Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

Gloved and double-masked, Cora arrives at Yifei’s 21st-floor apartment in Chinatown. Yifei’s roommate, Paisley, and her boyfriend, Ryan, are also present. Neither of them know that Yifei can speak English, and she instructs Cora in Mandarin to play along, speaking to Paisley in heavily accented, broken English herself.

In Yifei’s room, before Cora can tell her what’s on her mind, she spots joss paper. Yifei admits to burning it as she doesn’t want to be haunted by “hungry ghosts,” claiming that there are too many people who would haunt her if she let them. When Cora asks if Yifei has ever seen one, Yifei shows her a purple scar in the shape of teeth marks along her ribs. Yifei urges Cora to call her whenever she needs someone to talk to, while Cora struggles to dispel the floaters that have reappeared in her vision once again.

On Saturday, Auntie Lois informs Cora that Father Thomas, one of the younger ministers in training, has suggested Cora clean a part of the cathedral as a form of repentance for her actions; following this, she may be allowed back at service the next week. Cora is thrilled to be both missing a week of church as well as cleaning.

Father Thomas meets Cora at the church on Sunday evening and leads her into a red brick building beside the church, which turns out to be a crypt. He leads her deep into its bowels, assuring her that she is safe there and won’t encounter any bodies. He also asserts that she is safe and welcome at mass, despite the complaints the church has received about her presence. Cora is unexpectedly angry when she realizes people are afraid of her, as they believe they will contract COVID from her.

Father Thomas leaves Cora alone to sweep a hallway inside the crypt, promising to return in an hour. As Cora sweeps, she suddenly hears a sound from the end of the hall opposite the one she and Father Thomas entered from. She spots footprints in the dust leading there and follows them down to the end. There is a door at the end, but she decides not to open it; when she turns back, however, she discovers fresh footprints in the dust right beside hers.

Quelling her fear, Cora sweeps away the footprints and the dust and sits down to wait for Father Thomas. Eventually, he appears at the end of the hallway and ushers her out after surveying her progress. As Cora moves towards him, another Father Thomas appears at the other end of the hallway, warning her not to follow the first one. Cora stands rooted in the middle, struggling to make a choice between which one to follow, sure that either one will lead to a terrible outcome.

Cora startles awake when the real Father Thomas arrives to escort her out. Before she leaves, she asks to see what’s behind the door at the other end of the hallway, and when Father Thomas acquiesces, is disappointed to discover it is just a tiny closet. As Cora exits the crypt, Father Thomas tells her that she is “officially forgiven,” but Cora reflects on how “God cannot forgive someone whose name he does not know” (106).

Cora goes out to dinner with Yifei and Harvey at their urging, when they have a rare free day. Cora feels Yifei watching her; Yifei has been checking in every day since Cora visited her apartment, but despite Yifei’s niceness, Cora is wary of revealing more than she already has.

A couple of white men sit at the table next to the crew’s, and they overhear the men making a racist comment about the food possibly containing bats. Cora is suddenly visited by a violent, intrusive thought towards the men, as she remembers Zihan Huang’s apartment. Yifei loudly insists they change tables, and they move away just before a brick is thrown into the store window, showering them with shards of glass. After the restaurant owners insist on not calling the cops, Cora, Yifei, and Harvey take their food to a nearby park. As they take the train back to their respective homes, Yifei hands Cora her blue cardigan as Cora is wearing all black, which is bad luck during this month.

Cora walks home from the station near her apartment, suddenly struck by the distinct feeling that something is following her. A familiar voice whispers her name, and as Cora stops to turn around, she feels a hand on her shoulder. The hand slides to Cora’s neck, asking her not to turn around, but Cora disregards it; however, the street is empty behind her.

Cora rushes home, suddenly struck by a memory: At 10 years old, Cora was living with Delilah and her mother because her own mother had married a cult leader and their father had remarried in China. Delilah had stopped a lonely and lost Cora, who was being visited by intrusive thoughts, from jumping off their roof with a promise to always be there, since they were sisters. Cora reflects on how Delilah broke that promise, as she is no longer with her.

As Cora turns to go to the bathroom, she stops in her tracks when she realizes there is a woman in her living room with a “needle-thin” throat, black eyes, translucent skin, and withered lips. She bites through the coffee table before turning towards a terrified Cora.

Auntie Zeng asserts that neither rice nor bread will sate the hungry dead; only blood will do.

Sawdust spills from the creature’s mouth whose head is held up on a wire-thin neck; she vanishes as a train rushes past Cora’s window, throwing red and white light into the room. With her pulse racing, Cora crawls to pick up the broken pieces of her coffee table and turn on the light, sure she’ll be safe once the dark is dispelled. However, the creature reappears at the other end of the hall.

Cora races to the kitchen, switching on all the lights as she goes, but the creature follows her. She grows larger as she approaches, stopping and extending an open hand towards Cora, who is pressed against the fridge. Cora notices a jade bracelet hanging from her wrist with the Chinese character for “hope.” She whispers Delilah’s name, but the creature doesn’t respond.

Cora places an orange in the creature’s hand, and the creature devours it whole, unlatching her jaw to do so. Cora sobs, blaming herself for doing this to Delilah. She finally opens the fridge door, and the creature vanishes into the light.

Cora sleeps with the lights on, worried that Delilah will reappear if there is any hint of darkness. She sleeps in the next morning, missing her alarm and multiple phone calls from Harvey and Yifei; she eventually wakes up and gets dressed, making her way to the address they have sent her.

As she arrives at it, Cora recognizes the building—a hotel in which Aunt Lois had once stayed. Harvey and Yifei are cleaning a room on the seventh floor, on the wall of which a bloody bat has been painted by the killer. The victim, Ai Wu, was a travel nurse, and despite the copious amounts of blood and the mess in the room, not one policeman appears to have spotted the killer.

Harvey opines that this is the work of a serial killer, as there were live bats found here, too. Yifei is frustrated that no one has been talking about these murders, and that the police have not caught the killer yet. She decides that they must talk to the press that night. In response to Harvey’s wariness, Yifei asserts that she did not make the sacrifice she did, coming to America when she was just 15, to end up like one of the victims they have been cleaning up after. She wants the city to know about these grotesque murders and be on the lookout for the killer, as she is “tired of scrubbing Asian women off the walls” (130).

Cora reflects on how, despite being the one with a murdered sister, all she can do is hide while Yifei is using her pain to take action. Harvey relents and agrees to meet with the press along with Yifei and Cora.

Cora, Yifei, and Harvey wait to meet Yifei’s press contact at a bar. Cora is unsettled partly because she worries about contracting COVID at the bar, and partly because of the white man who followed Yifei and Cora most of the way there, harassing them and calling them racial slurs.

The reporter arrives, and while Yifei refuses to give him their names, she describes the numerous crime scenes they have cleaned up in graphic detail. He seems incredulous at Yifei and Harvey’s theory that this is a serial killer’s work, dismissing the number of bats that have turned up at every crime scene.

Cora spots Delilah standing by the entrance of the bar and is prompted to back up Harvey and Yifei’s claims. She points out the racial aspect of the killings and the presence of bats at each death with such vehemence that the reporter is taken aback. Cora also talks about Delilah’s death for the first time, describing how her head was blown apart; the police’s careless attitude toward tracking down her killer; and her frustration that East Asian women are continuing to die like Delilah, with no resolution in sight.

Upon her outburst, Yifei ushers Cora and Harvey out of the bar, apologizing for bothering with the reporter in the first place. They head to Yifei’s apartment, where Cora finally tells them about Delilah’s appearance as a “hungry ghost.” Despite her worry that Yifei and Harvey will not believe her, they are both immediately worried about Cora not having done enough to appease Delilah. Yifei reminds Cora she has encountered a “hungry ghost” before, while Harvey admits to having seen one himself, when he was down in his father’s basement.

Based on Cora’s earlier description of Delilah’s death Yifei hypothesizes that Delilah has returned because she died by decapitation, as in Chinese culture it is considered bad for a spirit to leave a body that is not intact. She suggests they go down to the train tracks and search for Delilah’s head. Cora agrees, and while Harvey admits to being terrified, agrees to join them as well.