Vespers

Kathy started the engine and took the helm. Gentry slid into the seat beside her. Joyce and T-Bone crouched in the cramped stern, looking back at the tower. T-Bone pulled a bottle of seltzer from his equipment vest and offered some to Joyce. She declined. When everyone was secure, Kathy pushed the 225-horsepower engine to its maximum speed and tore from the dock.

As the island receded, Gentry ducked low behind the windscreen. He turned and asked Joyce for her radio. Holding it close to protect it from the wild sea spray, Gentry called Weeks.

“Where are you?” Weeks demanded.

“We’re in one of the news boats heading west!” Gentry shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Where west?”

“I’ll explain in a second. What’s the status of your SWAT teams?”

“Their launch is pi

Gentry said, “The big bat was nearly through the floor of the ventilation tower.”

“Jesus! What’s that fucking animalmade of?”

“Muscle, mostly,” Gentry replied. “And she’s after Nancy. Instead of coming back into the city we decided to head to Liberty Island. Nancy feels that even if the bat can make the trip, a mile-long flight in strong air currents will exhaust her. What kind of perso

“Hold on. I’ll-”

“Robert!”Joyce cried.

“Comin’ atcha!”added T-Bone, who had hoisted his camera onto his shoulder.

The detective spun around. T-Bone hadn’t turned on the floodlight so Gentry squinted into the dark.

There was an emergency lamp over the front entrance to the tower. In the small, sharp cone of light Gentry saw the giant bat literally push down the door. A cloud of ethyl chloride followed the animal out, dusting its back with a frigid coat. The bat took two hops toward the sea and vaulted skyward. She flew close to the water, followed by a train of small bats. Occasionally, the bat would rise, glide for a moment, then drop and resume flapping.

“She’s got to be within minutes of giving birth,” Joyce said. “She’s having trouble staying aloft.”

“Not trouble enough! She’s closing the gap,” Gentry said. He turned and looked at the control panel. “Fifty-three miles an hour. Is that the best we can do, Kath?”

“That’s top speed!” Kathy shouted apologetically.

Gentry ducked back down behind the windscreen. “Gordon? Are you still there?”

“Here!”

“The bat’s out and she’s following us.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

“Yeah. An empty one. Listen, we’ll be at the Statue of Liberty dock in less than a minute. What’ve you got for me?”

“Wait,” Weeks said. “Marius is talking to the park police.”

Gentry waited. He glanced ahead. The statue was brightly lit, an ethereal, washed-out green against the starless sky. They were less than a half mile from the low wall that surrounded the island.

Hope,he thought as he looked out at the statue. Wasn’t that what Lady Liberty was all about?

Weeks came back on. “Okay, here it is. Sergeant Julie Gilheany is opening the main door, back of the monument. She and another officer will lay down cover fire for as long as they can. Listen. I’m assuming the bats are going to follow you out there. When they do, we’re going to get our SWAT teams onto the water. If they can get close enough to pick off the giant-”

“I understand,” Gentry said. “We’ll lay low.”

Weeks wished him luck. Gentry thanked him, then put the radio in his jacket pocket. Holding on to the windscreen, he stood, half turned, and told the others the game plan. As he did he could see the giant bat illuminated by the reflected glow of the statue. The thing was roughly a quarter of a mile away and coming after them slowly but doggedly. Her dark army was spread behind her, their numbers growing.

“This is unfuckingreal,” T-Bone said as he videotaped the swarm. “I feel like I’m inThe Outer Limits.”

Nancy was also watching the bats. She was hunched over and seemed beaten. Gentry leaned toward her and lightly squeezed her left shoulder. Without turning, she reached across and touched his hand. Her fingers were cold. He wished he could think of something hopeful to say that wasn’t naive or a lie.

He looked back toward the island.

Roughly two hundred feet separated the dock from the entrance to Fort Wood, the star-shaped structure that serves as the foundation for the statue. Kathy swung around to the east side of the island and came to a hard, jolting stop alongside the dock.

Kathy jumped out and Gentry followed. He told her to run ahead while he helped Nancy out. Instead, she stayed to give T-Bone a hand with his camera and equipment case. Together, the foursome ran along the asphalt walk toward the large doors. Gentry stayed close to Joyce. She was tired and not moving as fast as the others. They swung around the left side of the statue. The tall double bronze doors were open. Inside the statue’s lobby entranceway stood two United States park police officers. One held a 9-mm pistol, the other a pump-action shotgun.

The park police sergeant had stepped outside with her shotgun. She aimed skyward.

“You’d better move!” she shouted to the group without taking her eyes from the bat.

They were about thirty feet from the doors. Gentry glanced behind him. The giant bat had just crossed the shoreline and was bearing down. The advance guard of vespers had slipped around the female and were slicing toward them.

Nancy screamed as two of the bats bit her shin. She stumbled, but Gentry wouldn’t let her fall. He caught her around the waist and pulled her up even as a flurry of bats dug into the back of his neck and chewed on his left leg.

Gentry heard Kathy shriek as bats descended. The reporter kept ru

“Berk, get back!” the sergeant cried.

“I’ll be okay!” the young man said. Still firing, he ran past Gentry.

“No!”Gentry barked. But he was tired from the run and his voice was a raw wheeze. He wished he could turn and pull the officer back, but he didn’t want to let go of Nancy.

Suddenly, Gentry felt a sharp shooting pain run up his left leg from his ankle. Several bats were attacking his shin and one of them had taken a bite from his Achilles tendon. But the detective refused to go down. The bats were growing more numerous every second. If Gentry dropped he wouldn’t be getting back up. He swallowed a cry and dragged the leg behind him.

Kathy reached the entrance, followed by T-Bone. She was still struggling with bats. T-Bone pulled two from his own head, crushed them in his giant hands, then did the same with the vespers that were in Kathy’s hair.

“Berk!”the sergeant cried again.

Gentry heard a scream. He turned and saw bats attacking the officer’s hands. A moment later hundreds of small bats slammed into his torso. The force of the impact lifted him several inches off the stone walkway and dropped him on his back. Then the giant bat crashed down on his chest. The officer’s arms flew out and he vomited a plume of blood.

“Berk!God -” The sergeant wailed and raised her shotgun.

The giant bat’s eyes and ears were not on her victim. They were on Joyce. Shaking her head angrily and closing her wings, the creature crawled from the body and lumbered through a cloud of thousands of small bats. Her eyes were narrow, her mouth fierce. Bent low and moving slowly, she clawed across the twenty yards to the door.

Gentry and Joyce ran past the sergeant. A fist of bats flew in with them, knocking the sergeant down before she could fire. T-Bone rushed over and pulled the second door shut. It closed with a heavy slam just as the giant bat hopped toward it. There were six smaller doors behind the ornamental front doors.