Flash Fiction "Bats" up at Anti-Heroin Chic

I am so pleased to have my flash fiction "Bats" up at Anti-Heroin Chic.  

​A story I heard at church inspired this piece. I attend a historic church (built in 1891) with an old-fashioned bell tower. At one point (before I attended), the church had bats in the belfry. One day Valerie, a senior lady with a British accent, described the excitement of having a bat fly down into the church during the service. It perched near a petrified teenager.  Valerie picked the bat up and carried it outside.

The church has re-homed the bats, but the story lives on. 

I took that story and made the teenager the rescuer, because I wanted a character who felt as out of place as the bat was. 

The art at the top of this page is an assemblage made by mystery writer John Billheimer, a member of my writers group. We have a tradition of giving holiday gifts based on the writing we've done during the year. He gave me this gift in 2019. Because of my pandemic submitting slump, the story did not find a home until this year.

The church I go to, and its belfry