Imp

by Andrew Neiderman

  “What do you expect to find in there, Eddie?”

  “I dunno. Bats could be anywhere in there, I guess, huh?”

  “Oh sure. In trees, in caves. Big rocks southwest of here,” he added, pointing. “Perfect spot for them. But why do you want to look for bats?” He paused for a moment until the thought connection was actually visible in his face. “You don’t suspect rabies?”

  “We’ve got to check out everything, Cy. You make sure she hasn’t been bitten by anything.” Cy turned and looked at the house.

  “Oh my God.”

  “I’d like to know what she meant by ‘little boy,’ too. As soon as I return, we’ll both talk to her some more.”

  “Right, right,” he said. The shakiness had returned to his legs. He wiped his forehead with the palm of his right hand and blew a long puff of air. Eddie reached out and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Stay calm. I’ll be back as fast as I can. Southwest, you said?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, yeah, but that’s some distance in. I can’t imagine her …” He shook his head, but Eddie had already entered the bushes. “She must’ve imagined it,” Cy muttered, picking up on Sam Cobler’s theory. It was the most hopeful one and Cy thought Sam should know about these things. He turned and started for the house, stopped, and looked back. He wanted to say something else and get some more reassurance from Eddie, but Eddie was already too far in for any more conversation.

  With long, quick strides, he moved through the forest. Occasionally, he used the megaphone he was still carrying to push away branches. As he traveled, he thought about his own daughter and how he had first felt when Cy called to tell him Gina and the rabbit were missing. On the way up to the Baums, he tried to envision Gina, but he continually saw Susie in his mind instead. He had the same confused vision when he spotted the little girl lying in the woods.

  What did she mean by “little boy”? he asked himself again. He thought so intensely that he was sure he had said it aloud. Could one of those Cooper kids have cut school and come up here? He’d have to check that out, too.

  After a while, he stopped traveling and stood quietly to get his bearing in the woods. He wanted to be sure he was traveling in the southwesterly direction. For a moment it was relatively silent in the forest, but then he heard something scurrying through the heavy foliage directly to his right. He listened and thought about deer. However, deer are usually quieter, he concluded. An idea came to him and he raised the megaphone to his lips.

  “ALL RIGHT,” he called. “WHOEVER IS IN THERE, STOP. THIS IS THE POLICE. I REPEAT, STOP.” He lowered the megaphone and listened. Now it was very quiet. He started in the direction of the sounds and, almost immediately, they began again. “STOP!” he called. I could be yelling at a raccoon or a woodchuck, for all I know, he thought. The sounds grew more distant and soon were gone altogether. He waited a moment and then headed back in the direction of the caves.

  When he arrived there, he immediately agreed with Cy—they were a perfect location for bats. He approached the rocks cautiously and stopped about six feet from the entrance of the first cave. He studied the opening and the grounds, looking for some evidence that Gina had indeed been this far into the woods. He couldn’t imagine why she would ever go into a cave, but he took another step forward. It was then that he spotted the bat on the ground.

  He went to it quickly and turned it over with the toe of his boot. It was obviously dead. He took out his handkerchief to wrap around the bat. He thought it would be wise to bring back a specimen for lab tests. While he was in a kneeling position, he saw what looked to be blood stains on the rock wall. He reached forward and touched them with his fingers. Because of the dampness and the coolness, the blood had not dried completely. It came off on the tips of his fingers.

  “I hope this isn’t hers,” he muttered and then he thought, who else’s could it be?

  He turned around quickly and studied the forest around him. Everything was unnaturally still to him. It was as though Nature were waiting for him to make some kind of a discovery. He stood up in a crouch and peered into the cave entrance.

  The bats that had been frightened out earlier, had returned. Even the rabid ones had been able to sense that their hole was safe again. They didn’t like being out in the daylight long and the shadows they had located for the time being were nowhere as comfortable and as satisfactory as their cave. Only moments after they had reentered their darkness, they were asleep. Eddie could see them lining the walls. He whistled to himself and began a very slow and careful retreat. He saw another dead bat on the floor of the cave, but he made no effort to retrieve it. He had seen enough and gathered enough bad news for the Baums.

  Clutching the dead bat in his handkerchief and the megaphone at his side, he jogged through the forest, his heart heavy, his mind reeling from confusion and anger. He looked off to the right from where he had heard the sounds of something moving. The only thing to do now, he thought, was to see if there were someone with Gina, find him, and learn from him what actually happened out there. Now, he felt a desperate urgency about it.

  By the time he got back to the house, Gina had been bathed and her hair brushed out. The little girl looked revived and secure again. There was a small Band-Aid over her bruise.

  “You two look like you lost your best friend,” Hilda said, looking from Cy to Eddie and back to Cy. “She’s all right.” Cy looked to the floor to avoid Hilda’s eyes. “What is it?”

  “I went back into the forest,” Eddie said. “I think the bird in her hair she was talking about was a bat.”

  “Oh no.”

  “I’ve one of them in the patrol car. Gonna take it in for lab tests, but there was some … some blood. Did any of her scratches look like a bite?”

  Cy looked up quickly, waiting for her answer.

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Eddie. They’re all surface scratches.”

  “Did you check her head?” Cy asked.

  “Scrubbed it thoroughly. I didn’t find anything.”

  “You’ll have to take her over to the doctor and get a full examination,” Eddie said. Hilda nodded.

  “Now I’d better call Arnie and Bea.”

  “I think that would be wise,” Eddie said. He turned to Gina, who sat obediently on the couch and stared up at them. “Well,” he said, “maybe Gina and I can have a little talk now.”

  “Did you find my rabbit?”

  “No,” Eddie said, sitting beside her.

  “He took it.”

  “Who?”

  “That bad boy. I’ll bet he took it. Get it back, Grandpa. I don’t want him to have it. He’s … ugh.”

  “Tell me about this bad boy, Gina. Was he taller than you?” She shook her head. “Was he fat?” She smiled and shook her head again. “Um, what color was his hair?”

  “Dirty.” She paused and her grimace turned to a laugh. “He wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

  “What!” Hilda said.

  “Did he tell you his name, Gina?”

  “He couldn’t talk. He made noises.”

  “Oh forgodsakes,” Hilda said. “What is she talking about?”

  “Was his hair long?”

  “Uh huh.” She nodded for emphasis. “It was over his eyes, too. He needs a bath, Grandma.”

  “Sounds like it. Who is she talking about, Cy?” Cy shrugged and shook his head.

  “He didn’t have a name then?” Eddie asked. Gina imitated her grandfather’s shrug. “Did you ever see him before today?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you went to the caves in the woods with him?” She nodded. “And there you saw the bats, the little black birds?” Her face reflected the memory of terror. “And one got into your hair?” She nodded again. “You were in the cave then?”

  “Oh Gina, how could you do such a thing?” Hilda asked when she nodded. Gina’s face began to crumple.

  “That’s OK. You’re all right now. Don’t cry. Just tell us again what happened and what the little boy did.�
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  “A bird went into my hair and he grabbed it.”

  “Did any bite you?” Eddie asked. The three of them held their breaths. She shook her head. “Or even scratch you?” She shook her head. “Are you sure?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He pushed me down.”

  “The little boy? Where is he now?”

  She shrugged and turned to Cy.

  “Can we go back and look for the rabbit, Grandpa?”

  “Oh, God,” Hilda said. “Did you ever?”

  “Children have a way of rebounding quickly,” Eddie said, standing. “I think you’d better take her to your doctor, though, just to be sure about all this.”

  “We will.”

  Eddie started away, stopped, and thought a moment, and then turned back to Gina.

  “Gina, did you ever see E.T.?” She nodded emphatically. “This littly boy, did he make you think of…” Before he could finish his question, her eyes widened and she nodded rapidly again.

  “What the hell …” Cy took a step toward him. “What are you thinking of, Eddie?”

  “I’m not sure. But I know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m gonna have a helluva time explaining all this to Sam Cobler,” he said. “Talk to you later,” he added and left.

  As Eddie expected, the chief was not only skeptical about any relationship between events, he was downright amused by Eddie’s seriousness. Eddie described the killing of the rabbits, Billy O’Neil’s violent confrontation with “something” in the fields, the entrance into Cy’s basement, the strange footprints, and finally Gina’s tale of the dirty, naked little boy.

  “And you think all of this was done by some extraterrestrial creature?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Not in so many words. Look, almost anything could have killed those rabbits …”

  “By opening a hasp on the cage first?”

  “Maybe he forgot and left it opened.”

  “Twice?”

  “All right, so it was a dumb prank. You, yourself, said the kid could have made those prints in the basement. Both those kids were in a state of panic. Their imaginations ran wild, that’s all.”

  “There’s one other thing,” Eddie said and proceeded to describe his meeting with Mary Oaks and how he met Bobby O’Neil walking home in the rain.

  “So what? I know about Mary Oaks. First off, you said the kid was climbing up her fire escape. He’s lucky she didn’t shoot him. She’s a religious loon, hangs out with that crazy pastor from Neversink, but there’s no crime in that.” Sam took his feet off the desk and sat forward, his cigar plugged into the corner of his mouth. “Eddie, things have been somewhat dull around here, I know, but…”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Eddie said quickly.

  “Sure I’m right. That little girl went through quite an experience, bats and all. She’s hallucinating. I mean, what else could it be? You know all the people in that area and all the kids. Any fit the description she gave you?” Cobler twisted the cigar with his tongue and lips and then smiled.

  “No, of course not.”

  “So?”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to have someone else hear it all and make a conclusion.”

  “Like anything, when you get too involved, you get a little blind to what’s real and what’s not. Check on the girl and make a couple extra passes down Wild wood Drive the next few days. After a while, it’ll all pass. It always does,” Cobler said. Eddie nodded and got up. “In the meantime, the bat’ll be checked out for us. That was real good police work, Eddie, real good. There’s no doubt in my mind who’s goin’ to sit behind this desk after I retire.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  Eddie called the Baums later that afternoon and learned that the doctor believed none of Gina’s wounds was made by anything but twigs and branches. He had gone over her body thoroughly and concluded there were no teeth marks, only scratches. Her scalp was clean.

  “Thank God there weren’t any real wounds,” Cy said. “All surface stuff. My son’s comin’ up late this afternoon to get her, though. His wife wants to take her to their own doctor and …”

  “The bat analysis came back positive, Cy. It did have rabies.”

  “Oh.”

  “I contacted the conservation department. We’re going into the cave tomorrow morning and exterminate what’s left.”

  “Good idea.”

  “So it may not be a bad idea for their doctor to reevaluate.”

  “No, no, you’re right.” Cy’s voice became weak and trailed off.

  “I can take a ride up and talk to Arnie, if you’d like.”

  “No, that’s OK.”

  “I’ll be in that area anyway. I want one more discussion with the O’Neil boy who was attacked by … by whatever.”

  “Chief wants that?”

  “No, not exactly,” Eddie said.

  After he hung up, he finished his patrol, making Wildwood Drive his last stop. Bobby O’Neil greeted him at the door when he drove up. From the way he looked when Eddie stepped out of the car, Eddie assumed he had been watching for him, expecting him. Eddie reassured him immediately.

  “I’m here to talk to your little brother again,” he said.

  “Oh, for a moment I thought …” He looked behind him in the house. “Faith didn’t come to school today. I think it was my fault. She’s probably being punished.”

  “Well you guys’ll hafta work that out. Just stay off of their fire escape. Billy around?”

  “Yeah, I’ll get him.”

  “Who is it, Bobby?”

  “It’s Officer Morris, Mom. He wants to see Billy again.”

  “Oh, Dick, go see.”

  “Hey, Eddie.” Dick O’Neil came out from the kitchen and met him in the foyer. They shook hands quickly. “What’s up? Thanks for what you did with Billy.”

  “It was nothing. How’s it going?”

  “Busy for a change.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Billy appeared at the top of the stairway. When he saw Eddie, his eyes lit up and he hurried down, Bobby walking slowly behind him.

  “Hi.”

  “What’dya say, partner? Get a chance to use your whistle yet?”

  “Has he? He’s been blowin’ it all afternoon,” Bobby said. Eddie smiled and rubbed Billy’s head.

  “Come on into the living room, Eddie,” Dick said. He led everyone in.

  “This won’t take long. I just wanted to talk to Billy for a moment.” He paused and looked at Dick O’Neil’s smiling face. “About his experience in the field. We had another sort of incident on the road.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Cy Baum’s granddaughter got lost in the woods this morning.”

  “What!” Cindy came in from the hallway.

  “We found her, though. She’s all right. Just a little scratched up. However, we located some rabid bats in the process.”

  “Damn,” Dick said. “Now I’m glad I had that dog tied.”

  “Yeah. Don’t let him loose for a while.”

  “No chance of that,” Dick said.

  “But Billy wasn’t attacked by any bats,” Cindy said. She turned to him for confirmation.

  “No. It was an E.T.,” Billy said.

  “Billy!”

  “That’s all right,” Eddie said. “I want to hear about that.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go ahead,” Eddie said, ignoring Dick for the moment. “Tell me about the E.T. again. You said he had no clothes, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he didn’t say any words, nothing at all?”

  “No. Just a scream.”

  “Tell me about his hair again.”

  “It was long, down to his shoulders and some of it covered his eyes.”

  “What is this, Eddie? You’re not saying there’s any truth to his story, are ya?” Dick asked.

  “Billy, think hard now.
Did he look like a little boy?”

  Billy eyed his mother and father for a second and then smiled.

  “I saw his pee shooter,” he said.

  “What the hell’s going on, Ed?”

  “Cy’s granddaughter gave me the same kind of description. Something like that was in the woods with her, she says.”

  “Well, what the hell kind of a story is that?” Dick asked.

  “I don’t know. Both kids were in a panic and both could have done some imagining, but why should both come up with the same wild tale?”

  Everyone looked down at Billy for a moment.

  “If he comes again,” he said, “I’m gonna blow the whistle.” He took it out of his pocket to demonstrate, but Cindy stopped him.

  “What about those bats?” Dick asked.

  “Going in tomorrow morning with the conservation men to exterminate them. They’re holed up in some caves behind the Baums’.”

  “I know those caves,” Bobby said.

  “You stay away from them,” Cindy said quickly. “In fact, you stay out of the woods altogether until Eddie says it’s safe.”

  “I’ll let you know how we make out tomorrow,” Eddie said. “OK, thanks. See ya, Billy.” He started for the door. Dick followed him out.

  “What are you going to do with this story?”

  “I don’t know. The chief doesn’t think there’s anything to do. Maybe he’s right. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Right,” Dick said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Eddie stopped at the Baums’, but Arnie had been there already and taken Gina home. Both Hilda and Cy looked distraught. They sat lethargically in their living room.

  “My daughter-in-law made him leave right away once I called back and told them about the bats.”

  “Can’t blame her, Cy.”

  “No, but she’ll blame us. If only I hadn’t left her out there when I went in to fix that breaker.”

  “Can’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t leave her alone that long.”

  “Long enough to do the damage. I guess we are too old for lookin’ after little ones.”

  “Stop it, Cy,” Hilda said.

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “Depends on what happened out there, Cy,” Eddie said. “Even a younger person might not have prevented it. You can’t anticipate everything.”