by Hunter Shea
They were helped into an ambulance, the egg sacs on their faces dabbed with some kind of ointment.
He watched the ambulance drive off, whisking the infected boys to town.
Brandon screamed, kicking at the door.
He screamed until something fractured in his brain.
And then he screamed some more.
Rattus New Yorkus
THEY’RE BIGGER
Deep in the sewers of New York City, the rat population is growing. Dr. Randolph Finch is determined to break the cycle. His new rodenticide, Degenesis, doesn’t kill rats. It sterilizes them from reproducing. But nothing adapts faster than a New York rat . . .
THEY’RE SMARTER
City exterminators and soon-to-be divorced Chris and Benita Jackson think they know how these rats think. They know how rats breed. And they fear that Degenesis has only made these rats stronger. More aggressive. More intelligent. And more ravenous than ever . . .
TONIGHT’S DINNER SPECIAL: US
After a noticable surge in rat den activity, the Jacksons witness something strange. Without warning, the rats disappear—only to reassemble in a massive lair beneath Grand Central Station. Millions upon millions of them. Working together. Operating as a hive mind. Feasting on the flesh of the homeless below—and planning their all-out attack on the unsuspecting humans above . . .
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Chapter 1
I’d seen a lot of crazy shit in my day, but this one took the cake, the plate, and the fork right out from under me.
“Is it really doing what I think it’s doing?” Benny said.
A furry snout poked out of the hole in the wall, whiskers twitching. It disappeared and out popped a chunk of drywall. The chalky crumble plunked right onto the glue trap by the baseboard and stuck there.
“I’ll be good and goddamned,” I whispered with the reverence my mother had taught me to save for church. I hadn’t been to church in a lifetime of Sundays. Mom hadn’t dispensed little tidbits of wisdom in almost as long. But it still seemed appropriate.
“I could give it the old whack-a-mole,” Benny said, gripping a flashlight that doubled as a baton. People would be surprised how often exterminators used our flashlights to defend ourselves.
Unable to take my eyes off the ingenious sucker, I said, “You’ll miss. I just know it.”
“So we just stand here like idiots?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I don’t get you,” Benny said.
“I remember when you used to.”
We shut up, watching the rat litter the glue trap until most of the surface was covered in drywall.
It stretched halfway out of the hole, inspecting its handiwork. Next thing we knew, the rat dropped to the ground, landing on the drywall and scampering into the darkness.
“How?” Benny said.
“Beats me. If I hadn’t been here to see it, I’d never have believed it.”
“It must have come across glue traps before.”
I rubbed the four-day stubble on my chin. “I’d put good money on it.”
Most people don’t realize how smart rodents are. They learn from their mistakes and from watching the mistakes of others. Norway rats, the number-one scourge of Manhattan, had been getting shrewder with each generation. Pretty soon, they’d be smarter than the guy who invented craft beer.
Norway rats are by nature very fast learners, evolving almost ten times faster than puny humans. Extremely observant, if they suspect a trap, they will regularly send the weakest out to explore or try a new food laced with poison. They sit back and watch what happens. If the rat survives, they follow. If not, they walk away, knowing to stay the hell away the next time.
I don’t even want to get into their tolerance to poison. It’s the stuff of nightmares.
This particular rat had either gotten temporarily stuck on a glue trap itself or watched one of its kin do likewise. How it figured out that littering it with drywall would stop it from being sticky was anyone’s guess. Like I said—craft beer smart.
I shivered, which wasn’t easy, considering it must have been over a hundred degrees in the dark, cramped industrial kitchen. The AC was on the fritz. If I didn’t get some air soon, I would be next.
“Maybe they hold little rat seminars,” Benny said, giggling. “You ARE Smarter Than the Exterminator.”
“They start teaching classes, we’re done for.” The rag I kept using to wipe the back of my neck was soaked. Benny didn’t even have a bead of perspiration.
“Well, now what?”
This particular den of rats had outsmarted us at every turn. They ate just enough of the rodenticide not to get sick. They avoided the snap traps like the plague. Now it appeared glue traps were out.
“Set fire to the place?” I said. “It’s so hot in here, it just might spontaneously combust.”
“We could have at least gotten that one.”
Benny was no longer amused that I let it scamper off. Sometimes my curiosity gets in the way of my efficiency.
I said, “You want to chase it with your flashlight, have at it.”
“If anyone’s doing any chasing, it’s going to be you.”
For shits and giggles, I poured some rodenticide into the hole. Maybe it would return hungry and have a final feast.
Benny gave me a world-class eye roll.
“It can’t hurt,” I said.
“It definitely won’t hurt them.”
“We could always go old-school and have a stakeout with night vision and a BB gun.”
“You’re such an ass.”
Benny stomped out of the kitchen. I followed suit, desperate for fresh air.
Manhattan was at the tail end of a long heat wave. Even though it was ninety outside, it felt like spring in comparison to the stifling restaurant. The sunlight stung my poor eyeballs. Flipping my sunglasses down from the crown of my head, I saw Benny slip into the van. Ninth Avenue was crammed with people on their lunch hour. The crush of humanity never ceased to amaze me.
As above, so below, as the saying goes.
“I’m going up to Yonkers to visit my sister,” Benny said. I felt a wisp of cold air coming from the van’s air vents.
“I’m supposed to meet Tony at Mulligan’s,” I said.
I wished Benny would open the window more so I could suck in some of that cool, cool air. The AC in my car was tepid on a good day.
Benny looked at me with barely contained disgust.
“That dive?”
“Our dive,” I said.
“Whatever.”
The van pulled away so fast, I had to jump back to make sure my foot didn’t get run over.
I watched it barrel down Ninth, making a left turn toward the West Side Highway and ultimately, Yonkers.
Living with Benny had been hard, but we’d managed. I took the smaller guest room and used the hideous bathroom in the basement. My lawyer said our divorce papers would be coming any day now. We’d sell the house after everything was signed and go our separate ways.
But we still had to work together.
I wondered if it was hard for her in the same way it was for me. Benita Anne Jackson may have been pushing fifty, but she was still gorgeous, with her curves still north of the equator, hair like a phoenix and green eyes that could melt the polar ice caps.
When I looked at her, or smelled her, or brushed against her, I still got that anxious feeling in the pit of my gut.
Methinks the only feeling she got in her gut when she looked at me was indigestion.
The back of my neck tingled, the way it would if I felt someone was staring at me.
I turned around and faced the closed restaurant. A big window looked out at the passing foot traffic.
Peop
le bumped into me as I stared into the gloom.
Was someone in there?
It couldn’t be. Benny and I had been inside for an hour. We’d have known if we had company.
Then I saw it.
A furtive movement atop a chair.
A rat stared back at me, its long tail hanging down the back of the chair like a pink rope. It was as if it were taking great care to remember me.
I know you now, that look said. And I will make sure you never forget me.
That chill came back again.
I rushed the window. The rat scurried away.
“Get ahold of yourself, Chris. They’re smart, but not that smart.”
After thirty years in the business, I was sure of less and less.
Meet the Author
Hunter Shea is the author of more than twenty books, with a specialization in cryptozoological horror that includes The Jersey Devil, The Dover Demon, Loch Ness Revenge and many others. His novel The Montauk Monster was named one of the best reads of the summer by Publishers Weekly. A trip to the International Cryptozoology Museum will find several of his cryptid books among the fascinating displays. Living in a true haunted house inspired his Jessica Backman: Death in the Afterlife series (Forest of Shadows, Sinister Entity and Island of the Forbidden). In 2011, he was selected to be a part of the launch of Samhain Publishing’s new horror line alongside legendary author Ramsey Campbell. When he’s not writing thrillers and horror, he also spins tall tales for middle grade readers on Amazon’s highly regarded Rapids reading app.
An avid podcaster, he can be seen and heard on Monster Men, one of the longest running video horror podcasts in the world, and Final Guys, focusing on weekly movie and book reviews. His nostalgic column about the magic of 80s horror, Video Visions, is featured monthly at Cemetery Dance Online. You can find his short stories in a number of anthologies, including Chopping Block Party, The Body Horror Book and Fearful Fathoms II.
A lifetime New Yorker, Hunter is supported by his loving wife and two beautiful daughters. When he’s not studying up on cryptozoology, he’s an avid explorer of the unknown, having spent a night alone on the Queen Mary, searching for the Warrens’ famous White Lady in the Union Cemetery and other mysterious places.
