The drive to the Fall Creek Care Clinic was a blur of panic and silence, painted in the lurid red of brake lights and the sterile white of the sedan's headlights.
Leo sat in the back, Mark's head cradled in his lap. Each bump in the road drew a shallow, hitched gasp from his friend. Leo's hands, sticky with sweat, were splayed over the wound on Mark's side, applying pressure as Chloe, her voice trembling but firm from the driver's seat, had instructed. He could feel the heat of Mark's skin through his shirt, a feverish warmth that seemed to be growing by the minute.
"Just hang on, man," Leo whispered, his voice cracking. "Just hang on. We're almost there." The words were a mantra, a prayer to anything that might be listening.
Mark didn't answer. His eyes were closed, his face pale and beaded with sweat. But every few seconds, a tremor would run through him—a full-body shiver that was more than shock.
In the passenger seat, Jake was a statue, staring blankly out the windshield. He hadn't spoken since they'd loaded Mark into the car. The bat lay at his feet, a dark secret on the dirty floor mats. No one had wanted to touch it, but leaving it felt more dangerous. Leo had grabbed it numbly, its familiar weight feeling like an accusation.
The clinic was a small, single-story building that looked more like a large house. A kind-faced nurse practitioner named Brenda took one look at Mark and had them rush him into a treatment room. The door swung shut, leaving the three of them alone in the waiting room under the fluorescent lights.
The silence was suffocating.
Chloe hugged herself, pacing a short, frantic path on the linoleum floor. "He's going to be okay," she said, to herself more than to them. "It was just a... a bad hit. Broken rib. Maybe a punctured lung. They can fix that. They can fix that."
Jake finally moved, slumping into a hard plastic chair. He put his head in his hands. "He stepped in front of it," he mumbled, his voice muffled. "He was trying to stop you."
The words were a physical blow. Leo flinched, sinking into the chair opposite Jake. He stared at his hands. There was a faint, dark smear across his palm. Not blood. Something else. Something like dirt, or ash, from the bat's handle. It wouldn't rub off.
An hour later, Nurse Brenda came out, her expression puzzled. "He's stable," she said, and a wave of relief so potent it was dizzying washed over them. "But... I'll be honest, it's strange."
"Strange how?" Chloe asked, her voice tight.
"The break isn't as bad as we thought from your description. It's clean. But his fever... it's spiking rapidly. We've got him on a strong IV antibiotic and a sedative, but he's... restless. Agitated." She shook her head, a professional unnerved. "We're going to keep him overnight for observation. You kids should go get some rest."
They weren't kids. Not anymore.
They rented two adjacent rooms at the only motel in town, a bleak place called The Pines. Leo's room felt like a prison cell. He could still feel the ghost of the bat's grip in his hand. He scrubbed his hands raw in the tiny bathroom sink, but the faint, ashy stain remained.
He didn't sleep. He just sat on the edge of the scratchy bedspread, watching the digital numbers on the clock radio change. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it: the look on Mark's face. Not anger. Betrayal.
A little past 3 a.m., his phone buzzed. It was a text from Chloe.
Chloe: Jake's asleep. Can't stop thinking. What was that place, Leo? What did you do?
He had no answer. He typed back, his fingers clumsy.
Leo: I don't know. I'm sorry.
Chloe: We need to talk about the bat. In the morning.
Leo: Yeah.
He set the phone down. The silence in the room was absolute. And in that silence, he heard it. A faint, guttural sound from next door. A groan of metal under stress.
He froze, listening.
CRACK.
It was the sound of breaking wood.
Leo was out of his room in seconds, pounding on Jake and Chloe's door. Jake yanked it open, his eyes wide with sleep and fear. "What was that?"
They rushed in. The source of the sound was immediately obvious. The headboard of one of the beds was shattered, the wooden frame splintered as if hit by a car.
In the center of the wreckage, shirtless and bathed in sweat, was Mark.
He was on his hands and knees, his back muscles coiled like steel cables. The clinical gown he'd been wearing was torn to shreds. The bruise on his side was a livid, angry purple, but the skin beneath was... whole. The bandages were gone. He was breathing in ragged, powerful gusts.
"Mark?" Chloe whispered, taking a hesitant step forward.
Mark's head snapped up.
His eyes were open. But they weren't his eyes. The warm brown was shot through with veins of a sick, phosphorescent yellow. They burned with a feverish, unrecognizable light. There was no recognition in them. Only a feral, confused agony.
He snarled at them, a raw, animal sound that was utterly wrong coming from his throat.
"Mark, it's us!" Jake said, his voice pleading.
At the sound of his voice, Mark flinched, scrambling backward like a cornered animal. He knocked the nightstand over with terrifying, effortless strength. The lamp shattered on the floor.
"His eyes," Chloe choked out, grabbing Jake's arm. "Leo, his eyes!"
Leo could only stare, his heart a frozen block of terror in his chest. This wasn't an infection. This was something else. Something the bat had done.
Mark's wild, yellow gaze swept the room, panicked, until it landed on Leo. For a split second, something like memory flickered in their depths. A flicker of their friendship, of the person he was. It was swamped instantly by a wave of pain and rage. He let out another guttural cry, clutching his head as if trying to tear the madness out.
Then he moved.
He didn't run at them. He scrambled for the broken window they'd been using for air conditioning, ripping the screen out with a single pull. He hauled himself through the frame, glass crunching under his hands, and vanished into the dark woods behind the motel.
For a long moment, the three of them stood in the wrecked room, listening to the sound of his crashing flight fade into the night.
The nightmare was no longer theoretical. It was loose.
Slowly, numbly, Leo walked back to his room. He didn't turn on the light. Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating the bat where he'd left it leaning against the wall.
He walked over to it. His hand, almost of its own volition, reached out and wrapped around the handle.
And he felt it.
A faint, almost imperceptible click from deep within the wood. A vibration that traveled up his arm, a sensation of something slotting into place. A circuit completing.
The bat was warmer than before. And along its dark grain, a single, thin vein of gold now pulsed with a soft, hungry light.
One kill. The first of countless.
The bat was awake. The curse was hungry. And Leo was its eternal bearer