Life's Blood

Life’s Blood

The life of a vampire bat is a complicated one. Weaving your way through the maze of trees using only bouncy sound as your guide takes a lot of care and preparation. That’s without even mentioning the inevitable difficulties with finding food and shelter.

Barry, however, had found his life to be almost too easy. He was born under a brightly shining star, and he used that advantage to the best of his ability. His mother was one of the best hunters in the forest, and she worked tirelessly from the day Barry was born to instill all of her knowledge into her son. By the time Barry was old enough to fly by himself, he already knew all the best hunting spots by heart from all the time he had spent clinging to his mother’s fur during many darting runs through the forest. He knew how to identify a sick animal, one of the most important things for a vampire bat to know. Getting food poisoning can knock vital days off a bat’s hunting time, and could lead to starvation or even death. He even knew which animals provided the richest blood, which animals had blood that could protect from disease. His knowledge was seemingly limitless.

As Barry grew older, he grew larger and larger. He was a skilled and agile hunter, and because of his vast knowledge and consummate skill he was able hunt more efficiently and eat better than the other bats. That is not to say that the other bats were suffering, in fact by the time Barry was a fully grown adult his colony had grown to unsustainable proportions.

And that’s when the problems in Barry’s life started. As his colony grew and grew, so the sources of food in the forest shrunk and shrunk. At times, one sleeping warthog could have 20 or more bats feeding from it. The animals began to die, as they could no longer provide enough blood to feed the ravenous masses of bats. Eventually, all of the bats’ animal providers had left the forest or died.

The colony began to starve, and the bats roosted all night in their trees crying, “what to do?”

Barry, being far above the average hunter, still managed to eke out a modest living from the stray animals that wandered blindly into the forest. But when he looked around at the other bats in his colony and how they were suffering, he wanted to do something to help.

So he pondered and pondered.

Then one day it came to him. He flapped over to the centre of the forest, and let out his loudest squeak. The other bats flapped lazily over, tired from the lack of nutrition and exercise. Once all the bats had gathered, Barry began his speech:

“My friends, I see how you are suffering. You must surely have seen that I am still in good health. I want to teach you my hunting skills so that you too can feed well.” He looked around at the crowd, beaming.

The crowd provided Barry with more of a lukewarm reception than he had expected. The older bats simply looked at Barry with scorn, and sloped off muttering, “you can’t teach an old bat new tricks”. The younger bats flapped away wildly, laughing, “what could you possibly teach me? I already know everything.” A few of the colony stayed, listening intently to Barry’s words, determined to help themselves. So Barry spoke, and they listened, and they learned the secrets of being a successful hunter.

The bats who had remained thanked Barry for his insights, and soared off in search of their inevitable meal. But still Barry was not happy. He looked to the rest of the colony, still suffering, still starving.

And he knew he could do more.

Knowing that the other bats did not want to learn to be successful hunters, Barry decided that he had to find another route to get them food. So once more, he pondered.

The colony’s plight got worse, and the weak and the young began to die. Barry’s heart was almost broken by all the suffering he saw. But he was a resilient bat, and he continued to ponder. Then finally, he grasped onto an idea that he thought could work.

Once more, he flapped to the middle of the forest, and let out a mighty squeak. The colony flopped wearily over to his perch, gasping from the effort.

“My fellow bats, I have another idea that can help you. I know that learning to hunt well is too difficult for many of you, so I have decided that I will hunt for you. Each morning, when I return from my excursion, you can each feed a small amount from me. It will be a challenge, given how scarce food is, but I am willing to try, since you are my family and I do not wish to see you suffer.” Again Barry looked around the crowd hopefully. This time the response was much warmer.

“Oh Barry, you truly are a saint!”

“Gosh, isn’t that so nice?”

“3…..2…..1….For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow….”

So off Barry flapped, happy to have put a smile on everyone’s faces. He worked tirelessly through the night, gorging himself on anything he could find. Even the smallest voles were not safe from his ravenous appetite.

That morning when he returned home he squeaked once more, and the other bats dropped down from their roosting spots to feed. Each took only a little, and by the following evening every bat in the colony had had enough to let them survive another day. Barry had rested, but the day's feeding had left him feeling weaker than usual. Luckily, he was a bat of above average resilience and as night fell he set off again, scouring the forest for any creatures still foolish enough to be stumbling around. He found the hunt harder that night, as his efficiency had driven yet more creatures from the forest. But, being an intelligent and diligent hunter, he returned home bloated on the blood of the unsuspecting forest dwellers once more.

He hung from his favourite branch, and again the feeding frenzy started. The bats were not quite so restrained as they had been the day before, jostling for position and taking a gulp or two more than they needed. Barry rested, awaiting the following night when his challenge would start again.

The cycle continued for a while, the animals becoming scarcer and scarcer, the bats becoming greedier and greedier, and Barry becoming weaker and weaker.

Finally, one silent and moonless night, Barry left the colony without his usual gusto. His wings beat half-heartedly, and he rose and fell through the air like a yo-yo. The other bats watched him leave hungrily, licking their lips at the prospect of another feast the following morning.

The sun rose, and still Barry had not returned from his hunt. The other bats looked at each other, puzzled as to why they had not had their meal.

“That greedy furball has run off,” one mused.

“Yeah, he wants to keep all the food to himself.” Anger burned behind the second bat’s beady black eyes.

“I always knew he was no good,” a third bat chirped, and the colony nodded solemnly in agreement.

For a while, the colony trudged along, starvation setting in once more. The bats grew angry, and confused, and weak.

They argued amongst themselves, each pushing the others to hunt food to help them survive. But the bats were too selfish. They could not even find the energy to help themselves, let alone help others.

Eventually, the colony began to split apart. The larger bats bullied the smaller bats, pinning them as they slept and drinking them dry. The younger bats used their agility and quick-wittedness to corner the older bats, and had their fill from them. In the end, the groups that had formed split further and further, until the colony was so small that the only chance for survival was to work in groups of one.

After the butchery subsided, a large and battle-scarred bat by the name of George was the only member of the colony remaining. He tucked into the last drops of blood from the penultimate bat, licked his lips and surveyed the carnage he had wrought.

The floor was littered with the carcasses of the colony, some bleached bright white pile of bones, some half-decayed, stinking piles of sludge. The forest was deathly silent, not a single movement anywhere. Not even one that could be picked up by a bat’s superior hearing.

What am I supposed to eat now? George grumbled to himself.

After a time, George realised that there was no use in hanging around this colony of death and destruction. He slunk off into the forest, hoping that one of the other bats would have escaped so he could catch them and have his fill.

After days of flitting aimlessly through the forest, George ran out of strength. He slumped to the floor, gasping the last wheezes of stale air from his body. As he crawled forward in vain, he noticed a small patch of fur and leather on the ground ahead.

As he approached it, he recognised the lump. It was Barry, laying stock still, half-buried amongst the leaves and twigs. George smiled to himself, convinced he had been saved.

“Cheers Barry,” he cackled as crawled ever closer to the prone form.

In a flash, the form became infinitely less prone and swept up from the forest floor, a black bolt of lightning streaking upwards, then diving back purposefully to earth.

“No, thank you George,” Barry replied, sinking his teeth deep into the nape of his rival’s neck, “I have been waiting there for some time, saving my strength, hoping that something would pass close by so I could feed. Quite a shame that it had to be one of my brothers, but there is a time for giving, and a time when we must think of ourselves.”

George groaned as the final trickles of blood flowed out of his body. With his last breath, he cursed Barry for being so selfish.