Steve Ely's Ratmen, a modern parable.
The man is a ratman. The boy is his apprentice. As they work the various infestations to which they are called, the man gradually inducts the boy into the trade, teaching him a repertoire of creative and bizarre methods of killing rats.
As the boy gains the man’s trust and respect via his developing proficiency in the field of rat extermination, the man progressively reveals his incredible Manichaean worldview.
Sceptical at first, and dogged by doubts about the morality and mechanics of up-close-and-personal-killing, even of rats, the boy is nonetheless hooked by the man’s lurid and dramatic expositions of his fantastic rat cosmology and by compelling anecdotes of spectacular rat slaughter.
As their anti-rat crusade develops in intensity, rhetoric morphs into terror, and a simple story of the adventures of two journeymen exterminators is transformed in an unforgettable and truly shocking conclusion.