by Grivante
Part II - Chesterfield Manor
Jonah and Judas were scheduled to meet Burt at Chesterfield Manor. It was an old mansion which had recently been remodeled by Beverly Chesterfield, the new socialite wife of a wealthy trust fund baby. The duo spent their days lounging by the pool taking selfies to post on social media, and their evenings partying around town.
Burt was late arriving, so Jonah took the initiative to get the job started.
“C’mon Judas. Let’s move it, so we can get outta here before the weekend starts.”
They knocked on the large, solid oak doors and waited.
A minute passed before they heard the clicking of heels on marble tile from the other side. Both brothers found that this sound made them stand a little straighter. The door swung open and a lithe, olive-skinned young woman in a pair of black stilettos, a blue triangle topped bikini and a piece of gauzy fabric that was supposed to be a robe, but covered nothing, opened the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked, glancing up from the screen of her phone long enough to examine the somewhat grungy pair.
“Yes, hello ma’am,” Jonah extended his hand, offering her a card. “I’m Jonah and this is Judas. We’re from Pests B’ Gone.”
“Oh,” she gave them a half smile and did not take the offered card. “Do you boys know what you’re doing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Judas spoke up as he wrung his hands together. “We’re fully trained professionals.”
“Hmm,” she cocked her head sideways a moment, looking at him, then her phone beeped and she turned on her heels and walked away, returning her gaze back to the device. “Follow me.”
Click, clack. Her heels sounded, and both brothers found their eyes drawn to the tiny blue bottoms she wore, and the way her hips sashayed as she walked. She flipped her head back, snapping her neck length black hair out of the way and looking at them over her shoulder. She gave a knowing smile and bobbed her head upward. “Eyes up here, boys.”
She led, and they followed, through a series of hallways that led to a large walk-in pantry off the kitchen. The pantry had rows and rows of canned foods and boxed dry goods lining the shelves. At the end, in the back, they saw the familiar shape of a crawlspace hatch.
“There’s the access,” she said, indicating it with a tilt of her head. “One of the housekeepers spotted a mouse the other day.” She wrinkled her nose. “Dirty, dreadful creatures. I can’t stand them. If I saw one I'd…” she scrunched her shoulders in, pushing her breasts together and scratched her black painted nails along her forearms. “Ugh, just the thought of seeing one of those rodents makes my skin crawl.”
Judas stuck his chest out. “We’ll take care of that for you, Miss. No problem, I’m Judas by the wa—”
Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes narrowed into little rubies of fire. “It’s Mrs.” She flicked her eyes to Jonah to make sure he got the point as well.
He just watched, stone-faced, piercing his lips together.
The air was stiff and warm as they waited, uncertain what to say or do.
She glanced back and forth between them, then strode out of the pantry, her robe brushing against them as she left. “Just deal with it. I don’t want to see any sign of those little gnawing lab animals around!”
Once she was out of sight, Jonah took off his Pests B’ Gone hat and smacked Judas with it. “She’s a client, and she’s married!”
Judas’s cheeks burned red. “I know Jonah, but you saw her, that teeny little bikini… I couldn’t help myself.”
Jonah’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath in and let it out slow and steady, just like his words. “Judas, just because she’s dressed provocatively doesn’t mean she wants you. It’s not consent to behave like a Neanderthal.”
“I know, I know,” Judas lowered his chin. “I wasn’t thinking with the right head.”
“I know you weren’t but were here to do a job. Go to the truck and get the traps. I’ll get the crawlspace open and glance around.”
“You got it, Bro,” Judas said and headed out.
“And Judas,” Jonah called after him. “If you come across Mrs. Chesterfield, look the other way!”
Jonah clicked his headlight on and slipped the paper mask over his face before dropping into the hole. The space was massive, stretching the entirety of the four-thousand square foot home. The air was dark, stale and unlike most newer homes, which have a plastic or fabric barrier atop the dirt, this one was bare earth.
He found large mounds with holes all around, and there—. He stopped, shining his light back along the wall where a pair of eyes, the size of a cat’s but above a pointed snout, stared back at him. The shape turned and waddle-scurried away.
Jonah heard voices from the pantry above and made his way back to the opening. Grateful to be able to stand again, he popped out to see Judas and Burt with boxes full of traps.
“Look who I found.” Judas nodded his head toward Burt as he set his box on the floor.
“Sorry guys,” he said, tugging a small package from his pocket with the words ‘Mighty Menthols’ across the top of it. “Had to restock.” He tore the top open, took out one of the small oblong shaped drops and unwrapped it. He popped it in his mouth and tossed the wrapper on the pantry floor.
“Hey,” Jonah said pointing. “I doubt our client will appreciate you littering in here.”
Burt looked around at the rows and rows of untouched food stuffs. “Do you really think whoever owns this place ever steps in here? They’ve got servants for everything. She’ll never even notice it.” He turned and looked out the pantry door. “Where is she anyway?”
“Out by the pool,” Judas answered, grinning at the memory. “She greeted us in high heels and a bikini.”
“She what?”
“Right?” Judas nodded. “I thought they only wore that kinda stuff on the internet and reality TV.”
“I’ll have to make sure and check her out, I mean, check out with her when we’re finished.” Burt guffawed.
Jonah shook his head. “Can we get to work now? This is gonna take all day. You wouldn’t believe how much area there is to cover and these ain’t mice. They’re rats as big as turkeys.”
Burt raised his eyebrows. “Hmm.” He looked at the boxes he and Judas had brought in. “They said mice.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well.”
“Oh well, what?” Jonah asked.
“Most of the these are mouse traps. Not what we’ll need for rats, but we’ll just have to start with these and then we can swap them out next week when we come back for follow-up.”
“Shouldn’t one of us head back to the shop and get better traps?” Jonah asked, staring at Burt.
“No!” He said it so loud it echoed off the pantry walls. “You don’t want to go by there. The boss isn't in a good mood; he was yelling at Bob when I left this morning. Fired him. So, let's work with what we’ve got and not risk pissing him off any further.”
“What did he fire him for?” Judas asked as he stuck a fresh wad of chewing tobacco in his lip.
“Took too long to get a job done.”
Part III - Pantry Panic
They worked straight through lunch, finally finishing around 4 pm. Jonah crawled out first, picking up Burt’s discarded cough drop wrapper as he did so. He didn’t notice the dirt that his own shoes left behind as he stomped around in the pantry picking up empty trap boxes. After that many hours below, he was jonesing for one of his cigars that were out in the glove box of his truck.
Judas and Burt came out a moment later.
Judas shook his head. “Can you believe how big those holes were?”
Burt, with the ever-present cough drop in his mouth, said, “Yeah, but I’ve never seen so many.” He slurped in the melted liquid from the cough drop and hacked as he choked on it. Cough! Cough! He hunched over and spat it out in a spray of spittle. “Agh, that one tried to jump down my windpipe.” He wiped slobber off his whiskered chin. “It looked like they had a field of prairie dog
s down there and those ratty scavengers didn’t seem to care one bit we were crawling around in there with them.”
“I can’t believe they haven’t had problems before this,” Jonah said.
“Me neither,” Burt said. “Hey, what are you two doing this weekend?”
Jonah shrugged. “The usual. Sit around the garage. Drink some beer, smoke some weed and work on our truck.”
Burt chuckled. “Sounds like a good time.”
“How about you?” Judas asked.
Burt who was searching his pockets answered without looking at him. “I, uh, shit. Where’d they go?” He looked around the room. “I’m going fishing, got some great bait too. Gassed a nest of the largest crickets I’ve ever seen on a job yesterday. Hey, have either of you seen my Mighty Menthols?”
The brothers shook their heads.
Burt stared into the crawlspace. “Crap.” He looked back at them. “You two load up and call it a night. I’m gonna go try and find ‘em.”
Judas looked at him raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
Burt shrugged. “You’ve got your chew, I’ve got my cough drops.”
The brothers loaded and left, while Burt returned to the underbelly of the house, not knowing it would be the last time they’d see him for quite a while. They didn’t come across Mrs. Chesterfield on their way out, though Judas stopped at every window, peering out to try and catch a glimpse of her at the pool.
“You know, he just wants to try and get alone with her,” Judas said as they rolled out.
Jonah shook his head and clicked on his classical music. “He’s got about as much of a shot as you.”
They returned home where they spent the night smoking and drinking until their phone rang around 7 pm.
Burt re-emerged a few minutes after the brothers had departed, a fresh cough drop in his mouth. He hopped out of the crawlspace, looked around a moment as if he might have something else to do, then remembered Judas’s description of Mrs. Chesterfield and decided he'd go find her and tell her they had finished. He hurried out of the pantry, leaving the door, as well as the crawlspace hatch, wide open.
He wandered around a bit and finally found her by the pool, exactly as Judas had described. The sun dipped in the sky and illuminated her young, nubile body.
“Excuse me miss?”
She glanced up the sun in her eyes. She placed a hand over them as she squinted at him. “Oh, it’s one of you exterminators. What do you want?”
“I just came to let you know we've finished. We’ll come back in a week to check the traps.”
“Whatever.” She waved a hand, dismissing him and picked up her drink from a side table.
Burt stared a moment, taking her in before leaving.
Mrs. Chesterfield continued drinking and sunbathing until almost 6 pm when the sun dipped below the horizon. Her husband would be home soon and she needed to get dinner made. Well, heated. The catering service delivered their meals every other day. All she needed to do was take it out of the fridge and follow the directions written on top of the container.
Enticed by the scent of the food in the pantry, the rats and other assorted rodents had made quick use of the open hatch. A few were lost to the traps, but most only found them a minor nuisance. To others, that ended up with pinched legs or tails, they served to make them angry.
The multitude of rodents climbed out of the hole, scurrying up shelves, tearing into packages and knocking things over, creating a chaotic mess.
By the time Mrs. Chesterfield arrived, they had spread into the kitchen itself.
She opened the door, a little tipsy - it was Friday night after all - and screamed as she took in the scene. The rats, for their part, paid little attention. All except one, who had a small mouse trap clinging to its hose-thick tail and wasn't happy about it. It ran straight toward the screaming, screeching woman.
She saw it coming and shrieked louder, stumbling backward into the hall. One of her high heels snapped, sending her crashing atop the marble. She tried to save her cocktail, holding it aloft in her left hand, but slammed her elbow onto the tile, breaking her humerus.
The door to the kitchen swung shut, smacking the large rodent in the face. It shook it off but turned back as a box on top of a high shelf spilled over. The contents rained down in a cascade of pitter pattering numminess. The rat returned to gorging itself on the scattered buffet.
Part IV - Pests B' Gone, Gone
Ring!
When the brothers’ house phone rang, Jonah turned the volume down on the rerun of The Evil Dead they were watching and answered it.
“Hello, this is Jonah.” He scrunched up his face and instantly held the receiver away from his ear.
Judas perked up from the cushion next to him. “Who is it?” he mouthed.
Jonah trying to put the speaker near his ear again, mouthed back, “The Boss!”
The voice continued to blast from the speaker until finally, in a moment of quiet, Jonah tried to speak. “But sir, we—”
Another eruption of noise and then the line went dead.
“What happened?”
“We just got fired.”
“What? How come?” Judas reached over and spit into an empty beer can.
“Burt left the crawlspace open. Those rats got out, trashed the pantry and kitchen and traumatized Mrs. Chesterfield.”
“But Jonah, that wasn’t our fault, Bu—”
“I know that, Judas. He didn’t care, said she used our names specifically.”
Their phone rang again.
Jonah took a deep breath. “Maybe he’s calmed down.”
He picked up the phone and waited. He could hear breathing and a slight slurping sound on the other end, but no voice.
“Hello?” Jonah asked.
“Jonah?” a familiar voice came back.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Burt. Look, man, I’m really sorry about that. The boss just called me and ripped me a new one.”
Jonah held the phone away from his face and glowered at it. “He just called and fired us!”
“Oh,” Burt said going quiet, followed by a long slurp on his cough drop. “Hey, uh, you know how he is, always takes things out on the new guy. Look, I’ll try and talk to him, but uh, when you get a new job, let me know and I’ll see if I can send some work your way.”
“You what?” Jonah snapped, grabbing the phone with his other hand and standing up to yell. The line went dead.
The next morning, Jonah and Judas sat at their small kitchen table, both nursing hangovers and sipping black-as-mud coffee. Jonah had a large laptop open before him, his fingers hunting and pecking across the keyboard.
Craigslist - Jobs
He scrolled through the listings, stopping occasionally to read ones that sounded promising. Finally, he stopped on one that sounded like it might fit their skill set.
Security Personnel Needed
Multiple positions available
Apply in person at
467 Industrial Pkwy
Nitsau Corporation
-Fin
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining us! We hope that you enjoyed this double feature and the special extra addition of the short story. The Zee Brothers are a lot of fun to write and we look forward to releasing the next 2 books in the series and a few more short stories! Book 3, tentatively titled Halloween Holocaust is being written as you read and will be released in 2018, followed by Book 4, Apocalypse Now! In 2019! Be on the lookout for these new releases. If you want to make sure you don’t miss them, consider joining our newsletter, you can do so here —> Newsletter Sign-up!
As a writer, one of the greatest rewards of writing, is to hear from my readers and what you thought of my story. I’d love to know, what you liked and how the story made you feel. Please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected] to share your thoughts. Or, if you have time, I’d love it if you could take a few moments to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook or wherever you as
a reader hang out online.
A review doesn’t have to be complicated or lengthy. It can be as simple as, I liked it because… and then list a couple of things you enjoyed about the story. That’s all! Thanks for coming along on this adventure with me!
-Grivante
P.S. Wondering what happens next? Did they go to that job interview at the end of the short story? Find out in the Zombie Exterminators origin story included in the Undead Worlds Anthology! Undead Worlds is an awesome anthology featuring new stories by 22 top and up and coming authors in the zombie genre, get a copy for only .99c and enjoy all of the new stories these authors have in store for you!
There’s a new Zombie Anthology in the works from the Reanimated Writers. It’s scheduled for fall/winter 2017 and will feature stories from many of today’s top zombie fiction authors, including a new Zee Brothers short story that tells us exactly how the brothers got into the zombie extermination business to begin with.
Other stories in “Undead Worlds” will include
Valerie Lioudis - Aftershock Zombie
R.L. Blalock - Death & Decay
David Simpson - Zombie Road
Christopher Artinian - Safe Haven
T.D. Ricketts - Release the Hounds
Arthur Mongelli - Harvest of Ruin
Charles Ingersoll - Day Zero
Brea Behn - Vaxxers
Samie Sands - AM13 Outbreak
Jeremy Dyson - Rise of the Dead
Jessica Gomez - Flash
Sylvester Barzey - Planet Dead
