"What were you running away from?"
The obvious; I think you can guess. The ironic part is that I promised myself I'd never get involved with a married man. My father left us years ago under those circumstances. We never even knew he was unhappy until the day he told us he was leaving. I'd always taken his love, his being there, for granted; I think my mother had too. To have that security taken away so suddenly and irrevocably was shattering. I watched what it did to my mother, how it changed her, the bitterness it left in her, and it frightened me. Sixteen years of marriage wiped out as though it had been a trivial affair.
"I still saw my father, I still loved him. But the change was in him.
It was as though his guilt was tearing him up inside -and the full realization of that guilt was when he was with me. I suppose in the end it made us both uncomfortable. We don't see too much of each other now."
Jenny's voice had become distant and Fender turned on his side, pulling her even closer. He was surprised to see there was no emotion in her eyes, just a dull flatness, as though emotions had long since been cried out.
"At fifteen I vowed I would never be like the woman that had caused such grief. God, how I hated that bitch. And then, five years later, I was that woman. Can you explain it, Luke? How can you become the very thing you loathe?"
She looked at him as though he really might provide her with an answer, but he shook his head. Things just happen, Jenny. You can't always control them."
"I tried, oh, how I tried; but he meant too much to me. I just couldn't stop myself, Luke, even though I hated what I was doing.
Please try to understand."
Her body trembled as she closed her eyes, and he could see the moistness creeping through the lashes.
"Jenny, Jenny, you don't have to explain anything. That was in your past; it had nothing to do with me." But it hurt, just the same.
"I want you to know, Luke. Like I said, no games between us." She kissed him, her eyes opening, allowing tiny rivulets to run from each corner. "He was the one that ended it and I guess I didn't put up too much of a struggle. I wanted him more than I could ever say, but I couldn't let myself beg; I couldn't fully become the woman I detested.
I'm over him now, Luke, please believe that. I still ... respect him; I still even like him. But the love has gone." She stared at the ceiling for a few moments. "I just drifted for a while after we broke up, then, when the opportunity came to join the Conservation Centre, I jumped at it. It seemed better than joining a convent."
He smiled at her attempt to make light of it. "And then you met Vie Whittaker," he said.
"I told you, there's nothing between us. He's a nice man, and interesting, but I only ever wanted to share the work with him, nothing else."
"I'm glad, Jenny."
Her head buried itself into his chest, her arms encircling him. "And I'm glad you came to the Centre. It's another irony that something so horrible should bring you there but I'm almost pleased the rats invaded the forest. Luke, don't get me wrong, I'm not putting any responsibility on you; but I feel alive again. The past may not be dead, but it's faded into another time. All I ask is that you be honest with me."
He pressed against her, his leg going between her thighs, and they held on to each other, the touch of their bodies an assurance in itself.
"It would be easy for me to say so much to you now," he whispered, 'but give me a little time. Let me finish this job first. I have to be sure they're really gone."
"You really hate them that much, Luke?"
"So much, I thought at one time I'd never have room for any other true feelings. You're breaking it down, Jenny, and I can't let you. Not until it's over." And then he told her why he despised the vermin, how his mother and father, his younger brother, had been slaughtered by them four years before, their bodies devoured, leaving hardly enough to bury. How he had pleaded with Howard to give him a job so he could fight all vermin not just the mutants to ensure that a disaster of that nature could never happen again.
Jenny cried as he spoke, feeling pity for him and a sad joy that he was speaking to her of things he had kept buried for such a long time. When he had finished, she held him till his body had lost its rigidity, had become relaxed, the tenseness gone. And he knew he loved her then, yet he could not allow himself to say it, fearing that with no barrier left between them, he would not have the courage to face what was still left to be done, knowing she would try to stop him.
It was only later, when he lay stretched out on the bed and she knelt next to him applying ointment to his injuries that he told her of the task he had been asked to perform within the next few days. Her hand stopped its soothing motion and she looked down at him in dismay.
"But surely there's no need?" she said "Surely they can just clear out the sewers with machinery? Why, Luke? Why do you have to go in there first?"
They want me to look for something ... I can't tell you what. I have to search the sewers before anyone else is allowed in. I won't be alone Captain Mather will be with me and there shouldn't be any more danger."
"How can you be sure? How can anyone be sure of anything with these monsters?"
It was a question he had asked himself many times that evening.
They entered the sewers wearing breathing apparatus, the stench of the rotting corpses wafting up from the opened manhole cover and sending their unmasked helpers reeling back. Fender and Captain Mather climbed down the metal ladder into the darkness below, both men fighting against their natural fear, expecting to hear the scurrying of clawed feet and squealing shrieks at any moment. They had waited three days before the final decision to go in was made; three days of pumping in more cyanide, listening for sounds through their receivers, praying it really was the end of the vermin menace. No signs of the creatures had been found above ground, but the soldiers and the operatives were still wary, their eyes continually looking around, searching the trees, the undergrowth, never venturing into the forest alone or unprotected.
Those gathered near that particular sewer entrance on the third day after the initial gassing did not envy the two men now descending into the infested labyrinth. The residue of lingering gas had been suctioned clear by the very machines that had pumped it in, but the thought of wading through the piled-up, decomposing bodies sent shudders through them. The soldiers were relieved that only two men were going down on the first mission, none of them keen to be part of a spearhead.
Both Fender's and Captain Mather's limbs were still stiff from the bruising their bodies had taken in the rat attack and they found their descent awkward, the protective suits and oxygen cylinders on their backs impeding their movements even further. Fender stood at the bottom of the ladder and swung the powerful torch he was carrying in a wide arc. A feeling of revulsion swept over him when he saw the heaped bodies, many with bloated stomachs, the result of a build-up of internal gases, others with jaws wide in silent agony, their legs extended stiffly into the air, their skin flaking and rotting. Mather joined him and regarded the nightmare scene with equal disdain, sweeping his torchlight into both directions of the tunnel.
He shone the torch on the boldly drawn map of the sewer network and a gloved finger pointed to their location. He then indicated the direction they had already agreed upon and Fender gave an exaggerated nod. The rat catcher moved off, Mather following close behind.