The Sturdy Kind That Doesn't Mind the Snow
by Invisible Ranger (HBF), 2019
All characters from The Strain are the properties of their creators; all original characters are mine. No copyright infringement intended.
444 Central Park West, Manhattan: December 2013
As co-ops in the Upper West Side went, it was comparatively modest; the going price here perhaps only 2.5 million for a midsize duplex. Late Art Deco, before the crash of '29 and the more austere styles that followed. Upscale without being ostentatious or gaudy. The kind of place one might find more principal violinists and tenured professors than Wall Street types.
Like any other building in the five boroughs, particularly the vintage variety, it was also home to plenty of rats. Which is why, thought Vasiliy Fet as he pulled the parking brake on his truck, I'm here pulling a double instead of enjoying my Friday evening. He looked into the rear view mirror, and his own visage, with five-o-clock shadow and an unhappy grimace, glowered back. Whoever it was that occupied 18G was going to have to deal with him at less than his best.
As he unlocked the tailgate and began to unload his equipment cart, Fet couldn't help admiring the surroundings. A fresh couple inches of snow covered the grimy black ice, turning the building and the adjacent Central Park into a wonderland. Flurries still swirled under a low, leaden sky. At this late hour and given the weather, only a few hardy souls, or those too foolish to know better, traveled the streets. The glow of the sodium vapor lamps cast a soft, Hallmark-movie glow over everything.
It was a good thing he wasn't a sentimental man. He might actually start to enjoy the scene. Years of city life had put a blunt edge on his sense of wonder. He'd been at half a dozen other buildings covered with snow today, and this was the last one. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could get back to Brooklyn for the night.
The doorman buzzed him in. Exterminators were usually welcomed with open arms to buildings like this one; nobody liked the idea of rats in and around a ritzy place, even if getting rid of the munchers entirely was damn near impossible in any structure in New York. His boots made soft clop-clop sounds on the marble mosaic floor. The elevator, a retro-style cage affair, arrived with a soft ding, and Fet pushed the button for level 8.
In another time and place, he might have liked to live here. Unlike some of the other buildings he'd been in, much of this one's original character had been maintained. Maybe someday, if I ever buy that winning Powerball ticket.
The co-op was one of three units on the floor, and faced the park. When Fet knocked on the door he was greeted almost immediately by a stout middle-aged woman in a stiff-looking grey cardigan and practical shoes. The housekeeper, no doubt; her clothes weren't nearly fashionable enough for anyone rich enough to buy this place. "You are the rat man?" she asked, her voice husky and accented.
"Yeah. Got a call for some munchers here."
She nodded as in approval. "Wipe your boots. Mrs. Flynn just had the floors waxed," she said, beckoning him to follow.
As he scraped the mud and slush from his Wolverines before entering the foyer, Fet let out a low whistle. Whoever these people were, they'd kept the original style and quirks of the apartment while making it their own. "Nice place," he said in spite of himself, taking in the marble fireplace, reclaimed wood, and tasteful hand-pained wallpaper accents. He was careful to avoid snagging his cart wheels on the woven Persian rug at the center of the living room.
"You can start looking for rats in the kitchen. I hear them squeaking," the housekeeper said, all business. She pointed to a closed door to the left of the fireplace.
Moldovan, maybe, or Romanian, he thought. An Eastern Bloc escapee just like him. "That's usually where they set up shop. You got any food sitting out? Crumbs?"
She glared at him as if she'd been slapped. "I keep a spotless house. Which includes the kitchen."
Fet shrugged. "Hey, just asking, hon. Lemme go take a look."
As he towed his cart into the kitchen, he heard her muttering "Crumbs" and scoffing under her breath. It was compact but elegant inside, the modern touches seamlessly blended with the original charm. Certainly no traces of rats that he could see. When he flicked on his UV handheld lamp, though, Fet spotted the telltale trail of dribbled muncher urine leading to what he guessed was the pantry. Sneaky little bastards, always getting in uninvited. Whenever he told unsuspecting homeowners that munchers could squeeze through holes the size of a quarter, no one ever believed it.
Until they wound up calling him. Then, nobody was laughing.
"What are you doing in our kitchen?"
He turned around, expecting the housekeeper, only to find himself looking at a lanky teenage girl. From the waist up she looked like most kids her age: gawky, bony, not quite grown into her limbs yet. She wore a faded grey NYU sweatshirt over track pants, and her brown hair was in a practical French braid. Only after a moment did he see the arm braces and her spindly legs, which she'd apparently gone to pains to hide beneath her baggy clothing. Despite this handicap, her dark eyes stared fearlessly up at him, though he perhaps had a foot and a half of height on her.
"I asked you a question," she repeated. If she'd been able to with the braces, she might have crossed her arms in annoyance.
"Oh. Just doing a little pest control. Pretend I'm not even here."
The girl snorted. "Not exactly easy, you know."
By now he was used to this sort of thing…rich Manhattanites looking down their collective noses at him and, if they acknowledged him at all, treated him as just another member of "the help." It was as much a job hazard as muncher bites. "Can't help you there, hon. Shouldn't you be in school or something?"
Her braces made soft clicking noises on the tile floor as she hobbled over to the French door refrigerator. "Off for the holidays. My brother's doing exams, and Mom and Dad are probably at some fundraiser or other. So, as usual, I've got the whole place to myself. Just me and dear Auntie Evelina," the girl said, pronouncing the name as 'evil Lena.'
There was something in her voice, something Fet had heard so many times through the years. Loneliness. So many of these rich city dwellers, despite their ivory co-op towers and their lives of never wanting for anything, lacked that most primal of human needs: connection. He might have been the only person she'd really talked to outside of an online forum, or the battle-axe Evelina, in who knew how long. "There's worse places to be alone," he said, poking the baseboard with his long rebar, looking for signs of burrowing, and thinking of the bleak industrial landscape surrounding his own loft. "Have you seen that killer view?"
She laughed. "Seen it? Yeah. Not that I'm ever allowed to enjoy it." She closed the fridge door, a small container of yogurt in one hand.
Fet wasn't sure what she meant by that, but guessed it had something to do with her physical condition. Most rich parents were…what was that word?..."helicopter" types these days, and wouldn't let even an able-bodied kid out of their sight for ten seconds. When I was her age, I was running free range all around Brooklyn. Of course, I was over six feet tall and built like an NFL draft pick. "Can't she," he said, gesturing one hand to the living room, " take you somewhere?"
The girl regarded him curiously. "You don't know Evelina, do you? She does whatever Mom and Dad tell her to do. Which mostly means keeping me on lockup in here, unless it's school or some doctor's office." She peeled open the yogurt, then opened a drawer to grab a spoon.
"You seem to get around just fine," he shot back without thinking.
Her dark eyes flashed, and she slammed down the plastic container onto the counter, splashing white goo over the gleaming surface. "I don't want your fake pity, okay? I get enough of that from everyone else."
They stared at one another for a moment, him towering over her, rebar still in hand, all thoughts of rats forgotten for the moment. "That came out wrong. What I meant was, you seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders," said Fet. "Don't you have friends you can do things with?"
"Mom and Dad don't believe in those either, unless it's the inspirational porn crowd. You know, so they can say they did a good deed hanging around with some cripple for a few hours." She laughed, a small, ironic sound.
Poor kid. And I thought I was lonely sometimes. "How about online?" he tried, thinking of the few times he'd been desperate enough to pay some cam girl who said she appreciated neoclassical architecture, just to talk.
She thought about it for a moment. "RPG friends, but they all live in Australia or somewhere else I'll probably never go." Her anger had disappeared, replaced by weary resignation.
Fet turned back to his search for the munchers, whose urine trail abruptly stopped at a pantry full of neatly labeled containers. He kept talking, hoping the girl would too. "Maybe you could live a little dangerously. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, you know?" He chuckled, thinking of all the times he'd skipped school and hopped the subway to Manhattan just to see an exhibit at the MoMA. At the time, he'd been no older than this girl.
Her braces clicked. She'd moved a little closer, watching him curiously. "What do you do with the rats when you find them?" she asked.
He wasn't sure if she were joking or not. Even a sheltered kid like her had to know the answer to that one. "I'm not in the business of rehabilitation, hon. You mind giving me a little space here? This isn't gonna be pretty if I find any, and I don't want you getting bitten."
As he poked and prodded, Fet began to notice a couple things out of the ordinary. For one, there weren't any signs of a typical muncher infestation: chewed edges, holes, or the oily, dirty trails made by the rodents' tails and paws as they scurried to and from their burrows and the food sources. Rats were creatures of habit and they liked to follow the same paths. There were munchers here…the dribble of urine under the UV light made that clear…but it was as if they'd materialized out of thin air. He made a mental note to check the apartments above and below if he could. Maybe it was even some damn kid's pets who'd escaped and bred, though the tamer specimens typically didn't last long among the ferals.
It wasn't just the lack of signs that unnerved him. The girl was still standing next to the refrigerator, watching his every move as if he were on live TV. Most rich kids would have run away screaming at the mere suggestion of rats. This kid, like some weird Wednesday Addams with twisted legs, was oddly fascinated by his work.
"Do you usually poison them?"
Fet pulled his head out of the pantry door and sighed. "Not as a first option. It's not as effective as you'd think. Rats are clever, you know. They figure that one out quick, and it's never the king rats you get through poisoning."
"But how do you kill them, then?" she pressed.
"You ever watch football?"
She shook her head. "We're not really a sports family."
"Well," Fet continued, "you might have heard the saying that 'the best offense is a good defense.' And that's true. You get rid of rats by not giving them what they need. Food, shelter, a place to crash."
The girl's dark eyes blinked solemnly. "Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think there's rats in the pantry?"
Fet turned his attention back to the open door. Everything seemed in order; rows of neatly stacked and labeled plastic containers, with not a single crumb visible. Then he heard the unmistakable sound he'd been listening for. The panicked squeals of a trapped muncher.
"You might want to stand back for this part, hon." He drew back the three-foot iron rod like a sword, then thrust forward with the ease of years' practice. A terrified squeal, and he knew he'd hit his target. "Told you it could get messy." Fet pulled one of the plastic disposal bags from his cart and, in one fluid motion, pulled the impaled rat off and into it. It thrashed as he tied it into a knot, but the damage was already done.
All of this had taken less than a minute. The girl hadn't moved from her spot, and her expression was hard to read. "So what happens now?" she finally asked.
He laughed humorlessly, hooking the still-squirming bag to his cart. "I told you what happens. Now I gotta make sure this rat doesn't have a family in hiding." He was almost positive this rat had been an outlier, a rogue, but wanted to say something to put the girl at ease in case she talked to her parents later. "You sure you don't have homework or something?"
"Not really." She just stood there with her weird poker face. "Do…you do this all the time?"
"You really don't know much about the exterminator business, do you?"
The girl shook her head. "I'm really not allowed to do much of anything. Mom and Dad didn't even let me watch The Lion King or Bambi when I was little. Thought it might somehow traumatize me."
Fet shrugged. Bambi had done a number on him when he'd watched it many decades ago with Russian subtitles. "Just gonna get this cart back in my truck, bring back some repellent, and I'll be out of your way so you can do, you know, your thing."
He already had his back turned to her when she spoke up in a timid voice. "Can I come outside with you? Just for a minute?"
A hundred things could possibly go wrong, Fet knew, but something desperate and pleading in her voice haunted him. Probably kept up here in this place like a broken princess in a tower, never allowed to set foot outside like any normal kid, even though she lived right next to the park and had a million-dollar view. He wasn't sure what it was, but he already knew he couldn't deny her the request. His mind turned quickly. "Under one condition," he said, turning around to look at her. "Evelina has to agree to it, and come along too. And I can't stay…I've got a date with a frozen pizza after this. Deal?"
"Yeah. Sounds fair to me." She tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile.
In the living room, Evelina was waiting, arms crossed. "You work too slowly. Time for Miss Kate's medication."
It took him a moment to realize she was probably talking about the girl, who hadn't yet given him her name. "Oh. About her…you mind helping me take her outside for just a few minutes? She wanted to see the snow, and…"
Evelina held up one finger. "Not possible."
He sighed. He'd fully expected this, and switched tack right away. "Fine. Guess you want me to have to stay an extra hour or two, maybe tear up your nice kitchen. I might even have to come back next week. These munchers are all up in the walls, see, and they make this squealing all through the night…but if you agree to that, I won't say a word, and I'll make sure your muncher problem goes away."
The way her eye twitched told him he'd touched a nerve. "No, no. Mrs. Flynn hates rats. But you must not tell her I take Miss Kate outside. And only for a minute."
"Our little secret," Fet agreed. "Plus, you won't have to worry about any more rats. I, uh, think there was only the one." The plastic bag had, by now, stopped moving.
"I get her coat."
Outside, the falling snow muffled the world. It was as if the three of them…the tall exterminator, the stocky housekeeper, and the spindly girl supported between the two and swaddled in a thick parka…were the last humans left on earth.
It hadn't been too much of a struggle to get Kate out the apartment doors, to the elevator, and then to the park outside. Despite her frail appearance, she was nimble and moved quickly using her braces. "They just think of me as weak," she'd said at least three times on the short trip down. "Really, I'm not."
Fet had been quiet the whole time. Something about this little broken caged bird made him terribly melancholy. Evelina, on the other hand, was nagging away in her thickly accented voice, and had, when Kate was out of earshot, told him in Russian exactly what she'd do to his manhood with a kitchen knife if he even thought about harming Kate. They made for an odd pair of bookends, but he could understand where the older woman was coming from.
"It's peaceful out here, isn't it?" Kate said softly.
"Hmm? Well, I suppose it is." Fet rarely had time to stop and enjoy the beauty of the city. "You know where the really peaceful places are? Underground."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Places most people don't even know exist. Forgotten stations, tunnels…" A soft grunt from Evelina told him he'd probably overstepped his bounds, so he changed the subject. "Anyway, I don't want to get either you or me in trouble, hon. I better get going. I only promised you a few minutes."
Kate sighed deeply, her face turned upward. A few snowflakes landed upon her pale cheeks. "I wish I could do this all the time," she said to no one in particular.
Evelina was grunting and tapping at her wrist in the universal body language of fleeting time. "Must get you inside. If your parents only knew," she admonished, drawing Kate to her like a broody mother hen with her chick. "Catch your death out here."
The girl muttered something into her upturned hood before turning back to Fet. "Can I thank him for getting rid of the rat before we go back in?"
Fet hadn't expected this; most people were only too eager to see him go. Gratitude was in short supply. "It was nothing. Happy to be of service," he said, taking Kate's much smaller hand in his for a handshake.
"Evelina, go on back. I'll catch up, I just need a minute."
"Miss Kate, I…"
"Or do you want me to tell Mom and Dad you've been smoking in the house again?"
The dark scowl on the housekeeper's face told Kate she'd won the battle. "One minute," conceded Evelina, who continued to look over her shoulder as she retraced her steps, which had already begun to accumulate snow where footprints had been.
"Not bad. Little bit of fire in you, I see," Fet said admiringly.
"If everybody sees you as weak, sometimes it's an advantage." Kate shrugged as much as her braces would allow.
"I just have one question."
"Shoot."
"Why'd you let that rat loose in the house? Don't you know what they can do to a place like this?"
A stunned silence between them, and Kate's dark eyes swam with momentary tears before she blinked them away. "How'd you know?"
Fet scoffed. "Hon, I've been doing this a long time. I know the difference between a wild muncher and a pet. That one hadn't even set up shop yet, and I figured you had a pet that escaped, or maybe a science experiment? You seemed way too interested in it, anyway." He saw the hurt on her face, and softened. "No offense or anything. You don't seem like the kind of girl who should be obsessing over rats, you know? Shouldn't you be getting ready for college, having parties with your boyfriend? That kind of thing?"
"That's just it. There's never going to be any of that." Kate was neither angry nor defiant, but matter-of-fact. "If I'm lucky I'll make it another year or two, and I'll probably be in bed for most of that. I let out the rat because…" She hesitated. "I wanted to see death for myself, put my mind at ease that it wasn't going to be so bad. I've never seen anybody die. So yeah, I guess it was an experiment."
Now it all made sense. The absentee parents, the overbearing housekeeper…poor damn kid was dying before their eyes, left alone to her own devices, and they didn't even seem to notice or care. She'd gone and pulled a stunt like this for…what? Attention? Morbid curiosity? No, it had to be exactly what she'd said it was: a dry run. Though she'd be no doubt surrounded by the best medical personnel rather than skewered with a rebar, the end result was very much the same. "I'm sorry, hon. I had no idea." He tentatively put a hand on her shoulder. "Look, I wish you the best."
Evelina had started back toward them. Time was short. "I'm honestly not too worried about it. I guess everybody's got to die sometime, right?" Kate said with a hint of dark humor. "Maybe I'll come back in my next life as a rat."
"If you do, make sure it's one of the king rats. They live a long time. As rats go, I mean."
"That's the way to go, then. You know what else?"
Whatever she'd been going to say, Fet didn't have the chance to find out. Evelina shooed Kate back up the pathway, but not before giving him a look which might have melted lead. No "goodbye", no "thank you" from her. It was fortunate he'd already brought his cart and tools back down to the truck; he'd hate to have to cross paths with her again.
The snowflakes fell harder now, flecking his worn black coat. This was the last stop of his day, and at this hour, traffic wouldn't be terrible. Half an hour and he could be safely back at the loft, heating up a steaming bowl of stew.
Instead, he stood in place for a moment, watching as the light appeared in unit 18G, and imagining the row that must be taking place right now between the girl and the housekeeper. Glad he wouldn't be in the middle of that one.
In the morning, there would be more rats, more exasperated homeowners and bosses to berate him, more angry commuters. It was a cycle which perpetuated endlessly in this strange and wonderful concrete jungle, and one which paid him, if not enough to be a wealthy man, then enough for warm beds and a steady supply of books and hearty stews.
Fet gazed upward at the dark, swirling sky and inhaled deeply. The world could wait another few minutes.