Column: The call’s coming from inside the house

It started out as a lovely evening, as most horror stories do.

My dear husband and I would go out for an early dinner, then relieve our daughter and son-in-law so they could enjoy their first dinner out since their baby Oscar was born a year ago. Oscar was sleeping in his parent’s room with the air-conditioner on and the door closed, so I would just go up and check on him from time to time.

Expecting his parents home soon, I took my phone upstairs to wait in the room next to Oscar until they got back. As I reached the top of the stairs, what greeted my eyes was a bat flying down the hall.

Change of plans — I got dear husband Marty up and told him he had to deal with the bat, which was flying back and forth causing me to shriek, much to Marty’s annoyance. He grabbed a towel and chased it until he thought it had gone into the room where I’d been planning to wait.

Instead I went into the room with Oscar, holding my phone and a mini-flashlight. I texted Kate and Michael that their was baby was fine, I was in the room with him, and heads-up — a bat was somewhere upstairs.

About a half-hour later, I had one of those “what-was-that” sensations, followed by the sound of fluttering: It was in the room. I plopped a pillow atop my head, scooped up the baby from his crib, and high-tailed it downstairs.

Kate and Michael having just arrived, we all went into our roles. Michael phoned his brother, an emergency room physician, to ask if there was a  risk of rabies to Oscar, not knowing if the bat had been around him earlier. Kate left a message for her pediatrician and began searching the internet for rabies information. Marty thought we were all crazy and went back to bed. I called 911.

I’d seen enough bat incidents in the police blotter to know I’d get a response, and there was no way we could get to sleep not knowing where this bat was in the house.

Just then, it flew by, right outside the room we were in. Kate took the baby into another room and closed the door. Michael put his brother the doctor on speakerphone and grabbed a tennis racket. I heard the-brother-the-doctor say to put out a plate of cinnamon — ”They hate cinnamon” — and open a door opposite it. I went to the pantry to search for the cinnamon. Who ever thought it was a great idea to make all the spice bottles identical? As we debated where to put the dish, we heard, “I got it,” coming from upstairs.

Dear Marty had tried to go back to sleep when, “I heard a scratching” as he told us. There on our bedroom floor by the closet was the bat, looking, he said, like a very big toad. Marty grabbed a blanket and then a basket, in which he carried it toward the open door. “Don’t let it go!” we said. Now that it was captured, we could have it tested for rabies and be certain.

By this point the police had arrived. Gracious and very professional, one accompanied Michael upstairs to be sure our bat hadn’t brought any friends, and the other stood guard over the bat-in-basket until the animal control officer arrived. She pulled up just before my son, Ted, who, seeing her truck and the police car, stood on the lawn with a bemused smile, trying to imagine what his parents were up to.

The ACO advised us that there was no knowledge of rabies cases east of Islip, but she agreed to deliver the bat to the county health department for testing, which would take several days. Unfortunately, every guideline for rabies risk includes the instance of a sleeping baby in a room with a bat. So, the next afternoon, Oscar was off to Cohen Children’s Medical Center for a shot. The protocol includes a dose of immunoglobulin as well as the first dose of rabies vaccine, so two nurses administered the shots simultaneously — one in each of his chubby little thighs — so he wouldn’t have to endure two stabs in succession. He took it like a champ.

And the bat, sacrificed on the altar of scientific certainty? The rabies test was negative. He’d just picked the wrong house to mess with.