The Night of the Bat
Copyright© 2026 by Heel
Chapter 4
Edgar made the decision abruptly, before fear or reason could interfere.
“No police,” he said quietly.
The girl looked up from the bed, pale with pain and exhaustion.
“What?”
But Edgar had already crossed the room and picked up the phone beside the guest bed, dialing from memory while rain battered the windows hard enough to blur the world outside into moving gray streaks.
The call lasted less than two minutes.
Then they waited.
— Martin Keller arrived just after midnight wearing a dark raincoat drenched almost black from the storm outside, carrying an old leather medical bag that smelled faintly of antiseptic and cigarette smoke.
He took one look at the girl and swore under his breath.
“Oh Christ.”
The guest bedroom had become unnaturally bright beneath every lamp Edgar could find, the harsh yellow light exposing everything too clearly: the girl’s bloodless face, the trembling in her hands, the ugly swelling deforming her right leg beneath the torn wet fabric.
Martin carefully examined her while Edgar stood nearby feeling increasingly useless.
The doctor’s expression worsened by the minute.
“She needs a hospital,” he said flatly.
“No hospitals,” the girl whispered immediately.
Martin ignored her at first and continued checking carefully along the spine and pelvis, pressing gently while watching her reactions.
When his fingers touched the lower back she gasped sharply and twisted against the mattress.
“Easy,” Martin murmured.
He tested movement in her feet.
The girl managed weak motion.
Martin nodded once, relieved but still troubled.
“You’re lucky,” he said quietly.
Edgar spoke from near the window.
“How bad?”
Martin stood slowly.
“The leg’s broken for sure. Maybe multiple fractures.”
He hesitated briefly before continuing.
“And I think you may have fractured vertebrae in the lower spine.”
The room became completely still after that.
“Not severe displacement, probably, or she wouldn’t still have movement in her feet. But the vertebrae took a serious impact.”
The girl stared at him silently.
Edgar felt coldness spread through his chest.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Martin glanced toward the girl again. “She should be in emergency surgery and imaging right now.”
“No police,” she repeated weakly.
Martin looked toward Edgar.
Only then did Edgar explain.
The break-in.
The bat.
The panic.
The screams downstairs still echoing inside his head.
Martin listened without interrupting, though something colder entered his expression as the story continued.
Finally he sighed deeply and removed his glasses.
“You idiot,” he muttered.
Edgar did not argue.
The girl watched both men nervously.
After a long silence Martin rubbed his forehead tiredly.
“I can stabilize her temporarily,” he said. “But I don’t have proper casting supplies with me.”
“What do you need?”
“Plaster bandages. Padding. More gauze.” He glanced again at the swollen leg.
“And if those vertebrae are fractured, her spine and pelvis cannot move at all.”
“We’re going to have to immobilize almost her entire lower body.”
The girl looked frightened now.
“What does that mean?”
Martin met her eyes directly.
“It means a very large cast.”
— The storm was still raging when Martin left again twenty minutes later, disappearing into the rain while Edgar remained upstairs with the injured girl.
The house felt strangely intimate now despite its enormous size.
Too quiet.
Too warm.
The girl lay motionless beneath blankets, breathing shallowly while the swelling in her injured leg continued worsening visibly by the hour.
Every small shift of her hips sent pain through her lower back now, sharp enough to make her grip the sheets and stop breathing for a second.
Edgar sat nearby in silence.
Finally she spoke without looking at him.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
He had no answer.
The rain filled the silence between them.
When Martin returned nearly an hour later, he carried several bulky paper bags soaked from the storm.
“Small pharmacy near Route 9 still open,” he muttered while unloading supplies across the dresser. “God knows how.”
Edgar stared at the materials piling up beneath the bedside lamp.
Rolls of thick cotton padding.
Boxes of gauze.
Wide plaster bandages sealed in plastic.
Metal splints.
Medical tape.
The sight of it made everything suddenly feel more serious.
More permanent.
Martin washed his hands thoroughly in the adjoining bathroom while Edgar helped arrange the supplies nearby.
The girl watched anxiously from the bed.
“You’re really putting me in a cast?”
Martin glanced toward her.
“You want those bones healing crooked?”
She looked away.
The doctor prepared an injection first, explaining it carefully while filling the syringe.
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