Eve hollered as loud as she could, but to no avail. "Close those doors!"

The chaotic noise in the machine shed was too much for her to shout down. Adam disengaged himself from her and shoved a few people out of his way, moving to the front of the crowd. He began pushing one of the sliding doors shut. A pair of partygoers took note and pushed the other door towards him. Then all three of them dropped the latch as quickly as they could.

"Dude," said one of the two to Adam. "What the heck was that?"

"Bats," Adam said as a mere reply.

"Big-ass bats," the other one said. "Like, vampire size."

"What are vampire bats doing up here?" the first asked back. "They live in South America."

"Those weren't normal bats. They were huge."

A girl joined the conversation that the three were having, panicked into tears. "Richie's still out there!" she cried.

"No he's not," the first guy said.

"Yes he is! Let him in!"

"Richie's freaking everywhere! You saw what… whatever those were… you saw what they did. They tore him to shreds!"

"You've got to go and get him!" the girl shouted back.

"We're not opening these doors. You saw what happened!"

The conversation ended as the screaming began anew. Five of the bats had gotten into the shed before the doors were closed. They swirled about overhead, scattering the people. That is, until someone swatted one of them out of the air with a well-aimed pitchfork.

"It's just a bat," Eve said into the relative silence her heroics had brought the crowd.

Everyone took note of what she did. Pressed to the floor under the tines of her pitchfork was a giant bat. She carefully rotated her weapon, piercing the creature while keeping it pinned. As it writhed and squealed, the more queasy onlookers also squealed in kind.

Eve ground the bat against the concrete until it lay unmoving.

"That is one big bat." someone said out loud, as the rest of the crowd retained their silence.

"Where did it come from?"

"It came from inside the Earth," Eve replied. "That's why the trees are falling." Distant thuds of more trees falling verified her statement.

"How do you know this?" someone asked.

Eve put a booted foot on the bat and dislodged it from her pitchfork. She then walked away, searching for more prey.

"I don't know," she said to no one. "I just do."

A guest turned to one of Richie's older brothers. "You have a gun locker in here! Get that darn thing open!"

"It's locked," the brother said.

With the help of an axe and a splitting maul, that soon was not the case. Adam, being one of the tallest, reached over the heads of others in the crowd and plucked a metal case from the top shelf of the locker. Flipping it open, he let out a whistle and found a work table to set it upon. He then emptied the box of its contents—two .22 caliber polymer pistols with gas blocks, laser sights and twenty round clips of ammo.

Another half dozen clips, fully loaded, were in the case with the pistols, along with a box holding more rounds of unclipped ammo. Adam filled his pockets with the clips, snatching up both pistols before anyone else could.

"Look at the mothers I found!" he called out to the crowd. After a few sighting shots, to the screams of those less brave, he pegged a bat from near a ceiling light.

"Three more to go," said one of the partygoers, as others cheered the result.

As people started arming themselves, Richie's oldest brother took to control of the situation. "We're not shooting up the place! I… I don't want anyone else to get hurt. Give me my hunting rifle and I'll take care of this." To some protest cries, he said, "These are my guns! This is my farm! I'll take care of it!"

Someone handed him his rifle and, after checking the safety and breech, he took aim and brought down a bat, much to the delight of the crowd. Adam tucked the pistols he had into his coat and searched for Eve. She was nowhere to be found, and panic welled up in him. Going over the length and breadth of the shed, he found that she had made her way up the shelving and siding and such, high into the rafters. She sat on a small platform, peering out a window meant only for letting in light.

Adam found his way up. "Look," was all she said upon his arrival, not even giving him a glance.

From the height of their vantage point, the Paulsson family farm laid out below. There was a new moon that night, with thick clouds blocking the stars. Coupled with the bats, the night was black as sin. Where the roots of a few giant trees could be seen unearthed and laying naked, vampire bats by the thousands bled from the holes in the ground. A handful of pole lights on the property were regularly being blotted out by the size of the swarm.

From their perch so high in the rafters, the couple felt the ground tremble. Hell had erupted, sick and unholy, spewing its fearful burden into the nighttime sky.

"What is going on?" Adam implored of Eve as they sat quiet and stared.

"The destruction of the new year."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"Think about it," she said. "What's the first thing that happened?"

A rifle blast rattled Adam. "I don't freaking know!"

"Everybody's phone says eleven fifty-nine. So it's not the new year yet." Eve finally looked at Adam. "New Year's Eve never ended. And now it's being destroyed."

Adam sounded incredulous. "By bats."

Eve rolled her eyes very much in the way that he liked doing to her. "Well. Yeah," she said with a tone in her voice. "Apparently, that is the case."

The two went back to staring out the window. "Why do you suppose vampire bats want to destroy the new year?" Adam asked in earnest.

Eve huffed a bit, perturbed. "Cripes, 'Crow. Do you honestly think I know everything?"

"Yeah. I kinda do. Now especially."

She chose not to answer, but straightened her posture in response to his admiration. She then pressed a finger to the glass.

"Look," she said again.

The swirl of bats parted, as if repelled by an unseen force. A figure appeared in the clearing—a silhouette of a man wearing a military style field jacket.

"Is that Richie?" Adam asked.

Eve didn't say a word, remaining frozen and silent.

"That guy seems seven feet tall," Adam pointed out. "Look how big he is."

"It's not Richie," Eve said after a while. "Richie's super dead."

"Who the heck is he, then?"

Eve appeared to be too afraid to speak. "The bats aren't going after him," Adam pointed out. "They're getting out of his way."

The figure checked the perimeter of a nearby, and nearly identical, shed on the Paulsson farm. He seemed intent on entering. Finding the door to be locked, he pried at the latch. It broke under his might, and he went inside.

Another rifle blast, and a cheer from the crowd, meant Richie's brother had shot down another bat. Eve then grabbed Adam by the arm with such strength and fervor that he winced from the pain.

"Ow! Hey! Leggo!"

Eve spun on her precarious perch and pressed her back against the wall beneath the window, as if to hide. Her pale round face managed to look whiter it had ever been, with her eyes as wide as pies. She gazed up at Adam as he continued staring out the window. Upon noticing her fear, he positioned himself to comfort the woman he loved with all his heart.

"What?" he asked with care.

"It's Dad."

Adam blinked. "Your dad?"

Eve nodded her head in little bursts.

"How do you know?"

She swallowed hard and tried not to shake as she found a steady voice. "I always say he's around, and so I oughta know. Right? And that guy out there? He's my dad."

Adam was beyond questioning anything he heard or saw at this point. "Okay. He's your dad. What do you think he wants? What's he looking for?"

Eve pulled hard on the arm of Adam she still had in her clutch, getting him to place his face an inch away from hers.

"I'm gonna go with 'me' on that," she said with deathly fear.