by Ginger Marin

(a continuation of The Mystery of Hawk Hill - Part 1)

The bat sat there looking at Bert, then he'd look over to Roberto and back and forth this went for some time. The bat then spit at Roberto and gave poor Bert a peck on the neck. He pecked and pecked and finally sucked a little blood which it then spit at Roberto. Both of the men had flecks of blood all over their faces and when they awoke they screamed bloody murder.

The bat was long gone so all they could suppose was that each had bloodied the other one up. Lucky for them it was just an ordinary ugly bat and not a vampire otherwise this story could take a turn for the worse. Still, there was Roberto and Bert looking pretty stupid at one another until they got into a fist fight. They fought so hard they tumbled right out the front door into the peaty ground.

Suddenly Roberto started sinking ... and sinking ... and sinking until half his body was under the mucky peat. Bert thought long and hard about what to do. Should he leave him there? Well if he did that, there'd be no one to talk to; on the other hand, Roberto was a big pain in the neck. Bert opted to help the old fool and so he dug feverishly until he pulled out the bloke and threw him a towel. Now from inside the house came another sound - very weird - as if someone were being strangled. They ran in opposite directions around the house in fright then came back around the front again toward the open door.  They knocked heads and went flying, each falling flat onto the cold peaty ground just outside the front door. But this time, no one sank in. And that's because it had just turned midnight when all the peat in the moors froze solid until next morning. They were saved - except they too started to freeze.

The two of them were about to die from hypothermia when that fat bat came back for round two. The bat started to beat Roberto and Bert up, even worse than before. But Roberto's adrenaline kicked in and up he jumped, with frozen hair sticking straight up from his head. Shivering severely, he realized they were in trouble. He grabbed a walking stick that had been perched by the door, swung at that bat and shot him out of sight. He then dragged Bert into the house again, slammed the door shut this time and then both passed out from exhaustion.

Early the next morning, they woke up, glad to be alive but very mistrustful of each other.  But it once again dawned on them that they were truly alone and they had better start cooperating if they wanted to stay alive.

They looked around and found that the house really was quite a mess.  They huffed and puffed, fixing this, repairing that, painting the walls and patching up the broken roof.  They certainly didn't want any more bats in or around the darkish house.  Bert stoked the fire; Roberto fixed honey biscuits on the stove and the two sat down to a proper breakfast of biscuits and blacker than night coffee.  The birds sang cheerfully and twittered as they sat in the mostly bare tree that was right outside their kitchen window.  Bert and Roberto felt at home and were even happy ... at least for this moment.  Until ... they heard another strange noise .... (more coming soon)