The Rats (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The novel opens introducing the reader to an alcoholic vagrant, resting in an abandoned and forgotten lock-keeper's house by a canal. As he is ruminating over the injustices inflicted upon him in his life, he is suddenly set upon by a pack of dog-sized rats and is devoured alive.

Harris, a young, east London art teacher notices that one of his students has a bloodied bandage around his hand. When he enquires as to what caused the damage, the student answers that he was attacked by a rat. Meanwhile, a baby girl and her dog are killed by the giant rats, now aided by packs of smaller black rats. The girl's mother rescues her daughter's mutilated body, but not before sustaining bites as well. Harris takes the student to the hospital and sees the grieving mother with her dead child. According to the doctor, the number of seemingly unprovoked rat attacks have strangely increased.

The next rat attack occurs at the remains of a bombsite, where a group of squabbling vagrants are slaughtered. Harris is visited at work by the Minister of Health, Mr Foskins, who reveals that the bitten student, and all the other surviving victims of rat attacks, died of a mysterious disease 24 hours after being bitten. Foskins asks Harris to keep the existence of the disease a secret and lead an exterminator to the area where the student had been bitten. Accompanied by the exterminator, Harris goes to the canal described by the student and sights a group of giant rats. Harris attempts to contact the police while the exterminator follows the rats who then attack and kill the exterminator.

The rat attacks become increasingly more daring, as more and more public places are attacked. A tube station is assaulted, leaving few survivors. Next, Harris’ own school is attacked, resulting in the death of the headmaster. With the existence of the rats' disease now becoming public knowledge, a meeting is held, in which a young researcher by the name of Stephen Howard comes up with the idea of using a virus to infect the rats. The virus is injected into several puppies which are left in areas of the attacks. This results in the deaths of thousands of rats, which crawl to the surface to die. A few weeks later however, the rats adapt to the virus, yet at the same time, losing the toxicity of their bites. The rats brutally attack a cinema and overrun the London Zoo. Based on the fact that rats communicate with each other using ultrasound, a plan is formulated to use ultrasonic machines to lure the rats into gas chambers.

Foskins is dismissed as Health Minister and reveals to Harris that he’s been investigating possible clues as to the rats origins and comes to the conclusion that they were smuggled from the tropics by a Zoologist living near a canal. Pursuing the disgraced health minister past waves of entranced rats; Harris finds the abandoned house and enters it. He goes into the cellar and finds Foskins' corpse being devoured by rats of unusually great size. He kills them after a bloody battle and discovers the rats' leader hidden in the shadows; a white, hairless and obese rat with two heads. Harris kills the creature and leaves.

The epilogue indicates that one rat survived the purge by being trapped in the basement of a grocery shop. There, it gives birth to a new litter, including a new white rat.