“Can you hover?” Joyce asked the pilot.
He said he could.
The helicopter stopped moving forward.
As Joyce looked down on the thick mesh of bats, anticipation grew. Behind the helicopter, the dark cloud had spread southward almost down to Forty-second Street. To the west, the bats had reached nearly to the New Jersey shore. State police helicopters were already hovering over the New Jersey Palisades. Bats were still joining the group from all directions.
And then she saw something. Something large just beyond the bats.
She raised the binoculars, and the pilot nudged the nose of the chopper to the northwest to give her a better view. The George Washington Bridge was hidden save for an occasional glint of light.
“Go down!” she said suddenly.
“Where?” the pilot asked.
“Underneath the bats.”
“You mean through them-”
“No. Go around-anywhere. I need to get under the bats. Something’s out there, flying low. It’s going to come in under the bats.”
The chopper swung to the east, toward Manhattan. It moved so fast that if Joyce hadn’t been wearing her seat belt she’d have been thrown against the door. The pilot dropped them lower as Joyce sat back up and watched through the binoculars.
“Where to now?” the pilot asked as they fell below the bat line.
“Stay about one hundred feet up. Go north slowly.”
The pilot did. They passed through the Eighties. The Nineties. Joyce looked ahead. Something was there. It had ducked under the canopy of bats and was moving slowly. She unbuckled her seat belt for a better look.
“There it is!” she said excitedly. “Mr. Pace? Tell Mr. Weeks we found it! We found it and it’shuge.”
The bat was still beyond the range of the searchlights, but she knew it was there because she could make out its outline as it moved forward, blocking the shore light and headlights behind it.
And of course it was flying low. New Paltz was far, and there were no thermal currents from the sun to heat the air and help lift the bat. There was no reason for it to tire itself out by flying high.
As the bat neared, as it began to pick up the light, Joyce could see that itwas enormous. There was nothing to compare it to but the other bats, and it dwarfed them. The wingspan looked to be about ten-to-twelve feet across-at this distance, in the dark, it was still difficult to tell. The body was thick, like a long barrel, with lumpy masses on the back. Joyce assumed they were muscle. The head was wide and pie-round. She couldn’t quite make out the ears, though they were nearly as high as the head was long, and they were extremely close together.There was a large bulge near the back of the bat, on the bottom. Joyce assumed they were the legs.
“Man oh man,” the copilot said. “Are all these other bats here for-” He was interrupted when the helicopter shook.
The pilot and copilot both looked at their instruments.
“What was that?” the copilot said.
It happened again-a hard, spine-ringing thump from below.
“It feels like we’re being hit from the bottom!” the pilot said.
There was a third strike, rougher than the others, this time from the pilot’s side. Then something seemed to tug the helicopter toward the left. Joyce turned away from the distant giant and its entourage. She moved back to the pilot’s side and looked out the window just as a monstrous face appeared beneath the portside landing skid. Joyce watched while it rose slowly, followed by two white hooks as thick and large as elephant ivory. The hooks were at least six feet apart.
“Get us out of here!” she screamed.
The copilot looked back. “Oh shit-”
A pair of large ruby eyes rolled toward Joyce just as a blast of vapor from the awesome mouth clouded the window. A moment later one of the hooks crashed against the pane. It didn’t break through, but the tip raked downward, cutting a deep rut.
The pilot swung the chopper around and swept toward the southeast. Ahead, brightly lighted, the retired battleshipIntrepid appeared through the window.
“What’s wrong?” Pace demanded.
“It’s one of them!” Joyce cried as the hook came again. It wasn’t a hook, she knew, it was the bat’s thumb. This time the tip of the finger came through the shatter-resistant window.
“One ofwho?” Pace said.
“One of the giant bats!” she screamed. “It’s on the helicopter!”
“What do we need to do?” Pace asked, his voice calm.
The pilot rocked the helicopter from side to side as he flew down and toward the shore.
“Are you doing that or is he?” Joyce cried.
“I am,” the pilot replied. “Trying to shake him-”
“Forget that!” she yelled. “Can you put us in the water?”
“I can’t land on it-” the pilot said.
“I mean drag the runner through it! Bats hate submersion. It weighs them down.”
“I can try,” the pilot said tensely as he guided the chopper back to starboard and dropped toward the river.
The vapor had cleared from the window, and Joyce looked out again. The rotor was blasting the bat’s fur, but the creature held on. The eyes were angry now, the crescent nostrils wide and trembling. Vibrating.
“He’s calling the others,” she muttered. “We’ve got to get him off-he’s calling the other bats!”
The chopper was flying parallel to the water. They were seven feet up. Then five…four…
Joyce looked up. Bats were peeling off the edge of the colony. That was how he did it. The big bat called them, and they came. It was unbelievable.
She was rocked back hard as the skid shot across the water. Spray flew up on all sides, and the pilot immediately pulled up. The bat was still there, its head back, the mouth pulled taut, the eyes big and aflame.
The pilot dipped down again, this time dragging lower and for several seconds. He rose. The bat was dark and drenched, its hook still thrust through the window.
“Hold on!” the pilot said.
Joyce looked ahead. They were coming toward Yacht Harbor down by the World Financial Center.
Pace said, “N412, what’s happening?”
“Just a second,” the copilot said.
The chopper raced toward the nearest boat. The skid was level with the tower platform on the top of the flybridge.
“We’re playing chicken,” the copilot said into the mouthpiece. “Shit, man. Shit-”
The yacht was less than thirty feet away. The bat turned toward the boat. Suddenly, the creature snapped its thumb toward it. The pane flew out and the wind roared in, howling in Joyce’s face. The bat turned toward her, glaring. Then it opened the claws of its feet, releasing its hold on the skids. It fell away, like a parachutist, its wings spreading and filling like a shroud.
The pilot swerved hard to starboard to avoid the tower. He missed it by less than two feet. Quickly righting the chopper, he steadied it and swung around the tip of Manhattan. He started to climb.
Joyce looked out the window. She withdrew her head quickly and cried,“He’s coming back!”
The bat was about twenty feet behind the tail rotor on the portside. It was extremely muscular along its back and flapping vigorously. Definitely a male. Behind it was a stream of hundreds of small bats.
Joyce knew that it had to be difficult for the bat to keep up with them. Not only was the water weighing it down, but it was cooling fast and lowering the bat’s body temperature. Bats did not fly well wet-or cold.
Pace said, “N412, come in.”
“We managed to dislodge the bat,” the copilot said, “but he’s in pursuit. I clock him at about seventy-five miles an hour.”
“He can’t keep that up for long,” Joyce said.
“Neither can we with that hole in our side,” the copilot replied. “Got a lot of drag.”
They passed the ferry buildings and sped up the east side of Manhattan.