Sho-sho Mamu, Inc
Chapter 8

Copyright© 2017 by aubie56

Her problem was that Irene could not stop thinking about the demon bats. What would you do if somebody told you to stop thinking about elephants? Therefore, when Ed was released from the hospital and Irene had finished her effusive welcoming, she could not wait to tell him about her worry with the bats. Ed thought about the question for a few minutes and said, “Irene, maybe we have not seen any bats because we have not been hunting at night. Suppose we take a week off to hunt only at night? If we don’t see any bats by the end of the week, I’ll start to worry with you.”

Angie and Hank agreed to the change of schedule and they napped all day in preparation for hunting at night. By this time, the new lot of HE shells had been delivered, and they were all armed with that ammunition, though they did keep one 20-round drum loaded with buckshot just in case. They started out with high hopes, but they were getting pretty tired of nothing to shoot at by 3:00 AM.

Irene’s aura detector had been getting more and more sensitive as she fiddled with it, and they all had a great deal of confidence invested in the gadget by then. It was about 3:15 when Irene let out a whoop of joy as she finally picked up something on her detector. The pip indicated a relatively small body, so they rightly assumed that it had to be a bat: they knew of nothing else that small coming through the portal.

Hank took off after the indicated signal, and they were fortunate that they were able to stick to paved roads considering that it was still pretty damned dark. As usual, when he was not reined in, Hank drove too fast. However, nobody cared at this time. They soon found the source of the signal, but it was a terrible shock to find that it was not a bat. Damned if it was not a small skeleton! This had to be a child who had been taken by a ghost in order to have a skeleton that small.

Since there were nothing but bones left, there was no way to identify who the skeleton had belonged to, so they just sat back and watched the skeleton at work. This was too good an opportunity to miss. The skeleton was digging through a pile of refuse in a vacant lot. Suddenly it reacted so fast that they almost missed the sight: the skeleton had grabbed a rat. This was one of those really big Norway rats that can become a serious problem.

Anyway, the skeleton pushed the rat between its jaws and bit down. Naturally, the rat died when its head was separated from its body. It was really strange to watch the rat disappear into the skeleton’s mouth, never to be seen again. Nobody could figure out where the rat was disappearing to, but there was no doubt that it had been eaten. This must have been a manifestation of the magic that was holding those bones together and providing the coordinated joint movement. Once it had finished eating the rat, the skeleton returned to digging through the trash pile apparently looking for more rats.

Well, now they knew what the skeletons did. They appeared to be no danger to humans, but they might become a problem for domestic cats and small dogs. Well, there were plenty of other dangers for such pets that were allowed to roam at night, so the team decided to write off any concern about skeletons until further data showed that they could be dangerous to humans. The demons were too much of a problem right now to let the innocuous skeletons distract them.

That was all they saw that night, but they did decide to stick to the night schedule for the agreed upon one week. However, it there was no more action than what they had seen on this night, they could go back to hunting in the daytime with a clear conscience. However, they did still need to know what the bats were doing.

Irene was still fixated on the bats, so she could not sleep. Instead, she spent the day trying to improve on her aura detector. She fiddled with the device for about an hour without any obvious accomplishments, so she finally went to bed. However, for some reason, she had forgotten to turn the device off. The device spent the day on the bedside table between the telephone and Irene’s head. It was impossible to say which had more influence on the device, the telephone or Irene’s mind, but the device was noticeably more sensitive than before when she started using it that night.

When she woke up, Irene noticed that the detector was still turned on, so she casually flipped the switch to turn it off in order to save unnecessary drain on the batteries. That night when they climbed into the Humvee and Irene turned on the device, she could have sworn that she felt a mental sigh of relief coming from the aura detector. Irene thought no more about it except to grin at her overactive imagination at work, but she did notice the changes in the device once she started to use it seriously.

The first signal she picked up was a faint one, but it was actively moving through the town, so it needed immediate attention. Hank drove them to it with his usual enthusiasm, and there it was: a demon bat flying down the street chasing a dog. The bat seemed to be toying with the dog because it slowed down as the tiring dog also slowed down. This sadistic game didn’t last long because Ed changed his ammunition drum to the one with the buckshot and let fly with a single shot.

Ed had made the ammunition change for the obvious reason that he was not sure that he could hit the bat with the single HE bullet. On the other hand, he was a long-time clay target shooter, and he was confident of hitting such a large target as the bat with at least some of the buckshot. That, at least, should distract the bat away from the dog.

Well, Ed was correct this time. His only shot was deadly enough to bring down the demon bat and let Hank drive close enough for another sure killing shot directly into the head of the bat at close range. The purpose of this kind of shooting was to let Irene and Angie examine the body of the bat to see if it was a female and was pregnant. It took only one slash with Angie’s knife to scare all four of the team members. Yes, this was a female demon bat, and she was pregnant. Uh-oh, there was no doubt now that the world was in trouble!

Suddenly, Hank shouted for the women to look out! Three more bats were flying in their direction. Ed had been so interested in the examination of the one downed bat that he had not gotten around to changing his ammunition drum, so he was ready to defend the women as soon as he was aware of the problem. The women ran the few steps to the safety of the Humvee while Ed waited for the three bats to get close enough to be sure of a hit.

He fired his first load of buckshot at a range of about 60 feet. He did not wait to see if he had hit the demon bat before switching his aim to the next one in line. This one was also shot at about 60 feet, and the third one was hit at about 45 feet away from the Humvee. This would have been outstanding shooting if the targets had been as small as the conventional clay ones that Ed had learned with.

However, these demon bats were so large that they were easy targets for someone with Ed’s experience. Nevertheless, none of the demon bats were killed by the single load of buckshot, so Hank hit each one with an HE round, and that ensured that no more would be heard from these particular demons. This time, there was not enough left to check for gender or for gravidity in any of the three body masses. That HE did wonders at rearranging the innards of anything it hit.

By this time, Irene’s aura detector was chirping again; however, the indicated source was large enough to be an adult Sho-Sho Mamu. Again, Hank took off in pursuit with his usual verve. As they got closer, it became obvious that the target was certain to be a Sho-Sho Mamu. The demon was on a city street, so there was no question of ignoring it. The question now was whether to kill the demon as soon as they could find it or to try to follow it long enough to know whether or not there might be pups that could be later trouble.

Uh-oh, now there was another pip of equal size on a collision course with the first one Irene had detected. This presented a significant problem that had to have an immediate solution: were they strong enough to face two Sho-Sho Mamus in the open? Possibly not, but they could not take a chance. This would account for all of the Sho-Sho Mamus known to have made the crossing through the portal, and the situation would not allow them to ignore that possibility. Therefore, Hank slowed down his pursuit to allow the two Sho-Sho Mamus to meet before the team came upon them.

 
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