The alley was a dead end. Leo pressed himself against the cold, rough brick, the bat held tight against his chest. His breath fogged in the air, each gasp sounding like a thunderclap in the silence. From the main street, he could hear them.
"Check down there!"
"I saw him go this way!"
"The guy with the bat!"
They weren't cops. They were civilians, armed with tire irons and kitchen knives, their faces twisted with a fear that had curdled into rage. He was their target. The man who had bludgeoned Frank the mailman to death in broad daylight. They didn't see a savior; they saw a monster. And they were right.
He was trapped. The weight of the bat was no longer just physical; it was the weight of the entire town collapsing on him. He needed to understand what he was fighting. He needed to find a source. The high school. The news had said it was a triage center. Ground zero.
A dumpster lid clanged shut further down the alley. Leo moved, a shadow flitting from one pool of darkness to the next, leaving his hunters behind.
The pain was a crown.
It sat on Troy's brow, a band of white-hot iron that never cooled. It lived in his shattered shoulder, a constant, grinding reminder of the blow that had made him this. It was the fire in his veins and the gnawing hollow in his gut.
It never went away. Not for a second.
The Fall Creek High School gymnasium was not a kingdom. It was a throne room built on agony. The air stank of blood, sweat, and the coppery tang of the infected. Cots were shoved against the walls, occupied by those who were still enduring the Change, moaning and thrashing in their private hells.
Troy stood in the center of the basketball court. He didn't speak of evolution or perfection. He spoke the only truth he knew.
"The pain is the price," he said, his voice a low rasp that cut through the whimpers. He looked at the dozen or so others who, like him, had weathered the initial storm with their minds mostly intact. Their eyes, all burning with that same sickly yellow light, were fixed on him. Not with devotion. With terror.
"They," he jerked his head towards the locker room doors, from which came the sound of frantic, mindless scratching and snarling, "couldn't pay it. They went into the dark. You... you are still paying. Every second. Every breath."
He flexed the hand on his broken arm, the bones grating audibly. A fresh wave of agony washed over him. He didn't flinch. He embraced it, let it fuel the terrible strength in his limbs.
"Out there," he snarled, gesturing with his chin towards the windows, "they are weak. They are soft. They will break at the first taste of this. They are not cattle. They are medicine. The only thing that makes the pain quiet down for a little while."
He was not their leader. He was their benchmark. The one who could withstand the most. His rule was not built on promises, but on the demonstrated fact that he was the strongest, the most ruthless, and the most willing to inflict his own eternal pain on anyone who challenged him.
The halls of Fall Creek High were a monument to failed normalcy. Lockers were dented and smeared with blood. A trail of discarded bandages, empty IV bags, and a single, abandoned wheelchair led towards the gym.
Leo moved silently, the bat humming in his grip. The silence was broken by sounds from behind the locker room doors—the sound of rabid animals. And from the gym itself, a low, rasping voice he recognized.
He peered through the small window in the gym door.
Troy stood, surrounded by a circle of other infected. They didn't look like a cult. They looked like prisoners of war, broken and terrified, held together only by the monstrous figure in their midst.
"You think this is a gift?" Troy was saying to a man who was cowering before him. "It's a transaction. You trade your soft life for this." He backhanded the man, a casual blow that snapped the man's head back and sent him sprawling. The man clutched his face, but didn't cry out. He just got back to his knees, trembling. "And you pay. Every. Day."
Leo pushed the door open.
Every yellow eye in the room snapped to him. The air went cold.
Troy turned slowly. A slow, horrific smile spread across his face, all teeth and no warmth. "Look what the cat dragged in. The author of all our misery."
"It's over, Troy," Leo said, his voice steady despite the fear coiling in his gut.
"Over?" Troy laughed, a dry, cracking sound. "It's just beginning." He took a step forward, and the other infected shrank back. "I should thank you. You showed me what I was always meant to be. Strong. You don't have to fight it, Leo. The pain... it clarifies things. Join us. Your friends... the nervous one and the smart girl... they can join us too. We can make the pain stop for each other. For a little while."
The offer was obscene. It wasn't an invitation to power, but to a shared damnation.
"Never," Leo spat.
Troy's smile vanished. "Fine. Then you can pay, too."
He moved.
It wasn't a run; it was a blur of motion. Leo barely got the bat up in time. Troy's fist connected with the wood instead of Leo's face. The impact was immense, jarring Leo's arms to the bone.
The fight was not elegant. It was raw, brutal, and graphic. Leo swung the bat, catching Troy in the ribs. There was a wet crack, and Troy staggered back, gasping—but not in pain. In annoyance. Leo could see the broken end of a rib poking against his shirt. Troy looked down at it, grabbed it, and with a sickening pop, shoved it back into place. The flesh around it knitted together with a sound like tearing leather, leaving an angry red scar.
Leo felt a wave of nausea. They could regenerate. This wasn't a fight to incapacitate. It was a fight to destroy.
Troy lunged again, his fingers hooked into claws. They raked across Leo's arm, tearing through his jacket and into the flesh beneath. White-hot pain flared, but it was followed instantly by a warm, prickling sensation. Leo glanced down. The wound was already closing, the skin stitching itself back together, leaving a fresh, pink scar. The bat's immortality was working, but it felt vile, unnatural.
They traded blows. Leo broke Troy's arm. Troy slammed Leo into the bleachers, cracking the wood. They were both healing almost as fast as they could hurt each other, a grotesque dance of mutilation and regeneration. It was a stalemate built on shared suffering.
But Leo had the bat. And every time it connected, Troy recoiled not from the pain, but from the weapon's unique property—its ability to permanently harm him.
With a snarl of frustration, Troy disengaged, clutching a shoulder that was already straightening itself out. He glared at Leo with pure, undiluted hatred.
"This changes nothing," Troy rasped, breathing heavily. "You can't be everywhere."
He turned his burning gaze away from Leo, towards the door.
"I made you an offer. Now I'll make them one."
He strode out of the gym, not towards Leo, but towards the exit. Towards the motel. His followers scrambled after him, a pack unleashed.
Leo stood alone in the ruined gym, his body humming with stolen energy and fresh scars. He was healed, but he had never felt more broken. He hadn't lost. But he had certainly not won. The battle for Fall Creek had just begun, and the first casualty would be his friends.