The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE BATS By David Grant

The Windrops had a big garden behind their house and at the end of it was a wooden hut. Originally it had been used for storing garden implements and any junk that looked as if it might be useful some day, but now it was given over solely to the use of their eight-year-old son, Mervyn. The Windrop's intention was twofold: Mervyn could have a place of his own in which he could do what he liked and make as much mess as he liked, learn to be independent and do things for himself; and also the hut would be a place where his parents could leave him if they wanted to go out without upsetting him. If they wished to go to a theatre or a dance, or for a drink with friends, they could do so, because with luck he would be so absorbed in whatever he was doing that he would not care in the least if they were away as long as they liked.

Mervyn's main preoccupation seemed to be collecting and looking after animals. He was genuinely interested, and with the information he could glean from books and his father's help which, however, he could enlist only after a great deal of persuasion, he was successful in raising broods of all sorts of small creatures from caterpillars to rabbits. Long hours would be spent by the boy peering intentiy down at the movements of the various animals as he studied their habits, their often brief, intense lives, and their almost casual deaths.

The trouble with the hut and Mervyn's exile there was that it was an easy way out for the parents. He was becoming independent too quickly, and his affection rapidly being transferred from his parents to the animals he nurtured at the bottom of the garden. If the Windrops had any inkling of this they were too wrapped up in the good time they were having and the luxury of having a child who was no trouble to them because he could be left to his own resources, to worry overmuch. Mervyn was not conscious of anything wrong, but it might have been broken to him gently and no real harm done had it not been for an accident that revealed to him, for the first time, the extent of his abandonment.

The usual procedure, when Mervyn first took over the hut, was that his parents would appear at. the door and diffidently tell him that they were going out. After a while this lapsed and they would arrive at the hut, dressed ready to go and merely say: 'Well, we're off out, Mervyn' and leave it at that. Mervyn was usually so absorbed in his collection or in something that he was making that he did little more than grunt. Seeing this almost total lack of concern the Windrops went a stage further and stopped coming down to the hut at all. Sometimes they told him when he was up at the house for a meal, but often they said nothing and just went, leaving him to fend for himself.

One evening they went out early without saying anything, while Mervyn was down at the hut busily converting an orange box into a cage for a grass snake he had found. Soon the light began to go and he switched on the electric light in the hut with the same preoccupied air which seemed to characterise everything he did now that he was left to his own resources. The bulb was dim and he was bending low over the box in his own light, chipping wood away with a chisel, which he handled somewhat uncertainly. Suddenly the chisel slipped, there was a brief moment of disbelief and there was blood welling from his left hand and a great pain shooting up his arm. The chisel clattered to the floor and Mervyn crashed out of the hut into the gloom, screaming with shock and terror. He blundered through the garden towards the house, stumbling as he went, his eyes wet with tears and his arm hanging limp by his side and dripping blood. He rushed up to the house and burst in. The house was in darkness.

'Mummy! Daddy! I'm hurt!' he screamed, but there was no reply. He paused and sucked in breath, his sobs almost silenced by disbelief that his parents should not be there to help him. He called for them again, but there was nothing. He rushed through the house, trying every room, calling for them as he went. Finally he burst into his bedroom and sank down on the bed, his body shuddering with sobs. His right hand, the good one, plucked at the coverlet and then the pluck became a grip as something in the boy asserted itself. The tears stopped flowing, although he still sucked in great gulps of air, and his grip on the coverlet strengthened until the knuckles showed white as he strove to control himself. His teeth clenched as he fought back the pain and the shock, and he found the courage to look at his shattered hand. Somehow he had missed the artery, but there was still a lot of blood flowing from the wound and the pain throbbed through the whole arm. Mervyn stared down at it, and then the months of independence came to the surface and he walked steadily from the room, holding his hand well away from him, and went into the bathroom. There he turned on the cold tap in the basin and stuck his hand under it. As the water struck the wound he nearly swooned from the pain, but his basic hardness sustained him and he left the hand there while the blood swirled round the basin, mingling with the water, and then dropped out of his life. Next he took a bottle of iodine from the cupboard above the basin and removed the cork with his teeth. Unsteadily he poured iodine on to the wound and yelled with agony. Once again he clenched his teeth and overcame the pain as he knew he must. His face was grey, but his eyes were hard and staring as he found a bandage and started clumsily to bind his hand as he had seen his mother do it. But now his mother was not there to help. This was something he would remember. They had not been there to help. Somehow he managed to wind the bandage round his hand and fix a simple kind of knot. Blood was still seeping through, mingling with the iodine, but he was past caring. Now that he had got this far he was weak from loss of blood and the shock, not only of the accident itself, but of finding that he had to care for himself when it was the duty of others to be there to aid him. He staggered back to his room and slumped over the bed where he lost consciousness.

The Windrops had a very pleasant evening and returned home late. As soon as they entered the house they saw the first signs of what had happened. A small table in the hall had been knocked over and the papers that had been on it were flecked with blood. As they went into other rooms they saw that there were splashes of blood everywhere. They regarded the scene with horror and stood speechless before Mrs Windrop recalled her duty, screamed 'Mervyn!' and raced up the stairs where a trail seemed to lead. They passed the bathroom and saw the pools of blood on the floor. Then they burst into Mervyn's room where he lay tossing feverishly on the bed, his face white and beaded with sweat, his injured hand hanging limply over the pillow which was now deeply stained.

They telephoned for the doctor, who in turn sent for an ambulance and listened in stony silence while they told him what they knew, which was, of course, very little. The contempt on his face was enough in itself to punish the Windrops, but they had no idea then of the punishment their son had in store for them.

He did not lose his hand, although it was a very near thing, but he virtually lost the use of it and it hung, clawlike by his side, incapable of doing much more than pulling and pushing things if they were not too heavy. His parents' remorse was genuine and they did all they could to make up for that one dreadful night, but they discovered that all affection had died in their son, except for his animals and for the life he led in the hut. He was always polite to them and, at times, almost affable, as if he were a friend of the family rather than their eight-year-old son. He accepted their new interest in him with a vague condescension that humiliated them. He now smiled littie, apart from at his pets, and when he looked at the creatures in their neat little cages in the hut there was a soft, tender look in his expression which contrasted with the hate which showed when he glanced at his parents, a hate which vanished if they were actually looking at him, to be replaced by something that distressed them equally: indifference.

His father took to coming down to the hut to see what he was doing, to take an interest in his hobbies in an effort to win back the boy's affection, but each time he found the same indifference to anything he might say or do and a total absorption in the study of his pets. As far as Mervyn was concerned his father might not have existed as he stood next to him in the confined space of the hut, and he never spoke unless it was some brief answer to the questions his father asked to show his interest.

Windrop's effort was too late and failed miserably. While distressed by the alienation of his son's affection, he was also piqued that more interest should be shown in the animals and that he should be virtually ignored.

'It's those animals,' he said to his wife. 'We shall have to get rid of them. We can't hope to gain Mervyn's confidence, or even his attention, while they're still there. They'll have to go.'

'We couldn't do that,' replied Mrs Windrop. 'They're his whole life now. If we took them away he'd have nothing left.'

'What an attitude,' snorted her husband in disgust. 'Of course he'd have something left: us.'

'I don't know,' said his wife doubtfully. 'But I don't think the answer is to get rid of the animals.'

It was all right for her, Windrop decided. She hadn't been snubbed like he had.

'Why don't you go down and have a look at them?' he asked. 'You try and talk to him down there. It's impossible.'

Mrs Windrop went down to the hut. Mervyn was in there, stroking his grass snake. His mother pulled back at the door when she saw it, but by the look of contempt in his eyes she realised that it was harmless.

'Hello,' she said diffidently. Mervyn replaced the grass snake in its box and turned to a tortoise. His mother was left looking at his back. Her lips tightened with anger but she tried to make the best of it. She looked round at the boxes and cages, at the hamsters, the rabbits, the hedgehog, the caterpillars that looked like miniature flue-brushes, the raven and the one-eared cat that sat nonchalantly in the corner, washing itself.

'My, what a lot of pets you have now,' she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice. Mervyn's mouth curled slightly at the edges. He had not reasoned it out at all, but deep down he knew that she was the real villain as far as his accident was concerned. He could forgive his father not being there, but his mother never. She did not see the loathing in his eyes as she turned and pointed into the far corner of the hut.

'What have you got there? she asked.

Mervyn had hung sacks so that the whole corner was shut off from the joists to the floor, thus making a small dark enclosure with the top and bottom open.

Mervyn ignored his mother's question. She tried again.

'What have you got over there?'

'Bats,' replied Mervyn quietly.

'Bats?'

'Bats.'

'Oh, I see,' she said, backing towards the door. 'I didn't think you could keep bats.'

'I can,' said Mervyn following her with his eyes. She was trying to show that she was not frightened, but she was. There was something that repelled her about bats. She thought of the small, mouselike bodies, the staring blind eyes, the shrill squeals and the darting flight. Some of them drank blood. The other pets she could stand, although some of them made her shudder slightiy when she first saw them curled up in their cages or inching from plant to plant, but the thought of bats was too much.

'I'm going to get dinner ready,' she said abruptly, and left. Mervyn smiled as she went. He crossed to the corner and pulled one of the sacks aside. There they were. Hanging from the joists was a row of bats. They looked bigger than the usual sort found in Britain, but perhaps that was the fault of the light, which threw long shadows. The boy looked up at them with affection and then casually ran a hand across his throat. He could not feel them, but he knew that there were two tiny wounds there, wounds he was pleased to have. After all, his friends must feed.

Back in the house, Mrs Windrop was in the kitchen talking to her husband.

'He's got bats down there now.'

'Bats? I didn't think you could keep them.'

'Neither did I, but he says he can.'

Mervyn was right. He could. The bats were flourishing, but he was suffering for it. After his accident he had regained his previous colour and health with encouraging rapidity, but now he had become pale and listless again as he had been immediately after it. It was as if his blood were being drained slowly from him.

In time the Windrops noticed it, and in their fumbling way tried to say something to him, get him to eat more, to take more rest, but the look in his eye, the silent scorn was too much for them and they stood mutely by as he began to waste away. As far as they were concerned it was a phase following the accident and would probably right itself in time. Then Mrs Windrop saw the marks on Mervyn's throat.

She was in the kitchen one day, shucking some peas, when Mervyn came in from the hut to wash. He looked even paler than usual and his eyes were feverish. He stopped by the sink and took a piece of soap to wash his hands. It was then that his mother noticed the two little pinpricks on his throat. They looked as if they had just been made. She came close to him and pushed his head back, peering at the marks.

'How did you do that?' she asked. Mervyn twisted his head away from her irritably and flushed beneath his pallor.

'Nothing' he mumbled and looked at her steadily. She could not hold his gaze and she knew it. He left the room and she stood there thinking about the marks. He must have been bitten by some insect in the garden. He must have been bitten. The bats! She suddenly thought of the bats hanging silently up there in the corner of the hut and she gasped as the fantastic idea blossomed in her mind. She went quickly to her husband and told him.

'You must ask Mervyn,' she concluded. 'You must be firm and get him to tell you about it.'

'He won't say anything whatever I ask him. Anyway, the whole idea is ludicrous.'

But, ludicrous or not, Windrop was determined to find out about the marks from his son, not so much to ascertain how he got them, but to prove to himself and the boy that he still had some authority over him. That evening he went to Mervyn's bedroom and found him lying on the bed, resting. He was shocked at his appearance. His body seemed to be wasting slowly away and the pallor of his face was almost luminous in the dimly-lit room.

'Mervyn. Let me have a look at your throat, please.

Mervyn did not move.

'Mervyn, the marks on your throat.' Windrop approached the bed and looked down at his son wha stared up at him without moving and without saying a word. He tried to turn away as his father sat on the edge of the bed, but Windrop got hold of him and pushed his head back so that he could see the pricks in the light of the bedside lamp.

'Where did you get those?' Silence.

'All right,' said Windrop, making a decision. 'You aren't going to tell me anything, so I'll tell you a thing or two: not only are those bats going, but all the other animals as well, and furthermore I shall take great pleasure in demolishing that hut with my own two hands.'

'No!' The cry came from deep within the boy and his eyes seemed to start from his head. He raised himself up on his elbows and Windrop recoiled from the hatred that radiated from his son. He rose quickly from the bed and then asserted himself.

'Yes,' he said firmly, and left the room. Mervyn slumped back on to the bed and his eyes seemed to sink back into his head as he fought to recover from this shattering blow. What would he do when the hut went? Where would the bats be able to go? It was difficult enough as it was trying to make sure they were fed, difficult to supply enough blood….

That night the Windrops went to bed happier than they had been for some time. A decision had been made, and once it was carried out they could get on with the job of reclaiming their son without malign outside influences making it impossible. They talked for a while and then both went comfortably to sleep.

In his room Mervyn waited patiently. When he judged it right he went quietly to the door of his parents' room and tapped. There was no reply so he softly opened it and looked in. Both asleep. He closed the door and hurried downstairs, out into the garden and down to the hut. As he neared it he could hear the shrill cries of the bats as they waited for him. He opened the door of the hut and they flapped out into the night, circling him, squeaking urgently as they hovered close, almost caressingly.

Mervyn started to walk back towards the house and the bats followed, swooping and wheeling away at times, but always returning. When he got to the house he paused.

'Quiet now, bats,' he said gently and the cries ceased abruptly. Then the strange procession entered the house: the small, pale-faced boy in pyjamas and the now silent swarm of fox-faced bats, flicking their way silently around the room as they went out into the hall and up the stairs. Mervyn edged his way along the passage until he came to his parents' reom. He stopped to see if all his friends were with him, and they were. He grinned widely and then opened the door of the bedroom, stepped in and looked back at the silent, flapping mass of wings, fur and teeth.

'Come along, bats,' he said.