Bats

by William W. Johnstone

  Johnny had telephoned Blair down in Baton Rouge and asked her to stay down there one more night. There was something in his voice that prompted her to comply with his request and to ask no questions.

  Of course ground crews at the staging areas knew, or at least suspected what was going on. And so did others, like air traffic controllers at airports that were located in and bordered Louisiana, and some civilian airline pilots. But to a person they kept their mouths closed and their suspicions to themselves. A terrible situation had become intolerable and the federal government was dragging its feet. There were lives at stake here. So if something slightly on the shady side had to be done to correct it, that was OK with them. The controllers would simply not notice the blips on their screens. The A-6As would be flying treetop level and out of harm’s way for airliners.

  “The few scientists who know about this, how certain are they that we’ll get most of the bats?” Johnny asked Captain Tom Alden. Alden, Mark, and Sheriff Phil Young had gathered at Johnny’s house.

  “We’ll get ninety percent of them,” Tom replied. “I sent a volunteer up an old fire tower just before dawn. He watched them come in. Said he had never been so scared in all his life. He said the bats blacked out the whole damn sky. And they’re still in there. He left about fifteen minutes ago. The bats were still in the timber.” He looked at his watch. “The shit storm starts in one minute.”

  The men walked out onto the porch and looked in the direction of the bat haven. They heard the A-6As come in. Now that they had a totally free sky, they had climbed. There would be three waves of attack.

  “Where’d they get those Navy and Marine planes?” Johnny asked, just seconds before the bat-infested woods would erupt into a wall of fire.

  “I understand some of them were stolen,” Captain Alden said with a smile. “They’ll be found abandoned at an airport just north of here.”

  “Imagine that,” Johnny said. “Somebody left several million dollar airplanes just sitting around unguarded. How careless.”

  The sky in front of them suddenly lit up with fire, the flames from the incendiary bombs leaping into the sky. Over a million and a half pounds of fire-producing chemicals seared the sanctuary of the bats. Long-capped oil and gas wells blew their tops and added to the wildness. Spotters along the perimeter of the fire zone were watching for escaping bats. Some did get away, but the attack was so sudden and so intense in its inferno fury, that few of the winged horrors made it out.

  The warplanes made their second, and then their third pass, then they were gone, leaving behind them a miles long and miles deep wall of flames and smoke.

  Seconds after the first wave dropped their payloads, the firefighters rushed in and went to work lighting backfires, spraying fire-retardant chemicals over everything out of the burn area they could reach.

  “Fried bat,” Captain Alden said with a smile. “God, I love it!”

  Johnny’s phone started ringing. He handed the phone to Captain Alden. “Reporters,” Tom said. “I gave them your number.”

  “Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure and change it tomorrow.”

  “I really don’t know what happened,” Tom said. “I guess some of those old wells in there ignited. We had some lightning this evening, you know. Oh, you didn’t know. Oh, yes. Quite a display of lightning around here. That’s probably what touched them off. Planes? No ... I didn’t hear any planes. Some thunder, yes. But planes? No. No planes. Of course, I’m sure. I know the difference between thunder and an airplane. You’re welcome.” He set the phone down and started laughing.

  * * *

  Johnny drove out to the burn site the next morning. The firefighters were still working to keep the flames from spreading, but they had it all under control. It had been a contained fire from the outset. And more importantly, no one had been a single live bat.

  Before he left the house, he’d turned on the TV. The federal judge who had issued the restraining order was hopping mad, threatening to throw everybody in the parish in jail for contempt, lawyers representing the landowners were screaming lawsuit, the group known as SOB were becoming the fate of the bats, bellowing and snorting and weeping.

  “Idiots!” Johnny said, then turned off the set and buttoned up the house.

  Phil joined him, standing some distance away from the still heat-producing burn area. “I hate to say this, but that is a beautiful sight to my eyes.”

  “The really nasty work is yet to come, Phil.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mop-up.”

  “Yeah,” the sheriff said glumly. “I’ve tried to keep that out of my mind. But at least we’ve got a handle on things. For the first time.”

  “We’ve got to start moving right now, Phil. We’ve got to search every old house and barn and building, every acre of woods and swamp. People have to go into their attics and lofts and hunt them down.”

  “When do you want to start?”

  “Me!”

  Phil smiled. “You live here too.”

  * * *

  Those bats who had survived the inferno and those bats who had been sent into surrounding parishes were confused. Their leaders were gone. They had sent scouts silently swimming through the air back to their sanctuary and the scouts reported back it was gone.

  Gone?

  All gone. Nothing left. Inhabitable.

  The older bats returned to see for themselves, making a slow night circle of what used to be safety. There was nothing left. New leaders were chosen and the leaders gave the orders. Split up into small groups. Hide. Attack nothing human. Do not be seen. The young must be given the time to mature. In a short while, the humans will return to their normal habits. They always had in the past, they would this time.

  Humans were so predictable.

  * * *

  Blair brought Holly and Rich back with her and adoption proceeding were begun. Teams made up of the national guard, the regular military, sheriff’s deputies, highway patrol, and civilian volunteers searched for a full week, covering four parishes in Louisiana and several counties across the river in Mississippi. Not one live bat was found.

  The press was the first to leave, followed by the scientists from all over the world. At the end of the second week, the military left, then the national guard pulled out. Phil closed his substations but left the buildings in place. Like Johnny and Blair, Captain Alden and Mark, and more than a few others, but not many more than a few, the sheriff did not believe the bats had all been wiped out.

  “They didn’t go far,” Blair said to the group one afternoon. “They’re waiting, letting their young mature. It won’t be long. They’ll surface somewhere, and I’d bet that somewhere will be right here in this parish.”

  “Why?” Mark asked. “Why here?”

  “Revenge,” Johnny answered that one.

  The group silently chewed on that for a moment. Mark was the first to speak. “Yeah. I’ll go along with that. A lot of people around here are relaxing; letting their guard down. I think that’s a bad mistake.”

  “It sure is,” Blair supported that conclusion.

  “With the permission of headquarters,” Captain Alden said, “I’ve done some shuffling around. I’m going to have two troopers in this parish for the next several months. I’m probably making a mistake, but I’m assigning Mark and Dickson to work this parish.” He shook his head. “Now there’s a pair if ever I saw one. Lieutenant Woloszyk swears they’re twins accidentally separated at birth.”

  “Deep down, he really likes me,” Mark said with a grin, pointing at his captain.

  Tom continued as if he had not heard Mark. “They’ll probably spend most of their time out here, eating you two out of house and home. But that’s all right. At least I won’t have to buy them lunch.”

  “One time!” Mark said. “You bought me lunch one time.”

  “Nine cheeseburgers.”

  “It was only four!”

  Laughing, Johnny asked, “Have there been any feedback on the burni
ng of the woods?”

  “Some,” Tom replied. “But nothing serious. It’s over. Someone, the President, I was informed, told that federal judge to shut his damn mouth and keep it shut. The judge announced he was retiring. The conglomerate who owns the burned area decided not to push the issue—because of all the bad publicity that would probably come out of it—and they’ll absorb their losses. Tax write-off, I guess. We think we’ve got the rabies under control, but we’re warning people to be extra careful around animals. The overall human death toll was high; however, it could have been much worse.” His eyes lingered briefly on each person. “And like you folks, I don’t believe the bats are gone. And I do believe they will be back.”

  Tom watched as Mark stood up and wandered off toward the rear of the house. “Where are you going?”

  “To the kitchen,” the trooper called over his shoulder. “I’m hungry.”

  Ten

  The summer wore on and the horror began to fade from the minds of most. The parish slowly returned to normal, as people once more began camping out, fishing, swimming, and going about a daily routine. The few who had taken precautions around their homes tore down the protection. Johnny made a mental note of those who did and commented to Phil that when the bats returned, those people had better not call on him for help. Phil had no vocal comment but he thought that Johnny MacBride was just about the hardest-nosed fellow he had ever seen. As autumn approached, farmers watched their crops and prepared for harvest.

  Johnny watched the skies and the trees. He and Phil and a few others had tried to get permission to tear down any abandoned or long-unused building in the parish but were refused permission to do so.

  “The danger is over,” a police juror said smugly, dismissing the men with a wave of his hand. “You two act like a couple of old women.”

  “And you, sir, are a fool,” Johnny bluntly told him.

  The police juror decided he’d take exception to that remark and stood up.

  “Sit down, Eddie,” Phil told him. “MacBride will tear out your throat and piss down your neck.”

  Eddie sat down.

  Blair and Johnny were married in late summer. Blair opened a large veterinarian hospital in the parish. The care she and her staff offered animals brought people in from as far away as sixty miles.

  Schools opened without incident and the majority of the public thought no more about the huge bats that had terrorized them just a few months past.

  “Maybe we were wrong,” Mark said one afternoon, sitting on the front porch at Johnny’s. Blair was at work and the kids were in school. Mark was off-duty.

  “I hope we were.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  Johnny shook his head. “No. Have you torn down the screening you put up at your house?”

  “Hell, no. My wife wants me to; says it’s unattractive. Everytime she does I show her pictures of those damn bats. That usually shuts her up.” He sipped his iced tea. “But you’ve reinforced your wire,” he added softly.

  “Yeah, I have.”

  Johnny had also gone into the timber for several hundreds yards deep all around his cleared acreage with a bush hog and swing blade and chain saw and cleaned out the brush and thinned the branches. He had greatly enlarged the dogs’ runaround area with protective wire all over. And for two hours each day, Johnny drove the parish back roads, hunting the bats, all the time knowing, sensing, they were stalking him with their eyes.

  “You think they’ve returned, don’t you, Johnny?”

  “Yes. I do. I smelled them this morning. West of here. Over near the river.”

  “You told Phil?”

  “He’s out of town. Some sheriff’s meeting down in Baton Rouge.” He was silent for a moment. “There is a football game tonight, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah. Two of them in the parish, as a matter of fact. Jesus, Johnny, you think . . .?”

  “Yeah. I think.”

  “Have you told anyone of your suspicions?”

  Johnny shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good. You know the mood of the people. You’ve listened to them talk. They’re convinced the bats are gone or have been destroyed. Nothing is going to interfere with their goddamn games.”

  “But the kids!”

  Johnny held out his hands. “What can I do or say, Mark? I feel that the bats are back? I have a hunch? That I smelled bat droppings? Are you and your wife going to the game?”

  “No. Neither one of us care for them.”

  “Stay home. I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight. And it just keeps getting worse.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Tom. Bobby down in Baton Rouge. Moody. Like me, he’s edgy and feels the bats are back. He called the school and tried to get them to cancel the game. Nothing doing.”

  “I could have told you that.” He looked out. “A few more hours until dark. You going to keep the kids home from school tomorrow?”

  “I won’t have to, Mark. I doubt there will be any school tomorrow.”

  Mark shivered. “God, I don’t want to go through this again. Did you tell Blair?”

  “Oh, yes. Just as soon as I got back to the house. She said that explains why the animals she’s got in the hospital suddenly became very subdued. Tense. Overnight. All of them. But no bat can get into that building. When she remodeled it she made sure of that. And one of Blair’s hard and fast rules is that someone is there twenty-four hours a day . . . in any of her vet hospitals. That’s just one of the reasons why her hospitals are so successful.”

  Mark stood up and walked to the door. He paused and turned around to look at Johnny. He started to say something, then closed his mouth. “Here we go again,” he muttered, then waved and walked to his unit. But he was looking all around him as he walked.

  * * *

  Johnny leveled with the kids as soon as they were home from school and had them a snack. They took the news calmly enough, Rich saying, “I guess we don’t go outside to play with the dogs this afternoon, huh?”

  Johnny laughed and hugged them both. “No, I guess not. Not for a while.”

  They had supper at seven, a roast Johnny had cooked that afternoon—he was a better cook than Blair—and Blair checked to see if the brother and sister had done their homework before allowing them to turn on the TV. They had. Skipper and June were with them in their bedrooms, Skipper with Rich, June with Holly.

  Johnny walked into the kitchen from the porch. Blair was sitting at the table, making out a grocery list for Johnny. The dishwasher was humming behind her. She looked up at his grim face. “Tell me what I’m thinking is wrong.”

  “I wish I could. They’re out there, honey. Just as ugly-looking as ever.”

  “Shit!” she spoke the word softly, but with considerable heat.

  “Yeah.” Johnny picked up the kitchen phone. It was dead. He smiled a grim curving of the lips. “They’ve knocked out the phones. At least this one.”

  “I’ll tell the kids.”

  While Blair went in to talk with Rich and Holly, Johnny took a shotgun from the gun cabinet and loaded it up full, then he slung a bandoleer of shells around him and walked out into the dogs’ greatly enlarged runaround. He shoved the muzzle of the shotgun through a gap and uncorked a full tube of shot at the bats gathered in the lower branches of a nearby tree. He chuckled darkly as he blew half a dozen of the bats into bits and pieces. He loaded up again and looked around him. The bats were nowhere to be seen.

  “Pulled back,” Johnny muttered. “But you’re still out there, aren’t you? You bastards!”

  He walked back into the house and used his walkie-talkie to call in to the sheriff’s department. Moody intercepted the call and bumped him. “What’s up, Johnny?”

  “They came back, Moody.”

  “Mother of God, they’re going to hit the school, aren’t they?”

  “I’d bet on it.” Johnny looked at his watch. It would be kick-off time shortly. “Right about now.”

  “I’m rolling
. Will you bump Mark?”

  “I’ll use the phone in my truck and try. My inside phone is dead.”

  “I just tried to call home from the office. The phones are out there, too.”

  “It’s started, Moody. And it’s well-planned, I believe. Can you get in touch with Phil?”

  “I’ll try. But I think a bunch of them went offshore, fishing.”

  Johnny tried to call Mark, but the trooper’s home phone was dead. He tried to call the sheriff’s offices in surrounding parishes. No good. Out of service. He knew then that the bats had somehow knocked out all the phones in a four or five parish area. There was no more he could do. He fixed a glass of iced tea and went out to sit on the front porch. He and his family were as safe here as they would have been in Canada. Mark and a few others had kept their homes bat-proof, despite the sometimes less than good-natured kidding from some in the parish who were born with their brains and their assholes reversed.

  Blair came out to sit beside him. She carried a mug of hot tea. “Is there anything we can do, Johnny?”

  “I don’t know what it would be. But we’re not going to end it here—ever. We waited too long to destroy the main colony. We gave them time to spread out into other areas. You and the others agreed that these bats were a hardy breed; the toughest any of you had ever studied. Able to survive anywhere. And that they probably don’t have to hibernate.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can you imagine what’s going to happen when they hit New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago? Any major city. They’ll be thousands of places for them to hide in deserted buildings, culverts, overpasses, subway systems, and in the sewers. The pharmaceutical companies won’t be able to produce enough vaccine to stop the spread of disease. Unless somebody in government screws their head on straight and starts thinking in terms of this being a major, major crisis . . . this nation is in deep trouble.”

  They sat in silence and watched the sun slowly sink and the shadows gather.

  “What are you thinking, Johnny?” Blair asked.

  “That I damn sure wouldn’t want to be in town, sitting in those bleachers tonight.”