by Finley Aaron
But when they started flying at me, diving at my face and shrieking their blood-curdling little bat screams, I had to defend myself.
I know, I know. I’m a dragon. Bats are tiny. There’s that old rule about picking on someone your own size, and bats clearly are not even in the same category I am.
For the record, the bat started it. And my tennis racket was nearby.
And I didn’t mean to kill it. I just meant to stun it, or shoo it away from my face, or whatever. It attacked as I was on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water after waking up in the middle of the night. I was groggy and disoriented. This wasn’t exactly my most well-thought-through moment ever.
I felt bad. I still feel bad.
The bat, on the other hand, smells bad.
I didn’t realize they had enough flesh on their little bodies to even stink, but when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by the stench of decomposing bat flesh (generally, we dragons enjoy meaty smells, but decomposing bat flesh is surprisingly unappealing). Since I couldn’t leave it lying all bloated and rotting on the kitchen floor (my thought the night before was that it would eventually revive and fly away), I stuck it in a baggie in the fridge.
Then I got to thinking, you know, bats don’t usually attack. When I say attack, that’s just what I mean. It wasn’t that this little flying mammal just happened to cross my path…several times in a row. It was coming straight at my face in a loud and aggressive manner.
So then I thought, maybe there’s a problem with it.
Maybe it has rabies.
Do yourself a favor, okay? Never google rabies. Just don’t. You’ve got to trust me on this. If you google rabies, you will see pictures of people dying from rabies, and you can’t un-see something like that.
It is seriously not cool.
Rabies have got to be one of the single most awful ways to die in the history of death.
So now I have a rabies phobia, in addition to having a dead bat in my fridge.
It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning.
The thing about bats and rabies is, bats can bite you without waking you up (I learned this online—I am now a bat/rabies expert). See, their teeth are tiny and sharp, so if you’re sleeping deeply, you might not even feel it. So, the official recommendation of all the health sites I visited, is that if you wake up to find a bat flying around near you (and for the record, no, my bedroom door was not closed—in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bat was part of the reason I woke up in the first place), you have to assume you may have been bitten.
Maybe that sounds like a stretch, but here’s why you have to err on the side of caution: if you get bit by a bat that has rabies, unless you promptly receive a round of vaccinations, you will die.
That sounds dramatic, like maybe I’m exaggerating, but it’s actually flatly true: from the onset of symptoms, rabies is fatal, so you have to start treating it from the moment you’ve been bitten, even if you’re not sure you’ve been bitten, because the alternative is death.
Painful, ugly death.
So now it’s still not even eight in the morning, and I’m sort of freaking out. At this point, the only way I can avoid getting a series of painful shots, is by having the bat tested for rabies, and even then, it has to test negative. If it tests positive, I’m getting shots.
Fortunately, the critter is still in my fridge.
Unfortunately, according to some of the websites I visited, it’s actually illegal to kill bats. They’re a protected species. Who knew?
What you’re supposed to do if you wake up and find one flying around your room, is to capture it and hand it over to the proper government authorities for testing.
Testing which I’m pretty sure requires them to kill it.
They can kill it.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t supposed to.
Since the number for the testing place (which is affiliated with the University I attend, yay) is on my computer screen, I decide to hurry up and call and get it over with.
But, as I realize while the call is ringing through, it’s still not yet eight in the morning, so there’s nobody in the office to answer the phone, and I leave a message about the bat and needing to get it tested for rabies, and I specifically omit the fact that the bat in question is actually dead.
Maybe they won’t notice?
Then, since I have class at nine, I hurry to shower and eat breakfast, and keep the phone close to me. But the phone doesn’t ring—the doorbell does.
I literally have my toothbrush in my mouth as I hurry to answer the door.
There’s a guy in a parka standing on my freezing cold stoop.
“You have a bat?” He asks.
“Yeah.” I sort of splutter and try to suck my toothpaste foam back into my mouth at the same time. Did I mention the guy is cute? And I probably look like a foaming-at-the-mouth…rabies victim? Then, since it’s crazy cold out and I’m standing here barefoot (Montana in February, folks) I invite him in. “This way.”
I hurry to the kitchen with the dude at my heels. By racing just ahead of him, I manage to reach the sink, spit, and wipe my face on a towel before he enters the room.
Yes, I’m that smooth.
“It’s in the fridge,” I explain.
“Is it…alive?”
“Uh, well, it was.” I pluck the baggie tentatively by one corner and extend my hand to him. “Not sure if it still is, or not.” I give him my best hey-you’re-the-expert-not-me look, with an if-it’s-dead-it’s-totally-not-my-fault finish.
The guy takes hold of the bag with way less tentativeness than I exhibited. He’s wearing thick leather gloves, so he can do that.
He scowls at the bag, turns it over a couple of times, slowly, scowls some more, and even sort of squeezes its little bat head. “You killed him.”
“What?” I glance at my tennis racket, which is leaning against the kitchen wall. Note to self: next time, at least hide the weapon.
“His skull exhibits all the signs of blunt force trauma.”
“His skull is like an inch wide. How can you even tell that?” I step a little closer to have a look for myself. What is this guy, some kind of bat forensics expert? “You know, he may have crashed into the wall, or something. He was flying erratically—which is part of why I’m concerned he may have rabies.”
“He doesn’t have rabies.” The guy announces, shaking his head and looking almost…sorrowful? Seriously, I think he’s sad about the bat being dead.
Like I didn’t feel bad enough before.
“How do you know he doesn’t have rabies? Don’t you have to test him first?”
The guy sucks in a breath. “I can get back to you about that. Let me leave you my number.” He drops the bat baggie on my kitchen table, tugs off a glove, and picks up my pen, which is still on top of the open notebook I was using to take notes for my senior thesis paper.
I’m thinking, what, this guy doesn’t have a business card? But then again, he’s probably just a student worker, and there are so many of them the University probably doesn’t bother giving them all business cards. This guy looks about my age, even though he’s tall and wearing a puffy black parka, which makes him seem big and imposing.
He jots a number, followed by the name Constantine.
“Constantine,” I repeat, blinking at his neat-but-rather-angular handwriting. The number is not the same one I called earlier. A direct line, or Constantine’s own cell number, perhaps?
Constantine’s looking at my research books, which are piled all over the table with color-coded neon sticky note tabs sticking out everywhere. “You’re studying Dracula? You’re interested in vampires?” He gives me an intense look that’s maybe a little worried.
“Not so much the vampire part of it. Just the history. I’m a history major. It’s for my senior thesis paper.”
“It’s only February. You’re off to an early start.” Constantine looks at me with sincere concern in his chocolatey brown eyes.
“
Actually, I’m behind. I’m supposed to have three primary sources, but I only have two. If I’d have known that ahead of time, I would have picked a different topic, but there was a third resource. I just…can’t find it.” I stop babbling. Why am I telling this guy all this? He’s a bat forensics student, or whatever. He probably doesn’t even care about obscure Romanian history.
“So will you have to pick a different topic, then?” For a guy who came here to pick up a bat, he seems sincerely concerned about my thesis paper.
“I think it’s too late. We had to declare our preliminary thesis two weeks ago, and I thought then I’d found a copy of the book I needed, so I turned in my initial summary and got it approved. Now I’m locked in. The professor was adamant about making sure we’d done our bibliographical prep work ahead of time—I guess he’s had trouble with students procrastinating until the last minute before—so if I change my topic now, I’ll get a late grade for everything I’ve already submitted, because the new material will all be late. And I’ll also have to basically start over, so, yeah.” I blow a huff of air at my bangs.
What I don’t tell Constantine is that the whole reason I picked this topic, is because there’s an abandoned castle in Romania that I love, but when I tried to find out its history and who owned it, I found links to Dracula.
As in, the real, original guy, not the hyped-up blood-sucking mythical monster.
The real guy was named Vlad Dracul, and dracul means dragon. Granted, it’s frequently translated devil these days, which is a derogatory term that chafes me to no end, but that’s beside the point. The point is, historically, dracul, or draco in Latin, meant dragon. Dracula means “son of the dragon”.
Which makes me wonder if Vlad really was the son of a dragon.
But of course, I can’t tell any of that to Constantine, or anybody else.
I’m just curious, and I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by making the subject of my curiosity the topic of my senior thesis, but we can all see how that’s backfired.
Even Constantine can see it. He’s standing here in my kitchen looking at me with…I don’t know. Pity? Concern? No, that’s not quite it. He almost looks like he’s weighing whether he should try to help me, but of course, that’s absurd. That can’t be it.
No matter how much it looks like it.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, I’ve got to get to class.” I tear the bottom bit of paper off the open notebook page and jot my name and number as well. “Can you call me if that’s rabid?”
“I will call you,” Constantine vows with a somber smile.
And behind the smile, he still has that look, like he’s trying to decide…
But he shakes his head, plucks up the baggie, and heads out the front door.
I hurry out a few minutes later, in time to make it to class. It’s not until I turn my phone back on after class and listen to the message from the Diagnostic Testing Lab (whose call back number is identical to the number I called that morning) that I realize a couple of things.
One is that the University apparently doesn’t send somebody to pick up bats—you have to bring them the animal and fill out a form.
The other—and this is the one I probably would have realized earlier if I wasn’t in a hurry and trying to cover up the fact that I’d murdered the bat in question—is that when I called earlier, I left my name and phone number and a brief message about a bat.
I didn’t give them my address.
Foundlings
Hastings, Nebraska, USA
Monday, December 18, 1989
The north wind blasts me with such force, I stagger half a step back through the library doors before bracing myself and pressing forward.
It’s going to be a long walk home.
Three whole blocks. Normally three blocks is nothing, but today, in this wind, with fine pellets of snow assaulting my eyeballs like tiny ice bullets, three blocks is forever.
I’m clutching a stack of books to my chest. Now I angle my arms higher so the books cover the left side of my face. I hate to make the books bear the brunt of the weather, but if any of us are going to get home through this, we’ll all have to sacrifice a little. Besides, I’m holding them spine up. The pages are protected, more or less. And they’re library books, with that plastic coating that may not be bullet-proof, but is at least ice-bullet-proof.
My hood is strapped tight to my head by Velcro tabs just under my chin. If I angle my face to the right, the wind doesn’t blast my eyes quite so hard, but it also makes it more difficult to see.
At the corner, I glance both ways before heading straight north, into the wind and icy sleet.
Now there’s no way to angle my face to stop the wind. I can look straight down at my shoes, but then I can’t see anything of where I’m going.
I just want to get home.
There’s a shortcut through the alley. Instead of walking a full block north, I could turn off halfway, take the alley for two blocks, and go in through the back door.
Not only would it be faster, but the houses and trees would help cut the wind.
The only reason I don’t take the shortcut every time I walk home from the library, is that’s where the seniors like to hang out and smoke.
I am a freshman. Worse than that, I’m a freshman carrying library books.
As I’m considering the option, a particularly forceful blast of wind shoves me back, peeling the hood away from my head.
For a second, it’s all I can do to stand strong against the gust without slipping on the pellets of ice accumulating on the sidewalk.
Then I tuck the library books between my knees, wresting my hood back into position, pick up the books again, and press on as far as the alley, where I turn.
Shortcut it is.
I mean, what are the chances the seniors are out there smoking today, in this weather? They’d have to stand up tight against the buildings just to keep their cigarettes lit. Besides, I’ve only ever seen them there on my way home after school. I stopped home first, then went to the library for almost an hour. Surely, even if they were there earlier, they’re not there now.
Right?
I hasten my steps. If I wasn’t wary of slipping and falling on the ice, I’d break into a run. Even being careful, I nearly slip and fall twice, flinging my arms out wide to keep my balance, exposing the library books to more sleet. I should have brought my backpack, but when I left the house an hour ago, the sun was shining.
I’m halfway through the first block of the alley when I see them, stepping like shadows from the back of a building, the tips of their burning cigarettes lit like burning eyes.
Like six burning eyes.
With six bulky seniors behind them.
I glance side to side, but the topography of the alleyway hasn’t changed since the last time I walked it. Buildings line both sides, blocking the wind, and blocking my escape. Unless I want to turn around and go back the way I came, there’s no way out but to keep going, past the guys.
I weigh the choices.
Honestly, I would turn around and run if it wasn’t for the likelihood that they’d come after me. These might not be the kinds of guys I want to walk past while carrying an armload of library books, but they’re most certainly not the kind of guys I want to turn my back on. They’re faster than I am even when it’s not icy out.
“It’s that Rude Boy.” One of them recognizes me.
I keep walking toward them, nodding to acknowledge his greeting, because I know from experience if you don’t acknowledge their greeting, they will hold you by your collar with your feet off the ground until you apologize.
“Rude Boy,” another one calls as I draw closer. “Why you so rude, Boy?”
“It’s Rudy,” I explain in my most non-confrontational voice, because if you don’t answer a direct question like that, you might end up with a black eye—which is a much more difficult injury to explain to your parents than bruised ribs or skinned knees. “Short for Rudyard.”
&
nbsp; The guys all laugh.
Laughter is good. It might even mean they’re in a good mood today. Maybe I will make it through the alley after all. I’ve almost reached the place where they’re standing. I’m maybe ten feet from the senior closest to me.
“Rude Boy,” another one of them calls, as if daring me to correct him.
Here’s the thing—I have an overbite. It’s not so bad most of the time. I don’t even notice it, really. But growing up, it gave me what I guess you’d call a speech impediment. It wasn’t bad. My teachers could all understand me. Anyone who was actually trying to understand, could understand.
Of course, these guys aren’t trying to do anything but pick a fight. They don’t want to understand me, so they exaggerate the way my words sounded.
I guess when I said Rudyard, it didn’t come out sounding like Rudyard.
“Rude Boy? Oh, what’s wrong, Rude Boy? You’re short of yum yums? You’re short of dum dums?” They’re not particularly bright when it comes to witty taunts. Now they’re just being silly, mocking me.
That, by itself, would not be so bad, but they’re also lining up across my path, forming a solid wall of seniors, blocking the alleyway.
I stop five feet from them, just out of arm’s reach.
Clearly, I should have run when I had the chance. Now it’s too late. I don’t even have a head start.
“Rude Boy’s just short.” One of the taller guys announces with a chuckle.
I chuckle, too. Maybe they’ll decide I’m not hurting anything. I’m not worth their time. Maybe they’ll let me pass.
I’ve talked to Master Sparks, my taekwondo instructor, about what to do in moments like this. He’s taught me all the typical self-defense moves—plenty of kicks and punches, but mostly evasive maneuvers. Master Sparks is big into avoiding confrontation, especially when outnumbered.
His most recent advice? Just keep walking. Pinch your eyes shut, and picture the place you most want to be.
Though I can’t imagine it will do me any good, I try it. Maybe it’s because I trust and respect Master Sparks, but more likely, it’s just because I have no better options. I’m not going to win a fight against six guys bigger than myself, nor am I likely to outrun them on the ice.