Jeff Rovin - Vespers

At first, in the subdued light of the bus, the things looked like campfire ash or fall leaves blown by a strong wind. They were swirling forward rapidly, an expanding spiral moving this way and that. Their approach caused most of the seventeen passengers to flail their arms, scream, and duck down. As the things continued toward her, Dori saw what they really were.

Bats.

Shrieks filled the bus as Dori crushed the brake. The vehicle stopped; the bats kept going. Four of the small, tawny creatures were on her a moment later. Their wings were dry and soft as they fluttered against her. She snarled at the bats as they tore at her face and scalp.

“Get off me!”

Dori leaned forward and tried to reach the lever that opened the door. But she retreated an instant later, forced to cover her eyes. She shook her head violently, but the bats wouldn’t leave. They clung to her bobbed black hair and ears, to her slender fingers and knuckles. Every move, every moment brought new pain. She felt like she’d run deep into a thorn bush and couldn’t get out.

Screams bounced through the bus. Burying her eyes in the crook of her right elbow, Dori wrapped the arm tightly around her face. Then she turned herself back toward the dashboard and felt blindly with her left hand for the lever. When she found it, she pulled hard.

The door folded open. The cool, brisk air rushed in off the Hudson River. The bats continued to attack.

Dori cried out in desperation. She half stood and threw herself against the window to her left. The bus began to roll forward. She hit the window again and again, banging her hands and forehead against the pane until bat blood mingled with her own blood and bat cries joined hers.

The bus angled toward the road divider, then rammed against it and stopped. Tires squealed as cars braked. A van smashed into the rear of the bus, jolting it forward. Horns blared angrily. Behind her, passengers screamed and shouted. But Dori wasn’t aware of any of them. Her world was bounded by bats and defined by pain.

There were no longer any bats in the air. Two or three of them had latched onto each of the passengers. Most of the riders had folded themselves in the narrow space between their seats and the backs of seats in front of them. They were trying to duck in a face-down position. A few had fallen into the aisles and were pulling at stubborn bats or kicking the air in pain. No one was able to get free of the small, fast-flapping attackers. Not for more than a moment.

Suddenly, the cars went silent.

Then, as one, the bats stopped attacking the passengers and flew in a mad, cat’s cradle pattern toward the door.

A motorist ran to the door to see what was wrong; the middle-aged woman ducked as the bats zigzagged past her. When they were gone, the woman hurried up the steps and knelt beside Dori. The driver was curled in a ball on the floor and crying softly.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked.

“It hurts,” she said. Her face and the backs of her hands were a meshwork of fine, red stripes.

Several men arrived. They ran around the women and checked on the other passengers.

“I called nine-one-one,” she said. “The police are on the way. You’re going to be all right.”

Dori attempted to get up. She was trembling. The woman gently pushed her back.

“Don’t move.”

“My passengers-”

“You stay still, Ms. Dryfoos,” the woman said, reading her name tag. “They’re being looked after.”

“The bats?” Dori said.

“They’re gone. They flew off.”

Dori used the side of her hand to wipe blood from her eyes. Still shaking, she said, “Emergency brake,” and pointed to a spot under the steering wheel. “Push it.”

“Of course.” As the woman went over to engage it, she looked out the windshield. She froze.

“Ms. Dryfoos, how do you close the door?” she asked urgently.

“The lever-there,” Dori replied. “Why? What is it?”

The woman quickly pushed the bar. “Because the bats are coming back,” she said. “A lot of them.”

Gentry was sitting back on the couch, enjoying the late summer breeze coming through the window and watching the end of some police show on TV. His eyes were half shut and his mood was one of dreamy satisfaction. He liked knowing that Nancy had fallen asleep in his bedroom, in his bed. Nancy Joyce was not a woman who needed looking after. But she did need sleep, badly, and it made him happy to know that she was comfortable enough to take it here.

His contentment evaporated when the show was interrupted by a news bulletin. Gentry was alert immediately.

“Good evening, I’m Patrick McDermot,” said the local New York anchor. “There is a developing situation in upper Manhattan. For more information, we’re going live to reporter Kathy Leung. Kathy?”

If Kathy was in New York, it had to be bats.

“ Nancy!” Gentry shouted as Kathy came on. He grabbed the remote and punched up the volume. “ Nancy, come here!”

He heard her stumble from the bed.

Kathy said, “Pat, just over an hour ago, a commuter bus starting across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey was attacked by bats. According to passengers of the bus, the batspoured from the lavatory in the back and attacked every one of the seventeen people onboard, including the driver. Though there were no fatalities, that was only the start of what’s shaping up to be amajor problem for the city of New York.”

Nancy shuffled into the living room. She was round-shouldered and bleary-eyed. “What’s wrong?”

“A bat attack on the George Washington Bridge,” Gentry said.

Joyce was instantly alert. She remained standing as she watched.

“What you’re looking at now,” Kathy continued, “is a view of the skies over the Hudson River. Immediately after the attack on the bus,thousands of bats began gathering over the river. What’s astonishing is that they’ve remained in the skies as their numbers swell.”

“Kathy,” the anchor asked, “where are these bats coming from?”

“Ernie, it seems like they’re coming fromall over,” she said. “We’ve been talking to air traffic controllers at JFK and LaGuardia, at Newark, White Plains, and as far north as Newburgh. Their radar has been picking up movement that’snot attributable to aircraft. They say it’s being made by bats.”

“Do you have binoculars?” Joyce asked.

“In the closet.” He pointed to the hall.

Joyce hurried over.

“What are you going to do?” Gentry asked.

“I want to get to the river,” she said. “See what’s happening.”

Gentry grabbed his pager, pulled on his shoes, and ran after her.

It was only a block to the West Side Highway. Traffic was thin and Joyce didn’t wait for the light. She ran across, Gentry beside her. They jogged onto the pier at the end of Christopher Street. The wide, reconstructed deck extended several hundred feet into the Hudson, and during summer days it was jammed with sunbathers. Tonight there were about two dozen people. All of them were standing and looking north. They had probably been here already, enjoying the evening, when someone noticed what was happening.

Joyce reached the end of the pier and looked north through the binoculars. “Holy Mother of God.”

Gentry peered up the river. Four police patrol boats had stopped around the lower Eighties. They were shining their spotlights up and toward the north. It looked like a scene out of an old war movie: the white lights crisscrossing against the black sky with waves of enemy aircraft moving overhead. Only instead of planes they were bats. More police boats would probably be taking up positions north and south of the bridge to keep sea traffic from the area.