Dark Banquet Read Free Page B

cinematography, we planned to see if there would be measurable differences in the flight-initiating jumps of
Desmodus rotundus
and
Diaemus youngi,
the two vampires I would collect and bring back from Trinidad.
    Not long after arriving in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, Port of Spain, I told Farouk what a pain it had been for us to machine the metal components of our force platform, get the electronics working just right, and then write the data-acquisition software. He stood by patiently as I tooted my own horn, polished it a bit, then tooted some more. Finally, I ran out of intricate gear to describe (or it might have been air).
    â€œIt won’t work,” Farouk said, matter-of-factly.
    â€œExcuse me?” I replied, my voice cracking like a twelve-year-old boy’s.
    â€œYour experiment won’t work.”
    Now I was getting visibly annoyed. Hadn’t I just told him how much time, effort, and brainpower had gone into this project?
    â€œOf course it’ll work.” I was getting frantic now.
    The Trinidadian said nothing.
    â€œWhy won’t it work?”
    Muradali put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Because
Diaemus youngi
doesn’t jump.”
    â€œOh,” I replied, sheepishly. “Right.”

    The light from Janet’s headlamp swept upward from the bottom of the empty elevator shaft (now below us) to the ceiling. “So where are all the—” Her beam had stopped tracking abruptly.
    Illuminated at the top of the chamber were three circular clusters, each composed of a dozen or so black silhouettes, arranged concentrically. They hung silently, reminding me of giant Christmas tree ornaments. Suddenly, one of the fusiform shapes unfurled, revealing wings nearly two feet across.
    â€œPhyllostomus hastatus,”
Farouk whispered. “The second-largest bat in Trinidad.”
    â€œCrawling mother of Waldo,” I muttered, and Muradali threw me a confused look.
    â€œDon’t mind him,” Janet explained, keeping her light trained on the bats. “He gets all scientific when he’s excited.”
    Muradali nodded politely, then began assembling an object that looked suspiciously like a drawstring-equipped butterfly net at the end of a four-foot pole.
    I shot him a quizzical look. “A butterfly net?”
    â€œSwoop net,” Muradali corrected, handing it to Janet.
    Farouk nodded toward the net, then shined his light up at a cluster of bats. “To catch the ones closest to the elevator door, you lean out over the edge while someone holds your belt or backpack.”
    Janet glanced up at the bats, then quickly shoved the net into my hands. Possibly she’d had the same vision that I’d just had, of tumbling down a concrete-lined abyss with nothing except years of rainwater, bat guano, and asbestos to soften the fall.
    As I moved into the doorway, it was impossible to chase away the image of that poor woman, stepping off the solid concrete floor and into a bottomless pit of bat-shit soup. “Thanks, hon,” I said.
    Janet only smiled.
    â€œWe’ll leave these bats alone,” Muradali said, moving away from the shaft.
    As we quickly followed him, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Can we catch vampires like this?” I asked, suddenly feeling a bit braver and taking a few swings at some phantom air bats.
    â€œNo,” he replied, picking his way through the debris. “Too smart.”

    Later, the scientist explained that early efforts to eradicate vampire bats had resulted in the deaths of thousands of non-blood-feeding species. In 1941, Captain Lloyd Gates was placed in charge of protecting the American forces stationed at Wallerfield from the twin threat of mosquitoes and vampire bats. Gates’s less-than-subtle response to the bat problem was to have his men use dynamite and poison gas in caves known to contain bat roosts. Flamethrowers became a popular alternative, but