Sleep Tight by Jeff Jacobson Read Free Book Online Page A

The headlights illuminated a vast chasm. Fifteen yards out, the ground dropped steeply and disappeared, leaving hulking mountains of rotting garbage. Metal and plastic gleamed dully through the blackened ooze like bone as flesh decayed around it. The smell slithered through the air vents and cracks around the doorframes and sizzled in their nostrils. Tommy had expected it to smell like a bad Dumpster in the summer, but this didn’t have that revolting element that made your gorge rise. It had a burnt, chemical smell, like pepper spray steeped in bleach.
    Don wrapped a bandanna around his nose and mouth and tied it in the back. He hefted a Maglite, saying, “Time to earn our keep,” and climbed out. Tommy followed, still stunned at the amount of garbage. The cavern stretched as far as the headlights shined; the place must have been as large as a football field. Probably bigger.
    Don whipped the flashlight around. “Shut your door. Don’t need to come back and find any surprises.” He didn’t have to say it twice. Tommy slammed the door and the sound echoed across the immense cave. He flinched at the noise, feeling as if he’d just woken something dark and massive. Something that could seal off the tunnel before they got out.
    He hurried to catch up to Don. Don said, “Watch your head,” and shined the light at the cave roof, revealing a slab of rock that sloped down at nearly a forty-five-degree angle. Don squatted under this and turned the flashlight at clusters of rat corpses. “Anywhere else, you try and lay out some poisoned bait, the rats laugh at you. They’re too damn smart. And there’s plenty of food. But down here, I dunno. Maybe the toxic fumes scramble their brains. There’s always plenty of dead ones. Anyway, this is where you find ’em.”
    He led Tommy back to the van and they put on heavy leather gloves first, then disposable rubber gloves to cover the leather. Don took a box of blue plastic bags back to the rats. Tommy would hold each bag open while Don reached under the ledge and grabbed a rat by its tail. When the rat was in the bag, Tommy twisted the top and sealed it with yellow tape stamped with the three incomplete rings over a full circle, the sphincter-tightening symbol of biological hazardous material.
    When they had collected fifty rats, they put them in a metal bin in the back of the van and laid out more poisoned bait. The entire process didn’t take longer than half an hour. They stripped off their rubber gloves and left them in the bin with the rats. Back in the cab, they sat for a moment, pulling off the leather gloves.
    Tommy surveyed the rolling mounds of refuse. “Fifty rats. This doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, does it?”
    “Not one damn bit.” Don turned off the headlights.
    Darkness settled over the van with a totality that made Tommy feel as if someone had just pulled a thick rubber bag over his head.
    “Check this out,” Don said. “Give your eyes a sec.”
    Tommy’s other senses exploded into awareness. He clutched the door handle, just to triple-check the door was closed. Far off, he could hear a quiet skittering. The sound got closer.
    Don turned on the parking lights. Countless red pinpricks out in the distant darkness froze and watched the van silently. “Holy shit,” Tommy breathed.
    Don started the van, turned on the headlights. The rats vanished. “No. Not one damn bit,” he repeated. “Still, this is what we get paid for. Rats will always breed faster’n we can kill ’em. But it keeps Lee happy. And that, my friend, is the secret to a successful career in Streets and Sans.”

C HAPTER 10
    3:57 AM
    December 28
    Dr. Reischtal was down on his knees on the smooth, polished stone floor, under the window at the end of the hallway. His back was bowed, forehead resting on his clasped hands, and he was halfway through whispering his morning prayers when the phone rang.
    At first, he wasn’t sure how to react. His first instinct was simply to