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“Shit.  Where is it?” Zoe griped as they drove through the dark streets of Seaside.

“Don’t ask me.  You’re the one who got the directions,” Marc muttered absently.

“Over there!  Head left,” Zoe blurted, pointing at a poorly lit sign directing drivers towards Emergency.  Pulling into the hospital parking lot, it dawned on Zoe why she liked the coast, but never would want to live here: most of the towns, especially the bigger ones were a pain to navigate.  She was glad that the Emergency entrance was at least easier to find than the hospital.

Marc pulled into a bank of vacant parking spots about fifty yards from the Emergency entrance.  He was still unsure if they were going to just drop him off and run or stay long enough to answer questions.  If he had his way they would opt for the first choice and the last thing he wanted was anyone getting a good look at his plates.

“But,” Zoe started to protest.

“Look, just trust me.  It’s asphalt.  How hard’ll it be to get him over there?”

“Famous last words,” Zoe whispered under her breath, “Bren?  Are you alright?”

“Ducky,” he sighed.  His legs were cramping and claustrophobia was beginning to set in.  He wanted out of here…now.

Marc hopped out of the car, jogged around the back of the car and opened the passenger side door before Zoe could even unlatch her seatbelt.  “Out, out,” he hurried, holding the door wide open.  She climbed out of the low seat and stood by the side of the car, trying to stay out of Marc’s way.

Marc leaned in the car and pulled the man’s legs out of the car.  It looked like this would be fairly straight forward, just a reverse of how they got him in.

“Ready?” he asked Bren.

Bren hooked his arms under the man’s own and nodded. As Marc pulled on the man’s legs by his knees, Bren tried pushing him out of the back seat.  Apparently, it wasn’t as easy as they thought.

“Damn it, he’s stuck.  What’s he catching on?” Marc growled, letting go of the man’s legs.

“Careful.  You’re going to hurt either him or you,” Zoe cautioned, “Mind me taking a shot?”

Marc shrugged and gestured towards the unconscious man lying wedged between the seat and the car.  Zoe went to the other side of the car, opened the driver’s door and crouched down next to the car.  She reached under the seat and felt around for the seat lever, “There we go.”  Zoe lifted the lever and jerked the seat forward.  Seeing his chance, Bren immediately scrambled out of the back seat, nearly knocking Zoe over in the process.

“Careful,” she snapped, standing back up.

“Sorry, but close spaces like that fuck with my head as is and being crammed in there with a quasi-corpse doesn’t help.”

Zoe just shook her head, reached into the car and shifted the man’s body slightly, trying to untwist his limbs and torso so his arms wouldn’t catch.  Marc and Bren stood behind her, watching, both their heads cocked to one side.  They weren’t entirely sure what she was planning.  There was no way she would be able to lift him by herself.

Satisfied that she’d done what she could, Zoe took a deep breath and threaded her arms around the man’s chest.  It wasn’t until then that she realized just how shallow his breathing was.  Shit!  We should have tried harder to get an ambulance she scolded herself.

Heaving backwards, she struggled to pull him free of the vehicle, but was making more progress than her friends had.  With a final tug, he suddenly slid out of the car, sending Zoe tumbling backwards.  Marc rushed forward and caught the man’s shoulders.

“Nice catch,” Zoe groaned, picking herself up off the damp asphalt and brushing gravel off her backside.  Marc didn’t seem to hear her.  He just stared at the fragile looking body pouring out of the car into his arms.  The sight made him feel uneasy.

“Marc?”

“Huh?”  Marc seemed a million miles away.

“Need help?”

“We got it.”  He hauled the man up beside him and pulled the man’s arm over his shoulders.  He nearly buckled under the weight.  Bren took the man’s other side, taking some of the strain off Marc.  Bren grabbed the man’s chin and shook him gently, “C’mon.  Wakey, wakey.”  He roused a little, staring at Bren blindly with dazed, heavy lidded eyes.

“Ready?” Bren asked.

Marc shifted the man’s weight, preparing himself.  “Alright.  Forward march!”
They lurched forward and nearly collapsed on the first step.  “What the hell?” Marc hissed, adjusting his balance.

“On three,” Bren said, “One, two, three.”

They gradually inched toward the hospital.  Every step the man took seemed out of sync with theirs, his unsteady gait making them stumble over and over again.
As they came closer to the entrance, the man’s pace slowed and he began pulling away from them.  They gripped his arms tighter, pulling him towards the large building.

“Damn it!  We’re trying to help you, dumbshit!” Marc shouted, but he kept trying to pull away from them, his panicked eyes scanning the edge of the hospital roof.  The three of them followed his line of sight, half expecting to see the boogie man perched above them, but the rooftop was empty.  Clearly he saw something none of them could. Zoe wondered if he was hallucinating.  If he’s on something, he either didn’t take enough or took way too much.

“What are we looking fo--”

Zoe's words broke off as the man suddenly reeled backwards, stunned by an invisible blow.  The momentum was strong enough that it nearly knocked him to the ground.  Only Marc and Bren holding their grip on him, kept him on his feet.

“Get away from me!  Leave me be!” he screamed hoarsely.  He violently shoved Marc and Bren, trying to get away.  Jerking his arm back, he finally freed himself from Marc’s grasp, but Bren quickly grabbed his free wrist and pulled his arms behind his back.  I’ll be damned if I’m letting this guy bolt after all this shit Bren told himself.  He pulled back hard on the man’s arm, wrenching the man’s shoulder.  He abruptly threw himself backwards sending both him and Bren tumbling to the ground, stunning Bren and giving him no choice but to let go.  The man climbed back to his feet and stumbled away, barely able to manage a clumsy gallop.

Without thinking Zoe grabbed his wrist, but he just dragged her behind him like a rag doll.  Still barefoot, the bottoms of her feet couldn’t gain any traction on the wet asphalt and she helplessly lurched along behind him, too stubborn to let go.  Zoe’s fingers slipped loose and she fell hard on the ground, knocking the wind out of her.  She watched him gradually slow, staggering forward until he finally crumpled to his knees in the middle of the parking lot.

“What the hell was that about,” Zoe gasped, gulping for air as Bren helped her up.  She couldn’t believe that someone who had been barely clinging to life only minutes earlier was capable of such strength.

Marc shrugged and asked, “Should we…try again?  It’s got to be worth a--”
Zoe covered his mouth with her hand, listening.  He started to argue but she shushed him.  She needed to listen.  They heard faint groans drifting from the man’s crumpled body a few yards away.  He was oblivious to them, kneeling on the ground, doubled over in pain.  His fingers clawed the asphalt beneath him as he fought not to scream.  They looked at each other, unsure what to do other than watch.

Bren reached for the man’s shoulder, but quickly withdrew his hand as blood welled up from under his skin, sending thin, deep-red trails running down his back.  Slowly, the skin over his shoulders split open, forming two gaping wounds.  A faint tremor ran through his body as the skin surrounding the ugly gashes peeled back, exposing a dim glow just beneath the surface.

“No.  No fucking way,” Marc whispered under his breath, “This isn’t happening.”  But he knew it was.  Everything was happening just as he saw it.

Ghostly wings curled out of his torn skin and stretched towards the sky in a grisly display, cutting a jagged silhouette as they softly flicked in and out of view.  Suddenly twisting forward, they gently flexed themselves before furling closely to his body.  Slowly the ghoulish wings began to wither, draining the tension from his body as they faded away until all that was left were a few remnants of a thin, blue light glimmering dimly from his back.

Zoe stepped towards him cautiously, convinced that if she approached too quickly he may vanish entirely.  Kneeling on the ground next to him, she hesitantly laid her hand on his shoulder, still half expecting to pass right through his body, but he remained unchanged, solid as before.  He looked up to the sky briefly, a faint, weak smile drifting across his lips before laying his head down and closing his eyes again.

“Oh my God.  Look at his back.”

Marc came closer, hovering next to Zoe, but Bren held back, unable to bring himself to believe what he had just seen.  Leaning over Zoe’s shoulder, Marc peered down at the unconscious figure curled up on the damp ground.  Terrified, they watched as the blood smeared across the man’s back slowly condensed into thick, glassy beads.  The drops meandered across his skin, searing lines into his flesh.  They split and branched out, creating a network of deep gouges from his shoulders to his lower back, dissolving back into his skin as they finished their task.

Marc’s heart jumped when he saw the brand-like scars covering the man’s skin.  It took him a moment to realize that the raw burns crisscrossing his back were skeletal wings etched into his skin.  A pair of ugly lacerations remained from where the wings had curled from his back.  They lacked the meticulous care of his other injuries, instead appearing more like deep tears in his skin, their edges still ragged and bloody.  The simplicity of the pattern made Marc doubt at first if they were meant to be wings or if his mind was playing tricks on him.

Unfortunately that was exactly what they were: wings carved into the man’s flesh by his own blood.  Everything they had just seen suddenly made sense, yet only created an onslaught of new questions.  “He’s a…that’s a…” Marc babbled, sinking to the ground and landing with a hard thud.

“Please don’t, don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” Zoe whispered, still in awe, “If you say it then…then…shit.  You both saw that, right?”
She clenched her eyes shut, trying to get the sight of his burned flesh out of her head.

“You okay?” Bren asked, concerned.

“Peachy, just peachy,” she replied, looking up at the hospital roof again.  What was up there?

“We can’t leave him here,” Marc said, still staring at the motionless form lying on the ground, “We’ve got to get him out of here before someone sees us.”
Zoe shot Marc an angry glare over her shoulder.  “You’re joking right?  How can you be so damn calm?” she stammered angrily.

“We’ll put him back in the car--”

“And then what?  We don’t even know what it is and you’re telling us you want to cart that home like a stray cat?”

“What then?  We leave him here?” Marc asked.

Unfortunately, Marc had a point.  Zoe leaned forward and felt for a pulse in the young man’s neck.  Finding a steady beat convinced her that even if he wasn’t human he was at least a living creature made of flesh and blood.

“Bren?  Back me up.  You know we’ve got to do this, right?”

“I…I don’t know,” Bren sighed, “We can’t leave him here, I get that, but what the fuck was that?”

“We found…we found something special.  Something we were meant to find.”

“For fuck’s sake.  You sound like your gran,” Zoe muttered, standing back up.

“Look, if we leave him here, what’re they really going to do?  What if he freaks out again and those…those things sprout again?”

“And we have a better solution?” she asked, “I’m not a heartless bitch, you know that, but this is just…it’s…I have no idea what this is.  This can’t happen--”

“But did,” Marc interrupted excitedly, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Right now I don’t care if it can or can’t happen,” Bren said, “I’m just hoping I’ll wake up soon.  Aunt Em, where are you?”

“Good point,” Marc said, seizing on an opportunity, “If this is all a dream, all the more reason to go a long with it.”

“Nightmare,” Zoe corrected, “Dreams entail a hottie with great eyes and a nice ass, not a half dead--whatever.”

“Nightmare, dream…it’s all the same shit,” Marc said, smiling hopefully.

“Bren?  Where’re you on this?”

“I kind of agree with him to be honest,” Bren replied, staying a healthy distance from the man, “Real or not, we’re pretty much fucked already.”

“Only need two votes then,” Zoe shrugged, “Oh and Marc.”

“Yeah?”

“The next time you spike the coffee with acid, warn me?”

Marc couldn’t help chuckling at the idea of the three of them tripping on a coffee version of electric kool-aid.

“This should be interesting,” Zoe sighed.  “Well, looks like we’ve got a little more heavy lifting,” she added, gesturing to the unconscious figure lying in front of them.

Marc and Zoe unfolded the man and rolled him onto his side, carefully avoiding his back.  As they struggled to lift him, Bren finally acted.  “Zoe, I can get it, okay?”

“Thanks,” she replied, relieved.

Bren and Marc hoisted him up and dragged him towards the car, more concerned with speed than caution.  Given the damage to his back, a few scrapes to his feet seemed minor by comparison.

“Load him into the front this time,” Bren said as Marc opened the car door, “There’s no way I’m getting stuck in the back with him again.”

Marc knew better than to argue.  He was pushing his luck as it was.

“Wait,” Zoe said, reaching into the back seat.  She pulled out her coat and came around to the other side.  She tied her coat around his waist, adjusting it so that there weren’t any gaps.  “Either of you feel like donating your coat?  That is unless you want blood all over your sea--”

“Point made,” Marc said, pulling off his coat.  He threaded the man’s arms into the sleeves and yanked it up over his shoulders.  “Satisfied?”

“Hey, it’s your car.”

They eased him into the car, lowering him down to the edge of the seat then sliding him back in place. While Bren and Zoe climbed into the back seat behind through the driver’s side, Marc propped him up as best as he could and secured him in place with the seat belt, wrapping it over his arms.  He locked the door and shut it as quietly as possible.  Marc took one last look at the hospital, debating if this was really the right choice, but an ambulance siren nearby made up his mind for him.  Wrong or right, this was the choice they were stuck with.  He slid the driver’s seat back, climbed in and started the car.

“You two okay back there?” he asked, looking at Zoe and Bren in his rear view mirror.

“Peachy,” they replied in near unison.

Marc backed the car up and headed for the highway, cranking the heat up as he pulled out of the hospital driveway.  Part of him wished he had spiked the coffee.

Description
“Shit.  Where is it?” Zoe griped as they drove through the dark streets of Seaside.

“Don’t ask me.  You’re the one who got the directions,” Marc muttered absently.

“Over there!  Head left,” Zoe blurted, pointing at a poorly lit sign directing drivers towards Emergency.  Pulling into the hospital parking lot, it dawned on Zoe why she liked the coast, but never would want to live here: most of the towns, especially the bigger ones were a pain to navigate.  She was glad that the Emergency entrance was at least easier to find than the hospital.

Marc pulled into a bank of vacant parking spots about fifty yards from the Emergency entrance.  He was still unsure if they were going to just drop him off and run or stay long enough to answer questions.  If he had his way they would opt for the first choice and the last thing he wanted was anyone getting a good look at his plates.

“But,” Zoe started to protest.

“Look, just trust me.  It’s asphalt.  How hard’ll it be to get him over there?”

“Famous last words,” Zoe whispered under her breath, “Bren?  Are you alright?”

“Ducky,” he sighed.  His legs were cramping and claustrophobia was beginning to set in.  He wanted out of here…now.

Marc hopped out of the car, jogged around the back of the car and opened the passenger side door before Zoe could even unlatch her seatbelt.  “Out, out,” he hurried, holding the door wide open.  She climbed out of the low seat and stood by the side of the car, trying to stay out of Marc’s way.

Marc leaned in the car and pulled the man’s legs out of the car.  It looked like this would be fairly straight forward, just a reverse of how they got him in.

“Ready?” he asked Bren.

Bren hooked his arms under the man’s own and nodded. As Marc pulled on the man’s legs by his knees, Bren tried pushing him out of the back seat.  Apparently, it wasn’t as easy as they thought.

“Damn it, he’s stuck.  What’s he catching on?” Marc growled, letting go of the man’s legs.

“Careful.  You’re going to hurt either him or you,” Zoe cautioned, “Mind me taking a shot?”

Marc shrugged and gestured towards the unconscious man lying wedged between the seat and the car.  Zoe went to the other side of the car, opened the driver’s door and crouched down next to the car.  She reached under the seat and felt around for the seat lever, “There we go.”  Zoe lifted the lever and jerked the seat forward.  Seeing his chance, Bren immediately scrambled out of the back seat, nearly knocking Zoe over in the process.

“Careful,” she snapped, standing back up.

“Sorry, but close spaces like that fuck with my head as is and being crammed in there with a quasi-corpse doesn’t help.”

Zoe just shook her head, reached into the car and shifted the man’s body slightly, trying to untwist his limbs and torso so his arms wouldn’t catch.  Marc and Bren stood behind her, watching, both their heads cocked to one side.  They weren’t entirely sure what she was planning.  There was no way she would be able to lift him by herself.

Satisfied that she’d done what she could, Zoe took a deep breath and threaded her arms around the man’s chest.  It wasn’t until then that she realized just how shallow his breathing was.  Shit!  We should have tried harder to get an ambulance she scolded herself.

Heaving backwards, she struggled to pull him free of the vehicle, but was making more progress than her friends had.  With a final tug, he suddenly slid out of the car, sending Zoe tumbling backwards.  Marc rushed forward and caught the man’s shoulders.

“Nice catch,” Zoe groaned, picking herself up off the damp asphalt and brushing gravel off her backside.  Marc didn’t seem to hear her.  He just stared at the fragile looking body pouring out of the car into his arms.  The sight made him feel uneasy.

“Marc?”

“Huh?”  Marc seemed a million miles away.

“Need help?”

“We got it.”  He hauled the man up beside him and pulled the man’s arm over his shoulders.  He nearly buckled under the weight.  Bren took the man’s other side, taking some of the strain off Marc.  Bren grabbed the man’s chin and shook him gently, “C’mon.  Wakey, wakey.”  He roused a little, staring at Bren blindly with dazed, heavy lidded eyes.

“Ready?” Bren asked.

Marc shifted the man’s weight, preparing himself.  “Alright.  Forward march!”
They lurched forward and nearly collapsed on the first step.  “What the hell?” Marc hissed, adjusting his balance.

“On three,” Bren said, “One, two, three.”

They gradually inched toward the hospital.  Every step the man took seemed out of sync with theirs, his unsteady gait making them stumble over and over again.
As they came closer to the entrance, the man’s pace slowed and he began pulling away from them.  They gripped his arms tighter, pulling him towards the large building.

“Damn it!  We’re trying to help you, dumbshit!” Marc shouted, but he kept trying to pull away from them, his panicked eyes scanning the edge of the hospital roof.  The three of them followed his line of sight, half expecting to see the boogie man perched above them, but the rooftop was empty.  Clearly he saw something none of them could. Zoe wondered if he was hallucinating.  If he’s on something, he either didn’t take enough or took way too much.

“What are we looking fo--”

Zoe's words broke off as the man suddenly reeled backwards, stunned by an invisible blow.  The momentum was strong enough that it nearly knocked him to the ground.  Only Marc and Bren holding their grip on him, kept him on his feet.

“Get away from me!  Leave me be!” he screamed hoarsely.  He violently shoved Marc and Bren, trying to get away.  Jerking his arm back, he finally freed himself from Marc’s grasp, but Bren quickly grabbed his free wrist and pulled his arms behind his back.  I’ll be damned if I’m letting this guy bolt after all this shit Bren told himself.  He pulled back hard on the man’s arm, wrenching the man’s shoulder.  He abruptly threw himself backwards sending both him and Bren tumbling to the ground, stunning Bren and giving him no choice but to let go.  The man climbed back to his feet and stumbled away, barely able to manage a clumsy gallop.

Without thinking Zoe grabbed his wrist, but he just dragged her behind him like a rag doll.  Still barefoot, the bottoms of her feet couldn’t gain any traction on the wet asphalt and she helplessly lurched along behind him, too stubborn to let go.  Zoe’s fingers slipped loose and she fell hard on the ground, knocking the wind out of her.  She watched him gradually slow, staggering forward until he finally crumpled to his knees in the middle of the parking lot.

“What the hell was that about,” Zoe gasped, gulping for air as Bren helped her up.  She couldn’t believe that someone who had been barely clinging to life only minutes earlier was capable of such strength.

Marc shrugged and asked, “Should we…try again?  It’s got to be worth a--”
Zoe covered his mouth with her hand, listening.  He started to argue but she shushed him.  She needed to listen.  They heard faint groans drifting from the man’s crumpled body a few yards away.  He was oblivious to them, kneeling on the ground, doubled over in pain.  His fingers clawed the asphalt beneath him as he fought not to scream.  They looked at each other, unsure what to do other than watch.

Bren reached for the man’s shoulder, but quickly withdrew his hand as blood welled up from under his skin, sending thin, deep-red trails running down his back.  Slowly, the skin over his shoulders split open, forming two gaping wounds.  A faint tremor ran through his body as the skin surrounding the ugly gashes peeled back, exposing a dim glow just beneath the surface.

“No.  No fucking way,” Marc whispered under his breath, “This isn’t happening.”  But he knew it was.  Everything was happening just as he saw it.

Ghostly wings curled out of his torn skin and stretched towards the sky in a grisly display, cutting a jagged silhouette as they softly flicked in and out of view.  Suddenly twisting forward, they gently flexed themselves before furling closely to his body.  Slowly the ghoulish wings began to wither, draining the tension from his body as they faded away until all that was left were a few remnants of a thin, blue light glimmering dimly from his back.

Zoe stepped towards him cautiously, convinced that if she approached too quickly he may vanish entirely.  Kneeling on the ground next to him, she hesitantly laid her hand on his shoulder, still half expecting to pass right through his body, but he remained unchanged, solid as before.  He looked up to the sky briefly, a faint, weak smile drifting across his lips before laying his head down and closing his eyes again.

“Oh my God.  Look at his back.”

Marc came closer, hovering next to Zoe, but Bren held back, unable to bring himself to believe what he had just seen.  Leaning over Zoe’s shoulder, Marc peered down at the unconscious figure curled up on the damp ground.  Terrified, they watched as the blood smeared across the man’s back slowly condensed into thick, glassy beads.  The drops meandered across his skin, searing lines into his flesh.  They split and branched out, creating a network of deep gouges from his shoulders to his lower back, dissolving back into his skin as they finished their task.

Marc’s heart jumped when he saw the brand-like scars covering the man’s skin.  It took him a moment to realize that the raw burns crisscrossing his back were skeletal wings etched into his skin.  A pair of ugly lacerations remained from where the wings had curled from his back.  They lacked the meticulous care of his other injuries, instead appearing more like deep tears in his skin, their edges still ragged and bloody.  The simplicity of the pattern made Marc doubt at first if they were meant to be wings or if his mind was playing tricks on him.

Unfortunately that was exactly what they were: wings carved into the man’s flesh by his own blood.  Everything they had just seen suddenly made sense, yet only created an onslaught of new questions.  “He’s a…that’s a…” Marc babbled, sinking to the ground and landing with a hard thud.

“Please don’t, don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” Zoe whispered, still in awe, “If you say it then…then…shit.  You both saw that, right?”
She clenched her eyes shut, trying to get the sight of his burned flesh out of her head.

“You okay?” Bren asked, concerned.

“Peachy, just peachy,” she replied, looking up at the hospital roof again.  What was up there?

“We can’t leave him here,” Marc said, still staring at the motionless form lying on the ground, “We’ve got to get him out of here before someone sees us.”
Zoe shot Marc an angry glare over her shoulder.  “You’re joking right?  How can you be so damn calm?” she stammered angrily.

“We’ll put him back in the car--”

“And then what?  We don’t even know what it is and you’re telling us you want to cart that home like a stray cat?”

“What then?  We leave him here?” Marc asked.

Unfortunately, Marc had a point.  Zoe leaned forward and felt for a pulse in the young man’s neck.  Finding a steady beat convinced her that even if he wasn’t human he was at least a living creature made of flesh and blood.

“Bren?  Back me up.  You know we’ve got to do this, right?”

“I…I don’t know,” Bren sighed, “We can’t leave him here, I get that, but what the fuck was that?”

“We found…we found something special.  Something we were meant to find.”

“For fuck’s sake.  You sound like your gran,” Zoe muttered, standing back up.

“Look, if we leave him here, what’re they really going to do?  What if he freaks out again and those…those things sprout again?”

“And we have a better solution?” she asked, “I’m not a heartless bitch, you know that, but this is just…it’s…I have no idea what this is.  This can’t happen--”

“But did,” Marc interrupted excitedly, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Right now I don’t care if it can or can’t happen,” Bren said, “I’m just hoping I’ll wake up soon.  Aunt Em, where are you?”

“Good point,” Marc said, seizing on an opportunity, “If this is all a dream, all the more reason to go a long with it.”

“Nightmare,” Zoe corrected, “Dreams entail a hottie with great eyes and a nice ass, not a half dead--whatever.”

“Nightmare, dream…it’s all the same shit,” Marc said, smiling hopefully.

“Bren?  Where’re you on this?”

“I kind of agree with him to be honest,” Bren replied, staying a healthy distance from the man, “Real or not, we’re pretty much fucked already.”

“Only need two votes then,” Zoe shrugged, “Oh and Marc.”

“Yeah?”

“The next time you spike the coffee with acid, warn me?”

Marc couldn’t help chuckling at the idea of the three of them tripping on a coffee version of electric kool-aid.

“This should be interesting,” Zoe sighed.  “Well, looks like we’ve got a little more heavy lifting,” she added, gesturing to the unconscious figure lying in front of them.

Marc and Zoe unfolded the man and rolled him onto his side, carefully avoiding his back.  As they struggled to lift him, Bren finally acted.  “Zoe, I can get it, okay?”

“Thanks,” she replied, relieved.

Bren and Marc hoisted him up and dragged him towards the car, more concerned with speed than caution.  Given the damage to his back, a few scrapes to his feet seemed minor by comparison.

“Load him into the front this time,” Bren said as Marc opened the car door, “There’s no way I’m getting stuck in the back with him again.”

Marc knew better than to argue.  He was pushing his luck as it was.

“Wait,” Zoe said, reaching into the back seat.  She pulled out her coat and came around to the other side.  She tied her coat around his waist, adjusting it so that there weren’t any gaps.  “Either of you feel like donating your coat?  That is unless you want blood all over your sea--”

“Point made,” Marc said, pulling off his coat.  He threaded the man’s arms into the sleeves and yanked it up over his shoulders.  “Satisfied?”

“Hey, it’s your car.”

They eased him into the car, lowering him down to the edge of the seat then sliding him back in place. While Bren and Zoe climbed into the back seat behind through the driver’s side, Marc propped him up as best as he could and secured him in place with the seat belt, wrapping it over his arms.  He locked the door and shut it as quietly as possible.  Marc took one last look at the hospital, debating if this was really the right choice, but an ambulance siren nearby made up his mind for him.  Wrong or right, this was the choice they were stuck with.  He slid the driver’s seat back, climbed in and started the car.

“You two okay back there?” he asked, looking at Zoe and Bren in his rear view mirror.

“Peachy,” they replied in near unison.

Marc backed the car up and headed for the highway, cranking the heat up as he pulled out of the hospital driveway.  Part of him wished he had spiked the coffee.