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Bats in the Belfry

Written by Garrett W. Vance

Late May, 1634

Pam Miller walked briskly down Grantville's main street, hoping to avoid the friendly looking fellow heading her way from the Freedom Arches. It looked like he may be trying to get her attention; she had no idea why and was in one of those moods where she didn't want to find out. She was about to cross the street to put some distance between them but a team of horses hauling a very heavy looking metal tank on a flatbed truck trailer had blocked her path. With a furtive glance back toward the smiling man she started to move around the back of the slowly moving procession—too late!

"Pam! Pam Miller! I've been looking all over for you!"

Pam instinctively paused slightly, losing her chance to make a break for it under the rather flimsy excuse that she hadn't heard him call out. She turned slowly toward the man walking swiftly toward her, hand raised in a cheerful wave. She made herself smile, realizing that it was Grantville's Baptist minister. What could he possibly want with me? I'm a Methodist, and I can barely call myself that anymore! "Oh, hi, Reverend Green."

"Call me Al, please, I'm out of uniform—but never off duty!" The spiritual leader of Grantville's Baptists stuck out his hand to shake Pam's; his grip was warm and gently firm, a well practiced social grace that succeeded in conveying a sincere sense of welcome.

"So, are you excited about the wedding?"

The wedding? What wedding? Pam felt her stomach lurch with anxiety. She had a sudden suspicion, but there was no point in pretending she had been informed, men of the cloth could typically spot a fib a mile away. "What wedding, Al?" This produced a nonplussed expression on the reverend's face.

"Oh! Oh my, I'm sorry, Pam. I thought you would know by now . . . Well, I suppose Walt and his fiancée would rather tell you themselves, but it is only three weeks away . . ." Reverend Green was in the very rare position for a man of his calling of not knowing what to say.

"It's okay, Reverend. . . . I heard he'd found a girl after the Ring of Fire hit. I'm very happy for them." In actuality that was a fib and she didn't care; she hadn't heard, and it hurt her feelings very much. She had no idea who her son had chosen, was she American or a down-time German girl? She could be the Queen of Sheba for all Pam knew and she tried to keep the resentment from her face.

"Well, that's good." Al's face turned to worry. "Look Pam, I know you're technically one of Simon's flock over at First Methodist but since he's out of town . . . I want you to know that if you ever needed someone to talk to, I'm always available. I'm aware you went through a divorce and that must have been hard on you, and it's certainly never easy for kids, even teenagers like Walt. Let me help, if I can."

Pam wanted to simply walk away from the man but he was so earnest that she couldn't. She nodded, biting her lip. Later, Pam, deal with this later . . . With a stern effort she pushed her emotions aside. "Thank you, Al. I do appreciate it. The truth is my relationship with my son isn't very good, in fact I really can't say we have one right now. I hope that will change some day. Meanwhile I have a lot of work to do, the research institute is keeping me very busy and I'm helping set up a summer nature studies program with the middle school."

Al smiled, welcoming the change of subject. "Ah, yes, I've heard about that. Grantville is very lucky to have someone so knowledgeable about the natural world!"

"Well, I'm not really. I'm an amateur birdwatcher and I've read a lot of natural history and ecology books. Apparently these days I'm the only person interested in those subjects. I thought it would be a good idea to foster a love of nature with our kids in this new reality of ours, maybe we can raise them to avoid some of the environmental catastrophes we created up-time."

"Good for you, Pam! That's a very noble cause. Truth is, that was the main reason that I stopped you just now. I'd like to ask your help on a certain problem I have, or rather our church has, regarding some wildlife."

Pam raised an eyebrow in surprise. "A problem with wildlife?"

"Yes, it seems a certain group of animals has made the church its home. I would very much like to see them removed safely without coming to any harm. Some of the younger fellows offered to go up there and kill them or smoke them out, but they're God's creatures, too, and a massacre certainly didn't seem appropriate in a church building . . ."

"Al, what are you talking about?" Impatience was creeping into Pam's tone.

The reverend gave her a furtive look. "Bats, Pam. In the belfry." The reverend couldn't help but give her a silly grin.

Pam couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Bats in the belfry? I thought I was the only one with that problem."

"I assure you, it is more widespread than one might think. However, in this case it's quite literal. About a year before the Ring of Fire we noticed them flying around the steeple in the evenings. Lately we began noticing the smell . . . "

"Uh oh."

"Yes, it's beginning to be a problem. It seems their guano is rather potent. It makes good fertilizer so I've heard but so far no one seems very interested in collecting it. In any event we need to somehow move the little creatures out and prevent them from coming back in. That's when I thought of you, with your knowledge of birds, perhaps—"

"Reverend, bats are not birds!"

"Yes, of course, but they do fly, and it appears you are the only expert in these matters that we have. Honestly, Pam, I don't know who else to turn to, I can't bear to have the little things killed and the smell is beginning to drive away the faithful. It's wafting right down from the belfry into the hall! Something must be done, particularly with—" He hesitated slightly, trying to gauge if this would help his case or not. "—the wedding coming. Could you please at least look into it for me?"

The wedding. Pam's mind fell into a whirl of conflicting thoughts as she took a moment to study the curb and bring things to order. The Baptist Church with Walt and his unknown bride-to-be hanging around, not to mention the possibility of her ex-husband Trent was about the last place she wanted to be. No, she hadn't been told about the wedding and it upset her a lot more than she would like anyone to know. Still, she couldn't help but want his wedding to go well, she loved her son very much even if that had become strangely difficult to show in these last years. And, the reverend was probably right; there wasn't anyone else in town who could be bothered with removing the bats without resorting to violence. Besides, since they were up-time bats they counted on her list of transplanted species she felt needed protecting . . . didn't they? Birds were lovely but not many folks had much love for bats. Still, if they were from West Virginia they should be saved according to her philosophy. She looked back up at the reverend's hopeful face.

"Sure Al, I'll try. I'll need to do some research; I hope the library has something on bats. And if they don't, I'll just do what I always do when I face weird situations our crazy new time throws at me." Reverend Green presented a questioning look.

"Fake it until I get it right." She managed to give him a sardonic grin as she continued on her way across the street.

****

"Bats. What have I done to deserve bats?" she whispered under her breath in the silence of the library. The issue of her son's wedding kept intruding into her thoughts and she was having a hard time concentrating on her research, which her heart was not really in anyway. Despite her distraction she had managed to learn that there were two main species of bat found in West Virginia; the poetically named 'big brown bat' and 'little brown bat.' They were both insect eaters and useful in keeping crop pests under control. Well, looks like you'd be earning your keep. I guess we better save you. Although they were known as carriers of rabies, the disease usually killed them quickly and when they did rarely pass it to humans it was because the person had foolishly touched a sickly bat with their bare hands. Important safety tip: Don't touch sickly bats with your bare hands. Pam briefly stuck her tongue out in disgust at the thought. Like, who would?

The one slim bit of wisdom she could find on getting rid of bats that had taken up residence in a building was to do it in the spring or early summer so they would be able to find a new home before winter hibernation—fair enough and good timing. Pam doodled a small cartoon bat in her notebook as she tried to form a plan. It became harder to concentrate as her personal issues pushed their way in. I haven't spoken more than three sentences with Walt this last year. I know he's avoiding me, some mother I am . . .

The page swam before her. Walt had always been his father's child. It was pretty hard to compete with "Super-Dad" Trent Dorrman who always made time to play a game of catch or help Walt with his tree houses and plastic models. She tried to stay involved but as Walt got older it became harder—she couldn't throw a ball to save herself. She had tried to get Walt interested in nature but he found the walks through the countryside like she had taken with her grandmother boring and couldn't wait to get back to his model cars or batting practice. Naturally, the duty of helping Walt with his math and sciences homework fell on her, 'the expert,' but it only served to cast her as the stern taskmistress in Walt's mind. He just didn't share her love of those subjects and her efforts to coach him through to a passing grade were looked upon with resentment. "Walt honey, I know you don't like this but it's something you just have to do!" At the end of each painful session there was her ex-husband waiting with the ball and glove—it wasn't fair, really it wasn't fair.

On the other hand, she knew it wasn't fair to blame her ex-husband. He was what he was and if he had helped drive the wedge between her and Walt, it wasn't intentional. Trent had a way with people and Pam didn't; the end. Old familiar guilt began to take hold of her; she could have made more of an effort to go to Walt's baseball games, she always made it to a few every year but she felt like a stranger there. When his dad cheered him on Walt would grin at wave at him in the stands, when she tried it just made him look embarrassed. In the last few years she had only gone to the biggest game of the year and sat quietly on the bleacher, feeling helpless and unwanted. When the divorce inevitably came, no custody questions were ever asked, it was obvious that teenage Walt would stay with his dad and that she would find another place to dwell.

Pam deeply loved her son despite the growing gap between them and the thought that she couldn't inspire that kind of love in return felt like a black wave swelling over her. The doodled bat was completely submerged now, blurred beneath warm salty water. God, Pam, pull it together. Someone's going to see you. Quietly she pulled a handkerchief from her rucksack, dabbing at her hot, moist face with rapid movements. Several high school students passed by on their way to the tables near the window so she hunkered down feigning intense interest in her notes, wiping the tears away from the misshapen drowned doodle. Bats. What the hell am I going to do about that? It certainly wasn't a task she'd wanted to take on but she knew that in some ways it was satisfying to her. That's fine, son of mine, don't invite me to your wedding. Mom will make sure it doesn't stink like bat shit for you, thank me later.

She forced herself back to her planning, the sense of spite a small, cold comfort. Despite her efforts to concentrate, nothing useful presented itself after half an hour. She suddenly felt stifled in the stillness of the room and knew she needed to just move. She might as well start by doing something she was good at: Observation. Time to get Gerbald and check things out. Walking briskly back to her little house on the edge of town, Pam did her best to shove unpleasant thoughts of her estranged family out of her mind. There was work to do and she was glad for that.

****

Pam's hired man and trusted body guard Gerbald was waiting for her on the narrow slab of concrete that served as her front porch, snoozing comfortably in a folding lawn chair with the misshapen brim of his ridiculous floppy felt hat pulled over his eyes.

"Wake up, Gerbald. We have a project."

"Wake up? How could you think I was actually sleeping? I, your ever watchful guardian, made only a show of sleep to hide my vigilance."

Pam raised her eyebrows at Gerbald's increasingly adept English turns of phrase. Where is he getting that stuff? It must be from all those up-time movies he's become addicted to.

"That was a very convincing snore then, bravo! Come along 'watchful guardian', no birdwatching today, we have some work to do. The Lord's work." She chuckled at the thought.

"Ah, a tedious task at best. What might the Lord need from us?"

"A flock of bats is living under the roof of the Baptist Church. Reverend Green has chosen me to get rid of them and you are going to help."

"Bats . . . what are bats?"

"They're a small brown animal that can fly."

"Oh! Bats are a kind of bird!"

"No, they're mammals, not birds—oh, you'll see."

"I have come to like birds very much, Pam. Surely this won't be so bad."

"You'll see . . ."

****

They arrived at Grantville's Baptist Church around three thirty in the afternoon. It was one of an imposing collection of stately brick churches towering above the main street, an impressive testament to the beauty of "late Victorian neo-Romanesque" architecture. When she was a young girl Pam had, now rather ironically, thought that this might be what Europe looked like. The presence of so many of God's houses on the street had certainly helped convince the seventeenth century natives that the up-timers were not a village of the damned risen from the fiery pit populated with devil worshipping witches and warlocks.

As she and Gerbald followed a path around the side of the beige brick structure to Reverend Green's' office, her dismay at her son's secrets returned. Please don't let any of them be here. I just can't handle it right now. Anxiety was building within her and she hurried her step. They found the reverend cheerfully tending a rose bush growing near the side door.

"Pam, how wonderful of you to come!" Perhaps seeing the short sword Gerbald wore at his belt, he very slowly and carefully laid the clippers down on the grass.

"Reverend Green, this is my friend and hired man Gerbald who is going to help me out on this."

"A pleasure to meet you, Gerbald. Do call me Al, please." The two shared a gentlemanly handshake and Gerbald favored the reverend with a small and very polite bow. Al led them in through the side door and down a long darkish hall. They entered a narrow circular stairwell that took them up into the regions behind the church's nave. Pam immediately noticed a sharp smell, a putrescent odor that grew stronger as they climbed higher.

"I'm afraid the smell gets quite bad up here, my friends," the reverend apologized. Gerbald's usually impassive face now featured a certain wrinkling of the nose and he had a rather uncomfortable air about him. They reached a small room with a pull-down stairway in the ceiling. Al, with a little help from Gerbald, tugged the steep wooden stairs down into position and tied them in place.

Pam rubbed her chin in thought. "Al, have you been ringing the church bells?"

"Every Sunday!'

"You would think that with their sensitive hearing, bats wouldn't like that."

"Yes, I thought of that, too. At the risk of creating something of a disturbance we rang the bells rather more than usual last Easter, but it didn't seem to bother them any."

"Oh well. Will you be coming up with us then, Al?"

"Ummm, I'm afraid I have some rather pressing business to attend to downstairs, so I'm going to have to leave you two here," the reverend told them rather unconvincingly.

"That's fine, Reverend. I'm sure we will be quite all right." Pam had figured as much and resisted an eye roll.

Al gave them a rather embarrassed smile. "The stairs lead up into an attic beneath the peaked roof over the main hall. At the far end you will find the adjoining belfry. If you need anything just let me know!" And with that the reverend went hastily down the stairs.

"Oh, we shall!" Pam tried to keep the sarcasm from her voice. The smell had tripled in strength and a hazy cloud of dust was drifting down from the attic's stale and stink-filled recesses. Gerbald now definitely looked queasy.

"Isn't this fun?" she teased Gerbald, who studiously ignored her while he looked longingly back down the stairs after the retreating reverend. Surely a man who had experienced bloody battlefields can handle a little guano stink. Pam climbed up the steep stairs, wishing she were just about anywhere else. The feeling increased tenfold when she discovered what a bona fide disaster she had allowed herself to be talked into.

Peering into the gloom of the church's top story, she saw a long narrow room stretching beneath the sharply-peaked roof to the height of the bell tower rising to the side of the far end. The church's attic was a study in dust and droppings; every visible surface was thickly covered in either or, in many cases, a muddy gray combination of both. Dirty brass beams of late afternoon sunlight fell thickly through the open slats in the bell tower's sides to reveal clusters of squirming brown fur clinging to the steeply slanted underside of the roof. Well, that's one way they got in. A high pitched squeaking could be heard and the stench was horrific. She pulled a handkerchief out of her rucksack and tied it around her face; it didn't help much.

She turned around to find that Gerbald had not followed her all the way up, only his head and shoulders emerged from the attic's hatch. The big man's face was positively pale and pasty.

"Those are not birds, Pam!" Gerbald hissed.

"I told you they weren't birds, Gerbald."

"Ja, but you didn't say they were Fledermaus!"

Pam gave him a surprised look. Gerbald rarely slipped into his native tongue with her, his pride in his English was too great. It only happened when he was under stress. "Well, I didn't know what they're called in German . . . are you all right Gerbald?"

"I . . . don't like . . . bats." A plaintive whisper.

"I don't think anyone really does much, but as the Reverend, who is notably not up here with us, says: 'They're God's creatures, too.' So we have to be gentle. No katzbalger." Gerbald's pride and joy was the dangerous little katzbalger short sword he wore at his belt. "The trick is, how do we get them out of here?" Pam bit her lower lip in determination as she moved slowly across the creaking floorboards. Stepping gingerly around a pile of debris, the dust enshrouded cardboard props of some circa 1950s Christmas production, she approached a cluster of trembling bats.

"Oh, great. These must be the big brown type. Gerbald, come give me a hand." She looked back to see that he was still barely emerging from the hatchway, in fact he might have crept back down a step. "Gerbald!" she called with a touch of annoyance. The former professional soldier breathed out a puff of resigned air and climbed the rest of the way into the attic. There was plenty of standing room in the center but he still stooped, a study in apprehension. Pam shook her head in exasperation.

"Come on, pal-o-mine, pull yourself together. The sooner we get this done the sooner we are outta here. I'll even pay for all your beer at the Gardens tonight." Gerbald gave an unconvinced nod. She had never seen him act like this and the truth was it was beginning to freak her out; his obvious fear was shaking her own confidence greatly.

"Yes, Pam. But what do we do?" There was none of the usual steel in those tones.

"Ummm. . . ." Actually Pam still had no idea what they were going to do. Let's just get this over with and get out of this church before the damn wedding party shows up! "Well, let's see if we can shoo them out the slats up there." She pointed at the belfry. "Here, take this." Pam indicated a cardboard camel from the nativity play which Gerbald picked up to study with an exceedingly unhappy expression. Pam chose a rather clumsily executed sheep that still had old cotton balls glued haphazardly to its front. Holding the meter long prop in front of her, Pam took a menacing step toward the bats. "BA-A-A-A!" she cried loudly in her best sheep bleat. The bats didn't move. Gerbald looked on with a pathetic mixture of horror and wonder.

"Well, you try it now," Pam urged him impatiently.

"I don't know what sound this creature makes." he mumbled, looking helplessly down at his cardboard one-hump camel.

"Oh, for Chrissakes—oops! Sorry!" She looked nervously up toward the ceiling. Just what I need, pissing off God. Gerbald followed her gaze with an expression of pleading. He was by no means a religious man but any help would be welcome at this point.

"Just say anything, the bats don't know what the hell sound a camel makes, either. Oh, I did it again, ahhh shi—" She managed to stop herself this time before further blaspheming under the Lord's own roof. Gerbald, seeing there was nothing for it but to try took a very small step forward, lifted his camel up to chest height and said in a near whisper: "Boo."

"Oh, yeah. That scared them. Here, watch this." Pam felt a wave of frustration swelling in her, she had to do something and now! She held her sheep out in front of her as if it were a knight's shield and stomped aggressively toward the bats. "ARRRRRRRRRR!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, waving the sheep crazily at the bats. "CLEAR OFF, YOU STINKING BASTARDS!!!" The bats began to make quick nervous movements as she swung the sign nearer to them.

"Pam, please, don't!" Gerbald's plea was barely a whimper, as if he were trying to call out for help in a terrible nightmare but had no voice.

"YARRRR, YOU BUG EATING SHITS, GIT!" This time the cardboard sheep brushed against the bats, knocking several from their perch. All holy hell broke loose.

Pam and Gerbald were swiftly surrounded by a tornado of bats, a swooping, flapping, screeching maelstrom of leather wings and flashing teeth. Gerbald let out a hoarse scream and fell backwards in a heavy crash, flattening the cardboard manger beneath his bulk. He had maintained his grip on the camel which he now held tightly over his face to protect it from the whirl of brown fur. Pam stood for a moment vainly waving her sheep around in what she hoped was the direction of the open slats.

"SHOO! Come on, get out! ARRRGH, ohmygod!" One of the bats had landed on her back and she could feel the little claws digging into her sweatshirt as it made its way up toward her neck. "AAAAA, get off me, get off me!" She performed a crazy little spinning jig while trying to use the cardboard sheep to brush the bat off her back. Another one joined it. Time to run.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" she screeched over the flapping din. Gerbald was already crawling toward the hatch, he had put the broken cardboard manger over his head and upper back so that he looked like some kind of mutant tortoise. He went down head first with an awful series of thumps; leaving the camel lodged in the opening so that Pam found the path to safety blocked by its tan-painted rear end. She gave it a firm kick so that it fell down to add itself to the heap of debris at the stair bottom that included Gerbald somewhere within its wreckage. She started down the stairs and realized she still had two bats on her back. With a vengeful swipe of the sheep over her shoulder Pam managed to dislodge her creepy crawly hitchhikers and then threw the prop after them as they flapped away to join the swirling chaos made by their brethren above. Once on the ground she quickly untied the rope and sent the stairs swinging with a loud creak on its spring back into place, shutting the bats behind it. Pam began to curse, loudly.

"Jesus wept, what the hell was I—oh, hi Reverend."

Al had heard the racket from below and hurried up the stairs to see if his bat removal team was all right. He gave Pam a raised eyebrow and a grin. "Don't worry, I've heard worse. Are you two all right? What happened?!" He saw movement under the pile of broken cardboard and moved to help Gerbald extricate himself. Upon finding that the big man was shaken but unhurt, he listened to Pam tell the story. When she finished, the reverend shook his head regretfully.

"Oh my, I feel terrible. I didn't realize that you were going to try to drive the bats out right now; I thought you were just having a look at them! You see, most of them leave on their own every night to feed."

Pam blinked at him slowly, a chagrined expression growing on her dusty face. "I should have known that. Everyone knows that. Why am I so stupid?" She looked at Gerbald who was pouting beneath his floppy hat—no support was going to come from that quarter.

"Now, now dear, you most certainly are not stupid! You told me yourself that birds are your forte. I just thought that with your love of animals maybe you would be more . . ." He paused to look about at the mess they had brought down the stairs with them. ". . . gentle. It's no bother really. I'm sure I can get someone else."

"No, that's all right. I want to try again. I'll come back after dark when there aren't as many. I'm going to need some stuff though; a ladder, some fine mesh to tack up over the open slots of the belfry—do you think you can get that?"

"I have a certain amount of pull amongst my flock, Pam. I'll get the word out and you'll get what you need. You two look bushed. How about tomorrow night?"

"That's fine. We'll see you tomorrow after sunset."

****

The next evening Pam stood at the church's side door waiting for Gerbald. He had been very quiet the night before and had even declined to take her up on the beer offer. Who would have thought a guy like that would have a phobia? Pam grinned a little guiltily at the chink she had found in the mighty Gerbald's armor. The thought was a welcome distraction from the increasingly bothersome worry that her son Walt would show up with this fiancée he hadn't bothered to bring by his own mother and, worse yet, the possibility of her ex-husband with them. It was a situation that she just wanted to have go away, and chided herself for slipping into her pre-Ring of Fire hide from the world mentality.

She jumped as she heard someone approaching, hopefully Gerbald on schedule. To her surprise it was Gerbald's wife Dore coming around the corner carrying a variety of mops, brooms and brushes.

"Dore! What are you doing here?"

"I am here to work," the doughty German announced in her usual curt, business-like tones. Pam looked behind her but Gerbald didn't appear.

"Where's Gerbald?"

Dore let loose a tremendous huff of disgust, obviously regarding the subject of the question. "He is not coming. He is sick." She gave Pam a very telling look.

"Oooohhhh, I see. Well, uh, I hope he's all right."

"Not to worry, dearest Pam. He is sick in a place that he has little use for." With a wicked grin, she tapped her forehead. The two of them shared a brief laugh at Gerbald's bat-fearing expense before going to look for the reverend.

****

Dore had no compunction against facing the bats, she advanced into the attic spaces with cool ...