Read Online Sleep Tight by Jeffrey Jacobson - Free Book Online Page B

through much of anything. Not like your cockroach, let me tell you. It’s not hard to trap them. If you could get by without all this furniture for some time . . . some considerable time . . . you could seal everything in plastic sheeting. Then we could go through the rooms, sealing every crack and crevice with clear silicone.”
    â€œWould that solve the problem?”
    â€œYou would have to store them for over a year.”
    â€œSo I could theoretically not dispose of these, and claim it on insurance?”
    â€œIf you have bedbug insurance.”
    Mr. Ullman studied his spotless shoes. “It was overlooked.”
    â€œI don’t know if your insurance will pay for it or not, but if you seal this furniture and this mattress and box springs, the rest of the bed too, just to be sure, then, yes, I think it would take care of the problem.”
    â€œAs soon as possible, get it done.”
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    The furniture was encased with industrial-strength plastic wrap and sealed with clear plastic sheets, to be on the safe side. All of it, the couches, the chairs, the mattresses, were triple sealed in duct tape. The workmen rolled it away to the freight elevators while more exterminators arrived to seal the cracks between the floors and the walls, all electrical outlets, light fixtures, and anywhere else a dime could fit sideways. The carpets were steam cleaned again and again, and inch-wide double-sided tape encircled the inside of every vent.
    The furniture was taken to the basement, where it was wheeled past the massive clothes washers and dryers, then carried down the stairs through the narrow walkways between massive pipes and various industrial machines, down into the third level of the sub-basement. The concrete here had been slapped against the crumbling walls that linked tunnels under the Washington and Lake train stations. They pried open a steel door at the far end, and packed the furniture inside a room the size of small church. The door was padlocked, sealed with duct tape, and promptly forgotten by the staff.
    It took only a few seconds for the noise from the workers to diminish and disappear completely. Thirty minutes later, the first rat squirmed into the room from a crack in the far wall and sniffed the furniture. In three days, the rats began to build a nest. They tore through the plastic like a toddler going after a sliver of cake wrapped in Saran Wrap, digging into the soft underbelly of the cushions and mattresses.
    The bedbugs grew aware of the new blood and crawled out to feed on the sleeping rats. As the rat nest grew, so did the bug population. The bedbugs encountered the bat bugs inside of the second week.
    Bedbugs and bat bugs are so similar that each species can only be distinguished by microscopic examination. Inevitably, some of the male bedbugs attempted to mate with the bat bugs. The males crawled over the bat bugs, stabbing the females in the abdomen with their hypodermic genitalia, filling the body cavity with sperm. All but one of the traumatic inseminations produced sterile offspring. This one female found a quiet spot inside one of the expensive mattresses and laid three sticky white eggs. Fourteen days later, the eggs hatched.
    All three bugs carried the virus.

PHASE 2

C HAPTER 13
    11:07 AM
    April 14
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    When the seasons change in Chicago, the transformation can be startling. Bare branches become lush and vibrant; trees seem to appear out of nowhere. Bushes flourish like a happy cancer, hiding garbage and cracked foundations. Grass turns green overnight. Even the air smells different, as if it were being piped in from somewhere down south.
    During these first few weeks of true warmth, the city’s denizens peel off layers of clothing, like snakes shedding their skin, and emerge from the darkness of winter hibernation with pale skin and an insatiable lust for the sun. A collective sigh of relief can be heard, and just like the plants and trees, the abandoned