The Exterminator

1

"There's a goddamn rat in the cupboard again!" Angela Mitchell shouted after shrieking at the vermin. "Oh, my God, Randy! I can't live like this!"

Randy Mitchell came barreling down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he had made countless banquets for his wife over the years, often by candlelight. The rodent peeked its head up from the fifteen-hundred dollar stainless steel sink. The lifeless, beady eyes examined them both without thought of consequence. Almost as if the Mitchells had simply been nothing more than the rest of the fixtures. Randy found the thing repulsive in form and idea in that it had been in the sink where they kept the dishes, washed their hands, and got water to drink—cleanliness was the rule. The rat ducked back in, and they could hear the tapping as it explored this new space.

Angela boomed louder than her heavy footfalls as she made her exit. "That's the third one this week, Randy! Lay more poison. Set more traps. Whatever you do—get rid of those disgusting creatures before they become the death of us!"

It was the first time Angela voiced any displeasure of their home in twelve years. They bought this once modest place for a pricey two-hundred grand and renovated and expanded until it was as close to their (Angela's) dream home as any dream could bring. From the white oak flooring to the bedroom skylight. Where the full moon was often on display when it peaked down upon them. There was not a pool yet. But the jacuzzi was swell in the meantime. It gave him such pleasure to see her desires shaped within these walls. Never a moment of regret. Not even when the banks called to remind him of the ever-increasing interest rates Randy Mitchell assured weren't a problem as he worked himself down to the bone to pay. If Angela wanted it. There was never a price too high.

No, Angela had never spoken out of the house or the neighborhood it sat in. There was a lot she could have bothered with. The Johnston's four malamutes that howled in unison when the world seemed mute. Or the rash of break-ins last summer. The Davis boy, who hadn't the mentality to understand why you weren't allowed on someone else's property, and especially why you shouldn't watch them undress from one of the trees in the yard. She had taken a shine to the boy. Hell, not even when they briefly opened the paper plant that stunk up the entire town.

Not until the rats came. The foul little beasts had appeared from the wine cellar from behind the weakened southern wall. What attracted them? Neither could figure. The problem dealt with in poison patties and traps that would make a bear think twice. Which clearly hadn't worked as they seemed to support a hydra theory of killing one and two more appear, or else the Mitchells wouldn't have this current visitor spreading its foul disease in their pristine sink with all the little gadgets one could ever need in a kitchen.

It was funny how these things came to pass. Randy, watching as the rodent burrowed into the drain as his eyes flicked for some awful and odd reason to the switch beside the sink. It would save him time and the squeamish repression to beat it out of the house with a broom. That wouldn't be all too manly. Instead, and fast it had to be, flicking the switch to hear the faint squeal escape and become drowned by the sound of the whirring blades as they tore the rat to pieces. The drain belched out a gurgle of red. The sound of grinding as the disposal did its work in overtime. The last of it washed down as he prepped for an extensive cleaning. This afternoon requiring an extra beer or two to dull the memory.

Two days later, on a Saturday, Randy found himself in the wine cellar with neighbor Rob. Rob, who had dealt with coons last fall from entering his property from a hole dug under his fence from the woods that walled the backend of his land. It wasn't the same having raccoons digging through your trash instead of rats coming up from the basement into your living quarters. Still, two days later, Randy periodically cleaned the sink and all around to reduce the chances of whatever plague the rats carried from somehow infecting one of them or one of their dinner guests. A quick search revealed that they did, in fact, carry the plague. Uncommon, but that wasn't really the point, now was it? Diseased spreading vermin were never anything to take lightly, he thought more often than once.