Jeff Rovin - Vespers

After picking up drive-through fast food, Joyce and Gentry got back on the road. Joyce wanted to go back to Manhattan instead of the Bronx. She was tired, but she wanted to be in the city if anything happened with the giant bat. If it was okay with Gentry, she said she didn’t have a problem crashing on the floor; it couldn’t be any less comfortable than some of the cold fields and rock ledges she’d camped on. Gentry said he had no problem with that.

They were silent for most of the ride back. Gentry had opened the windows and turned on the news, and they listened to reports about “the subway serial killer.” Police Commissioner Veltre speculated that it was a homeless “tunnel person” who had massacred other tunnel people deep under Grand Central Station, attacked the man at Christopher Street, and was still on the loose. Extra buses were being put on for people who didn’t want to ride the subways. Teams of police officers were being assigned to all the Manhattan subway stops for people who did. Gentry remarked that the police were making all the right moves for what they thought the problem was. Unfortunately, Joyce pointed out, if the bats behaved as they had elsewhere, those moves would be utterly ineffective.

They also listened to distressingly lighthearted reports about the “batfestation” in the West Village. Reporters had apparently bought the idea that they were stirred up by the serial killer who was prowling the subways.

Joyce wondered what they would say if she told them it was a giant bat. How many of them would believe her? Probably none. She still had trouble believing it herself. And as anxious as Joyce actually was to see the thing, to study a new breed of bat, the power of this creature-or creatures-terrified her. It wasn’t just the physical strength she feared. The mere presence of a large bat would not have made the smaller bats go wild. Most bats were cowards; a large creature of any kind would have driven them away. What worried her was if a giant bat could communicate with the smaller bats, actuallyinstruct them to attack people who strayed into their territory, then the situation could be catastrophic.

There were no other bat-related incidents in the news. Obviously, the vespers were resting. But she knew that wouldn’t be the case for long. There was a reason the bat had come out of hiding after eight years. Perhaps it had finally grown too large for its roost or for the local food supply. If there were more than one bat, there might be another reason. One she didn’t want to think about until she knew for certain the gender of the bats.

Joyce offered to drive part of the way and was glad when Gentry told her to relax. It was good to sit and semiveg out. She shut her eyes and slumped in the seat. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were shot. The feeling of heaviness in her limbs reminded her how they used to feel years ago when she went off with Professor Lowery on his expeditions. When she climbed cliffs and bellied along the ground and scaled barn roofs to take pictures for his books about bats. Proving herself had always been hard work.

When they reached Manhattan, Gentry returned the car to the lot and they cabbed back to his apartment. They turned on the ten o’clock news. Doyle was on, congratulating himself and the NYPD on a successful pest-control operation. Gentry turned the TV off.

“You did good, Al,” he said, “but it was only round one. Nancy, you ever play video games?”

“JustMs. Pac-Man when I was a kid.”

“This whole thing reminds me ofSpace Invaders orAsteroids. You clear one level and you feel pretty good about yourself. Then you get hit with the second level where everything’s twice as fast and three times as nasty. And you’re history in about two seconds.”

“There’s just one big difference,” Joyce pointed out.

“I know,” Gentry said. “The games have a reset button.”

Dori slowed as the traffic getting onto the George Washington Bridge began to thicken.

When she first started driving a bus six years before, thirty-nine-year-old Dori Dryfoos had the morning shift. The single mother thought she’d like shuttling businessmen between New York and northern New Jersey. They’d be neat, articulate, and reliable, everything her alcoholic, screwing-around, former jock of a husband wasn’t. Maybe she’d even get to know some of the men, meet a single one, and get asked to coffee or dinner or a movie. It could happen. But it never did.

The reality was that at least half the businessmen were networking, lost in newspapers or cell-phone-using bores. The other half were busy hitting on the young, highpowered, up-and-coming women who rode the bus. Some of the men gave Dori a “good morning” with their tickets. But most didn’t. And the women seemed condescending.

Dori hadn’t asked for the night shift just to get away from the morning commuters. That was just a side benefit. She did it so that she’d be home during the day with her three-year-old son, Larry. Day care just hadn’t worked out; poor Larry would sit in a corner and cry the entire time. Working the night shift, at least Dori could tuck the boy into bed while the baby-sitter looked on. Larry seemed much happier about that. And why not? No one liked to feel abandoned.

To Dori’s surprise, she loved the night shift. It was relaxing and invigorating. One of the afternoon-to-evening drivers would park in the New Jersey terminal lot at eight o’clock, where the bus would get gas and a cleaning. Dori would collect it at nine. Her shift ended at five in the morning, right before the hellish rush-hour commute began over the George Washington Bridge. It was perfect.

The nighttime crowd was always delightfully eclectic and slightly wacky. There were aunts and uncles and grandparents who had spent the day with family. There were teenagers going to Manhattan for God knew what, workers heading in for late shifts as security guards or street cleaners or disc jockeys or whatever else people did at night, and even the occasional nun or lap dancer or hustler. Dori knew a few of the regulars by name. It was too bad: some of the male hustlers had better manners than the businessmen.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Dori took a quick glance behind her. A thin, white-haired lady was standing in the aisle to her right.

“Yes ma’am?” Dori said.

“Is there something wrong with the lavatory?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“I think it’s locked.”

“Maybe someone’s in there.”

“No. I’m sitting right in front of it. No one’s gone in.”

“Well, maybe it’s stuck,” Dori said. “This is a pretty old bus. Maybe one of the gentlemen back there will give it a tug for you.”

“Thank you,” the woman said. “I’ll ask.”

Slowed in the moderate late-evening traffic at the entrance to the bridge, Dori watched in the rearview mirror as the woman made her way back down the aisle. She held the backs of the seats as she walked, then stopped beside a young man. He was probably a college student. He had that look. Muscular, blond, clean-cut. The youth smiled up at the woman, listened to what she had to say, then went back to help her. The restroom was a small compartment on the left side of the bus. He pushed down hard on the handle.

The traffic started to move as she got on the bridge. Dori took her eyes from the mirror and looked ahead. You didn’t see very many things like that in the morning, she thought. Simple courtesies. People who didn’t mind getting off their butts and helping people.

Suddenly, a terrible cry tore through the bus. Dori touched the brake, and her eyes snapped back to the mirror.

The young man was stumbling backward. As Dori watched, he fell across the lap of a young woman who was sitting opposite the restroom. He was waving his hands wildly as things flew from the opened door.The old woman fell backward, landing hard on the rubber flooring. She didn’t get up.