Hunting for Bat Wings

The boys knew they’d catch trouble from Grandma for sneaking into the woods. She’d warned them more than once that men with moonshine stills hid out there—men who’d shoot anyone who wandered too close. Harry and Bill figured Grandma’s stories were a bit too dramatic to be true. Besides, they’d tasted Grandpa’s shine. It was awful. Nobody in their right mind would buy that stuff.

Harry had convinced Bill there was real money in bat wings. He’d read in Captain Science that folks in Arizona were making thousands collecting and selling them. And really—how could a comic book be wrong?

They packed sandwiches, filled Dad’s old canteen with sweet tea, grabbed Grandpa’s hatchets and small shovels, and stuffed plenty of rags into their packs. Harry even brought two pairs of Mom’s rubber gloves “just in case things got nasty.” After planning their route and checking their bicycle tires, they were set to leave at first light. Harry was sure he could swipe a few biscuits from Grandma’s breakfast before they slipped out.

Their adventure began with the confidence of two great explorers, certain they’d return with riches that would make Flash Gordon look like an amateur. It was four miles to the edge of the forest, and they spent the ride chattering about how they’d spend their fortune. The turnoff into the woods seemed to leap out at them.

The trail was rougher than they remembered. The forest had grown thick, and the path was tangled with undergrowth and vines of a strange color. They’d learned about kudzu in biology class—how it grew so fast it could swallow a car in a day—but this vine didn’t look like the pictures at all. It had long green and red veins running the length of the yellow tubular vine, with a cluster of leaves every six inches. Within the leaf mass, there appeared to be a very tiny group of white flowers. Harry couldn't be sure if they were flowers, and he wasn't interested in investigating in detail, as the bat wings occupied his mind. I mean, where else could someone make massive amounts of money without doing any real work? Nowhere, just like Captain Science explained.

It took two more hours to reach the base of the mountain where the bat caves were. Neither boy could remember this much undergrowth in all their years of exploring the forests around their home.They leaned their bikes against a giant pine and ate lunch. The first cave was only fifty feet up the slope. They convinced themselves they’d have sacks full of wings and be home before dinner.

Harry stood to stretch and noticed something odd. The vine carpeting the ground seemed to be growing out of the cave itself.

“Hey, Bill,” he said, pointing. “Ain’t it strange that the same vine we’ve been climbing over is coming right out of that cave?”

Bill shrugged. “Nah.” He gathered the lunch scraps and pulled the tools from their packs. “Yahoo! You brought the coal‑mining hats. And the lights are charged!”

“Shucks, I don’t miss a thing,” Harry said, though his voice wavered. The vine still bothered him.

They gathered their gear and climbed to the cave mouth. A sweet fragrance drifted out on a faint breeze. Harry frowned.

“I don’t remember that smell in the spring. Do you?”

“No,” Bill said slowly. “And I don’t remember air blowing out of the cave either. This is different.”

Harry hesitated. “You think we ought to keep going?”

“We’re here,” Bill said, tapping the tools. “Might as well get those wings.”

They put on the helmets and switched on the lamps. The adventure was officially underway.

But as they stepped inside, the vine beneath their feet made a sound that wasn’t quite a squish.

"The vine seems to be moaning when we step on it", Bill commented.

" Come on, brother, this is not a Dr. Strange adventure we're on. I mean, it's 1958, and the world is growing smaller and smaller. That's what National Geographic tells us on every page...almost".

The deeper they went, the more the vine climbed the cave walls. They remembered the cave opening into a large cavern where the bats roosted, so they pulled their bandanas over their noses, bracing for the smell of guano.

“WHOA!” Harry shouted, grabbing Bill’s arm. Suddenly, the floor of the cavern dropped several feet below their level.

The cavern floor was completely covered in vines, and thick tendrils climbed the walls all the way to the ceiling, where the bats should have been. Huge leaves—bigger than Grandma’s elephant‑ear plants—spread across the floor. Clusters of multicolored flowers bloomed everywhere. Strange bees drifted from blossom to blossom, collecting pollen before flying deeper into the cave.

But there was no buzzing. And none of the bees paid the boys any mind. Harry, who normally attracted stings like a magnet, wasn’t even noticed. The sound from the bees' wings was like a soft hum, not the rapid pulsating, frantic sound of something that should not be flying, flying.

Bill swallowed hard. “Harry… we'd better leave. Now.”

“Why?” Harry asked, though he already knew.

“Are you kidding? Nothing here is normal. Where are the bats? Where’s the smell? And look at the vines—they’re moving.”

“Stop it, Bill. You’re creeping me out.”

“Creeping you out? This whole place is wrong!”

Harry’s mind raced. Bill was right. None of this made sense. The bees were loaded with pollen, but none were returning. Where were the new bees coming from? Every flower seemed to have an endless assault of bees, but no source was visible. And the vines… they were growing right before their eyes.

“Bill… you’re right.”

“DA!” Bill snapped, turning to leave—just as the ground shifted beneath them.

“STOP!” Harry yelled. “Look at the vine going deeper into the cave. It’s five times thicker than the ones we’re standing on. And look—they’re… they’re pulsing.”

They both tried to run, but their feet stuck fast to the vine‑covered floor. In a panic, they yanked themselves free by stepping out of their tennis shoes and sprinted toward the cave entrance. Harry was behind, pushing Bill forward, when—