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Twilight Time
Thirteen year old Hoss and seven year old Joe were trudging home carrying their poles and fish which were on a stick pushed through their gills. The evening was falling and they were caught in that dusky time, when things seem to start to fade from view like ghosts on the horizon. Definitions of objects such as trees and bushes seem to take on an ethereal quality as if they were going to wink out of existence and be replaced by darkness.
Joe didn't like this time of day; it always made him look around to see if something was sneaking up on him, if there was some entity that was about to snatch him into that other realm from where people never returned. Adam had told him some of those stories about people who haunted mines in which they had died and called out to the living to join them and houses where the dead continued to walk and smothered the living in their sleep.
Looking up, Joe saw what looked like some odd birds. "What's that, Hoss," he asked pointing upward.
"Them's bats, Joe. Ain't you never seen bats before?" Hoss asked. "We've had a few in the attic when you was just a baby and Pa killed one in the barn once."
"They look kinda like birds to me," Joe said.
Hoss saw his opportunity. "They ain't nothin' like birds at all," Hoss said in a lowered voice as if he didn't want the bats to hear him. "They ain't got no wings—just some leathery stuff stretched out, you know, like the skin of your hand between your fingers only it's like from the tip of your little finger aaaaaallllllllll the way down to your hips. And they got glowin' red eyes like coals and long sharp claws like monster hawks. And their teeth—huge, long fangs on them. Adam told me he read once in a book about some type of bat they got in South America that's called a Vampire bat that hooks onto you and sucks out all your blood and then you're nothin' but an old husk, all dried out like a piece of jerky."
Joe's eyes got bigger with fear and he started to break into a trot-he wanted to get home fast. Hoss moved to keep up with him.
"But you know what, Joe? These bats here, they get into your hair - they like long curly hair like yours - and they lay eggs in it and when they hatch, they eat through your head and then you go crazy!"
"Uh-uh, Hoss, you're lyin'" Joe said, moving faster.
"No. I ain't," Hoss said.
Joe looked up.
"Look out, Joe!" Hoss yelled. "One's comin' for ya now!"
"Noooooo," Joe cried out, dropping his line of fish and pole and throwing his hands over his head, running toward home at top speed.
Hoss doubled over with laughter. He knew he was going to catch it from Pa when he got home, but he was sure enjoying himself now. And if he got whupped, he knew that just thinking about Joe running off like a little scaredy-cat, well, he'd laugh all over again.
~Finis~