Bats Out of Hell (14 page)

No ambulances had come. None had been mobile at all that day.

In the guarded Council Chambers plans were being drawn up for the removal of corpses from public places by means of refuse carts.

Gerald Pitkin had watched the sky darkening over the Wrekin for the past half-hour. His head ached, and his eyes seemed to smart in their sockets. Beside him, his wife sat in the passenger seat of the Fiat as though dozing, but he knew that although her eyes were closed she was not asleep. Harry stared out of the window at the rear, expressionless, unspeaking.

"It's nearly dark." Gerald tapped Bertha on the shoulder. "I think we'd better be moving."

"D'you think it's worth it?" Her eyelids flickered open as she spoke, and he saw that she had been crying silently to herself. "I mean, we won't make it, will we?"

"Of course we shall," he replied, trying to sound confident. "It's only about ten miles from here, across country."

"But those guards . . ."

"We'll keep our eyes peeled," he assured her, and eased his door open. "Bet you we don't see a single one."

All three of them got out. The Fiat was parked in an open gateway, its front wheels resting on the stubble of early harvested barley.

"The sky's very red over there." Bertha Pitkin pointed beyond the Wrekin.

"Probably the reflection of the setting sun," Gerald replied. He knew perfectly well that it wasn't. It was too late, anyway. He knew in his heart what was causing the glow. Somewhere, far away, something was burning. Something big. Buildings. A town, maybe a city. Wolverhampton or Birmingham.

"We'll head west," he spoke in low tones. "Keep well clear of villages and roads until we get to Atcham. Shouldn't think they'll bother with guards out that far. We'll be well behind the lines then."

Gerald led the way, crawling under barbed-wire fences, holding up the wicked strands for Bertha to crawl beneath. Clothing was torn, hands and legs were scratched, but nobody complained.

There was silence everywhere. They knew that the road was no more than a quarter of a mile away, yet no sound of traffic came to their ears. No lights showed in houses or cottages. A dog barked somewhere as they passed a darkened farmhouse, but nobody came to investigate. It was as though the whole world had died and they were the sole survivors of some terrible disaster. Gerald Pitkin shuddered at the thought. It was a very real possibility.

The land ahead of them rose slightly. They could see trees and bushes outlined against the sky.

"How much further d'you think it is?" Bertha whispered hoarsely, holding on to her husband's arm for support.

"We must've covered about rive or six miles." he replied. "We're not doing too badly. If we can keep this pace up we'll be at Tom's before daylight"

Then, in one brief, horrifying second, their hopes were shattered. They were halfway up the slope when a voice called from the shadows, "Hold it right there. Keep perfectly still or you'll be shot!"

Gerald Pitkin caught his breath. Bertha whimpered softly. Harry remained silent. Footsteps came towards them, boots crunching on dry bracken and grass, and two men appeared. One was hanging back, covering the other. Both had guns.

"And where the hell d'you bastards think you're bleedin' well goin'?" the nearest man demanded. He approached them, and arrogantly spat at their feet.

They could see he was dressed in some kind of improvised uniform. A camouflage combat jacket bore white initials clumsily stitched on to the lapels. BVF. Added to this was a PVC jungle-style hat, denims and heavy working boots. The weapon he carried was a sporting gun, probably a twelve or sixteen gauge, Gerald decided. A cartridge belt was slung, Mexican-style across his chest.

"We're on our way to Shrewsbury." Gerald tried to keep the tremor out of his voice. "To see my brother."

"Well nobody goes any further than this. So piss off back where you came, all three of you."

"Our car broke down outside Wellington," Gerald said. "We had to leave it and walk."

"Well you can bloody well walk back to it."

"Please. My wife is exhausted . . . "

"Look, mate, I'm bloody exhausted too, turning back bastards like you who leave the roads and try to sneak out of the disease zone across country."

"Who are you?" Gerald asked, but he already knew, anyway.

"BVF. And if you don't piss off right now, you'll be shot." There was the click of a safety-catch being pushed forward. "All three of you. And you won't be the first tonight!"

Slowly Gerald Pitkin turned away, and the three of them trudged back down the hill. None of them spoke. When they reached the bottom they sank down on to the soft grass, huddling together in a way that they had not done for many years.

"What . . . what are we going to do now?" Bertha sobbed at last.

"I don't know," Gerald replied. "I just don't know." And in the east the sky had become a deeper red, the fiery glow spreading across the whole width of the horizon beyond the Wrekin.

The city of Birmingham burned for two whole days and nights, dense columns of black smoke rising into the sky, spreading and obscuring the scorching rays of the sun. Fire brigades fought and lost a series of battles, being forced to concede several major buildings to the flames, and spraying adjacent ones in a futile effort to check the spreading blaze. And all the time they were hampered by missile-throwing crowds which even the combined Armed Forces and BVF squads were unable to drive back at times.

Rubber bullets were replaced by lead ones during the first day of street fighting. No longer were warning shots fired over the heads of the fear-crazed mobs. Tanks and armoured trucks formed barricades in an attempt to segregate New Street and Corporation Street whilst the battles with the flames continued.

The streets were littered with the dead. The wounded cried incessantly for aid, but none heeded them except perhaps close relatives, many of whom paid the extreme penalty from either venturing into the line of fire, or being buried beneath falling, burning rubble. Nowhere were the casualties collected. The outbreak of violence had prevented the scheme for corpse clearance by means of refuse carts being implemented. It was hoped, unofficially, that the majority of the victims would be cremated in the holocaust.

Anarchy and fire were terrible indeed. But when compared with the terror which the bats were creating they were as mild irritations in a crumbling society. The burning city appeared to have enraged them beyond all comprehension. By day few were seen, but as dusk and smoke merged into darkness, they flitted over blazing streets as though winging their way through the flames of hell itself. They were impartial in their choice of victims. Members of the armed and fire-fighting forces or rioters, it made no difference to these tiny, insane creatures.

Many bats were seen lying dead in the gutters, along with rats and mice which had crawled from their holes in the final stages of suffering. But it was from the carriers of the mutated virus that the danger lay. Whilst they existed, death was a constant hazard.

The third day dawned. The flames had died down. Embers smouldered, and the still atmosphere was filled with the stench of burned flesh. Thousands had perished. The war in the city had been reduced to guerrilla status. Armoured trucks patrolled the streets, unhesitatingly opening fire on any hostile gathering, increasing the death toll hourly.

In the suburbs citizens cringed behind locked doors, answering to none. Fireplaces were either blocked up or else fires were kept burning as long as wood and coal supplies lasted. It was one way of keeping the bats at bay.

The disease was reaching its peak as those who had been unfortunate enough to come into contact with bats, after the exodus of the breeding flocks and their young from Villa Park, succumbed to the virus. Hospitals slowly ground to a standstill and became little more than extensions of the city's mortuaries. With no antidote available all that doctors could do was to attempt to ease the suffering of the dying. And this was no more than a token effort of goodwill on the part of the medical officers. Even morphine had little effect once the paralysis and madness stage was reached.

By the third evening, a stillness hung over the city. Only the occasional shot was to be heard. The rioters were skulking in the shadows, licking their wounds, watching and waiting.

The smoke haze thinned somewhat as dusk deepened. But there was something different, something strange in the air. It was difficult to determine what it was.

It was the Chief Fire Officer who finally diagnosed it, and there was a mixture of surprise and relief in his voice as he stared up at the smoky sky.

"It's the bats." he said. "
There's not a single one to be seen!
"

Reports from other parts of the city confirmed this. The bats had disappeared completely.

The Biological Research Center on Cannock Chase was under heavy guard, mostly by the BVF, The vigilantes were the worst threat. In the beginning they had contented themselves with organizing bat hunts throughout the countryside, even attempting to shoot the creatures in flight as they flitted to and fro in the half-light of dusk. This had proved to be little more than a waste of shotgun ammunition, one party having expended a hundred rounds one evening with only one kill to show for it. And that had been a fluke, the marksman himself had admitted, for the one which met its end in a charge Of number 8 shot was not the bat at which he had fired, but another which was flying close behind it!

The initial aims of the vigilantes were abandoned. Now they became the rural counterparts of the Birmingham rioters. Clashes with BVF patrols were frequent, and members of both factions had been killed in shoot-outs.

"Civil war is growing all around us," Sir John Stirchley said as he addressed the small group gathered in Haynes' office. "And it seems that Nature is doing her level best to aggravate the situation in every possible way. This heat wave continues, although it is now mid-September. The fact that the sun's rays are not quite as powerful as they were a month ago does nothing to lessen the fire danger which is stretching even the BVF to its limits. Birmingham is in smouldering ruins, and
now
this. There is not a bat left in the city, according to reports. They used it to breed, destroyed it, and now, for some unknown reason, they have deserted it. We haven't yet discovered where they've gone, which makes it all the more worrying. What d'you think, Newman?"

"The obvious reason which springs to mind is that the flames and smoke have driven them to seek refuge elsewhere, but I can't really accept that theory. If that was so, why didn't they scarper when the fires first broke out? They didn't seem unduly bothered by the blazing buildings. I think there's a much simpler solution."

"And what's that?" Sir John leaned forward.

"Food," Newman replied. "Millions of big fat insects which have multiplied beyond all comprehension in this freak heatwave. Remember 1976, the blackfly, greenfly, ladybirds? Well, it's happened again, although on a much larger scale. And the bats won't find them in any numbers in the cities. There's just the odd allotment here and there. No, I believe they're already back in the countryside, and any minute now we can expect to receive reports of their new locationl"

Jim Dunkley had lived and farmed outside Tamworth all his life. The land in question had belonged to his father, and his father before him. Gradually, though, it was shuddering beneath the march of progress. There were plans for the building of a link road through part of it. Compulsory purchase, naturally. A sand and gravel company were offering an extortionate price for the two lower fields. He was tempted, but it meant the end of his heritage. Nothing would be the same any more.

Jim Dunkley preferred to wear his old working clothes seven days a week. His one and only suit was kept strictly for funerals and weddings, and since he no longer had any next of kin, apart from his wife, he didn't envisage ever having to dress up again.

Untidy, rugged, at forty-five he was one of the last of a dying breed, a true son of the soil to whom farming was a way of life rather than a means of making money. Few of the nearby villagers had ever seen him without his battered old porkpie hat. Many did not know the colour of his hair. Perhaps he was bald, and was embarrassed by it, some said. Years ago his wife, Rachel, had protested when he had begun wearing that hat indoors, even to the extent of sitting down to meals with it on his head. In the end she had given up and accepted it.

Dunkley did not like changes. A true-blooded conservative, he also objected to people trespassing on his land. And, in his opinion, poaching was a crime that should have been punishable by imprisonment.

The bats did not worry him unduly. He only half-believed the story, anyway. Propaganda. The reason didn't interest him. He was even unmoved by the rioting and burning of Birmingham. That was fifteen miles away. His whole world consisted of ninety acres of arable and woodland. Outside of that nothing mattered. Nevertheless, he had to have money to carry on, and after two poor harvests in succession the only logical way seemed to be to sell off those bottom fields to the quarrying company. That was what his accountant had advised.

Dunkley was in a bad humour as he left the house that afternoon and set off across the fields, a rusty twelve-bore hammer-gun beneath his arm. Between the months of September and January he always went out shooting on Saturday afternoons. It was a ritual. Not that he shot much, nowadays. The spreading conurbation which surrounded his small rural island had been responsible for driving most of the wildlife away. There might be a covey of partridges up on the top field. There might also be some of those BVF bastards trespassing in the woods. If so, then his patience was running out. They carried arms. Shotguns. They were poachers, in effect. He'd heard a couple of barrels being discharged a few night ago when the moon was full. Only his wife's pleading had prevented him from going to investigate. The swines must have spotted a roosting pheasant.