Leon Carter had no idea that danger was already closing in behind him.
Nor did he know that someone had decided he needed to die.
At the moment, his biggest concern was much simpler.
He was starving.
Again.
By the time Leon got home, his stomach felt practically hollow.
He ate dinner as usual, though lately the word usual had become increasingly inaccurate when describing his appetite.
He was eating far more than before.
And then there was the chocolate.
Somewhere along the way, Leon had developed an almost obsessive craving for it.
Not just any chocolate, either.
Cheap candy didn’t satisfy him anymore.
He wanted the good stuff—rich chocolate with a deep cocoa flavor, the kind that lingered pleasantly after every bite.
Leon had no idea where the sudden preference had come from.
He simply assumed his tastes were changing.
After eating his fill, he climbed into bed and pulled the blankets around himself.
College would be starting in a few days.
Once the new semester began, there would be classes, labs, assignments, and plenty of other things demanding his attention.
Quiet nights like this would become much rarer.
Leon closed his eyes.
Within minutes, his breathing slowed.
He fell asleep.
Deeply.
For a while, nothing happened.
Then his abdomen moved.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the blanket covering him began to rise.
Something underneath it was pushing outward.
The fabric gradually slipped aside.
A thick mass of black liquid began seeping directly from Leon’s abdomen.
It wasn’t blood.
It wasn’t anything that should have been capable of existing inside a human body.
The substance looked almost like living tar.
It stretched outward.
Slowly.
Painfully slowly.
The black mass seemed to be fighting against some invisible restraint, straining with everything it had to separate itself from Leon.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
More than half an hour later, it had managed to extend less than half an inch farther than when it started.
Still, it refused to stop.
The black substance trembled from the effort.
It stretched again.
Just a little farther— Then something inside Leon pulled.
Hard.
The black mass abruptly jerked backward.
It resisted.
Several thin tendrils split from the main body and desperately reached toward the bed, the sheets, anything they could grab.
One slapped against the mattress.
Another curled toward the blanket.
A third stretched toward the edge of the bed.
None of it mattered.
The force dragging it back was overwhelming.
The tendrils stretched taut.
Then slipped.
One after another, they were sucked back toward Leon.
Within seconds, the last traces of the strange black substance sank through his skin and disappeared inside his body.
The room became still again.
The only evidence anything unusual had happened was the blanket lying partly pushed aside.
Leon slept through all of it.
“There’s a sandwich and some milk on the table.” Ben York lowered his newspaper slightly as Leon came downstairs the next morning.
“Eat.
After that, you’re coming with me to pick up supplies.” He shook his head.
“Business has been ridiculous lately.
What we bought should’ve lasted another week.” Leon yawned as he pulled out a chair.
“Morning.” He sat down heavily.
He’d slept long enough.
At least, he thought he had.
So why was he still tired?
Probably the dreams.
He’d been dreaming almost constantly last night.
Very strange dreams.
Leon picked up the sandwich.
For some reason, he’d dreamed that he was a blob of thick black slime.
Not standing near one.
Not fighting one.
He was the slime.
A disgusting lump of living black mucus that kept squirming around and trying to crawl somewhere.
Leon stared at his breakfast for a moment.
“What the hell was I dreaming about?” He shook his head and took a bite.
Across the table, Ben continued reading the newspaper.
Every so often, the old man sighed.
Then grunted.
Then shook his head.
After the third or fourth time, Leon finally looked over.
“What’s wrong, old man?” Ben ignored him.
Leon swallowed another bite.
“Lottery numbers come out and you realize you didn’t win?” Ben lowered the paper and glared at him.
“Smart-ass.” “So that’s a no?” “I’m sighing because apparently journalism is dying right in front of me.” Ben slapped one of the newspapers onto the table.
“Look at this garbage.” Leon reached for it.
Ben continued before he could even read the headline.
“Celebrity gossip.
Pointless fluff.
Half the paper is people praising people who paid to be praised.” He tossed another newspaper down.
“And then there’s the Daily Bugle.” Ben’s expression soured.
“I swear, whoever runs that place has soup where his brain should be.” Leon raised an eyebrow.
Ben jabbed a finger toward the front page.
“Spider-Man.
Spider-Man.
Spider-Man.” He flipped several pages.
“More Spider-Man.” Another.
“Masked vigilante this, masked menace that.” Ben snorted.
“If exploiting one guy sells papers, apparently journalistic standards can go straight to hell.” Leon looked through the newspapers.
He couldn’t entirely disagree.
Spider-Man dominated an absurd amount of coverage.
Some stories praised him.
Others attacked him.
Many seemed less interested in what he’d actually done than in finding the most dramatic headline possible.
Leon finished his sandwich and drained the glass of milk.
That reminded him of something.
“So what do you think about Spider-Man?” Ben looked up.
Leon set the glass down.
“I ran into him a few days ago.” Ben’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“What do I think?” He leaned back in his chair.
“A hot-blooded, reckless young man with good intentions and a miserable future if he isn’t careful.” Leon hadn’t expected that answer.
Ben folded the newspaper.
“Some people genuinely appreciate what he does.
He helps people, and I’m sure plenty of them are grateful.” His gaze dropped toward the Daily Bugle again.
“But most people?” “They watch him like entertainment.” Ben tapped the newspaper.
“Same as these people.” His voice became quieter.
“I feel bad for his parents, if they’re still around.” Leon tilted his head.
Ben sighed.
“No parent wants their kid spending every night throwing himself into gunfights, robberies, and whatever other insanity happens in this city.” Then he stopped.
His eyes snapped back toward Leon.
“Wait.” Leon immediately knew he’d made a mistake.
Ben’s expression sharpened.
“You said you ran into him.” “Yeah.” “How?” Leon picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” Ben’s stare told him that answer wasn’t acceptable.
Leon sighed.
“I’d finished shopping and went back to the SUV.
Three guys were trying to steal it.” Ben’s face hardened.
“When I showed up, they decided stealing the car wasn’t enough and tried robbing me too.” “And?” “One had a knife.” Ben’s eyes narrowed further.
Leon raised a hand.
“I’m fine.” “That wasn’t my question.” Leon leaned back.
“If Spider-Man hadn’t shown up, those guys would’ve died right there.” Ben went still.
“My gun isn’t decoration.” For a moment, the old man simply studied him.
Then the tension in his face eased.
“Good.” Leon blinked.
Ben nodded once.
“You handled it correctly.” There wasn’t the slightest hesitation in his voice.
“If someone threatens your life, don’t get sentimental about protecting theirs.” He folded the newspaper and put it aside.
“People who choose to rob someone at knifepoint already understand what can happen.” His eyes hardened.
“Never show mercy to an enemy who’s trying to kill you just because you’re afraid of looking cruel.” Ben pointed at Leon.
“That kind of hesitation doesn’t only get you hurt.” “It gets the people around you hurt too.” Leon nodded.
He understood perfectly.
Most of the time, he was easygoing.
He didn’t enjoy creating unnecessary conflict, and he had no desire to hurt people simply because he could.
But there was a line.
Threaten him or someone he cared about seriously enough, and Leon would use whatever means were available to eliminate that threat.
He wasn’t going to gamble his life on the hope that someone trying to kill him might suddenly become reasonable.
Ben checked his watch.
“All right.” He pushed his chair back.
“We should get moving.” Leon glanced toward the clock.
“If we leave now, we should be back around lunch.” Ben stood and grabbed his keys.
“Hopefully those little bastards at the shop have improved while I’ve been away.” Leon smiled.
Ben York was the pizzeria’s head cook, and his standards bordered on merciless.
Which was somewhat ironic considering Old York’s Pizzeria had once been locally famous for serving terrible pizza.
Ben had always been excellent with dough.
His crusts were consistent.
His timing with the ovens was almost perfect.
Unfortunately, he’d once had absolutely no instinct for sauces or ingredient combinations.
Leon had discovered that fairly quickly.
Before Leon arrived, Ben had essentially been an expert baker cursed with the flavor instincts of a man trying to sabotage his own restaurant.
Things changed after Leon developed simple, standardized recipes for the sauces and toppings.
Once Ben could follow those instead of improvising, the quality of the pizza improved almost overnight.
According to Ben, his own teacher had noticed the problem years earlier.
The old chef had tried to teach him.
Repeatedly.
Eventually, the man had apparently concluded that some battles couldn’t be won and gave up.
Ben, naturally, refused to accept that verdict.
He’d poured his savings into opening Old York’s Pizzeria to prove his teacher wrong.
Several difficult years later, the only thing he’d successfully proven was that his teacher had been completely correct.
Old York’s pizza had become infamous.
But Ben’s crust was genuinely excellent, and the food was cheap.
If customers could survive the toppings, they could get full for very little money.
That had been just enough to keep the restaurant alive until Leon came along.
Strangely, some longtime customers now looked back on Ben’s original terrible pizza with genuine nostalgia.
Every so often, one of them would ask for it.
Enough people had done so that the old recipe had eventually returned as a hidden menu item under one simple name: Old School.
Leon couldn’t understand it.
Back then, everyone had complained about how terrible it tasted.
Now some of those same people acted as though they needed one every few months to remain emotionally stable.
Maybe nostalgia was the strongest seasoning of all.
Whatever the explanation, the awful pizza had somehow survived.
Ben headed toward the door.
“Come on.” Leon stood and followed him.
Neither of them noticed anything unusual.
Leon certainly didn’t know that something living inside his body had spent half an hour the previous night desperately trying to crawl out.
And failed.
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