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By Root 162 0

Bat,” he says lazily. “I’m afraid your succulent, truculent friend was executed just three and a half minutes ago. You can see the footage on the news. They took her to the town center.” His voice harsh with pleasure, he continues, “I understand her body started to knit back together on the ride over. By the time they got her into town, she was awake. She started struggling. The police went to take her out of the car and transport her into the courthouse. Unfortunately, she lashed out. One of the officers tripped and fell. The crowd couldn’t be controlled. It was a mob scene. They found sharp things. Someone must have found a stake. They killed her where she fell, with her head and half her back on the pavement and the lower half of her body trailing in the gutter. She didn’t even die on level ground. Somehow that hurts particularly, don’t you think?”

Bat looks lost. He’s pale. Pale as a ghost.

“Sorry, Bat. She’s not here anymore. She’s gone. Damned.”

Bat is limp. “I’ve got to talk to her,” he whimpers. “But I’ve got to talk to her.”

Chet shrugs. “Okay,” he says. Suddenly, his voice is high — his voice is hers — and he screams, “Help me, Bat! Help me! I’m in so much pain!!!” He smiles blandly, and says, “It goes on like that for a while. All eternity.”

“You bastard! YOU BASTARD!” yells Bat, moving toward Chet. He slaps his hand down to his belt and pulls out an ornate and ancient switchblade, rune covered and flashing with little sparks of fire.

Bat yowls and throws himself at Chet, raising the wild dagger.

He flies across the clearing.

Chet waves his hand, and Bat disappears.

The woods are in turmoil. The trees still warp and shudder in the wind, and the leaves still spin as if propelled.

“Where did he go?” I ask, breathless.

Chet looks up and down the empty road, obviously pleased with himself. “He was no longer useful,” he says. He claps once. “Now I want to see what you’ve made possible, Christopher. They’ll be sacrificing the final goat soon. So step lively. Move.” He grabs my shoulders, turns me, pushes me toward the woods. I stumble between the trees.

Chet lifts his legs above fallen branches; he holds back the spiny limbs of saplings for me to pass. The road gets smaller behind us. We’re headed down the slope toward the bank of the reservoir.

“What’s going on?” I demand.

“On?” says Chet.

I shove through a stand of pine that writhes with our passage. “Tell me what’s going on,” I say.

“Isn’t it a little late for that question?” Chet asks. “Maybe you should have thought of that earlier.”

“I did,” I say sourly. “I was tricked.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m very sorry to hear that you were tricked.”

The night is uneasy and electrical as we pace along through the forest at a furious clip. The clouds are low and discolored; but the moon still shines. Through the trees, the lake burns an electric blue. Strange currents slip along power lines and rock the trees and prod the crickets to chirp like clockwork mechanisms.

Through the loose branches of pine, I can see the reservoir. Out in the center, the light bobs from the sacrificial boat. Beyond it, little isles rise, then the blinking radio towers and the dark hills beneath the moon.

“Pick it up. There’s not a moment to spare,” Chet says.

We run silently through the woods. I have to run to keep up with him. His strides have gained in urgency. He bangs boughs out of his way with unfeeling arms. Tramples through brambles. Scampers over boulders. And I run to follow him.

He holds out his hand and guides me down a wall of rock.

We stand on the banks of the Wompanoag Reservoir. The clouds are dense and draining across the sky. The crickets sing as if in fever.

“Here, so you can follow the action, let me galvanize something. You’ll be able to hear our vampiric counterstrike,” says Chet, taking a nickel out of his pocket. He rubs it twice with his thumb, and it starts to speak.

It blares: “. . . give us the cue, we’ll continue with the ritual as scheduled. We must not panic.”

And: “No, certainly not, Mayor. We’re ready to continue here.”

“A-OK, Father