I Am A Bat. I Am A Writer.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

A peculiarly voyeuristic writer like me couldn't resist the temptation. So without hesitating, I pulled a quick side-flip and changed the course of my otherwise uninteresting flight trip to my otherwise mundane hunting grounds. The candle was sparkly bright and that gave me the chills. I daringly flapped my thin wings and whooshed in, through the open window. I screeched in a moment of excitement which ended up being a big mistake. It caught the attention of an unnatural blob of figure hanging from the ceiling inside the cabin house. It was bigger than me, darker than me, bloodier than me and had sharper claws than mine. It took me a few moments to adjust my eyesight but I was too late. The creature on the ceiling stretched out its scrawny limbs and pricked my tiny and delicate wing. It was clearly not interested in killing me. It was more of a get-off-my-face reflex. I fell on the floor, landing on my head with a thud. I panicked. I flapped harder. I freaked out like a dying moth. I squealed in fear. It would take a day or two for my wings to heal. I could die. However, eventually I calmed down and decided to take a clear look at this beast of a creature. It was not a bird. It was a man instead. He was hanging upside down from the ceiling. He had long hair, thin but strong arms, pale skin, bloody lips, sharp senses and a really, really stinking body odour.

The smell was so bad that I had to cover both my nose and mouth. In fact, I had to cover them twice to not let the faintest of the grotesque stench get inside my tiny lungs. If only I could speak his language, I would ask this hideous man to take a shower and stay in the bathtub for a bare minimum two days; not to come out under any circumstances. I wished I were his mother. I would have chucked a bucket of iced water on him and sent him to the naughty corner. He broke my wings and I could forgive him for that. But the smell, I couldn't stand that for a hundred years, nevertheless one night. I was worried that I would puke, and then puke again, and again and again, throughout the damned night, but that was when I heard a knock on the door from outside.

The knock was followed by a man's voice. The stinky man on the ceiling, who I thought was fearless, was shaken by the man's voice. He lost his grip and dropped on the floor like a bag of bones. What was the point of all those strong arms and sharp claws, I wondered. I thought I was braver than the stinky man, but then I heard something bark from outside. I knew exactly what it was and I quickly climbed up an old abandoned cupboard. A terrier could ravage a bat in no time. Safety was the utmost priority for a delicate writer with damaged wings. The stinky man growled in fear. He growled more like a bear than a man. The man knocking on the door lost his cool and busted open the flimsy door. He strutted into the cabin, holding a hammer in his hand. On a lighter note, the hammer man did not stink. That was a wonderfully big relief for me, but not for the stinky man. The sight of the hammer man made him go crazy. He climbed onto the ceiling once again. The hammer man was laughing wildly at him. Maybe, he was enjoying the stinky man's fear. Maybe, he was a writer too. The stinky man had no other way out. The door was blocked by the hammer man and the savage terrier stood guard at the window. The terrier didn't stop barking for even a second. The hammer man slowly raised the weapon, aiming for the big shot. I felt bad for the stinky man who would die anytime. The tension was killing me. I took a deeper breath to calm myself down. The stench was hideous but I had to bring down my raising heartbeat. I told myself that a writer must be calm and quiet, and never get carried away. The stinky man's death was almost nearing. But then, something else happened.

What I didn't know until that point was that the stinky man had actually been playing the bait game. The hammer man didn't realize that it was an ambush. The stinky man was not alone in the cabin. He had a stinky woman partner who had been hiding at the far end of the cabin, perfectly camouflaged. I didn't see that coming in the slightest bit. By the time the hammer man realized his mistake it was too late. The stinky woman wide opened her distensible mouth and unleashed a black gooey mass of thread onto him. In no time the man was wrapped and cocooned from neck to the toe. It made him lose his balance, and he dropped on the floor. He cursed in human language. The stinky man was amazed by the theatricality of his partner and jumped hysterically. He then stopped, and turned towards the whimpering terrier. That ninja of a terrier was only as good as his master. The stinky woman opened her mouth once again and cocooned the terrier, dropping him next to his master. Though I had always hated four-legged dogs, I wouldn't want the stinky pair to eat the terrier alive. Poor, fluffy doggy would die anytime.

The stinky woman grabbed the hammer and licked it clean with her long forked tongue. Her loud breath sounded more like a monitor-lizard than a woman. She was drooling constantly like an exhausted swine. A swine would still smell better than her though. Gosh! The stench! I was dying to leave that suffocating room but my wings were broken. Also, the writer in me wanted to know what would happen to the hammer man and the poor terrier. The stinky witch was clearly not as intelligent as I thought at first. She raised the hammer to blow the man's brains out but the terrier's barking annoyed her. So she decided to finish off the terrier before the man. She raised the hammer once again and almost reached for the dog's skull but the man screamed in defiance. She was totally pissed off with their antics. She couldn't decide upon her next move. She was unsure of whom to start with - the dog or the man. That made her more frustrated and then she started to cry. The stinky man couldn't handle the scene. He stroked her back to console her but that didn't help. So they decided to go for a coin toss. He pulled out a flashy coin and tossed it. It plopped on the floor with a metallic clink. The excited stinky pair ran to take a closer look. I was secretly praying for it to be the man and not the terrier.

The stinky man turned around and growled at the man. The man cursed once again, but it didn't go down well. His eyes were gouged out at first. Yellowish goo squirted on the floor. Then his tongue was pulled out and sliced off with a sickle. Finally his beating heart was ripped out of his writhing chest. That was gross but I was glad when the stinky pair let go of the terrier in the end.

Daylight seeped in. The stinky pair had left the cabin. I prayed for the hammer man's soul to rest in peace. His devoured corpse, soaked in sticky blood, was lying on the floor for a really long time. Nobody came looking for him.

That was nearly the last time I saw the stinky pair ever in my small life.

A year later, I published my first novel. The title was 'Stinky Pair Versus The Hammer Man'. I also didn't forget to mention 'based-on-true-events' on the cover-page. The book became an instant success. Even the humans were in awe with my book. I was awarded the Bat-Litzer prize in the non-human category. Everything was going well.

Two years later, it was Halloween Night. My grand-children begged me to show them the haunted cabin from the book. They didn't believe that it was for real. So I gave in and took them to the exact spot, but I insisted on seeing it only from a distance.

The moon had hunkered down behind the dark clouds. The night was foggier than usual. The cabin, in all its glory, stood tall but scathed with scars. And, upon our arrival, yet again, a candle was burning on the window sill.

The parent-side of my brain told me to leave but the writer instinct pleaded me to go inside. What I did next would end up becoming my second successful novel based on true events. The title would be 'Stinky Pair Versus Van Helsing'.