Jeff Rovin: Vespers

Marc picked up the rubbery suit and shook it out. “Anyway, drugs wouldn’t explain the boundaries those bats set. Or the timing. Why now?”

“I’m hoping the bats will give us some of those answers when I go in.”

With the bright TV lights on and the news cameras turning, Joyce took off her shoes. Then she slipped into the leggings and built-in boots. Though her mind was on the bats, there was no ignoring the invasive cameras and the hot white lamps. They answered a question her unlamented, was-I-really-that-lonely boyfriend Christopher had asked over and over and over. Getting dressed and-especially-undressed on camera was not something she could ever get into.

The one-piece antibat outfit was heavy and loose-fitting, like a radiation suit. It was colored Day-Glo orange with reflectors on the front and back to prevent her from being shot by hunters. There was a zipper in the rear, another around the neck, and one more around each sleeve to attach to the gloves. When the headpiece and gloves were attached, the suit was completely sealed, except for the faceplate, which was made of rigid plastic mesh. That allowed her to communicate and to breathe.

Marc helped Joyce finish dressing. Before donning the headpiece, she slid on a lightweight radio headset. Marc donned his, and they checked the reception.Then the young man took a large flashlight and Nomex sample bag from the compartment under the motorcycle seat.

“Doctor,” Kathy Leung asked. “Will it be all right if we light you up out there?”

“Sure.” Joyce pointed up with a gloved hand. “See the way those bats are zigzagging?”

Kathy said she did.

“They’re echolocators.” Joyce slipped on the hood. “Roughly half of all bats are. Vision is a secondary sense to them. Bats that rely on smell or eyesight to hunt tend to be frugivorous or nectarivorous.”

“Meaning you’re safe in the light unless you’re a banana,” Marc said.

“Fruit, nectar, pollen, leaves,” Joyce added. “They’ll eat any food that doesn’t move.”

One of the newsmen shouted, “Are you nervous, Dr. Joyce?”

Joyce paused and peered into the lights. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “Just awfully curious.”

“We all are,” said the health inspector, a chunky, balding man whose name Joyce couldn’t remember. “So if you’ll all just stay back and let Dr. Joyce do her work-”

After zipping up the “bat hat” as Marc was fond of calling it, Joyce turned toward the parking area. Marc handed her the flashlight and slid the sample bag over her arm. He gave her shoulder a little pat. “Good luck,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Trooper Anderson stepped closer. “Anything we can do?”

“Just keep everyone away,” Joyce said.

The cameras followed Dr. Joyce as she ducked under the yellow tape that had been stretched along the backs of the parked cars. Though the spotlights from the baseball diamond didn’t reach this far, the camera lights illuminated most of the parking area and about twenty feet of airspace. Joyce stood for a moment looking out at the forest some five hundred yards distant. Therewas something mysterious and seductive about it, like nights in Cornwall. For a moment Nancy Joyce felt like a little girl again.

She took a deep breath and slowly walked forward. Her footsteps and breathing sounded very loud inside the suit. When she neared the spot where Scott Fitzpatrick had been attacked, she stopped and tilted her head back. Her vision was limited by the sides of the visor, but it seemed as though the bats were still going about their business, just above the treeline.

“Marc?”

“Here.”

“What’re you seeing?”

“Bats bug-eating.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope.”

She started walking again. “Odd,” she said. “They don’t seem to be exhibiting any of the behavior the towns-people-”

Joyce gasped as a bat slammed against her face. Its claws and teeth locked onto the mesh and its wings batted fiercely.

“Shit!”

“ Nancy?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little heads-up.”

“It must’ve come in pretty low,” Marc said. “Damn. Sorry. I didn’t even see it.”

The bat twisted and tried to nibble at her nose, but it couldn’t get through the mesh. Joyce grasped the creature’s fat, round body between her thumb and index finger and pulled it away from the visor; the bat felt soft, like an overripe peach. The animal flapped and screeched, but she held firmly. She examined the wriggling creature under the flashlight.

“It’s a vespertilionid,” she said. “GenusMyotis, a little brown bat with-man, he’s jumpy-with what appears to be a normal physiognomy.” She angled the head back. It continued to squirm. “Enough, you.” She shoved a thumb under its jaw, steadying the head and forcing the mouth open. “No rabid salivary accumulation or discoloration. Also no discharge from the nose leaf or eyes to suggest a viral infection. Weight seems normal, about ten grams.” She pushed aside the fur of the lower belly. “And it’s a young male, so scratch my theory that they could be females protecting a nurs-”

Joyce’s head snapped back as three more animals flew at her face. They attacked the mesh, and she lost the first bat. The new sets of teeth twisted left and right, trying to bite her nose, eyebrow, chin, and cheeks. Joyce angrily pushed them away. They came back.

“ Nancy, yousure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. From the corner of her visor Joyce saw the first bat circle up, stop, then shoot down to the back of her glove. It clutched her knuckles and tried to bite her wrist. “They’re just getting a little pushy. Hold on a second. I want to check something.”

Joyce leaned her head forward slightly. She breathed deeply through her nose. Then again. She smelled the distinctive dampness of the bats’ breath. A meal of a few thousand bugs a night produced a “swampy” odor that the bat shared with no other animal.

“The nose lab gives me a normal on bat halitosis,” Joyce said. She felt a flurry of tiny punches along her arms, legs, and torso as other bats struck. She continued walking. “That would rule out a toxin or bacteriological or parasitic infestation that might affect the stomach acid, give them bad breath.” She inhaled lower. “The fur smells musky, as it should. Except for the violent behavior, I’m not seeing or smelling anything unusual.”

“I am,” Marc said. “You’re wearing four bats.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Iam worried. That suit was tested for guano and a bat or two, not catastrophic exposure. Listen, why don’t we just take one of the cars? We can drive in closer.”

“No. The gas fumes and noise might change the bats’ behavior.Besides,there are still far fewer bats than attacked the field before. Can you see if they’re flapping?”

“They are. Why?”

“Because if they were only trying to bite me they wouldn’t be moving their wings.”

“Right. Well, they’re not feeding. This is definitely an attack.”

“Bats as territorial carnivores,” Joyce said. “There’s your doctoral thesis, Marc-”

The scientist started as another bat slapped against the mesh. It cried in a high, ululating chirp as it joined the other bats, snapping and pushing its flat muzzle at the plastic.

“This is unbelievable!” she said.

“What?”

“The way they keep throwing themselves at me.”

Joyce stopped and shoved the flashlight in her sample bag. Then she dug her fingertips under the bellies of the squealing bats and roughly pushed them off. Retrieving the flashlight with her left hand she began rapidly waving her right hand back and forth. Though the bats continued to fly at her, Joyce was able to swat them aside.