The Mutant Rats are Rodents that appeared in James Herbert’s novel The Rats and its sequels as the titular main antagonists.
They were vicious man-eating rats who were experimented in an abandoned house by a Canal in East London and threatened to overrun the city. According to the minister of health, Mr. Foskins, They were smuggled into the country by a scientist named William Bartlett Schiller from an island in the South Pacific, which had been near some nuclear tests. While Schiller bred the mutants with common rats, they later killed him and set up their nest in his house upon escaping. Fortunately, they were exterminated by the combined use of Ultrasonic beams and gas. However, there remained a single female rat who had been unable to follow the signal, and as such, remained trapped within the basement of a grocery store. She soon gave birth to a litter, one of which was a white two-headed rat. As soon as the owners returned, the rats escaped after killing the pair. They then made their way to Epping forest, where they began to build up numbers once again. Four years later, they began to attack the humans once more, but were once again killed by the combined efforts of Lucas Pender, and the government. Though once again, four rats managed to escape and made their way back into London. Years later following the Epping incident, a nuclear war resulted in the rats becoming the dominant species in a devastated London.
Description[]
Although all were descended from the same stock, there existed several sub-species of Mutant Rat. Whilst the numbers of Mutant Rats were relatively small (there were estimated to be only a few thousand), their heightened intelligence and aggressive behavior encouraged regular rats to join them in their attacks, which increased the danger significantly. All of the mutant breeds carried a toxin in their saliva which would kill survivors of their bites within twenty-four hours.
Mutant Black Rat[]
Larger than a regular black rat, the mutant strain were powerfully built creatures measuring nearly three feet in length and with a pair of viciously sharp incisors. Bred with common rats, they were by far the most numerous type.
Guardian Rat[]
Slightly larger than the regular mutants, the Guardian Rats were small in number but even more fearsome than their smaller cousins. They acted as protectors for the Dominant White Rats which controlled the others, and would attack anything which got too close to their masters, even other mutants.
Dominant White Rat[]
The Dominant White Rats were enormous, disgusting albino rats which directed the actions of the others. With flesh the shade of death, and hairless bodies too obese for their stunted limbs to allow them much more than a belly-crawl, they only survived by forcing the other mutants to bring them sustenance. How they controlled their brethren is unknown, but it was heavily suggested that they communicated through complex ultrasonic commands which the others were able to understand due to their enhanced brainpower.
Dominant White Two-Head[]
Each brood contained a single Dominant Rat which was mutated almost beyond recognition, superficially resembling a pig-sized rodent, but possessed of two heads. These Dominant Two-Heads were the alphas of their extended families, exerting a powerful influence over all of the others, even the Dominant Whites.
History[]
The Rats[]
The mutant rats were first seen devouring an alcoholic vagrant resting in an abandoned house by a canal. At some point in London, One of a young east London art teacher named Harris’ students was attacked by a rat, leaving him with a bloodied bandage. Aided by packs of smaller black rats, They then killed a baby girl and her dog while her mother sustained a few bites whilst she rescued her daughter’s body. A group of squabbling vagrants then fell victim to the rats as the rodents’ number increased. The bitten student and all the other surviving victims of rat attacks later died of a mysterious disease 24 hours. Harris and an exterminator named Ferris went to the canal where the student was bitten and sighted a group of giant rats, who then attacked and killed Ferris.
The rat attacks began to increase further as more public places were attacked;A tube station and Harris’ school. With the existence of the rats’ disease now known, a plan was deviced to use a virus to infect the rats, which resulted in thousands of rats dying. A few weeks later, however, they adapted to the virus and lost the toxicity of their bites. They brutally attacked a cinema and overran the London Zoo. Based on the fact rats communicate with each other using ultrasound, a plan was approved to lure them into poison gas chambers.
Foskins, dismissed as health minister, revealed to Harris that he discovered the rats’ origins; they were smuggled into Britain by a Zoologist named William Bartlett Schiller from an island near New Guinea, which had been near some nuclear tests. Whilst the mutants had killed Schiller upon their escape, they had set up their nest in the lock-house.
Pursuing Foskins, Harris found the abandoned house and went into the cellar, where he found Foskins’ corpse being devoured by rats of unusually great size (most likely the Guardian Rats). He managed to kill them and discovered their alpha; a white, hairless , and obese rat with two heads. He killed the creature with an axe in a fit of rage and left.
Unbeknownst to everyone, however, a female rat had been locked in a grocery shop cellar, and unable to respond to the signal. She later gave birth to a litter and when the owners returned to their business, she and her new brood - including a single white rat - killed the pair and escaped.
Lair[]
Five years after the Outbreak (as the events of the first novel came to be known), the authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure that the Mutant Rats had been exterminated, and seemed to have been successful.
However, the survivors from the first Outbreak had made their way to the nearby Epping Forest nature reserve in the heart of suburbia London, where they established a new colony, with the white rat mutating into a new Two-Head and siring other Dominant Rats. Knowing that to reveal themselves too soon would be to invite a lethal response from humans, they bided their time, slowly building their strength until eventually their numbers caused their naturally-aggressive instincts to take over and they began to act more openly.
Despite warnings from a government-sanctioned ratcatcher of the signs of Mutant Rat activity, the authorities were slow to take any action, and it took the slaughter of the entire population of a mobile home park, along with most of the trainees from a nearby police cadet training camp who were sent to their aid, to kick them into gear.
Calling in the armed forces, the exterminators sealed off all access to the sewage systems which ran beneath the forest before pumping in large quantities of cyanide gas to wipe out the vermin. Whilst this succeeded in killing most of the mutants, unbeknownst to all, a small group had made their lair in a nearby abandoned mansion. Luckily, the ratcatcher managed to locate the nest, and it was swiftly dealt with by the Army.
Once again, however, four rats managed to escape the carnage, and these survivors, now fearful of the forest, made their way back into the city of London . . .
Domain[]
An unspecified number of years after the Epping Forest incident, China launched a limited nuclear strike against London, and perhaps other strategic targets as well. The reasons behind this were not revealed, although it was hinted that turmoil over Middle Eastern oil may have been the catalyst.
Many of those who heard the sirens attempted to seek refuge in the London Underground, but the Mutant Rats had multiplied in the tunnels, and slaughtered many of those who spilled down. A small group remained safe for a while in a secret bunker, until the Rats broke in through an artesian well, forcing the few who survived this assault to make their way through the rubble of the ruined city.
Eventually finding their way to one of the major subterranean government control centres, the group found to their horror that the Rats had slaughtered the entire staff. However, it was also gleaned that a plague had subsequently broken out amongst the rodents, and their numbers were severely depleted, giving the battered remnants of the group a chance. Managing to escape the facility, the three were picked up by a search and rescue helicopter, and London was subsequently left to the Rats.