Bats

by William W. Johnstone

  “But you said nature would take care of the bat colony.”

  “Not in the numbers you had here a few months ago. By now, if seventy-five to eighty percent had not been destroyed by fire, it’s conceivable that there would be half a million or more of those giant bats.”

  “Half a million?”

  “Yes. Easily, the way they breed. As it is, nature is going to have a time dealing with those remaining. It’s going to be quite a show. I’m rather looking forward to it.”

  Dr. Bajat left, smiling.

  * * *

  The bats struck all along the interstate that night, at every honky-tonk whose owners had the stupidity to keep open to the public. The huge bats started just east of Monroe and cut and slashed their way over to the Mississippi River

  It was cooling down in temperate North Louisiana; that time of the year when many people kept their windows open at night and turned off the air conditioning. The bar owners had opened all the windows—thinking that flimsy screening would keep the bats out—and the patrons were whooping it up.

  For many it would be their last whoop.

  The bats had their attacks down to near perfection, striking at the same time with military precision, along a line that ran east to west for nearly seventy-five miles. But for reasons known only to the bats, they would not cross the Mississippi River into Vicksburg. After they had done their grisly work, they turned south and vanished.

  The toll for that one short attack-time that night was seventy-seven dead and climbing. More than three hundred hurt, some of them seriously, many with eyes torn out. Disgusted deputies and state troopers and equally disgusted EMTs responded to the scene. Disgusted because to a person, they knew this carnage could have been easily prevented if those hurt had just used a little common sense. But it is useless to ask a certain type of individual to exercise common sense.

  Johnny and Blair sat in the den watching as a Monroe TV station reported live from the scene of some of the attacks. The reporters were understandably nervous about standing out in the open, and it was evident in their voices.

  The national press, after the deaths of several reporters, starting with Paul Steele and Carol, had become very cautious about where they reported from. It was not that they lacked courage, for many had reported from open combat zones in war. It was just that they were older and more experienced than the younger local reporters. The local reporters would learn, those who lived through this.

  “We’re next,” Blair said.

  Fifteen

  The residents of the river parish braced themselves for attack. They waited. And waited. Four days after the attack along the final leg of the interstate before crossing the state line the bats had yet to make an appearance. Roadside stands selling everything from hamburgers and hot dogs to T-shirts with the inscription I SURVIVED THE GREAT BAT ATTACK sprang up all over the parish. They blatantly ignored all warnings that they were placing themselves in danger. Roadside vendors who once sold statues of pink flamingos and wooden miniature windmills now exclusively sold statues of bats, all sorts of bats in all sorts of poses.

  “We really must get one for the front yard,” Blair said with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “Yeah. Right,” Johnny agreed. “And maybe one for the back yard, too.”

  The road in front of their house was filled with vehicles of all descriptions, from motorcycles to huge motor homes, endlessly moving up and down, the sightseers hoping for a glimpse of the bats.

  “I have reached the conclusion that a full twenty-five percent of the population of the United States don’t have enough sense to tie their own shoelaces,” Johnny said, his eyes on the busy blacktop. “Don’t those damn people out there understand the seriousness of this situation?”

  “You said it yourself, Johnny. They suffer from the ‘It can’t happen to me’ syndrome.”

  Mark was off duty and he drove up. After raiding the refrigerator, he joined Johnny and Blair on the porch. Holly and Rich were in their rooms, reading. “I got behind a half a dozen cars from Canada coming out here,” the trooper said, after taking a bite of a huge sandwich. “They looked like reasonably intelligent people. I guess that proves that appearances can be deceiving.”

  “Have you seen Tom today?”

  “Yeah. He’s over at the field office we set up. We’ve got twenty-five troopers in this parish now. And what appears to be twenty-five thousand tourists. And that’s not counting the press people. These old roads are really taking a beating. The bridge just north of here is out again. It just gave up and collapsed under the strain.”

  “That’s why we keep seeing the same vehicles over and over again,” Blair said.

  “If the bats attack during a heavy traffic time,” Johnny said slowly. “It’s going to be a real tragedy.”

  “That’s our thinking, too,” Mark agreed. “It’s only going to take a minor accident to block these narrow roads and the bats will do the rest. One good pileup and several hundred people will be trapped for hours. No tow-truck operator is going to get out to clear the roads if just one bat is sighted.”

  “What are your contingency plans?”

  “We’ve got national guard tanks situated in various parts of the parish. They’ll just push the damn vehicles clear of the road to open it ... if they have to.”

  “A lawyer’s paradise,” Blair said.

  “Yeah. We were told there have been over twenty-five thousand lawsuits filed against the state thus far. Pain and suffering, mental anguish, negligence . . . to mention only a few. You name it and it’s been filed against Louisiana. I wonder if a state can declare bankruptcy?”

  “Many, if not most of those lawsuits will be thrown out,” Johnny said. “I doubt very seriously if a state can be sued for an act of God.”

  Mark cocked an ear toward the radio in the den, playing softly. “I like that song. But I never heard that version before. Who’s singing that?”

  “Narvel Felts. That’s an oldies station. Narvel was making rock and roll hits before you were born. Although he’s been singing country now for some time. He puts on a good show.”

  * * *

  At dusk the bats struck. Probably about a third of the sightseers had given up for the day and returned to their rented rooms, or had parked and leveled their motor homes, or were watching the news in their travel trailers, or, incredibly enough, were lounging in or near their tents. Portable gas grills were lit and supper was being prepared.

  The scouts had returned and the leaders gave their signal to attack—and attack they did. A middle-aged couple from Minnesota were the first casualties to go down at the beginning of that bloody evening. They had never really believed in the vicious bat stories, and in all the days they’d been here, driving around the parish, they had never seen a bat. Both summed it up as staged nonsense. Both were on about the same level of intelligence as those who still believe the moon landing never took place and the earth is flat. How they could not believe the attacks were real with all the press the story had garnered will never be known.

  The couple was relaxing outside their motor home when the man. looked up and spoke the last words he would ever utter in this life. “Oh, my God, Agnes!”

  The bats hit them both, sipped some blood, and silently lifted off. They were in no hurry, for the assault area was overflowing with humanity. There were enough humans all crowded up to last them a long time.

  Johnny lifted the receiver to his ear. “Here we go, Johnny!” Phil yelled into his ear. “The bats are hitting us with everything they’ve got.” He hung up.

  “The bats are attacking the parish,” Johnny said calmly, replacing the receiver. “Phil says they’re coming in force this time.”

  Blair and kids took the news stoically, all knowing they were safe as long as they remained inside the house. The electrically charged fence was on. The floodlights had turned dusk into brightness. The heavy wire over windows and covering the runaround had been reinforced and snugged down.

  Johnny
had already told Phil if he wanted his badge back, he could sure have it, for he was not going to leave Blair and the kids alone when the bats began their assault.

  But Phil had shaken his head. “You’ve done more than enough, Johnny. When the bats return, there isn’t much that any of us will be able to do ... except pick up the bloody pieces when it’s all over. Stay home.”

  Dr. Bajat called seconds after Phil. “I don’t know how long phones will remain operational,” Bajat said. “Or even if the bats will try to knock them out this time around. If the phones go out, we’ll talk by CB. Channel 20. Johnny, we’ll probably have three or four hours of bloody carnage before help arrives—if it arrives.”

  “If it doesn’t?” Johnny asked.

  “Then we’re doomed,” Bajat said flatly. “All of us.” He hung up.

  The bats hit the tent-campers first, shredding the canvas and savaging those silly people who had thrown caution to the wind and pitched tents. Half a dozen fleeing people were run over by vehicles driven by panicked drivers.

  “Stay in your vehicles,” the order was radioed out by Sheriff Phil Young, Captain Tom Alden, and the commander of the national guard troops. “There is nothing you can do except die if you leave your vehicles.”

  It was to be the bloodiest and most savage night since the bats first appeared, back in the spring. They came in seemingly disciplined waves, but within minutes the bats went on a killing and feeding frenzy.

  “Just what I thought they’d do,” Dr. Bajat muttered, safe in the secured lab, listening to a bank of radios. “That ancient was right. Now if I’m right about the other, humanity has a chance.”

  Phil and Tom Alden had tried to get the residents of the parish into safe places. He’d had workmen securing all the gyms and civic centers and warehouses... bat-proofing them. But only a very few percentage of the people chose to leave their homes and go to the shelters.

  Many of those who chose to ride out the assault in their homes would live to regret that decision. For a short time. And a painful one.

  But Phil and Tom could look with some pride on their decision to move out all the elderly and the handicapped. Many of them had not wanted to leave, but the lawmen and the guard troops gave them no choice. They just bodily picked them up and hauled them off to safety.

  People with young children were likewise forced to go to safety, for the sake of the very young who had no chance to protect themselves.

  Neither Phil nor Tom gave one tinker’s damn about those rubberneckers who had blatantly tossed safety aside and were now camped out unprotected in the parish. They would take some hot vocal and print criticism for that, but by now both lawmen were immune to the heat. They had both agreed they were not going to be responsible for every goddamn fool who came rubber-necking and gawking into a dangerous area.

  In a motor home and travel trailer campgrounds the bats had struck hard and left behind them dozens of dead and maimed lying on blood-soaked ground and a terrified tiny knot of people who had managed to gather in the main building—which had wisely been bat-proofed by the owners—and ridden out the storm of fury and fur and slobber-dripping fangs.

  What was left of an impromptu tent grounds literally boggled the minds of the officers who arrived at the site. One said later that it looked like a scene from the mind of a homicidal maniac. Most of those who were still alive were crawling and staggering and lurching around, blood dripping from hideous face and neck wounds. A few were blind, their eyes ripped out by the attacking bats. Others were sitting in pools of blood, trembling and weeping hysterically and calling for help.

  “Now they want our help,” one trooper said to a national guard sergeant, disgust in his tone.

  “Yeah. We tried to tell them not to camp here. One of them cussed me.”

  The trooper took a long careful look around him before opening the door to his unit and getting out. The sergeant likewise took a long look before he exited his vehicle.

  A medic’s voice stopped them both. “Just assume they all are infected with rabies. And be careful handling them.”

  “For God’s sake,” a man moaned. “Help us.”

  “We tried to do that a couple of days ago,” the sergeant muttered to himself.

  Sixteen

  “The bats have attacked a bunch of fools who were camped out in tents,” Johnny told Blair, hanging up the phone. “Can you imagine the stupidity of people. Tents, for Christ’s sake.”

  “How many dead?”

  Johnny shook his head. “They haven’t finished counting yet. But it’s bad. The bats also hit a motor home campgrounds. Only a few got to safety in time.”

  “When cops tell people to do things,” Holly spoke from under the archway leading to the den, “I don’t understand why people don’t obey them. That’s what cops are here for, to help protect us, right?”

  “That’s right, baby,” Johnny said. “They put their lives on the line for people, every day. Unfortunately, some people just won’t pay attention to them.”

  “Then those people are stupid!” the ten-year-old said, very emphatically. She turned around and returned to her bedroom to continue her reading.

  “Right!” Rich said, and went back to his room to watch the Cartoon Network.

  “If she maintains those values, she might be a future sheriff of the parish,” Johnny said.

  “Now that would be a first for Louisiana!” June and Skipper began growling and she looked toward a side window. Her face tightened.

  Johnny cut his eyes. Bats were clinging to the heavy wire, staring balefully at them. “I see them,” he said.

  Blair went to the kids’ room to lower the blinds while Johnny walked the house. The bats were at every window and every door. Johnny opened a panel and activated the hot wire to the screening. Suddenly there were fried bats all around the house and the windows were clear.

  “That takes care of that,” he muttered.

  The bats who remained in the woods around Johnny’s place, and the bats who had gathered on top of the house seemed to sense the humans inside had beaten them. Just before they silently lifted off to vent their fury on someone not so well protected, they howled and shrieked and slobbered and hissed, hundreds of bats creating a terrible din.

  “Screw you,” Johnny said.

  * * *

  Captain Tom Alden sat in his unit with a thoroughly disgusted look on his face. Mark Hayden sat beside him.

  “If you have any wisecracks to make, Hayden,” Tom said. “It would behoove you to keep them to yourself.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mark said. But he could not contain his wide grin.

  “You find this amusing, Hayden?” Tom asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Tom’s unit was completely covered with bats. Not one ray of moonlight seeped through the furry covering. It was like being in a dark tunnel. The bats had slobbered and crapped all over the windshield, the back glass, and the side glasses. They clung to the side mirrors and the antennas, they were hanging off the grill and the bumpers, and clinging to the trunk, all of them yowling and shrieking.

  Tom sighed, folded his arms across his chest, and said, “Shit!”

  “Yes, sir,” Mark said. “All over the car.”

  Tom cut his eyes to Mark, and then put his face close to the glass and stared directly into a bat’s eyes. “I hate you fuckers. I really, really hate you!”

  The huge bat screamed back at Tom. The captain of state police frowned, solemnly raised his right hand, made a fist, and then extended his middle finger to the bat.

  Mark could contain his laughter no longer. He only wished he had a camera so he could take a picture of Captain Alden shooting the bird to the bat.

  Tom smiled despite himself. “If you say anything about this, Hayden, I will have you permanently assigned to guarding the maintenance building at the troop.”

  Mark was laughing so hard he could but nod his head.

  * * *

  Sheriff Phil Young and Chief Deputy Moody were returni
ng from making a double arrest when they found their vehicle suddenly covered with bats. They had stopped at an intersection, at a four-way stop, when the bats descended on the car, covering it, blotting out all light.

  They had responded to a report of two men fistfighting outside a small convenience store. The two men sat in the back seat of the car, behind the cage, both of them bleeding from busted noses and split lips. Billy Joe Harry Bob and Ali Shazaam. They had finally come face to face outside the small store and immediately started duking it out.

  “Of all the people I have to be trapped with,” Phil said, “why in God’s name does it have to be you two.”

  “Allah is good. Allah is great,” Shazaam said.

  “You goddamn heathen!” Billy Joe Harry Bob said.

  “Ignorant redneck klucker,” Shazaam responded.

  “Oh, shut up, both of you,” Moody said. “’Fore I throw you outside and let the bats eat you.”

  “I am assured a place in Heaven,” Shazaam replied smugly.

  “You damnsure gonna be assured a place in the graveyard if I ever get these cuffs off and my hands on you,” Billy Joe Harry Bob told him.

  “Go burn a cross, you ignoramus.”

  “Nigger!”

  “White trash!”

  “Go back to Africa!”

  “At least I have a heritage,” Shazaam said with a smile.

  “You got a heritage, all right,” Billy Joe Harry Bob said. “And they’re swingin’ in trees.”

  Shazaam kicked Billy Joe and Billy Joe kicked him back. Then they started butting heads and biting. The car was rocking back and forth and the bats were shrieking and yowling and slobbering.

  Moody covered his ears with his hands and Phil put his forehead on the steering wheel. “I could have taken over my daddy’s store,” Phil muttered. “But no, no, I had to go into law enforcement.”

  “You goddamn Ubangi!” Billy Joe hollered.

  “You godless wretch!”

  “Godless?” Billy Joe squalled. “I was baptized in the blood, you morphadite!”