Bats

by William W. Johnstone

  The sheriffs looked. The sheriff of Catahoula said, “Bats did this, Phil? Bats?”

  “Bats. A huge, mutant strain. They think, they reason, they plan. And they’re organized.” He rose from the table and slipped a cassette into a VCR. “Watch this.”

  The men were shown the films of the attack at Johnny’s house, the bats charging out of the timber. The sheriffs sat in stunned silence.

  “I had copies made. The federal people told me to tell you to show them to your deputies and heads of civil defense, and no one else. The reasons behind that are obvious.”

  “Panic,” one sheriff said. “We’d have people shooting at shadows. All right. Let’s talk about evacuation.”

  “It’ll probably come to that,” another said. “But we’re talking about thousands and thousands of people. Every national guard unit in the state would have to be mobilized to protect homes and businesses against looters. Two or three dozen towns.”

  “The logistics are staggering, I know,” Phil said. “But we have to plan for it.”

  The sheriff of the parish directly north said, “Phil, if we start urging people to pack for possible evacuation, we’re going to have wholesale panic from the git-go. And probably thirty-five to forty percent of the population will just refuse to leave their homes. And I don’t have the personnel to force them to go.”

  “I know. I know. I hit the same problem. Only a very few of the rural folks elected to leave.”

  “And have any of them been attacked by these bats?”

  “Three. The old couple and the kid fisherman. So far. That I’m aware of. Four, counting the reporter. They’re all dead.”

  “Shit!” the three sheriffs said together.

  The four men were meeting at the country home of a friend, who was at work. All of them were dressed in civilian clothes and all driving unmarked cars. There were no sounds of any highway traffic.

  “I get the feeling of being totally alone,” Phil said. “It’s like my parish is cut off from the outside world. That’s not true, of course, but . . .” He trailed that off into silence.

  “Can you give me an approximate figure on the number of bats, Phil?” the sheriff of Madison Parish asked.

  “Thousands.”

  “And you have no idea where these things are roosting or nesting or whatever the hell bats do?”

  “Not a clue. I’ve had planes and helicopters in the air since the beginning. They haven’t found anything.”

  “They might not even be roosting in your parish,” the sheriff of Concordia Parish said. “They could be in my parish . . . anywhere.”

  “Yeah. And that’s a hell of a large area to have to search. Barksdale is sending down some choppers to help us, as is Fort Polk.”

  The sheriffs rose and shook hands, each wishing the other good luck, the unspoken thought being that they were sure as hell going to need all the luck they could muster.

  * * *

  The coven was gathering at Clyde’s place. The parish drunk, Rex Kenny was sober for the first time in years. Just the thought of drinking any type of liquid sent him into a wild rage. Lark and Lila sat together on one of the couches, drooling on the carpet. Wade and Wanda sat on the floor, both of them nurturing savage and violent thoughts. Lucille Barnstead sat thinking about her many ex-husbands and wishing they were all in the room—so she could kill them. Louis Bankston had not gone to work that day. Yet. But he had plans to do so. He also had plans about his co-workers. Dark, evil plans. He had taken their taunts for years. Now it was pay-back time. He knew that several of the teachers stayed after classes were dismissed. Wouldn’t it be fun when the kids came to school tomorrow and found them? Oh, my, yes. And if they weren’t at the school, he knew where they lived. That might even be better. Certainly much more private. Louis got up and walked out of the house without saying a word, his hands clenched into fists of rage. No one noticed him leaving.

  The mechanic, Sam, and the twins, Dot and Don, sat looking at each other slobber. Somewhere in their hideously infected brains, they knew something was terribly wrong, but they did not know what it was.

  Neither did the preacher’s kid, Victor. He would have loved to drop some acid or snort some coke or shoot some smack or suck on some grass, but swallowing hurt him. So he was relatively straight for the first time in years. It was a weird damn feeling, man. Strange. He thought about his parents and hate filled his feverish eyes. Always preaching at him. Victor made up his mind that the next time either of them started spouting some of that Bible shit, it would be the last time they ever did. Yeah, man! Goddamn right! To hell with a bunch of peace and love. That was another generation’s slogan—not his. He stood up and followed Louis out of the house. He stood on the sidewalk, swaying slightly. Where to go first? Yeah. His old man’s church would be his first stop. The pious bastard would probably be in his study, working on Sunday’s sermon.

  “Betcha you won’t preach it,” Victor said. He swallowed hard. Hurt. Really hurt bad. He lurched to his van and drove off toward town. It was only early afternoon, but it sure was dark out. Weird looking, too.

  The bats hung from the limbs and watched him go. If a bat could smile, these did.

  * * *

  South Central Bell had agreed to once more fix the phone lines at the makeshift lab and to install phones in all the new trailers being set up around the buildings. All the live bats had vanished during the activity, disappointing the many scientists who had just arrived. But they were content, for the time being, to stand around the tables in the lab and oohh and aahh at the dead bats. What an important new discovery this was. This would really set those in the field of chiroptera buzzing.

  Several Louisiana State Troopers, including Captain Alden, had driven by and shook their heads at the sight. They knew, with a cop’s intuition, that the worst was yet to come. What they didn’t know was just how bad it was going to get.

  But they would. Soon. And so would the whole world. In vivid color. Complete with sound.

  * * *

  Victor found his father in the study of his church. The young man had entered the building silently, except for his ragged breathing, and slipped down the center aisle and through the pews like a ghost. Victor had made one stop before coming here: to his house, where he had picked up some heavy nails and a hammer. He had hoped to find his mother there, but she was gone. Oh, disappointment! Well, he’d deal with her later. Victor knew there was a ladder in one of the back rooms of the church. He’d need that. He paused and looked up at the cross on the wall behind the pulpit. It looked sturdy enough. He’d soon find out.

  Jesus, he was thirsty. But just the thought of water made his throat go into spasms and cause a foaming at his mouth. He looked like the madman he was rapidly becoming. He kicked open the door to the study and his father’s head jerked up in shock.

  “Victor! What’s the matter with you, son? What’s that all over your mouth? What are you doing with that hammer?”

  The son began stalking the father, his fingers in a death grip on the handle of the hammer. The father could see the rage and the madness in his son’s eyes. He rose from his chair and began backing up, edging toward the side door.

  “Victor, son. Think about this.”

  Victor grunted and slobber leaked from his mouth. He advanced slowly.

  The preacher fumbled for something to throw at his son. He picked up a Bible and hurled it; the Good Book struck Victor flush in the center of his face and broke his nose. The blood squirted, and Victor cried out in pain and dropped the hammer. The preacher bolted for the side door, and once in the sanctuary, he started pickin’ ’em up and puttin’ ’em down, the leather soles of his shoes causing him to go slipping and sliding on the carpet, waving his arms and hollering, with his son right behind him, grunting and slobbering and making all kinds of other disgusting noises. The preacher ran out the front door and rolled down the steps. He was up on his feet and yelling for help, running down the street of the river town with. his britches tor
n at the knees and his hands bloody from the fall down the steps.

  Victor was so badly out of shape from the heavy drug use over the years that he quickly gave up pursuit of his father. He staggered back to his car and drove off. “Hell with you, you sanctimonious old fart,” Victor managed to mutter through the thick slobber. “There’s always another day.”

  Not many more, Vic ol’ buddy. Not for you. Not for a lot of other people, too.

  Victor drove off in search of easier prey.

  * * *

  Across town, Louis Bankston waited in the darkened den of one of his co-workers, a coach whom he despised and had for years. As far as Louis was concerned, the man was a near cretin, both in appearance and mentality. And he also made more money than Louis, and that had always pissed him off.

  Louis heard the front door open and close and he got a firmer grip on the baseball bat he’d found in a closet. He had to suppress a giggle at just the thought of seeing this monumental idiot’s brain splattered all over the wall.

  Coach Wilson entered the den and flipped on the lights and Louis jumped out, swinging the bat viciously. Wilson stood rooted to the floor for a few seconds, his eyes wide at the sight of Louis Bankston attacking him with a bat. The man was actually foaming at the mouth. Wilson ducked a swing and the baseball bat creamed a lamp. The coach began backing up and talking to Louis.

  “Now, Louis, I know you don’t like me, but this is stupid. Let’s talk this out, Louis . . .”

  Louis swung the bat and knocked a chunk out of the wall. He screamed at Wilson and the slobber flew. Coach Wilson threw valor to the wind and got the hell out of the house. He hit the sidewalk running and hollering for help. Louis ran out the back of the house and through a yard, almost hanging himself on a clothesline.

  Louis got all tangled up in panties and blouses and sheets and pillow cases. A woman came screaming out the back door, shouting curses at him. She came to an abrupt halt when Louis got clear of the underwear and she got a good look at him. Louis’s eyes were wild with madness, and slobber was leaking from his lips. The woman went screaming and flapping her arms into the house, and slammed and locked the back door. She went immediately to the phone and called the cops. She remembered she’d left the keys in the ignition just about the time she heard her car crank up and drive off.

  “... And the son of a bitch is stealing my car right now!” she screamed into the phone. “He’s a madman, I tell you.”

  The dispatcher had just received a call from the Baptist preacher and one from a neighbor of Coach Wilson. What the hell was going on?

  He tried to calm the woman down. But she wasn’t having any of it. “First it’s bats!” she yelled. “Now it’s raving lunatics foaming at the mouth. Are you going to do something or just sit there with your dick in your hand?”

  The dispatcher held the phone out and looked at it, not believing what he’d just heard. The chief of police of the small force of city policemen walked in.

  “What’s the matter, Harry?”

  Harry handed him the phone. “Mrs. Scott over on Elm. You talk to her.”

  “Hello, Harriet,” the chief said. “What can I do for you?”

  She told him. Bluntly. Loudly. Profanely. She ended with, “And you can go find my car. It’s brand new, you . . . you . . . dipshit!”

  She hung up.

  The chief looked at the phone for a moment, then he looked at the dispatcher. “Are you sure that was Harriet Scott?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Has the whole world gone crazy?”

  The dispatcher answered the other line. He hung up and said, “Louis Bankston just ran Mrs. Scott’s brand new car right through Ed Mason’s bedroom wall while Ed and Sally was gettin’ it on. Ed said it was the first time he’d had a hard-on in six months. He’s pretty irritated.”

  “About his wall?”

  “No. About his hard-on.”

  * * *

  Cal called Johnny from the substation and brought him up to date about the goings-on in town. He ended with, “And Johnny, that old couple who was killed? State police just caught a punk who confessed to killing them both with a claw hammer. Tore their throats out. He had Mr. Morrison’s wallet in his possession.”

  “So that explains why they weren’t savaged like the cattle and that kid fisherman.”

  “Right. Bats didn’t have anything to do with it. Now the press is saying we all overreacted and the bat attack on the kid was just an isolated incident. And they’re all buying the story about that reporter’s death being caused by something other than bats. But Captain Alden says the road blocks stay up and the commander of the national guard says his people stay until the governor says to stand down.”

  “Wonder if Ed got his hard-on back?”

  Cal laughed and said, “You just won’t do, Johnny. You just won’t do.” He hung up laughing.

  Blair said, “What was that last bit, Johnny?”

  Johnny told her.

  “That’s awful!” But she couldn’t quite hide her smile. “And I ought to be ashamed of myself for finding anything funny in it.” Then she burst out laughing.

  When she had settled down, Johnny said, “This probably means that this Victor Boyce and Louis Bankston have been bitten and have contracted rabies. Cal said they were both members of Clyde’s little coven.”

  “I don’t know either one of them. They must have come into this area after I went off to school. Good God, but that stuff works fast. What has Phil ordered his men to do?”

  “I don’t know. But I know what I’d do.”

  Blair looked at him for a moment. She slowly nodded her head. “It would be the most humane thing to do, I suppose. But Phil will never order his men to do that.”

  “He won’t have to. After a few attacks from those infected and maddened from rabies, the deputies will fire on these unfortunates whether the sheriff likes it, or not. They won’t want to, but they will.”

  The phone rang twice before Johnny stilled it. He listened for a moment, grimaced, then hung up. He turned to Blair. “That was Mark. Clyde’s little coven have all disappeared. But saliva samples taken from the floor at Clyde’s house show that they all are infected with rabies. Sheriff Young and Captain Alden believe they’re on the prowl.”

  “God help us all,” Blair said.

  Thirteen

  Long after Blair had gone to bed, Johnny sat in the den and studied maps of the parish. Johnny had a hunch that these mutant bats roosted together—no proof, just a hunch. But the maps showed him no place in the parish where that might be possible.

  Old maps. That’s what he needed. Tomorrow he’d round up some old maps and study them. He was convinced—without any proof—that the bats were nesting within a five mile radius of his house. Each morning they flew back, although now they had changed their flight patterns slightly, and that told him the bats were very smart, and each evening they flew out.

  He paid little attention to the now familiar sounds of the huge bats slamming against the wire mesh of his windows. He knew that the windows would be covered with the bastards. That afternoon, with Blair helping, Johnny had cut and shaped heavy pieces of expanded metal to fit over the windows inside the house. Johnny had screwed in strong hooks for the metal screening. That would allow them to get the metal screens up all over the windows in the house in a very short time.

  Johnny finally looked up from the maps to stare at the bats gathered on the wire at the window close to his chair. “You’re not going to beat me, gang,” he said aloud. “No way.”

  The bats hissed and shrieked and bared their teeth at him. Johnny reached over and pulled down the blind. “Go to hell,” he told them. “And good night.”

  He went to bed.

  * * *

  Out in the parish, things were just not going well at all for the members of Clyde’s little coven. As one print journalist would write after the horror was over——or when he, and most others, thought it was over: Clyde and his followers were to be pit
ied, for they were in the unbreakable and incurable grips of one of humankind’s most terrible diseases, rabies. They had no control over what they did. But that does not lessen the suffering they inflicted upon others nor excuse the stupid behavior which led to the coven members contracting the disease.

  To a person, Clyde and his followers knew they were very sick, and after listening to the news that day, they finally understood they were suffering from rabies. Their reactions to that could have been anticipated.

  “We infect as ... many as we ... can,” Clyde managed to push the words past his swollen tongue, slobbering all over himself in the process. “This is our ... punishment for not following ... the ways of the Prince. Now . . . go!”

  The coven members scattered all over the parish. Although their brains were rapidly being turned into pus from the hideous disease, they could, for a while yet, understand what was going on. They had all, to a person, withstood the whispers and the taunts of others for years, now they knew it was pay-back time. They were going to die, they understood that. So why not take as many of the nonbelievers with them as they could?

  The cloven members struck hard and often that night, but were only successful in only a few of the attacks. People are just not going to sit by and let some deranged-looking person with slobber dripping from their mouth bite them on the neck or face. Rural folks have a tendency to reach for a gun when they hear suspicious noises outside, and most rural people have dogs that not only bark, but bite. Lark and Lila both got bitten by dogs that night, one on the leg and the other one in the ass. Percy and Rene got hopelessly turned around after leaving Clyde’s house and spent the night in their car. However, Clyde, Dark Moon, and Royal Crown were successful in their attacks on a farm family.