Bats by William W Johnstone

They’d flown north from Central and South America, appearing one day in the southern wetlands of the U.S. like ominous ink stains in the twilight sky. With each sunset, more appeared, first hundreds then thousands. Massing into a great black cloud of terror, the vampire bats were beating their wings in time with the panicked heartbeats in the towns below.

No one knew how to stop them as they fell onto their prey like dark, deadly shadows. But someone had to find a way. Because somewhere in the night, they had become a threat to more than wild animals and livestock. Somewhere in the night madness took hold as these vampire bats developed a taste for human blood.

 And the feasting had only just begun.



This is a vintage horror from way back in 1993 when the creature feature was still the rage. William Johnstone has long since passed and his books were out of print for years. Many of them have been re-released for Kindle and I grabbed a few plus some used paperbacks from the thrift store.

Our hero is some kind of former spy CIA guy or some such special ops thing that you will probably picture as Liam Neesan or at least I did since he is described as solid and fit but not too good looking. Luckily he pretty much already lives in a fortress since his retirement so his house is the safest place in town.
Some of the language is a bit cringe worthy, and I don't mean swearing. I was a bit put off by the number of derogatory terms the author chose to use because I don't think that was cool even back in 1993. If you can look past that, it's a decent classic horror about giant vampire bats swarming a town, with a high body count, lots of gore and chewed up eyeballs. If that's not enough they've also been spreading rabies to the local wildlife and to the crazy group of satanists too who think these giant bats are the answer to their dark prayers. All in all a it was a pretty good read if you're in the mood for a horror from days gone by.
4 out of 5 stars.

Get a copy