by Hunter Shea
“Have a seat, Dr. Finch,” I said, leaning back in my chair, but not too far because there were two screws missing. I didn’t want to end up on the floor.
“Where did you find that video? YouTube?” he said, standing over me like a vulture.
Okay, so he wasn’t going to sit down.
“I didn’t find it anywhere. I took it myself when we went out to see how Degenesis was working out at one of our client sites.”
“Where was it, exactly?”
He unslung his backpack-briefcase from his shoulder. I hated to see grown men walk around looking like they were off to school.
“It was at an Italian restaurant over on Fifty-ninth and Broadway. There’s been a persistent rat problem there for years. I guess they like meatballs. We figured it would be the perfect place to try Degenesis.”
“How long ago did you administer the poison?”
I went over to Benny’s desk to check the log. She was out on a job, tackling a cockroach infestation at an apartment building in Queens. I’d been to that slum of a building before. They should let the roaches have it. People would be better off sleeping in the street.
Flipping through the pages, I scanned her neat handwriting. It was one of the benefits of a Catholic education.
“My partner, Benny, first introduced Degenesis to the den five weeks ago.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Ratticus was quick on his feet, sidling up next to me and reading over my shoulder.
“That’s what I thought.”
I left out that Benny knew from the jump that his concoction wasn’t going to be worth diddly or squat.
“There was something else,” I said.
Ratticus straightened, using his height advantage to intimidate me. I was, after all, pissing in his Cheerios.
“What could that be?”
I’d had a Catholic education as well. I’d yet to meet a man more intimidating than five-foot Sister Veronica.
I said, “The adult rats came out of the den and surrounded us.”
“You’d just shoved a camera in their nest. It’s natural for them to evacuate.”
“That’s not it. I mean, they deliberately penned us in. They weren’t the least bit afraid. The moment my partner and I bolted for the only way out, they attacked.”
A tiny smile twitched at the corner of Ratticus’s mouth. “They attacked?”
He had the same tone parents used on children all the world over in response to some bullshit story about why they didn’t get their chores done.
“En masse,” I replied. “With intent to kill.”
I let that sink in for a spell, waltzing back to my desk and settling into my seat.
Ratticus gnawed on a fingernail, eyes staring off into space. Or, more likely, deep into his cerebellum.
“So you’re telling me you know the intentions of the rats,” he said, his fingertip glistening.
“I know when something that has five million diseases on its paw alone wants to gnaw on me, yes. We had to beat them off with a stick, literally.”
“And I’ll guess you and your partner are the only witnesses.”
I got giddy knowing I was about to wipe that smug look off his face.
“As a matter of fact, the entire kitchen staff and owner watched as the rats tried to bash their way into the restaurant to finish what they’d started. Two of the rats killed themselves in the process. Needless to say, dinner service was cut short.”
“You didn’t happen to capture any of this aggressive behavior on video, did you?”
“We were too busy trying not to get bitten.”
“I hope you have the dead rats. I’d like to study them.”
I sighed. “That’s another problem. We waited out their little assault on Pasta 13. It took them about ten minutes to get the hint that they weren’t getting in. When it was over and we checked out back, they were gone.”
“Gone?” Ratticus said.
“Like ghosts. They’d even taken the bodies away. Against my better judgment, we put the camera back down the burrow. Every single rat, including all of the babies, was missing.”
Just saying it gave me goose bumps, because I knew what was coming next.
“They must have gone out to forage,” Ratticus said.
“Those babies weren’t big enough. They still depended on their mother’s milk. We stopped by this morning. Nothing. No forwarding address. The restaurant owner is happy, but I’m worried.”
Now Ratticus sat.
“You’re saying Degenesis is to blame,” he said with a tone that begged for me to challenge him.
“You’re saying that, not me. I think we need to check on a few more locations before we draw any conclusions. However, since Degenesis was used, I felt you should know.”
I understood his concern. He had spent a great deal of time and money on developing the poison. His reputation was on the line. I suspected his financial well-being was in the balance to boot.
“So, where are we going?” he said.
“We?”
“Yes, we. I want to see this for myself.”
I thought of the dozen places where Benny and I had used Degenesis. Where would be the best place to take old Ratticus?
“We can check a location in the Bronx,” I said. “You live nearby?”
“Westchester. Why?”
I eyeballed his suit. “You’re going to want to change. I’ll drive.”
Chapter 6
The Bronx today is nothing like it was in the 1970s. The Fort Apache days were over, for the most part. The South Bronx was no longer the stuff of nightmares.
That’s not to say that all was champagne and roses, either.
We drove to Bainbridge Avenue, passing by rows of bodegas and knockoff dollar stores in what was once a predominantly Irish neighborhood. The old Irish had long stepped off this mortal coil and were hoisting a pint in the pub in the sky. My grandparents had lived here and I had a lot of fond memories—watching my grandfather play bocce in the park, going to church with my grandmother and lighting candles to illuminate the way for lost souls, browsing around the old five-and-dime to pick out a toy.
The only remnant from my childhood was the funeral home, the one place my fondness never reached.
“Where are we going again?” Ratticus said.
He’d changed into a long-sleeve shirt and jeans that I advised him to tuck into his expensive Timberlands. He stared out the window with borderline revulsion.
“Two big apartment buildings right next to each other off of Perry Avenue. They were condemned a couple of years back.”
“Why are you being called to exterminate abandoned buildings?”
“The city has a buyer. Plans to take them down and put up nice, shiny condos.”
“Why bother?”
I said, “For all those people working at the hospital we passed. I remember when the place was just this tiny building. Now it’s three city blocks. Lots of nurses and techs need a place to live close by.”
“What about the doctors?”
“Nah, they still run to Westchester or the city. Zip code isn’t fancy enough.”
Ratticus sucked harshly through his teeth when I pulled alongside the boarded-up buildings. They were identical in construction, each with seven floors and big entrances with double doors. I used to play stickball on this street. The smell of boiling cabbage had been a constant around here.
There was one thing I wouldn’t miss.
“Is it safe to go in?” he asked as I miraculously found a parking spot right outside.
“I guess so,” I said, grabbing the case with the camera and other supplies.
“I’m not encouraged.” He hurried to keep pace with me. A few old Spanish ladies were outside the building across the street, sitting in cheap folding chairs.
The neighborhood watch. They didn’t even try to be subtle as they quietly watched us with hawk’s eyes.
Ratticus lagged behind, head tilted back, staring at the buildings.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to the upper floors where you can fall through. It’s the basement for us.”
“Not helping.”
The doors were held tight by a thick chain and padlock. I thumbed my enormous key ring to find the key. It took a few tries before I found the right one. Benny had a talent for always remembering the exact key for every lock. She was the Rain Woman of keys.
As soon as I opened the doors, we were viciously attacked.
“What’s that smell?” Ratticus said, waving the air in front of his face as if it would help.
I took a deep whiff. After decades on the job, I had grown immune. “That, my friend, is the heady aroma of roaches and various vermin and their… ah, leavings.”
“So, this place is just a huge toilet?”
“And home sweet home for your test subjects. Some critters do shit where they eat.”
I handed the good doctor a flashlight and locked the doors behind us.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
“So no one slips in while we’re in the basement.”
“Why on earth would anyone want to be in here?”
“Guess you haven’t seen the cost of rent lately. For a lot of folks, a building like this is the answer to their prayers.”
With the doors shut tight, we were swallowed up by the darkness. Even I got a little creeped out in places like this. For me, it was more worrying about some lunatic that had managed to make the place home than the boogeyman.
I could see Ratticus was fearing both.
“Just over that way,” I said, aiming the flashlight’s beam at a brown door. A sign on it said CUSTODIAN ONLY
Benny had broken the handle clean off the first time we came here because it had been locked and we weren’t given the key. I slipped a finger into the round opening and pulled. Of course, the springs were in need of grease, so they groaned like a door from a horror movie. I looked back to make sure Ratticus hadn’t beat feet to the front door.
The strong scent of ammonia was even overpowering for me.
“That’s not good,” I said, looking for my black light.
“What’s not good?”
“Urine. A whole lot of urine. More than before. Which can only mean one thing.”
“More rats peeing?” Ratticus said.
“Like little diabetics.”
I snapped the black light on and Ratticus actually gulped. Everywhere we looked, there was urine. Swaths and splatters of white were everywhere. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it on the ceiling.
“I’ll bet you don’t get concentrations like this in the lab,” I said.
“No,” he said, barely audible.
“Here, use this,” I said, handing him a white face mask. He didn’t hesitate to put it on.
“Doesn’t help much,” he said.
“With this kind of urine, we’d need one of those old-time deep diving suits to block it out.”
We slowly walked down the stairs, carefully testing our weight on each step. I spotted a pyramid of poop in the corner of one stair.
“I wonder if that came out all at once, or if some rat has Egyptian blood and has been building it over time.”
“This hardly seems the time and place for jokes,” Ratticus snapped. He was as tense as a bridge’s suspension wire.
“It’s just a day at the office for me.”
That was a white lie. I didn’t like what I was seeing and smelling here. I suddenly wished I had waited for Benny to get back before heading out here with Ratticus. Sure, he was good at sticking needles in rats and concocting toxins. But if the rat shit was going to hit the fan, he was going to be as useful as a third nipple.
I was a couple of steps from the bottom when I held my arm out to stop him.
“What is it?” he said.
“Shhh.”
He tried to speak again and I nudged him hard with my elbow.
There was movement somewhere in the deep, impenetrable pitch. I traded my black light for my flashlight. The narrow beam showed glimpses of discarded furniture, moldy boxes, rusted bicycles.
“I don’t think we’re alone,” Ratticus whispered.
I didn’t either. But what I was hearing didn’t sound like a lone derelict shuffling around.
“Shine your light around the room,” I said. Two lights were better than one. I noticed that Ratticus’s beam jittered.
“I think it’s in the other room,” I said, waving my light over the open doorway at the end of the room. That was the old boiler room. It’s also where Benny and I had found a considerable den.
The light’s illumination couldn’t reach far enough into the room for us to see the source behind the strange noise.
It didn’t need to.
Because the source of the noise came to us.
Hundreds of rats cascaded out of the boiler room, running over each other’s backs in a vermin stampede.
What made it more disturbing was that other than the collective sound of their paws scampering on the bare concrete floor, they weren’t making a single sound. It was as if they knew enough to keep quiet so as not to alarm their unwitting prey.
They came straight for us, picking up speed once they made it past the logjam of the doorway.
“Run!” I shouted.
Ratticus froze.
I turned to spring up the stairs and planted my face right in his chest, knocking him down.
The banister was missing, so the doctor hit the steps, rolled sideways and landed on the floor. I heard his flashlight shatter and the light blinked out.
We didn’t need light to know the rats were almost on us.
Ratticus screamed in a pitch only dogs could hear. I held out my hand.
“Get the hell up!”
He grabbed onto me so hard to pull himself to his feet that he yanked me down with him. I landed across his chest.
The rats were only a few feet away.
One of them leaped to span the distance in double time.
I flinched left and it sailed right.
Ratticus and I jumped up faster than a jack-in-a-box on speed. We hit the stairs hard, with the doctor in the lead. The sound of hundreds of paws pounding the wooded steps ghosted us. My back tingled, expecting them to latch onto me at any second.
He hit the door with his shoulder. It bounced off the wall and nearly shut on his face.
Sheer panic had given him the strength of five doctors. He punched the door as it snapped back at him, impeding its progress.
Visibility was still poor, but from the sound alone I knew the rats were just inches away.
“You locked the door!” Ratticus wailed.
I damned myself for being efficient.
“The stairs,” I shouted.
We rounded the corner, dashing for the second floor.
“The apartments aren’t locked,” I said, huffing. It had been too long since I’d done anything more than a casual amble. It felt like someone had stabbed my side with a saber.
The boards to one of the stairway windows had been knocked out, allowing a shaft of light.
I made the mistake of turning around.
Jumping Jesus!
Possibly a thousand rats were on our tail, their own tails bobbing like Satan’s spaghetti.
Ratticus slammed into the first apartment door at the landing. It didn’t budge.
“Turn the knob, moron!” I said.
We practically fell into the vacant apartment. I swung the door shut, keeping my back to it and trying to catch my breath.
Ratticus leaned against the wall, doing likewise. He managed to
settle himself down pretty quick. Guys like him had fancy gym memberships and a closet of workout clothes.
Guys like me had the occasional staircase and a closet full of clothes barely fit for Goodwill.
The door shuddered as if a gorilla were on the other side, pounding to be let inside.
“Would it be dumb to ask if there were this many rats the last time you were here?”
I nodded, unwilling to waste my precious breath.
“I know rats can be aggressive…”
“Not…like this,” I wheezed.
“No,” Ratticus said. “Definitely not like this.”
My flesh crawled. Even though we were separated by the thick door, I could feel them press against my back.
“We have a problem,” Ratticus said.
“You think?”
“No. Look!”
There was a hole in the wall, right next to the door. It was small, maybe the width of two fingers, but that was all a rat needed to wiggle inside, just as one rat was currently doing.
I slammed my flashlight down, hoping to crush its head and have it jam up the hole.
It sensed my actions, ducking out of the way before I could connect. Now my flashlight was broken and we had zero light.
Ratticus quickly whipped out his phone and turned on its flashlight.
Now two heads were coming through the hole. I could hear the other rats chewing away at it on the other side, widening it so they could swarm in.
“Time to go,” I said.
“Where?”
“Fire escape.”
The apartment was bare, save a stained mattress and open cans of soup. We sprinted down the narrow hallway into the lone bedroom.
The sound of the rats barging into the door echoed in the musty, dark apartment.
I heard the patter of paws. They were getting inside.
And the damn windows were boarded up tighter than a hangman’s noose.
Chapter 7
“Check the closets!” I shouted. Ratticus flinched.
He opened the lone closet in the empty bedroom. “What am I looking for?”
“Something to bash the window open with.”
There was nothing but a row of wire hangers.
