“Do you want to play poker?” Jiho asked. 

“Sure, but I left the cards down by the water.” 

“I’ll go get them,” he said.

“That’s okay. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll grab them on my way back.” I hated going anywhere near the woods after dark, and I had about two minutes before the sun went down.
 

I had just grabbed the cards when it happened. I never saw it coming, and it must have swooped out of the sky with some speed behind it, because when the bat collided with my head, it almost knocked me off my feet. It took me a second to figure out what hit me, and then I started screaming. I panicked, my hands raking through my hair to get the bat out.
 

Jiho ran to me. “What’s wrong?” Before I could answer him, the bat sank its teeth into my hand. I screamed louder. “There’s a bat in my hair,” I said, as stinging pain radiated across my palm. “It’s biting me!”
 

Jiho sprinted off. I shook my head back and forth, trying to dislodge the bat. When he returned, he pushed me down onto the sand until I was flat on the ground.

“Don’t move,” he said, cupping his hand around my head. Then he drove the blade of the