the bonce of nonsense. Every splash was quick-echoed by a screech, a wail as my poor little minions fight to keep their I Supposes in the air, thinking What the fuck am I doing here? and busy dying.’
‘More and more bodies jumping in to join them, more and more fur becoming waterlogged, feeling the tug of the river, slipping below the caps, raking their claws every which way in panic, tearing each other’s bellies and eyes, and dragging brothers and sisters into the freezing cold under the air.’
‘I kicked my pegs to get away. There was a frantic mass of us kicking up froth, an isle of rat bodies, fighting and killing to climb atop, the foundations dying and disappearing below.’
‘Water plugged my lugs. All I can hear is the in-out of my breath, panicked and disjointed, gulping and retching and breathing in bile. The waves are smashing me around, tossing me against rocks, and on all sides rats are dying in thousands and thousands. I can just make out the noise of the flute. It’s stripped of magic here in the Fisherman’s, just a whining noise. I can hear the splashes of more rats leaping in the water to die; it’s endless and merciless. Screams and choking are everywhere; stiff little bodies bob past me like buoys in hell’s harbour. This is the end of the world, I think, and the stinking water fills my lungs, and I sink.’