A man, in his mid-thirties with short-cropped, cinnamon-brown hair, gray eyes and a well-built muscular frame lies under thin covers, a fan blowing in his window. A cordless telephone sits beside his bed, on his nightstand, beneath a maroon shaded lamp.

Brrring... the telephone lights up. Brrring... a tan hand groggily searches for the phone.

"Hello?" a scruffy voice asks.

"Yeah, um, this is the police martial. We've has a disappearance. We need you to come down to 319 Mortle Avenue. It's down by the corner store on the back roads," a high-pitched male voice quaucks into the other end of the telephone line.

"Yeah," speaks the scratchy voice as the man rubs the sleep from his eyes. "I'll be down in a few." He places the phone back down on the nightstand and clicks it to off mode. Throwing back the sheets, he jumps out of bed, springing like a coiled snake. Dressing in a white dress shirt, buttoning down leaving the top two buttons undone, he checks his watch, leaves his cuffs unbuttoned and rolls them back. Popping toast into a double toaster on the kitchen counter, he flips on the light, chases the dark shadows out of the room. Butter, cinnamon, sugar all sprinkled and spread onto the toast. Munching, crunching, he walks out the door grabbing his wallet and keys off of the shelf by the door.

Roaring to life as he inserts the keys into the ignition, his beautiful blue convertible corvette leaves the driveway with a skid of tires. Orange streetlights glare as sinister enemies to the morning. A few stops and he arrives to the police station slumpily walking in and grabbing a steaming cup of black coffee.

"The address is on the lieutenant's desk. He said he left pictures of the missing person." A secretary speaks not looking up from the monitor she is at. Her double pigtails bounce as her bubble gum pops and she types furiously.

The man walks to the desk, sees a sticky note on a case folder. The note reads, "For Steve Durmich. Good luck on your case." Smiling, he picks up the folder, walks out the door and gets back in his car.

Opening the folder he looks at the neatly typed, clean, white sheets of paper, all trademarked with the police insignia. The papers describe the disappearance as a boy of 6 years, 4 months with mousy blond hair, red freckles, standing three foot nine inches. There was a picture paper clipped to the inside of the folder. The papers also told of the boy's last whereabouts and where he should be looked for.

Steve lowers the top of his car, inserts his key and is about to twist it into ignition as he hears a few sharp squeaks and rapidly turns his head in the direction they come from. Three small black objects whiz by, each squeaking in turn, diving and wheeling back and forth.

"Hmm, it's a good night for bats to be feeding," he comments as he drives off. He never realized the legitimacy of his comment until the report ended up on the lieutenant's desk the following morning.