Giant Black Rat

Giant black rats are a fictional species of ferocious radiation spawned rodents featured in James Herbert's horror novels "The Rats" which was first published in 1974, "Lair" in 1979 and "Domain" in 1985. They would later appear in the graphic novel semi-sequel; "The City" in 1993 illustrated by Ian Miller. They also made an appearance in the 1982 film adaptation of his first novel; "Deadly Eyes". The species is portrayed in both the novels and the film as being extremely aggressive and adaptable, having developed a powerful enmity toward mankind.

Castes

Though seemingly chaotic in their frenzied attacks, the giant black rats do possess a strict hierarchy comparable to that of hive based insects.

*WorkersSuperficially, they resemble enlarged black rats, measuring over 3 feet in length including the tail, along with powerfully hunched hind quarters and proportionately larger brains. The most notable difference, however, is in the animals' dietary habits, which unlike that of the ordinary black rat is primarily carnivorous. The worker caste is highly aggressive, finding enough confidence in sufficient numbers to attack animals many times their own size, devouring them alive whilst oblivious to any casualties they themselves may suffer in the process. When the mutants first marked them as a genuinely serious threat.

*SoldiersSimilar to the workers, only larger, much rarer and seemingly immune to the ultrasonic lures which defeated the species in their first outbreak. They are viciously protective and will not hesitate to maim or kill even members of their own species that venture too closely to their deformed ruler.

*GrotesquesThe ruling caste of the mutant rodents, they are huge, hairless creatures, crippled by their own obesity. The most notable feature of these particular mutants is that they have two heads. Grotesques are extremely secretive and live in specially constructed lairs of straw and bones where the complete darkness saps them of pigmentation and eyesight. They live in a form of symbiosis with their smaller, more brutish cousins, the grotesques using their superior intelligence to guide their servants in their attacks, whilst the hunters in turn provide food for their totally helpless masters. Though no reason is given, they seem to feed exclusively on human brains. The most dominant member of a brood of grotesques is usually designated as a "mother rat".

*HumanoidsThis species appeared later on in the series following a devastating nuclear attack on all major cities in Britain, allowing the giant rats to thrive as they did in their radiation soaked homeland. As their name suggests, they are of a humanoid form, yet with conspicuously rat-like features such as tails, claws and prominent incisors. It is unclear whether or not they are an advanced mutation caused by the radiation or in fact true human-rat hybrids seeing as in the semi-canon graphic novel "The City", it is shown that both humans and giant rats are giving birth to them. Unlike the other castes, they do not seem to serve a specific function. In fact, were it not for the protection of the mother rat, the first generation of humanoids would have been slaughtered by the workers who despised and feared them for their human appearance. They are hostile and feral, shown by the series conclusion to be little more than bandits, looting and murdering all those who encroach upon their turfs.

The Rats Trilogy

The Rats

Origins

The rats originated on an unnamed island near New Guinea which had been used as a nuclear testing site during the Cold War. Though it is never established exactly what species they were before the tests took place, it is clear that rather than perish from the massive amounts of radiation bombarding the island, they thrived off it. The radioactivity enhanced their evolution, greatly enhancing their size and intelligence. It wasn't long before rumours of the mutants' existence reached the ears of an old London Zoologist named William Bartlett Schiller.

The Beginning

Professor Schiller, along with his wife, travelled to the island where the alleged sightings of mutant rodents originated from. After staying there for several years, the Schillers left for England, taking with them an illegally smuggled living specimen. The couple began to live as recluses by a disused canal, keeping the creature in their cellar, feeding and studying it. At one point in his experiments, Schiller mated it to an ordinary black rat, resulting in the creation of the first hunters. Eventually though, Schiller died due to a mysterious tropical disease (possibly from a rat bite), thus leaving his wife to continue his work. The ordeal of containing the quickly growing numbers of shrieking mutants grew too much for the old woman's sanity, leading to her incarceration at a mental institution. Meanwhile, the trapped rats soon grew numerous enough to overcome their prison, starving and aggressive enough to attack the nearest living thing, an unfortunate vagrant who gave the mutants their first taste of human blood.

London Outbreak

After escaping their captivity, the mutant rats with their greater size and intellect inevitably dominated the native vermin, eradicating the brown rats and subjugating the ordinary black rats, adding to their already considerable numbers. The filthy and neglected slums of post World War II East London proved to be an ideal environment for the rats to thrive in.At first the rats attacked sporadically, picking off straying children and vagrants. After learning that humans were indeed easy prey, they became bolder in their onslaughts, assaulting a school and a tube station in a single day later known as "Black Monday". Survivors who were bitten would later die from an agonising disease carried in the rats' saliva. No longer able to keep the disease carried by the rats a secret, the government's belated response was to create a pathogen to infect the rats and ultimately wipe them out. Using infected puppies as bait, the plan seemed to work for a while, resulting in a mass exodus of mutant rats to the surface to die. However, the surviving strain quickly developed an immunity to the virus and made their existence known by attacking a cinema and the London Zoo. Strangely enough though, it seemed that the virus had managed to eliminate the disease carried by the rats. After a mass evacuation of Londons inhabitants, the rats were finally defeated when a plan was formulated to lure the rats out of their lairs with ultrasonic sound beams and gas them to death. At the same time, the late professor Schiller's old home was identified as the rats main lair. It was ultimately infiltrated and the mother rat residing there was killed.

However, a single rat survivor, confined to a grocery store cellar and unable to follow the ultrasonic lures gave birth to a new litter, including a new mother rat.

Lair

Escape

The new rats matured fast, sustaining themselves on the contents of the cellar. When the owners returned and unwittingly released the rats, they were devoured. Knowing that they were too few in number to wage another war, the new mother rat led its horde out of the city, using their now aged mother and stragglers as sustenance for the journey. Travelling through railway tunnels, the mutants soon came across the outskirts of Epping Forest. There, they would relocate and adapt, remaining unseen for four years. Life in the forest changed the rats, for now they shunned their arboreal black rat heritage in favour of being burrowers to better hide from the human enemy.

The Siege of Epping Forest

As their numbers grew, the rats soon proved themselves to be ecological menaces of the worst kind. They devoured all animals within their claimed territory and it wasn't long before their ancestral craving for human meat proved too strong to ignore. Not content to simply dig up bodies from graveyards, they began killing the forest's human occupants, as with the first outbreak initially going for isolated individuals before attacking en masse a mobile home site. Realising that the rats were too intelligent to be fooled by ultrasonic lures a second time, the government decided to exterminate the rats by trapping them in their burrows and gassing them with cyanide. Though this action resulted in the deaths of thousands of rats, it was proven to be futile seeing as attacks on the local fauna continued as before. Plus, searches for the body of the mother rat proved fruitless. It seemed that the rats killed underground were merely reserves, the real force being located somewhere else. The creatures had in fact taken refuge within the cellar of an abandoned estate where the mother rat had begun to spawn more members of her own kind. Though they had so far avoided the retribution of their human adversaries, their numbers had been severely depleted and an unrest began to culminate among the worker caste. Tiring of the subservience which almost drove them to extinction, the hunters attacked the helpless mother rats. The brute strength of the soldier caste proved ineffective against the hordes of workers and were killed along with their masters. At this point however, the lair had been discovered and in a brutal display of firepower, it was razed to the ground by helicopters. Though many rats trying to escape were killed by flamethrowers, four managed to escape. After days of hiding and depriving themselves of food, the rats left the forest which had once been their home and made their way toward the city where for the next several years, they would remain undetected.

Domain

The Nuclear Holocaust

For years, the mutants took refuge in London's subway, venturing out to the surface only at night to scavenge on the waste of mankind. After two defeats that nearly ended in their extinction, the rats grew even more cunning and never took enough food to arouse suspicion. This passive life of foraging ended in the span of a day when the balance of power was abrubtly tilted to their favour. Due to disputes in the Middle East over oil and a Soviet invasion of Iran, the cold war had suddenly erupted into a full scale conflict. With little warning given, London and all other major cities in Britain were reduced to rubble after a nuclear warhead strike. Some of the populace managed to escape in the subway, only to be greeted by the rats who now sensed that their great enemy had been severely weakened. Not even the privileged few who possessed bomb shelters were able to hold out for long seeing as the rats soon found out how to enter them via the water wells, ironically turning the structures meant to offer protection into mass tombs.

The Next Mutation

Shortly after the attack, something began to change in the mother rat's mutant physiology. It began experiencing a new pain as its bloated body began to gestate a new breed of tainted offspring. Upon finally giving birth, the hunter caste seemed on the verge of dissent, for the young creatures of the new generation bore striking similarities to human children. The authority of the mother rat and the aggression of the soldier caste prevented the workers from killing the humanoids. However, a sudden outbreak of pneumonic plague struck the rats, severely weakening them and depleting their numbers. Left vulnerable, the mother rat and her young were killed in an attack by human survivors, though the rats were far from beaten. All major cities in Britain now lay in ruins, reeking with the same radiation that first birthed the rats and humanity was now fragmented and beaten. The rats now had nothing to oppose them in the conquest of their new domain.

The City

The New Order

In the semi canon graphic novel "The City", after an undetermined amount of time after the war, the degradation of humanity had now been completed with the advancement of the rats. It seemed that the pneumonic plague had been adapted to, as had all the diseases and chemical weapons used against the rodent hordes in the past. The rats had now evolved further, entering a near semi-sentient state, though this had in no way diminished their bloodlust. Now the rats exploited humans other than for food, some rats even going as far as using the beaten and broken people as beasts of burden.Nesting in what was once St. Paul's Cathedral, the new mother rat had given birth to more humanoids, this time with nothing to hinder their survival. Though more intelligent than their ancestors; being capable of tool use and assimilating language, the humanoids proved to be no less malicious. They roamed the ruined city in bands, hunting and preying on defenceless vagrants, stripping them of their possessions whilst at the same time avoiding contact with their more bestial brethren.

The Traveller

The rats' rule over London's skeleton had remained completely unopposed until the arrival of an unusual stranger. Covered in head to toe with armour and accompanied by a pair of robotic dogs, the stranger known only as The Traveller was unlike the humans the rats had now grown accustomed to. He was no battered and demoralised wreck, he openly defied the rats, plowing through their countless hordes with a vast array of weaponry. Though the rats succeeded in killing one of his canine companions, they were unable to stop his advance toward the cathedral and burning the occupants inside, including the mother rat itself.The vengeful rat army pursued the traveller to the London Bridge where they were unaware that a trap had been set. Once the traveller reached the other side, the bridge was detonated, the rats still on it perishing.

The future of humanity and the rats remains to this day uncertain.

Influences

According to "James Herbert: Devil in the Dark", the inspiration for the rats came from a combination of memories from the author's childhood and a scene from Universal Pictures adaptation of "Dracula" in which the character Renfield recounts how he dreamt of a horde of rats bowing to Count Dracula himself. Born in the East End of London shortly after The Blitz, the ruined and neglected streets of Herbert's infancy were overrun with large rats which haunted his trips to the cellar and sometimes fought with the family cat. The monster rats featured in his novels are not just homages to his past, but also symbols of urban decay allowed to spread by an incompetent government and economic system more focused on covering its mistakes than dealing with them. The rats radiation based genesis and subsequent post nuclear war domination were allegories to the cold war.

Movie Portrayal

The species was given its first and so far only screen appearance in the Canadian 1982 film "Deadly Eyes", an adaptation to "The Rats". Though the rats characteristic size and lust for human flesh was kept for the obvious purposes of a horror film, their origins had been completely changed. The rats of the movie were mutated due to ingesting a large quantity of grain filled with steroids, and began attacking humans after being rendered homeless when the grain is ordered to be destroyed. Unlike the mutants of the novel series, the movie rats did not display any form of caste system.The rats were brought to life through a mixture of hand puppetry and dressing up Dachshunds in rat suits.

References

*Herbert, James "The Rats" 1974 ISBN 0-450-02127-0
*Herbert, James "Lair" 1979 ISBN 0-450-04546-3
*Herbert, James "Domain" 1984 ISBN 0-450-05822-0
*Herbert, James "The City" 1993 ISBN 0-330-32471-3
*Crabell, Craig "James Herbert: Devil in the dark" 2003 ISBN 1-84358-059-4

ee also

* Giant rat
* Skaven
* Giant Black Slug

External links

* [http://www.james-herbert.co.uk The James Herbert web site]
* [http://www.ianmiller.org/ The Ian Miller web site]
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