Jeff Rovin - Vespers

“Why?”

“The doctor will explain.”

There was a short delay. Rhodes could just picture the lieutenant growing more and more frustrated as he and the technophobic Desk Sergeant Terry tried to work out the mechanics of switching the call. She also knew that Kilar wouldn’t give up. He might pound the table and threaten to shove the radio up some part of Terry’s anatomy, but he wouldn’t give up.

Rhodes moved ahead several steps. She cast the light here and there, then came back to the group. The rear lip of the helmet was chafing her neck and the vest was hot. She was uncomfortable. But she wanted to do what the hell they came down here for.

A woman’s voice crackled from the radio. “Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here. This is Field Sergeant Laurie Rhodes. Are you Dr. Joyce?”

“Yes,” the caller said urgently. “I’ve been talking to your sergeant. I don’t believe that you’re equipped to deal with what you may find in the tunnel.”

“Why? What may we find?”

“A colony of bats,” Joyce said.

“Bats?”

“Yes. Extremely vicious ones, probably belonging to the same colony that killed a group of homeless people under Grand Central Station this morning. There may also be a much bigger bat than the rest-we’re not sure.”

“Big enough to shoot?”

“If you were lucky enough to see it, and see it in time, maybe.”

“Understood.” She thought for a moment. “I just want to be clear about something. We’re wearing heavy vests and helmets, as well as ratproof gloves and boots. Are you certain that these willnot be sufficient to protect us?”

“Sergeant, it won’t evenslow the bats,” Joyce said. “They’ll crawl under whatever you’ve got on. They’ll bring you down. And once you’re down, you won’t get up. Please-call off the search.”

Rhodes glanced down the tracks. She moved the flashlight around even slower than before. “I don’t see any bats,” she said, “and we have an injured man somewhere down here.”

“Bats don’t store their food,” Joyce said. “They eat on the run. The man is probably dead already.”

“Dr. Joyce, are you saying they ate him?”

“Officer, I don’t know.Please come out.”

Rhodes stood there a moment longer. Then she walked a few more yards into the tunnel. The blood on the ground had thinned. Then it stopped. She kept walking, her boots crunching on the black dirt beside the track. She shined the light ahead, then up. She still didn’t see the victim, but he had to be near.

“Sergeant?” Joyce asked.

Rhodes hesitated. If it were just her life at risk, she’d stay and search for the missing man. But it wasn’t. Reluctantly, the officer turned and walked back toward the team.

She never reached them. A pair of bats slammed into Rhodes’s legs, directly behind the knees. It took only a second for them to bite through the trousers to her flesh.

“Son of a bitch!” she yelled.

She put the radio and the light on the ground and turned to smack at the animals. As she did, she was pelted by a dozen more bats. They hit in quick, stinging succession, like pellets from a BB gun. They pinched the back of her vest, arms, and legs.

The two officers closest to her, Brophy and Hotchkiss, ran over. The bats were too small, and Rhodes was squirming too much for them to use their tasers. This close, it would be easier and safer to attempt to pull them off. The officers began slapping and clawing at the bats, only to have the animals turn on them. More struck. Within seconds there were more than twenty of them.

“Are you coming out?” Joyce asked.

Rhodes didn’t answer.

“Can you hear me?” Joyce yelled.

Rhodes picked up the radio. “Lieutenant!”

There was a click as Lieutenant Kilar cut Dr. Joyce off. “Rhodes, what’s happening down there?”

She tried to answer, but she dropped the radio as she twitched and slapped at the bats.

“Sergeant, what’s the nature of your problem?”

“She was right!” Rhodes screamed. “It’s goddamn bats! They’re all over the place!”

One of them crawled down her forearm and slipped into the flared bottom of her glove. The bat chewed at the heel of her palm.

“Fuck you, rodent!” Rhodes cried.

She slammed her hand onto the ground; the bat was crushed by the blow. The officer yanked off her glove and shook the creature out. The bloody bat plopped on the gravel. It was still alive, its wings broken, and it tried to crawl away. She drove her boot down in it.

“Heel!”

“Rhodes!”Kilar barked.

“Wait!” she cried.

Before Rhodes could pull her glove back on, two more bats flew from the darkness. They attached themselves to the sides of her hand. Their teeth pinched like staples. Their breath came fast and hot. Rhodes screamed and tried to shake them off. They held on, their wings folded tight. Pain flashed down her wrist and blood dribbled along her sleeve.

“God, these bastards don’t give up!”

“I’m sending another unit down immediately,” Kilar told her.

“Give them heavy armor!” Rhodes shouted. “I’m going to try to evacuate my own unit!”

Allowing the pain to fuel her anger, Rhodes tore into the bats and then tried to help the other two officers. Officer Brophy was on his knees; Officer Hotchkiss had thrown his back against a wall, mashing two bats under his heavy vest. Rhodes was forced to stop as four more bats swooped in low. They swung behind her, crawled under her helmet, and bit behind her ears.

Officers Lord and Nicco started forward.

“Don’t!” Rhodes cried. “Get out! We’ll follow.”

The two officers stopped as Rhodes shrieked with pain. A bat had crawled into her boot and bit her ankle. She fell to one knee and pressed on the high Kevlar fabric with both hands. The bat dropped down to her heel to avoid being crushed. Her eyes wide, Rhodes wriggled her foot around as the bat bit it repeatedly. The others continued to pick at her arms, legs, and ears. Another attacked the nape of her neck. Her other knee hit the ground.

“I said go!”she yelled at the officers up ahead.

Just then Rhodes saw something move in the blackness. It was directly behind the two officers. As a bat crept under her neck and gnawed at her chin, the sergeant yelled for the officers to turn around.

Officers Lord and Nicco spun. Driving her chin into her chest to stop the pain, Rhodes grabbed her high-intensity light and swung it around. The bloody arm of a man had slipped from an overhead girder. She watched as the rest of his body followed slowly. The bloody corpse fell head-first and landed heavily on the track bed, face down. Black dust clouded around the body and puffed up through a massive hole in the center.

With a growl, Rhodes snatched the tenacious bat from her raw chin. She wadded it like waste paper, squeezed hard, and threw it down just as something else appeared behind the officers.

Rhodes squinted ahead and stared. The apparition was just outside the glow of the light, and she tried to make it out. Drops of blood were spattered across it like stars. Its eyes were dull crimson, and its teeth were like red ice. There was the hint of what looked like a nose, two damp, oblong gashes sloping upward and outward from the mouth.

The shape was there for only a moment. Two objects, like great hooks, glistened and shot forward. They impaled Officers Lord and Nicco and lifted them off their feet. The two men hung several feet up for a moment, trembling, then were thrown down. The hooks and wings flashed up into the blackness, and then the teeth and eyes vanished.

Sergeant Rhodes managed to draw her service revolver. But the bats wouldn’t let up, and the pain of countless bites had weakened her. She fell to one hand. Blood and perspiration blurred her vision. She tried to marshal her energies. But more bats came at her, attacking her wrists and forehead. The biting was constant now and much deeper behind her knees and elbows and neck. Each one felt like a staple fired nearly to the bone. Still kneeling, Rhodes dropped onto her chin.