Their sonar was beyond human ears, yet the lower components of their squeaks created a strange cosmic rustling. The already suffocating atmosphere was made worse by the heat created from the thousands of racing bodies. Stroud and Magaffey were spattered by their angry droppings. There were several thousand bats, as thick as snowflakes in a driving gale, circling around and around their heads, flying at such speeds they must all be using their sonar. Stroud wondered how they kept from jamming one another's signals, how they kept from colliding with one another. Their capabilities were beyond science and technology. He was momentarily entranced by the dance of creatures that predated man by eons.
Their huge wings beat steadily now as long skeins of them kept a level, purposeful course across the huge cavern and out through another tunnel. As they exited, they left behind several pods of resting bats that seemed to be covering the stalactites in an attempt at gaining the moisture and coolness there.
“Some bats have taken to feeding on meat, Stroud.”
He turned to look into Magaffey's eyes. “Vampire bats, I know.”
“Some prey on roosting birds, some take frogs and small lizards, and one species is reported to feed on other bats.”
“I thought they just sucked the blood of animals, like feeding at a horse's throat, penetrating the vein.”
“Some do that as well. An American species even manages to fish, Stroud. Remarkable adaptors, actually. At dusk the fisherman bat beats up and down over ponds, lakes, or even the sea. The tail membrane of most bats extends down to the ankles. In the fisherman bat, it's attached much higher up, at the knee. So, the legs are quite free. It trails its feet in the water, talons I should say--hooked-shaped claws. When they strike a fish, the bat scoops it up into its mouth and kills it with one powerful crunch of its teeth.”
“You seem to know a lot about bats.”
“I do now. The most specialized of the bunch is the vampire bat. It lights on a sleeping mammal, say a cow or even a human. Something in its saliva contains an anticoagulant, so that the blood, when it appears, will continue to ooze for some time before a clot forms. The vampire squats over the wound, lapping the blood. It flies by sonar ... the reason dogs are seldom attacked by them. Dogs are attuned to very high frequencies. They can hear them coming.”
“What does all this have to do with Banaker and--”
Magaffey grabbed up the flash and fired its light at one of the pods of remaining bats--the stalactite just over Stroud's head. Stroud instinctively ducked when the maddened flock erupted in a whirlwind, beating past them. When Stroud straightened up, he saw that the light revealed a stalactite that was translucent and in the see-through stone was the form of a human being rooted to the ceiling by its feet, its head nearest the swelling dung heap on the floor below it. Stroud, aghast at the horrendous sight, thought of fossils and whole skeletons and even completely preserved bodies in arctic ice. The facial characteristics were indistinct, blurred by the webby, cottony, slick, and icy-looking covering. Whoever it was, she--for the hair was dangling and long--had been drained of all color. She was as white and as still as stone sculpture.
“What ... what is it, Magaffey?”
“Once your grandfather found the Ashyers like this, in one of these caves.”
“Who ... who is it?”
“From the appearance, I'd hazard only one guess: Pamela Carr.”
“Cooper lied to you.”
“Cooper said she'd gone. That might've meant anything.”
“We've got to get her out of here.”
“We can later, Stroud. She's already dead. Look at her.”
Stroud refused to believe it.
“She was one of them, and this is her punishment.”
Stroud was weakened by the thought and the sight. Then he realized there were other bats on other clinging stalactites all about this chamber. He grabbed up the flash and attacked the other bats with the light. Each group in turn revealed a cocoon with someone or something in it. One had been eaten away by the bats, and all that remained were the desiccated parts of a dog--Timmy Meyers' dog. Another revealed the remains of a boy long since dead--Cooper's son. There was a large woman in a third, also long since dead, now the fodder of the smaller bats. Finally, there was one that had movement inside, although faint and barely noticeable.
They scrambled to this one and Stroud tore away at the sticky, slimey substance that imprisoned the occupant. He ripped and pulled with the end of the pickax he took from Magaffey until a naked, frail white arm fell out, the hand reaching out to them, a murmur of anguish welling from inside the bubble the monster had built around the body of Dr. Cooper.
“Get him free, keep working at it!” Stroud shouted to Magaffey. “I've got to try for Pamela.” He raced to the first cocoon, tearing away at it until her eyes shone from deep within the complex maze of tissue and web, telling him in no uncertain terms that she was beyond help. He rushed back to Magaffey and Cooper.
Cooper's feet were entangled at the top of the waxy tissue, twisted round and round in the fiber, attached to the ceiling wall as if by glue. They now had the bottom of the pod open and grabbing him around the chest, Stroud heaved and pulled to free the smaller man.
It worked and Cooper, dripping with a salivalike substance that was milky and semenlike in color, wobbled on his legs, unable to hold himself up. Stroud felt the weakness, as if his limbs were water draining off the man. He'd wasted away to frail bone and loose skin, some of it loping in folds as he moved, reflecting the fact he was not quite human, that he had folds of skin between his arms and back that if extended would form wings. The sight made both Magaffey and Stroud back off instinctively. As Cooper tried to stand on his own, tried to right himself, he looked like a bat struggling with extreme dehydration. There was a sheen in his eyes that told the men that he was blind to them, and his lips curled into a puckering O. He “saw” them only when he sent forth echo-locating, high-frequency sound waves. He also located the pickax where Stroud had left it half buried in the earth beside the now crushed cocoon.
“Cooooooooper?” asked Magaffey. “Is ... is it you?”
Cooper replied with a piercing screech as he threw what was left of his body onto the upturned pick, driving it home exactly where his heart was, dumping what remained of his life fluids over the ugly instrument of his death. Cooper's body then began to visibly disintegrate, rotting before their eyes and poofing into an acrid smoke and chemical residue in the dirt.
“My God!” said Stroud.
“We'd best pray to God there aren't others encamped here now,” said Magaffey. “We must race from here, now, Stroud, now!”
“But we can't do that!”
“Now, before it is too late, before we are gathered up as fodder for these vile creatures! Hurry!”
“We have the proof we need in Pam Carr's body--preserved as it is. Proof that the vampire species exists! And here are the drained bodies of two humans. With this big woman, who's most likely Mrs. Bradley--all of this--we won't need that body in town.”
Magaffey slowed his retreat from the cave, turning, the light outlining his shaking form. He nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, you're right. We must get what we can into the helicopter.”
“We can use the coffins, the sterilized dirt. If we can get Pamela Carr into one of them, it may preserve the body, keep it from the sudden onset of decay Cooper's went into.”
“The cocoon obviously has helped us in this. We would have done well to keep it intact.”
“Let's get her out to the chopper first, get her nailed into that coffin.” Stroud saw only a vestige of the erotic woman he'd been attracted to in the mesh of silky white cocoon covering. Like Cooper, she was hideously deformed and decrepit-looking, her limbs like those of the bats--sticklike and scant. Her skin was loose and flapping with the movement of the cocoon as they picked their way over the dung hills in the dark. Only the light at the end of the tunnel provided any sliver of pleasure in their minds. It was the work of ghouls and
grave diggers--necessary, but brutal to the senses.
-17-
Banaker's approach to the caves showed full well that Stroud was here. It had been no false fear he had had of the powerfully built grandson of the man his own father had done battle with, and he himself had done battle with. Here, like a nightmare from Banaker's past, stood the ugly helicopter--machine of his father's destruction. His father and he had canvassed the machine as it raced from these very caves that night, blotting out the sky to those inside, terrifying them as the helicopter raced for Stroud Manse. Banaker's talons had gone right through the window and he saw that the hole was still there; he'd clutched the elder Stroud by the throat, tearing at his jugular. The pilot had frozen in fear at about this time, just as the copter was settling onto the ground, when suddenly Banaker's father was somehow caught up in the whirling cross overhead, sucked into the rotar, and twisted and torn into pieces before he could counter the devastation with a change of his shape. Banaker's father was killed, mangled beyond help, his blood spilling from so many wounds and rents he could not be saved, not even by his physician son.
Now Banaker hovered over the terrible instrument of that night's work, knowing that in the caves another of the Stroud brood--those who had chased his kind and destroyed his kind throughout history--was here to kill Dolphin. Ironic, he thought, that both of them had come for the same purpose. On the other hand, this new threat from outside the family could have a positive effect, could bring father and son together, to finally unite them against their common and ancient foe. How ironic, he thought.
Dolphin, like Stroud, was nearby. Banaker could sense him, waiting, watching, animal-like in his crouch and crook, about to spring on his unsuspecting father. Banaker had to get to the boy, knock sense into him, and together they'd get Stroud and in the triumph of sharing that auspicious moment, Dolphin would be accepted back into the fold and his sins forgiven. He expected Dolphin to attack with all his wiles, but Banaker felt he could overcome the boy and set him to right thinking at last.
Banaker drifted in a cold fog through the side of the hill and into the cave where he saw that Magaffey was with Stroud and that the two of them were taking something from the cave--the body of Pamela Carr. It enraged him to see what Dolphin had reduced her to. With the passing of the two mortal fools, he went closer to inspect the spotty remains of Cooper. He saw Cooper's boy--just a rack of bone inside the cocoon now. He saw the Bradley woman and the dog. The scene had a strange double effect on him. It made him sick at what Dolphin had done to endanger them all, and sick at seeing proof positive of his cannibalism toward his own kind, but also it made him salivate with the memory of fresh blood coming warm out of the living flesh. The memory had an odor attached to it, the odor of coppery blood, and in the recesses of his vampire mind he also recalled the effusive feeling of strength, well-being, and comfort in taking the power of another living being and infusing oneself with this power.
Sure, there were trade-offs to being able to live more peaceably and undetected among the humans; at moments like this, he understood Dolph's needs far more than Dolph might imagine.
Where the hell was the boy? There wasn't much time if they were to stop Stroud and Magaffey returning to Andover with evidence of vampires living among the sheep.
He formed into the bat creature he was. These surroundings, so far removed from the Institute and even the mausoleum, were for him a coming home. He flew deeper into the bowels of the myriad of caves in search of Dolphin. As he did so, he sent out radiating mental pleas to his only son. Along with his telepathic distress call, he forwarded his unique and unmistakable echo-location radar. Dolphin had a clear shot at him now, if he wished to attack.
“We must hurry,” said Stroud to Magaffey.
“Don't you think I know that?”
They'd placed what was left of Pam Carr inside one of the coffins, nailing it shut. Supposedly, the neutral earth would destroy all vermin, parasites, and other creatures that went into the making of this vampiristic femme fatale. They were now backing from the cave with the heavier body of Mrs. Bradley, drained white, very dead, but still quite human in appearance. One could not say the same for Pam Carr.
“I sense something nearby, Magaffey,” said Stroud, “something watching us.”
“Perhaps we best make this our last trip.”
“The Cooper boy's remains might go a long way to prove our case.”
“Agreed.”
“And the Meyers boy's dog. The fact they all came from this same cave.”
“Right enough ... then we'd best continue.”
They placed Maude Bradley into the second coffin of sterile earth, banging home the lid, before returning to the cave for the two smaller bodies. “Mr. Bradley's body is by now embalmed and on its way out of town,” said Magaffey. “I had no idea we'd run up on this lot. My intention was to show you a cache of bones below some of the bat droppings--human bones. The devils've become more active than ever.”
As they neared the remaining bodies they heard a rumble of falling debris deep in the cave, followed by billowing clouds of dust-smoke and a high-pitched squeal, almost piglike, of something in pain. It froze Magaffey and Stroud had to shout at him, “Grab the dog! I'll have at it with the boy. Magaffey, do as I say!”
“What the hell was that?”
“Never mind! Go!”
“Son, we'd better run! It--this thing--it can outrun your granddaddy's helicopter.”
“Move along then, move, Magaffey.”
They rushed, stumbling and getting off the filth-ridden floor. In each man's mind was the fear of being caught and cocooned by the thing that had fed on the poor devils who'd slowly died here--both human and otherwise.
“Last time Ananias took off from here the damned thing chased him in the air, attacked the chopper while it was still airborne, nearly causing it to crash and burn. You saw the damage it sustained.”
The men retraced their steps, dropping tools and lifting them as they went. Magaffey clutched the pickax as if it were a magical sword to be used against the thing that Stroud sensed more and more nearby. Stroud held tight to the boy's body in one hand, the tire iron in the other, wondering what use it would be against such a monster. Over his shoulder, he'd slung the stakes, and attached to his belt was the hammer--all dubious weapons at best.
Magaffey had the light now, but suddenly it went flying from his grasp, throwing them into darkness at the precise moment an enormous presence, like a rushing wind, knocked them both over as it passed. Stroud felt something physical flutter by his head and he smelled the animal stench of the wings in the dark. It felt like the largest bat in the cave.
Stroud had dropped the tire iron, and the small body fell aside as he searched in the total darkness. Magaffey was blubbering, “It's him! It's the thing! Oh, God, God!”
“Get the light!” said Stroud, seeing it wheeling about, creating a strobe effect on the wall, some enormous black shape blotting out the wall up there near the ceiling. There was no mistaking the beating and rustling sounds of bats, but this time the sounds were somehow amplified, larger.
Again the men felt the power of the creature that swept by like some prehistoric bird of prey. It took Stroud a moment to realize this was a second such monster.
Stroud floundered about the vermin-ridden earth until his hands found the large tire iron that represented a cross. Superstition perhaps, he thought, but he had very little else to guide him now. At about the same time Dr. Magaffey got control of the light and he bravely shone it on the two mighty man-sized bats atop the cathedral of the cave battling one another. It was like a fierce war between two dinosaurs. Whole sections of the wall were caved in by the force of battle. In the light Stroud caught glimpses of the ugly talons, the incisors, the batlike features about the head and face and the skeins of dark skin between the bony, elongated fingers that stretched the length of a man's arms. The sacklike, agile skin was unlike Cooper's only in the color, his having gone near white.
The snouts of the two battling creatures suddenly turned on the light, their blind eyes feeling the heat of it, their mouths punctuated in circles to send out the telling message that two animated objects besides themselves were in the cave. Magaffey shouted at Stroud, “Hold up the tire iron, boy! High!”
Magaffey's light, hitting the tire iron, created the shadow of an enormous cross cutting a swath across the two creatures, searing their hair and skin, the resulting odor like singed wool. The cross had the effect of catching the creatures by surprise and temporarily disorienting them, especially the one nearest Stroud.
“Back out now, Stroud. Leave the kid!”
“But--”
“Do as I say, damn it! Hurry back this way, now!”
Stroud felt paralyzed but he forced his legs to move while his arms were extended, his grip on the tire iron firm. The stronger of the two batlike creatures swooped below the light and came at Stroud, knocking into him, sending him tumbling. The force was like being kicked by a mule or a shotgun. Stroud came up with a bleeding forehead and he heard Magaffey screaming. The attacking creature had him by the collar and was lifting him off the ground. Stroud dove for the ax the old man had dropped and sent it piercing into the creature's lower portions, a kind of dangling pair of fleshy feet. The talons were located high up, on the wingtips, just as those of a bat might be. The feet were also equipped with claws. The ax drew blood and the instant result was that Magaffey was dropped.
Stroud saw the second creature diving toward them and he held up the ax, readying to swing at the thing's chest. It appeared he had a clear shot with the powerful stakelike end of the ax when the second of the monsters flew headlong into its brother, averting it from Stroud's sure swing. The swing almost sent Stroud falling to his knees when he missed.
Suddenly, the place was silent, the creatures licking their wounds, hiding in a crack in the darkness. Stroud helped Magaffey to his feet and together, slowly but firmly, they backed toward the light and the freedom it represented. In a moment, they were clear of the cave, but they expected an attack from all sides and above on the bluff where the helicopter waited.
Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) Page 18