Bats Out of Hell (10 page)

The bullion vans passed almost unnoticed in the city traffic. Their weekly collections and deliveries at branches were noted with mild interest by passersby. Those with more subversive motives attempted to discover their timetables, routes, and the amount of money which the vans carried. Yet an air of mystique prevailed. Security companies' vans were attacked frequently. The Bank's went unscathed, such was their organization and security, including a number of guards who remained on board at all times whilst they were in transit, even to the extent of eating their meals inside during all weathers, in stifling heat or freezing cold.

Yet the Treasury itself was a veritable fortress, a basement stronghold beneath a huge office block where security measures were such that none could pass beyond the first checkpoint without proper authorisation. The underground structure was old, partially converted to meet modern requirements for the storing of vast quantities of money into a maze of tunnels which housed the many strong rooms and working areas where money was counted and sorted into denominations. Large amounts of cash, the daily takings of multiple companies, was also brought in here for counting and checking, thereby dispensing with lengthy delays at branch counters. This section, adjacent to the main strong room with grilled walls and locked doors, was known as the Credit House.

Some twenty clerks were employed in the Credit House alone, spending five days of the week shut away from the daylight, working laboriously and monotonously. They, too, were subjected to several checks before entering or leaving their place of employment, everything geared towards an invincible money store.

The heat wave penetrated the depths of the Treasury right down to the Credit House, the clerks sweltering in the heat that was conveyed underground by the brickwork in the same way that storage heaters retain their temperature.

Joe Lutton had worked in the Credit House ever since its formation a decade ago. Everything was a routine which did not deviate, and, provided one obeyed the rules and systems laid down, there was a substantial pension to be picked up on retirement. One did not even have to count the notes by hand these days. One simply inserted a bundle into a machine, pressed a button, checked the digits recorded on the dial, and removed the notes from a clip at the back of the instrument. Machine-minding, in effect. Joe Lutton, a small, dapper, freckled-faced clerk in his early forties did not even have to think about the work these days. His mind wandered to other matters as he laboured with the efficiency of a human robot.

Today he thought about bats. Everybody was thinking about bats. They were in the headlines of the midday edition of the
Mail
again. "BATS HEADING FOR THE CITY? IS DEATH ON THE MOVE?"

It was a frightening thought. Joe was glad that he worked down here in this nice safe place. The overall compensations outweighed the boredom. Bats frightened him. He remembered his wedding night and the bat that had somehow found its way into the bridal chamber. His wife had nearly had hysterics and their marriage had not been consummated for a further twenty-four hours. In his day, few people had sex before marriage, particularly within the respectability of banking circles. He had waited a day longer than most.

But the bats couldn't get down here into the Credit House. The Treasury was impregnable.

The afternoon wore on, hot and stuffy. Lutton finished checking a tray of forty thousand pounds' worth of five-pound notes, and went and fetched another one from the chief clerk's desk.

Mondays were always exceptionally busy. That meant a late finish, but Joe Lutton didn't mind. The overtime money would be useful.

He had counted the first bundle of fivers and rebanded them, when Don Lucas, a young apprentice clerk, gave a shout from the other end of the room where he was working at a long trestle table.

"Hey! What's this?"

Heads turned. Something crouched on the floor, small and furry, tiny eyes glancing about it.

"It's a mouse," somebody said.

"Don't be stupid." Lucas backed away. "Mice don't have wings. It's a
bat!
"

"A
bat!
"

There was a momentary shocked silence. Clerks turned and stared. They couldn't believe it. But the proof was squatting there, and even as they looked it took off, flew up to the ceiling, and alighted upside down on a supporting steel girder.

"Oh, God!" Lutton paled.

The Chief clerk, a man only a year or two younger than Lutton, picked up the internal telephone and dialed a single number.

"Sorry to bother you, Mr. Baxterdale." His voice was humble, apologetic, trying to hide his fear. "No, no trouble really. Only . . . only there's . . . there's a bat in the Credit House!"

Lutton sweated. He hated the chief clerk for his cringing personality. Sorry to bother you, Mr. Baxterdale, he mimed his superior mutely to himself, there's only a bat in the Credit House and we could all be bloody well dead by this time tomorrow. Of course, we don't want to interrupt the work, and if you like we'll keep it in here. . . .

Baum, the Credit House chief clerk replaced the receiver, cleared his throat, and looked round at the others.

"Er . . . Mr. Baxterdale says he'll ring the Area Inspector. Nothing to worry about. Just carry on. Don't anybody take any notice of it."

Lutton sweated profusely. This new system of locking the grilles from the outside, the keys being held in the Treasury office by two authorized holders, had disturbed him right from its implementation. Suppose there was a fire and the intersecting corridors were cut off by a wall of flames? Those in the Credit House would die. But this was a thousand times worse. Death hung perched on that beam. It only had to touch one of them, so the papers said, and that would be that.

Lucas picked up something from the table, moving slowly. It was an old wooden cylindrical ruler that dated back to the early days of banking, as heavy and as lethal as the truncheons carried by the bullion van crews. A Treasury antique that was still in use.

All eyes were on him. Everybody knew exactly what he was going to do, and nobody made a move to stop him. The childish streak in him had often prompted reprimand from Baxterdale. The young clerk was always flicking rubberbands at his colleagues, and then immediately assuming an air of innocence. His aim was uncanny. They hoped it would be so now.

Lucas was poised to strike, arm back, ruler clenched firmly. Those watching held their breath. Then he struck, and it seemed impossible that he could miss.

Wood clanged on steel, the whole length of the girder reverberating. The bat had moved at the last second with the speed of a house fly accustomed to dodging swats. It shot upwards, hit the ceiling, dropped to the floor, and then took off at an angle of forty-five degrees.

Clerks accustomed to the tranquillity of life in the Credit House panicked. Money spilled on the floor as they sought cover behind desks, but their safety was as perilous as that of the car driver who is suddenly attacked by an irate wasp in his vehicle. The bat zoomed crazily to and fro.

The chief clerk shouted in alarm, striking futile blows as the creature flew at him, seemed to become caught in the threads of his shirt and then freed itself. Lutton saw it heading in his direction. It passed him with a yard to spare, somersaulted, turned in midflight, and on its return journey glanced off the back of his neck. He fell to his knees.

It headed directly toward the steel grilles. There was a brief sigh of relief from the clerical staff. The bars were four inches apart. Plenty of room for it to pass through. It caught one of its wings as it did so, and tumbled to the concrete floor on the other side, stunned.

"Jesus!" someone breathed.

They heard footsteps and voices echoing down the corridor. Baxterdale was coming with the key holders to release them from this vault of death.

"It's there, sir!" Don Lucas called out shrilly, pointing to the inert bat as Baxterdale reached the grille door.

"What?" Baxterdale stopped abruptly, the two men at his heels bumping into him. "Where?"

"There!"

As Baxterdale, a plump, bald-headed man, finally saw the bat, it stirred, shuffled forward, and took off again—back through the bars and into the Credit House.

Screams and confusion came from within the enclosed area. There was no logic in the creature's behaviour. It flew madly back and forth, this time seeming impervious to the obstacles which it struck, hitting the bars again but not passing between them.

"Let us out! For Christ's sake let us out!" someone yelled.

But Baxterdale and his companions were retreating back up the corridor, glancing over their shoulders as they ran.

"Bloody well unlock the doors!"

Baxterdale reached his office, and his flabby hand was trembling as he picked up the receiver and dialed the Area Inspector's number. The line was engaged. He dropped the telephone back on to its cradle.

"Hadn't . . . hadn't we ought to go back down there?" one of the keyholders asked.

"No." the Treasury Chief shook his head. "You know the instructions issued to the public regarding these bats as well as I do. The stairway door is closed. The bat can't get beyond the lower-basement level. As soon as we can get hold of the Area Inspector he'll report it to the police."

"Can't . . . can't we ring the police?" the second key holder gulped.

"The Bank's rules," Baxterdale reminded him, glowering. "The police are never to be involved without consulting the Area Inspector first. You know that."

Baxterdale tried the number again. It was still engaged. Somewhere, far away and muffled, they could hear the screams of the trapped clerks.

It was the rush hour. People were hurrying, bustling, jostling each other, standing on packed buses while traffic waited at a standstill for longer periods than it moved. The newspaper vendors had all sold out in the city center by five o'clock and were packing up their stands and kiosks. The evening edition of the
Mail
was a total sell out, just as the midday one had been. There was no fresh news of the bats, but the previous accounts, rewritten with a diversity of opinions, were still commanding front page space.

The sirens of ambulances and police cars, and their flashing blue lights, were a commonplace sight. Seldom did the worker on his way home spare either a second glance. However, this evening there seemed to be an atmosphere of extra urgency about the two white cars and the ambulance which forced their way through the lanes of jammed traffic, a motorcycle patrol doing its best to clear the way ahead for them.

"Must be another bomb scare," a passenger on an outer-circle bus commented for the benefit of his fellow travellers. "That'll make three this week."

Within minutes crowds were gathering on the pavement by the ramp entrance which led down into the bowels of the Treasury. The grille was already raised in anticipation, two uniformed messengers and Baxterdale waiting by it in a state of acute agitation.

The ambulance was backed up, and stood in readiness with its engine running. Three constables emerged from the cars, carrying with them some kind of white plastic protective clothing.

"Looks like bleedin' riot-gear," a youth remarked to his companion on the opposite side of the road. "What the 'ell's goin' on down there?"

The grille gate was lowered behind the policemen.

"Your Area Inspector phoned us," a young inspector snapped as they followed Baxterdale down a white corridor, which eventually led to the office. "Just one bat, you say."

"Yes." Baxterdale straightened his tie and puffed out his chest, "Down in our lower checking area."

"Basement evacuated?"

"No. Everybody's still down there with it."

"
What!
" the inspector"s expression was one of incredulity, "You mean there are
people
down there with it?"

"The instructions, are to try and lock any bats in an enclosed area—"

"Yeah, but not people with 'em! Come on, there's no time to waste."

They hurried on down until they came to the corridor adjacent to the Credit House. The imprisoned clerks were no longer shouting and rushing about in a state of terror. Instead they were sitting white-faced at their desks, silent, trembling.

The two key holders unlocked the grille, and the policemen, pulling on gauze masks, elbow-length gloves and plastic coats, stepped inside.

"Now, where's this bat?" Baxterdale attempted to retrieve some of his authority.

"It's gone, sir," the chief clerk stammered.

"Gone?"

"Yes."

"Where? Where on earth could it have gone to?"

"I don't know, sir. One minute it was flying about like a mad thing. The next there was no sign of it. It must've . . . it must've got out up the ventilation shaft."

The policemen looked at one another. The inspector shook his head and turned to the group of huddled clerks.

"How many of you actually came into contact with the bat?"

Seven hands were raised nervously in a fearful admission.

"I see." The policeman nodded and tried to make light of it. "Well, I think we'd better take you down to the General for a checkup. Just a formality. We brought an ambulance with us just in case."

The seven clerks looked at one another, abject fear and hopelessness in their expressions. They'd read the papers, the details of the virus.

Once an infected bat touched you, that was it. Finis. There was no antidote. Nothing on God's Earth could save you.

Once the ambulances and police cars had pulled away from the Treasury life reverted to normal in the streets. Workers caught their trains and buses, and the incident was forgotten.

The city enjoyed a brief lull between the departure of those returning to their homes and the arrival of those coming in to enjoy the nightlife, the cinemas and theatres and nightclubs. For a couple of hours the traffic was light and the buses half empty.

There were only a few people about when Baxterdale left the Treasury, a sinking feeling in his stomach and a worried frown on his florid face. The Area Inspector's voice still rang in his ears. "You bloody fool!" he had raged, "If you can't make a decision in an emergency like that you don't deserve to be in charge of the place. If anybody dies I'm holding you personally responsible, and I'll see to it that you finish your banking career counting notes in the Credit House!"