Lair
The final novel in James Herbert's Rats trilogy pits man against mutant rats, who are back with a vengeance. When five nuclear warheads level London, the survivors believe the worst is over. They are wrong. Beneath the radioactive rubble, in the lightless veins of the London Underground, a prehistoric hunger has awakened. Steve Culver, a pilot haunted by his past, leads a desperate band of survivors through crumbling tunnels toward a secret government bunker. But the darkness is alive. Enormous, black-furred rats--mutated by radiation and led by a telepathic Mother Creature--are hunting for human blood. As the government's horrific experiments come to light, Culver realizes these vermin aren't just scavengers; they are a new, dominant species rising to claim the ruins. Trapped between a lethally irradiated surface and a subterranean nightmare, humanity's time has run out. In the silence of the deep, the screaming has only just begun...