A Bat to Remember

Part 1

Michelle Williams grinned as she took the cup of coffee from the young barrister’s hands. “How is it that you always know when I’m going to come in here?”

Sunlight glinted through the wide coffee-shop windows as another customer entered. Joey, the barrister, shrugged. “Truth is, I don’t. I make your coffee a couple of times a day hopin’ you’ll be comin’ through that door.”

Michelle shook her head, then moved out of the way as another patron began their order. “You’re too much, Joey. I got to get going. You going to be here this afternoon?”

“Got nowhere else to be,” he replied, giving her a broad smile.

She settled into her patrol car, set the coffee down and let out a long, slow breath.  She watched Joey puttering around the small coffee shop — the only one in town if no one counted the diner. Joey was a young man, apparently inherited some money and decided to open up a coffee place in the middle of nowhere. Claimed there would be no competition. Honestly, there was, from the diner, but the young man was gorgeous.

She wondered how long it would take for that novelty to wear off.

“Michelle I swear if you’re at that damned coffee place chatting up that boy –” Michelle snatched up the radio.

“What do you want, Darlene?” Michelle snapped.

“So you were–”

“Darlene.”

“Couple people called in this mornin’. Want you to go out to check on Miss Sheldon. There was a dinner party yesterday and she didn’t show up.”

Michelle frowned as she sipped at her coffee. Sheldon never missed an opportunity to party. Despite her very very old age, she could drink most of the town under the table, and then call for another round just out of spite. “Alright, I’ll go check it out.”

“So how is the hot coffee this morning?”

“I’ll radio back when I get there, Darlene.”

“Oh come on, darlin’. I’m stuck here in this office. The least you can do is tell me about that wide world out there.”

“I’ll tell you when I get back, Darlene.”

The road along the Main Street of Crowston was paved and only displayed a few of the cracks and potholes cause by the winter, road issues that would come to a vote in town council. The road turned to gravel soon after passing the last structure of the town proper, one of two gas stations that capped both ends of the town. A few miles later, it became dirt.

Michelle was still getting acclimated to the strange sensibilities of Crowston. It seems at once quiet and tame but even so, she was busy every day with nearly as many calls as in New York when she left. Domestic disputes, calls about break-ins.

Or perhaps it only seemed as if there were the same amount of calls. She had to drive about with only miles of tree line to keep her company. And the radio — which would have been fine if she’d been able to get anything other than old school Appalachian bluegrass and manic talk radio on the dial. There wasn’t even a soft rock or top twenty countdown to be heard for nearly one hundred fifty miles.

She did, however, have the Internet and all the benefits that that supplied her at home. Despite how slow the damned thing was. Michelle had no idea that America online was still in business and that it still provided 56k service, but half of the homes in Crowston had it. The other half unwilling to brew pots of coffee between webpages, herself included, sprung for satellite uplink. But that was as fun as a 56k connection for how reliable it was.

She reached over and pushed the cassette adapter into the dashboard. With one hand she pulled her mp3 player from her bag on the passenger seat and plugged the trailing end of the adapter into it.

Reggae swung from the old speakers with as much carefree, general love as Bob Marley could muster. She’d originally started listening to it to piss off her parents, but then it sort of grew on her. She let out a long breath and sighed as she sped down the golden-brown dirt road, the patrol car, kicking up dust behind.

The winding road leading up to the Sheldon house slowly revealed an ever-widening swath of broad old green forest. The sort of dusty green only capable from older, ancient forest. The enormity of it, of the amount of life living in the forest always surprised her. Often, New York had been called a concrete jungle, implying that the tall skyscrapers were like trees and their inhabitants like animals.

No, she’d decided in her first few weeks out on patrol, there was only a cursory correlation between a forest and the city. The city walls were built, were crafted by human hands and intellect. The forest was created and crafted by the inexorable influence of nature. Sure, skyscrapers were impressive, immense, but when she lay on the ground in the evenings and stared up at the sky from a bed of needles and soft earth, the trunks of the old trees seemed like pillars holding up the sky.

She pulled into the small drive off of Sheldon road — the Sheldons had lived in that house for over one-hundred fifty years and had apparently earned the right to name their own road. That was another thing to get used to. In the city, only streets that were odd or ran off at odd angles got names. And even then, the names were of famous historical figures. Or those that academics deemed famous enough, but the general public could give a rat’s ass about.

“Alright,” Michelle called into the radio. “Darlene, I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me a call back when you’re done. Oh and let me know if she’s got any of those oatmeal cookies-”

“Joey has oatmeal cookies,” Michelle interjected.

“Of course he does.” Darlene replied. “But he wouldn’t look at an old bat like me twice. Now you…” Darlene continued going on. Michelle had stopped paying attention.

The old house was, well, old. Badly in need of painting. Porch rotting in places, but it still looked solid. Fortunately the place was clear enough from cobwebs. But it wasn’t the house that caught her attention. It was the trees behind it that attracted her eye. It seemed a trick of the light, but the trunks looked as if they were quivering. After a moment, it passed.

“…Need to take that boy over my knee and-”

“Darlene, I’ll call you back.” Michelle sat the radio down and stared into the tree line, opening her eyes wide to try to see if that would help bring the aberration back. But no. The strangeness did not return but after a moment an eyelash caught in her eye and she swore silently.

Then there was a man. In the half-minute it took for her to clear her eyes, a man appeared in the floundering yards of grass between her patrol car and the old Sheldon house. He was somewhat tall, of apparent average guild with dark, olive skin and pale brown hair.

He turned towards her as she opened the door to step out, seeming surprised, as if he hadn’t seen her when he walked up. “Hello,” he offered with a bright, warm smile.

Michelle gave the man a quick looking over and frowned to discover that other than his clothing, he was carrying nothing else. “Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

“Oh, ah, no. I am just visiting my…” the man glanced back at the old house. “Dear… Old… Relative.”

“You staying a while?” Michelle asked, making a show of checking her gear. Instead of intimidating the man, he seemed to find the action amusing.

“Not long, no. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”

“What shouldn’t take more than an hour?” the man was strange. And where the hell was his car?

“My… Relative has a pest problem. Something that I can handle no problem.”

“Why not call an exterminator. You don’t look like the sort to get his hands dirty.” Michelle watched the man warily. No one had spoken the Miss Sheldon in the past 24 hours and there was a possibility that this man was somehow involved.

“Too right, but oftentimes it simply cannot be helped.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ah… It is Johnny Devon.”

“Well, Mr. Devon, I was sent to check up on your… Relative. Though his name escapes me…”

“Oh, you mean good ole pa?” the man asked, smiling. If she hadn’t known he was lying through his teeth, she could have easily believed him. When he saw her expression, however, the smile faded. “Pa doesn’t live here, does he?”

“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I was serious about the pest problem, officer…”

“Williams. If I find that there is a problem, I’ll call in the appropriate, licensed persons to do the job. In the meantime you need to leave or I can escort you out in the back of my car with a complimentary pair of silver bracelets.”

The man sighed and held up his hands, defeated. “Very well. Just be careful in there.” He walked past the seated Michelle and onto the dirt road.

Michelle watched the man for several moments until he disappeared around a bend of the road. She sighed softly, and then turned back to the house. This wasn’t the first strange thing she’d encountered in Crowston, but it was probably the strangest so far. She shut the patrol-car door and headed towards the old house.

Part 2

There was a smell to New York. A sort of all-pervasive scent that Michelle only realized was there after she left the city for Crowston and returned for Christmas with her family. Old houses, she found, also had the same olfactory presence. It was as if she could smell time itself and experience it through smell alone.

The Sheldon house was unremarkable. Similar furnishings as all the other homes she’d had the opportunity to visit. Creaky floorboards. Ridiculous lace doilies. And the sort of figurines that truly ancient people found fascinating but which frightened Michelle on some internal, primal level.

What was remarkable about the house was the lack of scent. There was no lingering odor from prepared meals. She could not smell the musty scent of old cloth and decaying wood. The house, for all its decoration felt empty because it -smelled- empty.

It was the most disconcerting thing about the place she noted as she made her way through the entryway after a minute of knocking. “Miss Sheldon?” she called. “It’s Officer Williams. Just checking in?”

She waited. She couldn’t even smell the pine and earth from outside.

“Odd, isn’t it?” came a voice from behind her. She spun around to see the flaring nostrils of Johnny as he took in a deep breath. “No molecular particulates at all.”

“How the hell did you get in here?” Michelle asked as her hand dropped to her waist with ease. She snapped the gun free, clearing it, ready to draw if necessary.

“Same as you. Door’s unlocked. My are you folks trusting,” the man replied, then he smiled brightly. “Notice anything else strange about this place?” Michelle paused and wondered if she wasn’t having a stroke or brain aneurysm. “Not a speck of dirt in the place.”

Michelle glanced about, eyes scanning over the figurines and picture frames. For a woman who lived alone and spent most of her time in town gossiping, the place was remarkably… Sterile. Yes, that was the word. “Look, sir, you are trespassing. You need to leav-”

An enormous thud shook the ceiling above her, then a low keening sound echoed through the house. “Miss Sheldon?” she turned to rush up the stairs but froze, feeling a hand on her shoulder.

“It would be best if you stayed down here – hey!” Michelle shifted her shoulders violently and in one fluid motion had him handcuffed to the stair banister. “What…”

“Stay here. I’ll deal with you later,” she said, barely turning back to glance at him. She took the stairs two at a time then paused when she arrived on the second floor. All of the doors were closed but light shone beneath the foot of each door from the late morning sun.

The low keening continued. It sounded like a wounded, struggling animal. She swore silently, why didn’t Miss Sheldon wear one of those medical alert necklaces? If she was hurt, could have been that way for nearly an entire day. The thought made her stomach clench with trepidation. She strode across the narrow hall.

“Don’t go in there!” Johnny’s voice called from below.

“You shut the hell up!” Michelle replied as she opened the door. She turned back to the sunlit room and blinked several times, unable to comprehend what it was she was seeing.

Miss Sheldon lay in bed, her salon-dyed hair wrapped beneath a blue and green scarf. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully had there not been five, pale fleshy things devouring the lower half of her body. Michelle found it difficult to summon forth any rational thoughts. Nothing in her life had prepared her for his. So she did what years of training had drilled into her.

“NYPD, freeze!” She shouted as she raised her weapon.

“Really, Officer Williams.” Johnny said as he stepped up behind her. He rubbed at his wrist but there was no sign of the handcuff. “It’s doubtful they will surrender. They are far too hungry.”

Michelle wiped at her eyes with her free hand in an attempt to clear it of whatever insanity she was experiencing. Maybe she was having a stroke. That would explain the lack of smell. Johnny loomed in her vision as he stared into her eyes, the writhing pale forms blocked. Temporarily.

“You haven’t lost consciousness. Good,” he said. “I don’t want to have to carry you around.” His pale brown eyes seemed to widen slowly, gently… Soothing… Calming… “Good,” he said softly. “If you’re going to be here I need you alert and focused.”

Then he turned away and Michelle felt as if she’d been dunked in ice water. A haze of slowly rising panic dissipated leaving her feeling a little shaky, but aware. She glared at Johnny. Why today? Why did this sort of strangeness happen to her? “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Johnny stared at the writhing, pale creatures. They looked much like elongated plucked frozen chickens. Muscle and tendon flexed and stretched beneath clammy pink skin. Pointed beak-like mouths tore at flesh and gore as sightless eyes stared into nothingness. Large pointed ears twitched in the direction of the doors but their presence didn’t seem to interfere with their feeding.

“With your eyes.” While the urge to vomit was still there, it was far less intense than it had been just a moment before.

“A trick I picked up in Shanghai.” Johnny shrugged as he knelt down to peer at the pale forms. “This is definitely a problem. How did it get so bad?”

There was something that she was forgetting. Something that was very important that she hadn’t done…

“Not particularly possible unless…” Johnny frowned to himself and glanced back at Michelle. “Is this house weatherproofed?”

Very important she needed to…

“Officer Williams, was this house weatherproofed? Doors and windows replaced?”

To scream…

She took in a deep breath and opened her mouth, but Johnny slapped her. Hard. She, in turn, introduced him to the ground by way of her fist. But the moment had passed. Things were clear now. Things made sense in as much as could be expected when faced with the strangeness of the situation. Only a modicum of regret breached this clarity.

“What the hell is your problem, slapping a policewoman?” she snapped.

Johnny picked himself up and rubbed at his jaw. Again, he looked amused more than annoyed. “Nice right hook.”

“You know what those things are?” Michelle demanded. What she did know was clicking into place. These things were strange and this man was strange. It would be a pretty twisted coincidence if they weren’t somehow connected.

“They’re infant bats.” Johnny replied, then paused. He rocked his head from side to side. “Sort of. The amazing thing about life is that in similar environmental circumstances in places completely different, it will come up with similar solutions.”

“What?” Michelle asked, growing confused.

“They are bats not of this world. I wonder, though, why they came here.”

“And they are dangerous?”

“Oh, definitely. A fully grown one of these can snatch up a Clydesdale and – what are you doing?”

Michelle held her weapon level at one of the creatures. “If they’re dangerous they either need to be contained or destroyed. Seeing as we don’t have any cages around here, we might as well get rid of these things here.”

“I appreciate how calm you are in your conviction, Officer, but if you kill one of these things now, you’ll end up doing much more harm than good.”

“Why is that, Johnny?”

“Because we don’t know where the parents are.”

“You mean there are more of these things?”

“Babies come from somewhere.”

Part 3

They sat in the patrol car, watching the old Sheldon house as the sun traveled across the sky into afternoon. The plan was simple, but its execution required their waiting for night. Michelle protested at leaving Miss Sheldon as a meal for the weird bat babies but Johnny had demonstrated why nothing could be done. He tried to poke one with a fire poker. The five creatures moved at once, hissing and keening. One reached out with a fleshy limb from which thin membranous skin stretched and snatched the poker from Johnny’s hand and bent it in half. It took the old iron into its mouth and tried to eat it, but, finding no flesh there, tossed it aside.

Taking Miss Sheldon out of the picture was not an option.

They waited.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Johnny asked as the local radio station began playing country western ballads about lost loves and stolen property. Apparently when wives left their husbands, they took all pets and vehicles.

“Neither are you,” Michelle replied as she puzzled over the blank police report form. She would have to explain what happened up here somehow. Miss Sheldon being eaten by strange bat-babies didn’t seem appropriate.

“Well, obviously. But where are you from?”

“New York. You?”

“North Egypt… Thereabouts.”

She glanced at him, curious. “Then what are you doing here?”

“You want to know what someone from North Africa is here in the American Appalachia?”

“Well…” she hesitated briefly, wondering if he was somehow taking offense. “Yes.”

“Like I said before, I’m here to deal with this pest problem.”

“You knew these bats were here?”

“I had an idea, yes.”

“So what are you? The men in black?” Michelle replied, grinning.

Johnny scoffed, and then took in her expression, perhaps completely misreading it. “No, the Men in Black deal with aliens. The government pays them.”

Michelle paused, frowning. “So the Men in Black are real?”

“Government agents that go around in black suits and shades to quiet down and get rid of any extra-terrestrial threats? Sure. Where do you think your tax dollars go? Who do you think invented the modern mechanical pencil?”

“Modern mech-… What are you talking about?”

“Yes, they are real,” Johnny repeated. He glanced over at her and she seemed to retreat into her own thoughts. “You’re wondering why you didn’t know about these things before. You did know, on some level. Everyone knows. But people often don’t want to acknowledge it.”

“Everyone is participating to cover-up strange stuff like this?” Michelle asked, incredulous. How could society as a whole conspire to keep oddities like this a secret? “Area 51?”

“Oh, yes, Area 51.” Johnny stared out of the window at the trees beyond the patrol car door. “Turns out that one really was just a weather balloon.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

They fell into silence again. Michelle reached across Johnny to retrieve a pad and paper from the glove compartment. “So why are the bats here?”

Johnny again looked amused, as if he’d heard a particularly interesting bit of information “Why do you ask that?”

“You seem to know a lot about what’s going on here — with the lack of smell and those creatures’ behavior.”

“Then I imagine your first question should have been about me.”

“We’ll get to that.” Michelle took a pen from her pocket, then fixed him with a stern glare. “Now, the bats?”

Johnny’s expression turned somber. Michelle seemed to be far more astute and levelheaded than he’d expected from law enforcement. Usually, he would have had to subdue or disable one to keep them from doing something rash like calling for backup or, worse, try to kill anything they found.

What was dangerous about Michelle and the sort of mind and personality she possessed was that she would not be content with simply knowing. Sure, she could accept all that was being told her but in the fullness of time, that knowledge would become curiosity. And that curiosity would breed a need, an insatiable need to seek out the oddities of the world. This was dangerous. Invariably, those who sought were either committed or wound up dead.

Still, it was never a policy of his to deny a reasonable request. “The bats are extra-dimensional beings, otherwise known as demons,” he raised a hand, as if knowing what the next question would be, as if the query was inevitable. “Certainly the creatures of fiction, mythology and religion were inspired by extra dimensional creatures by I assure you there is no connection to Hell — at least, not in the way you know.”

“Why here, why now?” Michelle’s mind began whirring with the implications of the man’s words, but she pressed on with her original like of questions for now.

“Your Miss Sheldon was also a demon, from the same dimension as the bats. In this case, like attracts like,” Johnny explained.

“She brought them here?” Michelle shook her head as Johnny nodded. “She’s been here for near fifty years. You mean to tell me that she’s just now…” she trailed off, searching for the appropriate word, then frowned as the thought arose, “being hunted?” She raised a single finger, forestalling his answer. “Why did it take so long?”

“No idea,” he replied easily. “Why does a fox catch a hare that’s been living a quiet life up until its death?”

“She seemed so human,” Michelle said, her thoughts spinning, warring and sparring. Much of what this Johnny character said was impossible, but at the same time, what she’d seen not an hour before had been impossible. She was no vet, but she knew something alien when she saw it.

“Yes, she did. Likely she had some sort of elective surgery to blend in. And she chose this small town to vacation in.”

“Vacation? Here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Officer Williams, imagine you had an opportunity to go to a completely new world. One where the trees are different, the technology is different, even the color of the sky is different. Imagine going to a world completely not your own where the people more or less look like you, but everything. Everything. Was a bit different. Sheldon wanted that experience. She wanted to come here and enjoy the little oddities of this world.”

“Are there really worlds where the sky is a different color?”

“Sure, it’s a general function of the atmosphere, but you wouldn’t want to breathe there.”

“So. Sheldon comes here on… a vacation to watch us all do weird things because she’s from a different world.” Michelle ran down a list – a timeline she’d scribbled on her notepad. Johnny nodded. She continued. “And the bats come and hunt her down. They kill her in her sleep — which I’m still not entirely sure about — and then they let their young feed on her corpse.”

“That’s… Pretty much the long and short of it, yes.”

“And now we are waiting till nightfall so that we can catch and ultimately expel these demon bats because they’ll kill and eat other people.”

Johnny paused, tilted his head back and forth, then frowned. “Yes…” He drew the syllable out. “I think.”

“You think? Look, I’m not sure what all is going on with your whole extra-demenshun mumbo whatsit, but what I do need to know is if I can expect to be dealing with a whole bunch more of these things.”

A loud, ear-shattering screech echoed through the forest. Michelle turned back to the Sheldon house, hands clamped to her ears. But the sound had passed. It was silent… still. The silence now nearly as consuming as the sound was. Then an answering shriek and it was as if someone jammed ice picks into her skull, the pain was so great, so consuming.

The screeching ended and, as Michelle wiped at her watering eyes, she tried to discern the origin of the sounds. “What the hell was that?”

“Something along the lines of good morning I suspect.” Johnny pulled at his earlobes. “They’re waking earlier than I’d hoped.”

“And you said you wanted to catch these suckers? Don’t you have any nets or anything?”

“Don’t you?”

Michelle blinked, then, resisting the urge to slug the man, she gritted through clenched teeth. “So what, exactly were you going to do once you got here and found murderous bats eating an old lady in the middle of nowhere?”

“Good question.”

The silence in the patrol car was as deafening as the screeches had been. Michelle closed her eyes and counted, slowly, to ten, trying to even her breathing. Somehow shed expected this stranger to have all of the answers, to sweep in and simply solve her little bat infestation. But no, he proved as useless as if he’d never been there and, once again, she had to rely on herself.

The baby bats were about the size of young dogs, which would make the bats human size, maybe a little larger. She had some rope in the trunk, some flares, and a tazer with several rounds. Regardless of what dimension the things came from, a couple thousand volts should knock them squarely out. Same as anything else.

“Okay,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’ve got taz-” Michelle blinked. Johnny had already left the patrol car and was in the small yard between the car and the house, waving his arms frantically.

“Hey! Where are you bastards?!” To add to this, he jumped several times.

A large shadow fell across Johnny, blocking out the noonday sun. He stopped his shouting and a piercing screech made Michelle’s vision dim momentarily, the pain so great. A great hairy claw reached out from the sky and snatched Johnny up. And like that, he was gone.

Michelle fought her way out of the car, briefly struggling with her seatbelt, disoriented from the pain from the screeches. Instead of standing behind her door to use it for cover as she brought her weapon to bear, she tumbled from the vehicle. Her vision swam until it steadied, revealing the sky.

And the massive winged creature bearing away the man with all the answers… And the absolute worst concept of a good idea she’d ever encountered.

Part 4

Michelle watched the large shadow spread its wings and bank in a wide, silent spiral into the forest to disappear among the trees. “This is insane. This is actually insane.” She glanced around as if expecting someone to pop out of the brush and declare that she was, in fact, quite unbalanced. But, as nothing of the sort occurred, that left her with only one plan of action.

She staggered to her feet, leaning against the patrol car for support. With great effort, she made her way to the trunk of the car. Her legs shivered, threatening to slip from beneath her. It was as if the connection between her mind and her limbs had been jangled by, what had Johnny said, sonic disruption?

The thought that had bothered her as she spoke to Johnny just moments ago again returned. Miss Sheldon had been hunted — through dimensions, apparently — by these creatures. Which made her prey and anything that looked similar, also prey. Which meant that Johnny was probably already…

Michelle wrenched the trunk open after fumbling with the latch and took several moments to orient herself. The trunk of a small town patrol car was different than that of a New York patrol car. First, and most notably, it had more shotgun shells. Shotgun wielding country folk, she’d found, was less a stereotype than it was a reflection on truth.

She ignored the shotgun and opened a medium sized case that contained two tazer pistols and 24 spring-loaded rounds. Her mind slowly clearing, a plan coalesced. A plan less inspired by sense and more from her gut. She took up the tazer case, a length of rope, a second small case and, after hesitating, the shotgun as well.

She made her way back to the Sheldon house. The first thing she noticed as she re-entered Sheldon’s bedroom was, again, the lack of scent. The next was that the bat offspring had grown noticeably larger in the few hours since their discovery. Now, instead of the size of small puppies, they were nearly as large as fully-grown Labradors.

Moments later the cases lay open on the ground in the hallway behind her. She stood, feet firmly planted, watching the bat creatures feast on what remained of Miss Sheldon. She took in a deep, steadying breath, then fired.

The tazer round spring from its cartridge and impacted one of the feeding creatures with a meaty thwack, as if steak being thrown to a counter. Hundreds of volts shot forth and the creature wailed in pain, emitting a high, keening sound. The creature’s siblings, sympathetic, one touching the afflicted companion, also wailed.

And then came the screech.

Even through the shooting range noise cancellers, a gift from her old partner in New York, she could feel the numbing effect of the sound. But she held on to her ability to think, and, more importantly, act. “Alright, time to come save the babies,” she muttered. Despite the fact that the creatures ate… Humans, she felt terrible. They had only been acting in accordance to their nature and the children should never be punished for the parent.

But then two things happened that made that guilt melt away with fierce, abrupt quickness. The other three creatures not being charged with enough voltage to bring a grown man to his knees rushed towards her, mouths open revealing several rows of thick short teeth.

Second, the roof of Miss Sheldon’s building was shorn off. It was as if a large hand had reached from the sky and ripped the old, rotting tile and timber from the rest of the house. Though, in reality, it was about as near to the truth as she was going to manage with her limited experience.

The closest creature received the second bolt of electrified wire as she backed into the hallway, ducking as debris rained down into what was once Miss Sheldon’s bedroom. Michelle stumbled down the stairs as another swipe of a god-sized hand took another chunk from what sounded like nearly half the entire house. Above her, the fleshy pink bat -children rolled down the stairs, keening the entire way.

Another shriek cut across the air and it felt as if someone had stuck a large spoon in her gut and chest and began stirring. Without warning, what remained of her morning coffee and bagel lay splattered across the entry hallway. The two creatures no afflicted with electric induced stupor, however, seemed unaffected by the screeching and sprang forward, grasping.

Then they disintegrated in a haze of gore and bone. Michelle heaved, her back pressed against the front door and hands tightly holding the smoking shotgun steady. Drops of ichors coated her and some had even made its way into her mouth, but her eyes remained sharp, focused.

Michelle got to her feet once again, holding the gun steady towards the top landing of the house. Wood groaned around her, creaking with the effort to fight the irresistible law of gravity. She felt her mind wanting to rebel, to panic. But she took another deep breath and, strangely enough, remembered Johnny’s eyes.

Just as she found her calm and her stomach settled, the house shook again with the furious cry of the large bat. There was a tremendous, splintering crunch from the second floor and, a moment later, two beady red eyes stared at her from the top landing of the stairs. As terrified as she was, one thing about the moment gripped her heart even more so than the giant creature’s presence — there was intelligence behind those eyes. Not the cleverness of a well-trained dog, but a true, logical, scientific mind.

And still, more than the intelligence was the unassailable fact that Michelle was now covered in the creature’s children’s blood.

Michelle dove into the living room just as the creature opened its mouth and a stream of solid sound cascaded down the stairs to rip a hole in the front door. The screech came again and Michelle fought the urge to vomit as she untangled the rope from across her shoulders. The creature forced its way down the stairs, pushing aside walls and railing, pushing its too-large bulk into the house to get at her.

“Not good,” she muttered as she coiled rope around into a lasso. The few lessons she’d gotten as a child were less than adequate she knew, but she couldn’t well stand around and wait for some monster to eat her at its own leisure. At least, not until she had a go with Joey.

Strange how Joey came to her mind at this time. The smell of coffee, of the baking pastries. His smile, his eyes…

“Bastard!”

The bat crushed through the small opening between the second and first floors to fall into a heap in the entryway. The door, unable to hold the force of its impact, popped out of its frame to sail across the porch and slam against the patrol car. It got to its feet, huffing, its breath coming in furious puffs.

It turned towards her, eyes shining with murderous intend. Its fur was ruffled, bits or house stuck in its flesh at odd angles. Blood from the small wounds trickled and matted its skin, but it didn’t seem to notice.

Michelle brought the shotgun up to bear. The creature opened its mouth and the gun vibrated so violently that it wrenched itself free from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She knelt slowly and picked up the rope. Disruption sonic stuff. She’d read about that in high school and seen what some opera singers had done with wine glasses, shattering them with their voices. If the creature could force the gun from her fingers…

The creature opened its mouth and Michelle turned away, but nothing came forth. Instead, in the distance, a bellowing cry echoed from the forest. The creature turned to face the open door and Michelle moved. Heart pounding in her chest and breath heavy with the day’s ordeals, she threw the lasso. It was sloppy and the throw was panicked and she was not surprised the rope fell limply against the creature’s shoulder.

Ignoring her, the bat turned in the constricted confines of the living room and squeezed back upstairs. Michelle coiled the rope once again and rushed after the thing. Regardless of whatever its intentions, these things had to be stopped. She navigated the ripped and shredded stairs coming to the top landing to watch as the sightless remainder of the bat children clawed their way upon their parent’s fur.

The two tazers lay discarded among the rubble, spent but seeming otherwise undamaged. Michelle tucked one into her belt and coiled the lasso. She waited, then swung as the bat raised its head. The lasso fell neatly across the creature’s neck and Michelle nearly cheered with excitement — until the rope pulled taught as the bat spread its wings and took off.

The house and the ground fell away with surprising speed as Michelle swung wildly on the end of the rope. By the time she thought of letting go, it was far, far too late. She closed her eyes, holding onto the taught cord as tightly as she could manage but even then, the cord slipped with her weight. In a move that as much frightened her as much as surprised she jerked on the rope and her weight was gone for a split second.

She wrapped the cord around her arm then grimaced as her weight returned with all the force of gravity. The motion pulled at the rope, drawing the lasso tighter which finally got the bat’s attention.

The bat banked sharply, throwing Michelle into a wide, flailing arc. It was only then that she began to scream.

Part 5

The arc swung Michelle about in the air, but the motion apparently threw off the bat’s ability to fly on its intended course. Moments later, the tree line rushed upwards at her, all sharp evergreen needles and stone hard branches. As she spun on her line, yet another impossible thing crossed her vision. She turned to keep her eyes focused, but the flight was far too erratic for that. Wind whipped her around and blew her hair into her face.

She just had time enough to see… Johnny leaping from the nearest tree directly for her. She only had time to again wonder if she was insane and if her medical insurance would cover her being committed for having hallucinations of car sized demonic bats and men with English accents from Egypt when they collided. The impact was bone- jarring and she felt the connections in her shoulder strain in the form of sharp, insistent pain.

“Do you mind?” Johnny said as he grappled with her body, crawling up her back to reach the rope.

She said the first thing that came to mind — beyond the relief and disbelief at seeing him alive was the simple anger: “What the hell kind of plan was that?”

“About as insane as this one.” Michelle managed to get glimpse of just what Johnny was up to as he gripped the rope above her arm. With one hand he held fast to the rope cord and with the other he pulled a small knife from his pocket. He brought the blade to the rope and again Michelle found herself reacting far too late.

The blade passed through the rated parachute rope cord without resistance and the bat above jerked upwards from the sudden shift in weight. The two previous passengers fell towards the earth. Now, far too tired for a proper scream, Michelle gasped as Johnny wrapped an arm around her waist.

She glanced at his face and, instead of the fear that she felt, she saw an odd expression of grim determination. As if the rapidly ascending ground and its field of growing green-needled spikes was only a simple obstacle.

Michelle winced as his armed tightened around her and then cried out as their descent slowed. And again, a jerk and loss of momentum. Wood snapped around them and the smell of pine needles and sap filled the air. She ventured a look down just as they jerked again, this time accompanied by a large SNAP as a large branch broke from their combined falling weight.

She understood what he was trying to do, despite how impossible it seemed, but the trees were centuries old, virgin forest. The branches ended… Right about now.

As they fell the three stories between the lowest branches and the ground, Johnny threw Michelle upwards, hard. She felt weightless for a moment before the trunks again moved past her. Now, though, Johnny’s arms encircled her gently and they fell the rest of the way. The impact was hard, but not the terrible splat she’d expected when first leaving the ground.

He set her down and took a step back. Michelle stood, her balance unsteady. Her mind again whirring. “How did you do that?” she asked, finally, when the ability to speak returned to her.

Johnny shrugged.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned. She was tired, hurting and more than anything she just wanted to go home and enjoy the sort of bath that made skin prune and water heating bills skyrocket. But she would be damned if this bastard held out on her now. After she went toe to toe with one of those damned bats. “How did you do that?”

“I’m different than most others living on the planet now,” he explained as he headed through the trees.

Michelle caught up with him, but kept several paces back. “You’re a demon.”

“Absolutely not.” He said this with such vehemence that Michelle wondered if she’d offended him. But then she realized that she really didn’t care and so continued on.

“Then what, then?” She asked, stepping around small saplings destined for death from lack of sunlight imposed by its very own parents. She was ready to believe nearly anything considering what she’d seen and experienced. If her little cousin, Darrel had appeared behind a tree, yelling surprised, she would accept that as readily as she accepted the fact that she needed to breathe.

“I’m a police officer of sorts,” he began slowly. Johnny paused to peer into the gloom, then gestured her forward as they continued.

“A Man in Black.”

“No, though the concept is not dissimilar.” He raised a hand, then knelt to the ground. He began whispering. “I know you have many questions and, with time, they will all be answered.” Johnny shook his head sharply at her beginning protests. “But not right this moment. I need you to be silent and do exactly as I say. Can you do that?”

Michelle stared at Johnny, her own eyes slightly narrowed with suspicion. With as many things as the man had not told him, she did not have a reason to disbelieve him… Yet. Besides, he had saved her life, hadn’t he? She nodded, promising silently that the interrogation room would see a lot of use once they finished here.

Johnny smiled and took a small sphere about three inches in diameter and placed it firmly in her hand. “When I give you the signal, I need for you to throw this right between the two big bats. The radius of this isn’t as large as I’d like, but I wasn’t expecting them to be so large.” He paused, considering. “It should definitely be enough. Come on.”

The sphere in her hand felt mostly like any other large ball bearing she’d handled in her life. Solid, a bit weighty, and smooth. Even the surface of it was as shinny as any other metal ball; a bit more dull, as if it had been placed in a fire for a short time. Beyond the qualities that she could qualify and quantify from her own experience, there was a strangeness, a presence which she could not quite explain.

She brought the sphere closer to her eyes, trying to make sense of what she was more feeling than seeing. Johnny lowered her hand “It’s best if you don’t stare at it. They tend to make people go a bit insane.”

Johnny led Michelle through the trees and sparse underbrush, now and again pausing to peer into the gloom of the shadow-casting canopy of ancient trees. Finally, they stopped and he pointed to his eyes, then into the gloom. What at first she’d taken as formless shadow was, in fact the two bat creatures.

From the two large shadows came a low, warbling song, hauntingly soft, but persistent. Notes produced with apparatus not found in humans and with such purity as to make all that Michelle heard before to be as so many long scratches along a chalkboard. But there was only one voice, broken intermittently by softer, less able tones chiming in.

Johnny led them closer, until. “Oy!” he called out. Only one of the shadows stirred.

“This is you plan?” Michelle hissed. “Again!?”

Johnny shook his head at her as he continued to address the creatures. “He’s hurt, isn’t he?”

The shadow did not move.

“You can’t heal him alone, not here in this strange place.” The two humans crept closer. The shadows didn’t move. “You children aren’t as large as they should be after that meal. The chemical makeup here isn’t compatible enough with your own, is it? Go home with your mate and children and live a proper life.”

“What are you doing?” Michelle whispered. “They’re bats.”

Johnny waved her off as the shadows stirred. Tones emanated from within the gloom. The tones slowly shifted, warped and it took them both a moment to realize that the tones were words. It was like listening to someone speak from underwater, lacking hard sounds and consonants, but what they said was clear.

“Strange place.”

“Yes. I can send you home.”

“Home… Yes…” came the long, haunting, echoing, beautiful tones. “Children grow. Mate healed. Children not here. Children not live.”

The tones agitated, lowering into menacing near sub-audible booms. Lighter, fainter tones keened.

Johnny rounded on Michelle and she could tell that, all of his offenses were feigned to this point. Here, here was the true expression of his displeasure. “You killed her children?” he hissed.

“Not all of them.” Once again a step behind she realized how callous her words had been. His face told her that he’d taken it just in the way she hadn’t intended. “I was trying to bring one of the bats back and so I… Interfered with their feeding. They got too close when they attacked and…” she mimed a shotgun blast as she trailed off.

“How would you like it if you went to Disney World with your family and had some of your children killed by a ride operator?” Johnny hissed.

“What? And you did any better when you did whatever it is to that thing’s mate?” Michelle countered. Now she was angry. Why should she have to apologize for protecting herself?

Johnny paused, raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to make a point, then he shook his head. “We’ll discuss it later if she doesn’t decide to eat you in revenge.”

He turned back to the shadowy forms that had begun to sing again, this time the young voices keeping up with the elder creature. Michelle and Johnny stood silently, listening, allowing the sounds of terrible sorrow wash over them.

A moment passed and the song faltered. “You?” came the inquisitive tone.

“I am.” Johnny replied without hesitation.  He waited, then prompted. “Is yours gone as well?”

“Yes…” the tone trailed into low, keening sadness.

“You can’t stay here. You know this.”

“Home.”

“Throw it.”

Michelle threw the sphere at the shadows. As she fallowed the arc into the gloom, sparks of light flickered from the sphere, spinning outwards in smoky whorls. The sphere landed and the whorls brightened to encompass the creatures. One of the shadows shifted and Michelle saw, even at this distance, the intense hatred flowing from the red bat eyes.

Impact.

Michelle again found herself staring towards the sky, this time a brown mass of something was in the way and, beyond that, green and yellow. The mass focused and became Johnny who seemed intensely concerned.

“Are they gone?” she asked.

“Back home. Or whatever is left of it. Are you okay?”

Michelle tested her arms and legs, but generally felt as someone had taken a bat — a baseball bat – and done her a quick once over. “What happened?”

“Parting shot,” Johnny replied. She felt his arms work their way beneath her and he lifted her from the ground. “Luckily the transport occurred mid… Whatever that was. Otherwise…” the image of that torn wall came into sharp focus for her.

“I get it,” she replied.

He carried her in silence.

When they reached the patrol car some time later, Johnny set her in on the passenger side and slid into the driver’s seat. He glanced around the wheel. “Let’s see if I can remember… Where’s the throttle?”

Michelle laughed, ignoring the pain it brought her. Then she laughed harder. “You talk to bats, you fly and you send creatures into different dimensions but you don’t know how to drive a car?”

He fixed her with a stern expression, but it only made her laugh harder. “I usually have a driver take care of things like this. Besides, I would carry you if I thought it would do you any good.” Johnny waited until she quieted down and he had familiarized himself with the controls of the car. He brought them around and began the journey back to Crowston proper.

“The bats, I imagine, were the dominant species in their world. Think of the kind of intelligence it takes to control a vocal organ capable of smashing up a house like that. And it learned English rather quickly, didn’t it.”

“How’d it do that?”

“How did you know how to throw that sphere? Humans develop the ability early to triangulate and instinctively judge distance. You can’t accurately give exact measurements, but you know enough to throw a ball, pick up something from a counter. Think of it that way, they know sound far more intimately than we can comprehend. So it must have been able to distinguish meaning from those tones.”

“You didn’t know it would understand you.”

“No, but I had an idea.”

Johnny glanced over and Michelle saw the concerned expression on his face.” Don’t worry, I’ve been through worse.”

“Doubtful. You need to rest.”

“I’m fine,” she lied again. She’d never been shot or properly beaten to a pulp, but she imagines this… This was much like a Bruce Willis action character felt at the end of the film.

“You need to rest,” he repeated, and then reached across the seat to press a hand against her temple. Soft, warm, gentle fingers. “Sleep.”

“What are you-” Sleep came swiftly and as consuming as a lunar eclipse. She had a feeling, as she drifted downwards, that Johnny would not be there when she woke. But there was a greater feeling, beyond, deeper, that she would see him again. The sort of conviction reserved for children and Santa Clause, or the teen and the unwavering belief in a parent, despite rebellion.

Sleep came. But she remembered the eyes of the creature. The bat. The mother from so far away. So strange. So… Understandable… Memorable.