Chapter Eighteen
Wilson Hotel
Once we arrived on Pender Island we begin looking for the sheriff, of course, we make it a point to keep Jamie way from the sheriff and any other law enforcement. Abe, Jamie, and I sit at a small outdoor cafe in the town square, while Chloe and Jackson go and talk to the Sheriff, since we were told by the station that she'd be working the square that afternoon. Judging from their body language, Jackson knew her before this, probably a childhood friend. Jamie looks over her phone worried.
"I've sent Mitch five text messages asking if he's arrived at Harvard yet. No reply. Have either of you heard from him?"
I shake my head and look over to Abe.
"No, but I haven't reached out to him yet. I have patience."
Jamie sighs.
"We'll, I don't. What's taking them so long? Should we go over there?"
She points over to Jackson, Chloe, and the Sheriff. As she does I shake my head.
"No, we wait here, as discussed. At this point, you and any representative of the law is a bad idea."
"I'm not a fugitive, Kat."
Abe shakes his.
"Not yet. And it would be nice to keep it that way."
As we look over to Chloe and Jackson, they are rushing over to us. Once they are there, Jackson puts his hands on the back of my chair and Chloe sits in the open chair.
"The Wilson Hotel. That's where we have to go. It's huge. If it's deserted, it would make the perfect breeding ground for the rats, once the ship was no longer viable."
"Then let's go."
Us at the table jump up before the five of us quickly head to the car. I'd say run, but we are trying not to draw too much attention to ourselves. When we all pile into the car, we head off to the Wilson Hotel, Jackson remembers where the hotel is. Once we get there, we have a problem getting into the hotel, since it is closed down for renovations, it is locked up. Jackson and I watch as Abe, our chief lock picker, is having a problem with the lock.
"Come on, you son of a…"
"You used to be good at this."
"Got it."
Abe finally gets the door open. As Jackson chuckles.
"37 seconds. You're slowing down."
"It's the salt air. Make the lock stick."
"Well. okay, then."
Once we are in the main room I try to turn the lights on, but the switch doesn't work.
"Guess they're not finished with the wiring."
"I'll have a look for a circuit panel. See if I can get some light."
Abe starts door hall doorway, however, before he can leave, Chloe calls out to us.
"Hey, the exterminator left some traps. Look."
Abe is the first over to her since he is the closest.
"It hasn't been touched."
I look around and notice another one near the second hall doorway in the room.
"Hey, neither has this one."
"Those traps are no good to us because they are store-bought junk intended to kill the rats. Unlike what we've brought, which should merely trap them, hopefully, become a honeymoon suite for a male and female for Mitch and Kat to observe."
Jamie sighs.
"The fact that it's come to this, searching for killer rats in an abandoned hotel. I should have gone to college."
I glance over at her.
"I thought you did go to college."
"I should have gone to a better college."
Jackson shakes his head.
"Well, happy hunting. Kat and I will check the traps on the upper floors, you guys look down here."
Abe, Chloe, and Jamie go to look for the circuit panel and checking the traps, while Jackson and I head upstairs.
"To think, I was planning on bringing you and our kids here someday."
"Aww… you had already started planning family vacations?"
"Of course, this was a great place from my childhood. I'd want it to be part of my kids' lives."
I smile softly at him as he steps to me and places his hands on my hips, kissing me softly.
"What do you think of?"
"You know names, the first day of school, taking trips with the kids onto the plans to see the animals, teaching them about all the animals in Africa."
Jackson smiles and places his forehead against mine before we continue on before too long we hear scurrying and squeaking. I look around to hall, the sound is coming from inside the walls.
"It sounds like there are hundreds of them."
The scurrying continues and grows louder.
"Or thousands of them."
As the scurrying and the squeaking continues, we begin to hear clicking.
"Tell me that is not what I think it is."
"Yeah, they're bruxing."
"They're sharpening their fucking teeth… Great…"
The bruxing and squeaking continues. Before long Abe, Chloe, and Jaime find us upstairs. Jackson and I had set some of the traps upstairs and they had done the same downstairs, with a bit more success. Abe walks up to us holding a game back.
"We got one. A male."
I nod.
"Great, now all we need is a female."
Jamie sighs.
"At the risk of sounding overly girly, this is all really, really… really disgusting."
Jackson gets on his phone and makes a phone call.
"Sheriff Bowman. The Wilson is literally crawling with rats. We can hear them in the walls. Yes, there are thousands of rats inside. You have to at least evacuate all the nearby homes. No, no, don't, don't come here. Please, you have to keep people away from here. Becky! Damn it, she hung up."
I shake my head, before turning myself slightly.
"Come on, the sooner we find a female rat, the sooner we get out of here."
As we begin to check the traps for another rat, we hear the elevator bell ding. Jackson turns toward the elevator and takes a step.
"That must be Becky."
As the elevator door opens hundreds of rats poor out of it.
"Through here!"
"Move, move, move!"
As the rat begin flooding toward us, Jackson grabs me and dives through a door to the stairwell. Once the door is closed I look around and notice Chloe is missing.
"Where's Chloe?"
Jamie turns toward the door.
"Oh, my god."
Jackson pulls out his phone and tries to call Chloe.
"She's not answering her phone."
Jamie and I look at each other. Jamie shakes her head.
"She'll be okay. Chloe's a bad-ass, right?"
I nod to Jamie before the boys start up the stairs to the next level. Jamie and I follow behind them. When we get up the next level we hear some muffled squeaking. Jackson looks over to us.
"Do you hear that?"
He looks over to Abe.
"It's coming from your game bag."
Abe hands Jackson his game back when I step over to him and look over his shoulder and look into the bag, seeing pups in the bag.
"I thought you said that was a male rat."
"It is male, trust me."
Jamie shakes her head.
"Well, how could a male rat give birth."
Abe shrugs.
"I don't know. Some species reproduce asexually. Insects, fish, reptiles, but not rats. No mammals, for that matter."
I look over Jackson's shoulder into the bag again.
"Hold on, they're all male."
Jackson looks down into the bag again.
"She's right."
Abe looks over at us, confused.
"Are you sure."
Jackson holds out the bag to him.
"You want to count rodent penises, be our guest."
"I'll take your word for it. But how can that be?"
"It is statistically unheard of for a standardized litter to be comprised of entirely one sex. But I suppose it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely."
I sigh softly.
"Okay, animals reproduce to ensure the survival of their species, right? But what if that's changing? Think about the mutations we've seen in the other animals. The lions communicating over great distances, the bears, and their endoskeleton, the bats, the rats, the whole thing. What is these mutations are not about the survival of one species, but the destruction of another?"
Jamie looks at me confused.
"You mean us?"
I nod.
"We gotta find Chloe."
Before we can start off Jackson stops, deep in thought.
"What is it, Jackson?"
"Let's assume, for a minute, that the cargo ship loaded with Reiden products accelerated the reproduction of the few rats on board. Okay, then once the ship got close and was no longer safe, they had to find another viable option."
Abe nods.
"This abandoned hotel."
Before Jackson can move on to his next point, we hear the baby rats squeaking and I step forward toward him.
"They don't sound right. They're suffering."
Jackson nods, looking into the bag.
"I think they're dehydrated."
Abe nods.
"It's no wonder, male rats can't nurse."
I shrug.
"Well, up until ten minutes ago, they couldn't give birth, either."
Jackson shakes his head.
"Well, something's nursing the pups. I mean, given how quickly the rats are multiplying, they have to be feeding. There's got to be females around somewhere. And they must be big."
Jamie steps toward us.
"Big? Why Big?"
I look over to her.
"To feed all these pups."
"Wait, are you… are you guys saying that there is some kind of rat queens?"
Abe sighs.
"If there are, we have to find them."
Jamie nods.
"How about you guys go and find your rat queen and I go and find Chloe."
"Jamie, do you really want to tb\he in this place alone? How about we stick together and find them both, huh?"
We start looking around the two upper floors, trying to find Chloe or the rats nest. Jamie and I looked over one part of the third floor, Jackson and Abe looked over the other.
"Did you girls find anything?"
I shake my head.
"No, but maybe if we are looking for one big queen rat, we should be looking for one big nest."
"Something tells me you already know where such an are might be."
Jamie looks at me concerned.
I nod.
"I think I do."
"Well, being the wise ones we are, we'll do our best to avoid such an area."
Jackson shakes his head.
"We shall not."
We head up to the attic area of the hotel and look around some of the room in the top level. Abe sighs softly.
"Perhaps you were wrong."
Just as he says this we hear squeaking and squealing. Jackson sighs.
"I'm afraid not."
As we come to the last door in the attic around, the squeaking and squealing get louder. When we open the door, we are met with a huge room, full of rats.
"Dear lord!"
"Oh, my god."
Abe looks over at us.
"I think we're all agreed that these creatures need to be destroyed. Any suggestions on how to do that?"
"I don't know, but I think we have a bigger problem."
Jackson and I look over to see five to six rats on the shelving next to us. I take a light grip on Jackson's arm.
"What do we do?"
Just then we hear Chloe call out to us.
"Guys! Move out of the way."
The four of us more to one side of the room, as Chloe steps in with a homemade flamethrower on her back. As she begins to turn the flames on some of the rats Jackson calls out.
"Queens! Get the queens!"
"Get out of here!"
Jackson and Abe hurry Jamie and I out of the hotel, Chloe following behind us. When we get outside there is an ambulance, firetrucks, and police cars. We are checked over by the EMT's which as this point is as routine as taking a shower or boarding a plane. Jackson had just gotten finished with the EMT's and so had I when sheriff Bowman comes up to us.
"Fire got them all."
Jackson nods.
"Any pups that survive, they won't last long. Not without the females."
"I called an off-island exterminator, just to be safe."
"That's a good idea. Oh, Becky, this is my fiance Katherine. Katherine this is my childhood friend Becky."
I smile at her and extend a hand.
"It's nice to meet you."
"It's very nice to meet you too. It's nice to meet the women who managed to tie Jackson down."
The three of us share a laugh.
"But you two look really happy."
We nod and look to each other. Becky clears her throat.
"But there's something more to it, isn't there? Whatever it is you guys are looking into?"
"There might be."
"Well, good luck and be safe, and don't wait another ten years to come back here. This island is still great. When it's rat-free."
Jackson nods.
"Hey, Becky, I need to apologize."
"For what?"
"For disappearing, back then. And never explaining why."
"You didn't have to explain, I knew. Everyone knew what… was going on with your father."
"Right…"
"Besides… we were 12."
Becky smiles and walks off after the two of them share a laugh. I stand to walk back up beside Jackson.
"You had good taste when you were 12."
"I like to think I have good taste now."
Jackson turns and wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me close.
"I think your taste is pretty decent."