Jeff Rovin - Vespers

The dead bat was more than just the female’s partner, her brother, and the father of her unborn pup. To the female, the sound of his heart and his breathing would be as familiar as her own. The closeness of his body would be the only warmth she’d ever known. He would have led her to food supplies and water and shelter and protected their nest from intruders. To the female, the dead bat might have been the greatest part of life itself.

The giant bat crept back a step and threw her wings out grandly. The right wing hit the wall behind the table, crushing the second fire extinguisher and shattering the emergency light above. Joyce turned up the burner. The long flame sizzled as water fell through it. In the hissing orange glow she saw the giant bat turn toward her. Spray from the sprinklers washed over the bat’s face and wings and dark fur. The bat’s gem-red eyes fell on her and on Lowery. Then the animal’s mouth pulled wide and turned upward and Joyce heard a sound she’d never heard from a bat or any other creature. It started low, like a moan, then grew louder and higher until Joyce had to put the burner down and cover her ears. Lowery dropped the fire extinguisher and it rolled away. Even with her palms pressed tightly against them, the shriek knifed through her ears, shattering the glass in the cabinets, until it finally passed from the audible to the inaudible.

The bat remained on the table, her mouth drawn open, the silent scream stirring the other bats from their hiding places.

The cry caused the frosted glass of the door to explode. The bats raced in, the crush causing some of them to become impaled on broken fragments that were still in the frame. They filled the room, flying in every direction, distracted by the water falling from above. A few, flying under the others and protected from the spray, started biting at Joyce. She dropped the burner, which rolled away and died in a puddle. A moment later she lost her footing on the wet tile floor and landed hard on her back. She managed to flop onto her belly to protect her face. Bats bit her back, neck, and legs.

“Nannie-”

She looked ahead.

Lowery was lying several feet away at the foot of the locker. The scientist was curled on his left side in a fetal position, his arms wrapped around his head. Bats covered his side and hands.

“Nannie!”

He was reaching blindly for something.

The fire extinguisher. It had fallen over and rolled several feel away.

The woman scrambled across the slippery floor. As she did, bats gathered on her, biting and scratching. She’d been nipped by bats before, though not by as many or so often. She did what she’d learned long ago to do on cold nights: relax. It didn’t lessen the prickling pain, but it kept her from jerking this way and that each time a bat nipped or clawed.

As Joyce neared the fire extinguisher, the giant bat suddenly leaped down. The floor wobbled as she landed. In almost the same movement she slammed her right hook into Lowery’s back, dragging him across the wet floor as she turned toward Joyce. The ivory white claw penetrated the professor’s right shoulder amid a fountain of blood; he writhed and pulled at it but the she-bat didn’t seem to notice. After a moment he went limp.

The bat raised her other hook.

There wasn’t time to think. Joyce was moments from being impaled. Rolling toward the bat, she grabbed the fire extinguisher. The enormous bat hopped toward her as Joyce lay on her back and turned the nozzle up and sprayed the contents into the bat’s face.

The giant staggered back, still holding Professor Lowery. Joyce fired again, this time into her mouth. The other bats instantly broke off their attack, flying back to shelter out of the rain.

Joyce looked at Lowery. Blood was pouring from his body. His arms and legs were limp.

“Marc!” she cried.

“Yeah!”

“Get outnow! ”

The young man slid from under the desk, pulling the reluctant Heidi with him. He continued to hold her hand as he helped her to her feet. He pushed her ahead of him and looked back at Joyce.

“Go!I’ll hold her back!”

“I’ll get help!” he said.

He ran out, and Joyce turned back to the giant bat. The bat had pulled her claw from Professor Lowery and was shaking her head violently. The water was washing the foam away. Joyce hit her again.

The bat stumbled back against the sink, her great wings stiffening, her body deflating as she exhaled.

Joyce knew that wasn’t going to hold the bat much longer. She also didn’t want to run. The thing would chase her through the museum where other people might be injured. Firing one more blast of foam, Joyce slung her arm behind her and threw the fire extinguisher at the bat. It hit the creature in the left forearm. Then, turning to her left, Joyce reached for the handle of the locker door. She yanked it open, stood, and squeezed in sideways. She took a wire hanger from a hook, slipped it through one of the vents in the door, and pulled it shut.

It was dry in here, though water dripped from her hair into her ears and mouth. She began to tremble from the cold and ended up crying with fear and the horror of what had happened to Professor Lowery.

Joyce listened. As she did, her mind beat up on her.

Lowery is dead.

She breathed rapidly and the locker warmed.

I should have done what he told me.

The dark made everything seem louder, closer. She heard the flap of the bat’s wings, like someone shaking out a rug. She couldn’t tell whether or not it was coming closer.

No. That wouldn’t have made any difference. Two fireextinguishers wouldn’t have helped.

She heard shouts from downstairs.

You did the right thing.

Then there was silence, but only for a moment. Suddenly the world turned sideways as the locker was wrenched away from the wall and dragged loudly across the laboratory floor. A moment later the top and bottom of the metal cabinet slammed hard against something. There was a brief respite, the locker tilted farther, and then it was slammed again-

The hole in the wall. The locker was being pulled against it.

Joyce’s breath came faster as panic gripped her. She thought of the deer in the tree, the bicyclist carried into the tunnel, the man swept from the train platform at Christopher Street.

The bat was trying to take her away.

Detective Anthony raced along Eighth Avenue to Columbus Circle. En route, Gentry used the car phone to try to raise Professor Lowery’s office.

The phones were not working in the laboratory. The detective also wasn’t able to reach museum security and was furious with himself for not having accompanied Nancy.

The car rounded Columbus Circle. Anthony cut through the traffic coming the other way and sped alongside the park. As they headed north, Gentry was overwhelmed by the panic he saw. Anthony had to swerve, stop, and start as people ran and stumbled into the street, trying to get away from the bats. It reminded him of the cockroaches that had been flushed from the walls of his apartment building. People didn’t seem to be runningto anything, just away. And there weren’t many people helping other people. They were looking after themselves. Not out of selfishness but out of necessity. The bats turned each person, each part of the body, into a battle zone.

And the people were losing.

“Isn’t there anything we can do to help?” Anthony asked.

“If we get out, the bats will bring us down,” he said. “And if we stop to let anyone into the car, we may be overrun.”

Overrun by bats and by people. Overrun by panic and fear.

The detective looked up as they drove past the rows of stately and exclusive apartment buildings that lined the broad street. Small fires were burning in the windows of several apartments. They could have been caused by struggles around candlelit dinners, by bats that had flown too close to gas burners, by people who tried to chase away the creatures using makeshift torches. Gentry could also hear the high-pitched whine of the smoke detectors, which seemed to make the bats even more agitated.