The Big Huge Fat Vampire Bat

Trug woke to the feeling of being crushed, a glass pane smashed against his face. He opened his eyes to the pleasant sight of the zombie’s face smushed into the glass as it tried biting at him through the window, smearing slobber all over the pane. The zombie’s eyes were horrid, empty, black with no spark of life. Just vacuous, rapacious hunger.

  “Ahhh!” Trug yelled, trying to lift the door from his chest. But the weight of the door, combined with that of the zombie, pinned him helplessly. He couldn’t get any leverage at all. Meanwhile, an inch away, the zombie thrashed and bit futilely at Trug’s head, teeth clattering on the glass.

  “Hey fake zombie, come and get me,” someone sang.

  The zombie’s head shot up, shifting the weight of the door crushing Trug, and then the zombie rolled off the door, bringing immediate relief to Trug’s laboring lungs.

  “Guh,” Trug grunted. The door was still heavy, but he managed to slide out. Getting shakily to his legs, he heard giggling from the end of the deck. He looked up and his heart missed a beat when he saw the little girl skipping along the wide railing, closely pursued by the lurching, shambling zombie, clutching and flailing at her. Trug knew it was a long fall to the rocks and shallow water below.

  “Little girl… Amy… over here!” Trug shouted. Looking around, he grabbed an umbrella from one of the tables and holding it in front of him like a jousting lance, he ran at the zombie.

  “Brains,” the zombie cried.

  “Don’t you know any other words?” Trug shouted, cutting off the zombie and jabbing the umbrella at its stomach.

  “Stupid kid,” the zombie retorted, and grabbed the umbrella. The two of them struggled for possession.

  Amy ran over and tagged the zombie on the back. “Oops, you got me. Now I’m ‘it.”

  The zombie whirled and grabbed at her. Trug quickly thrust the umbrella at the zombie, causing it to miss the girl by inches. The zombie grabbed it again.

  “Amy, the zombie,” Trug panted.

  “You have to run,” she answered. “I’m ‘it’ now, so you have to run away.”

  “Amy, the zombie is real! Get out of here!”

  Her eyes saucered. “Really? Like a monster?”

  The zombie snatched the umbrella and tossed it clattering to the ground.

  “Get out of here!” Trug screamed.

  Either the expression on his face or his angry scream got her attention. She screamed and ran for the door. The zombie tried to follow, but Trug shoved it from behind, knocking it off balance into the wall where it crashed into a mounted light fixture. Meanwhile, Amy slipped through the doorway.

  The zombie whirled and shouted, “Brains.”

  Trug backpedalled, searching for any way off the deck. The roof was too high. There were no stairs. There was only the railing, and then a long fall to rocks and water. The zombie was between him and the only exit from the deck. The zombie came at him. Trug moved laterally, but the zombie moved to cut him off with some kind of hunter’s instinct. He moved the other way, and the zombie shifted sideways and towards him. He backed, and the zombie kept moving at him.

  Trug moved behind a table, and shoved it at the zombie who snatched it and easily tossed it aside. So Trug grabbed another table, and yanked it backwards until it slammed against another table. He grabbed that one too, hauling them with him with adrenaline aided strength, keeping them between him and the zombie, which kept mindlessly advancing. Trug slid over the top of a table and started dragging other tables over, creating a wall of tables between him and the hungry brain-eating freak.

  Then Trug’s backside hit the railing, and he was cornered.

  The zombie seemed to realize it at the same moment, and it began hurling tables out of the way off the deck, eliminating obstacles for Trug to hide behind.

  Trug looked over the railing. It was as he remembered. A long fall into shallow water, with plenty of rocks whose tops broke the surface of the water. He knew the shallows were teeming with minnows and crawfish, which all found the rocky water a safe haven from predators.

  The zombie finally disposed of all but a single table, which it grabbed. Trug immediately grabbed the other end, and the zombie shook him like a terrier with a rat.Trug’s strength was no match for the monster’s power, and it was ripped from his grasp. The zombie tossed it aside with casual indifference, and turned back to Trug. It seemed incapable of expression, but Trug sensed a sort of hungry triumph in its blank face.

  “Brains,” it cried, and staggered toward him.

  Trug shot a panicked glance over the edge of the railing. His options were limited. A quick death on the rocks below, or worse, getting ripped to shreds, bitten. No, not bitten. Eaten. There was no choice. A twenty foot fall onto rocks was survivable, though bones would surely be broken. He leaped onto the ledge.

  The zombie saw its prey escaping, and grabbed at him. Trug skipped backwards, but his foot only found air. He screamed as he fell backwards. Trug thought of his Mom.

  With surprising speed, a powerful arm snatched him through the trestles of the deck, and Trug slammed against the outside of the porch. The zombie tried to haul him back onto the deck, but Trug grabbed a trestle and clamped onto it with all of the barnacle might he possessed.

  “Brains,” the zombie moaned.

  It tried to draw him back onto the deck, but it couldn’t wrestle Trug through the heavy wood pickets, and its efforts made it easier for Trug to hang on. Again, the predator’s instincts guided the zombie, and it released Trug and climbed ponderously onto the railing. It bent over and reached at Trug with its other arm. Trug ineffectively swatted at the gnarly, dirt encrusted hand. The zombie looked down at Trug with empty hungriness as Trug hung on, shaking with fear and fatigue. His grip was weakening with each instant. He slid to the side and the zombie tried to follow.

  Suddenly a tennis ball sized mammal shot out of the night, rocketing onto the side of the zombie’s head, catching it in that critical mid shuffle where its balance wasn't all that keen.

  The zombie tottered wildly on the ledge, and the furry ball wheeled in a wide orbit and slammed into the zombie again. The zombie, not possessing great agility in the best of times, was unable to maintain its balance, stepped where there was nothing, and with slow motion majesty, teetered and fell.

  Trug watched as it dropped to the rocks below, landing with a thud as it met water and rock in a gruesome splash. Trug realized with horror that it could have been him. Then he started slipping and he realized it still might be his destiny.

  “Aagh,” he cried as splinters sunk deep in his flesh. He ignored the pain’s urging to let go and grabbed and snatched at the rough pickets trying to halt his slide.

  Then a hand reached over the railing and grabbed his collar. “Hang on,” Nevin hissed, yanking with all of his hundred pounds of strength.

  Fortunately, it was the only help Trug needed, and with Nevin’s help managed to climb back up the side of the porch fence. He fell over the railing, shaking from his close call.

  “You all right, man?” Nevin asked, lying next to him.

  “Yeah, I think,” Trug gasped. “Thanks.”

  “How about me? No thanks?” a voice groused.

  Trug rolled to his side and looked up. Jack was perched on the railing, a satisfied and slightly petulant look on his face.

  “Jack. Yeah, I’m fine. You saved me.”

  “Darned right I did,” the bat said, preening.

  “Without you, it… it.. would have...”

  “Eaten your brain, that’s right,” Jack said.

  Nevin helped Trug to his feet, and they looked over the railing at the zombie. It was feebly struggling, half submerged, its head partially underwater. Faint traces of light arced as electric buzzing and zapping shorted whatever electrical impulses guided it. A second later they grounded out forever, the sound stopped and the zombie fell silent.

  The bat looked down with satisfaction. “Well, I guess that teaches you a lesson.”

  Trug fro
wned. “Lesson? What lesson?”

  “My so-called weight problem. See? A heavy bat is a powerful bat.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Trug said, hiding a smile.

  “Good, then it’s time you get me some pizza, extra garlic. I’m starving.”

  I’d like to thank … um … well, nobody. Nobody helped me with this. Oh, wait, I thank Spell-Check and Microsoft for creating their Word program.

  And my parents, who made me possible.

  My wife, who tolerates my ‘guyness.’

  My kids, who have to live with an immature father.

  And my cat, who lets me clean his litter box.