The flame guttering along the matchstick reached his fingers. Drew shook it out, tossed it into the blazing stove, and slammed the grate shut.
“It’s not a bad book and I’m not going to die out here,” he said. “Not going to happen.”
He turned off the Coleman to conserve the fuel, then sat down in the wing chair he spent his evenings in, reading paperbacks by John D. MacDonald and Elmore Leonard. There wasn’t enough light to read by now, not with the Coleman off. Night had almost come, and the only light in the cabin was the shifting red eye of the fire seen through the woodstove’s isinglass window. Drew pulled his chair a bit closer to the stove and wrapped his arms around himself to quell the shivers. He should change out of his damp shirt and pants, and do it right away if he didn’t want to get even sicker. He was still thinking this when he fell asleep.
21
What woke him was a splintering crack from outside. It was followed by a second, even louder crack, and a thud that shook the floor. A tree had fallen, and it must have been a big one.
The fire in the woodstove had burned down to a bed of bright red embers that waxed and waned. Along with the wind, he could now hear a sandy rattling against the windows. The cabin’s big downstairs room was stuperously hot, at least for the time being, but the temperature outside must have fallen (off the table) as predicted, because the rain had turned to sleet.
Drew tried to check the time, but his wrist was bare. He supposed he’d left his watch on the nighttable beside the bed, although he couldn’t remember for sure. He could always check the time and date strip on his laptop, he supposed, but what would be the point? It was nighttime in the north woods. Did he need any other information?
He decided he did. He needed to find out if the tree had fallen on his trusty Suburban and smashed the shit out of it. Of course need was the wrong word, need was for something you had to have, subtext being that if you could get it you might be able to change the overall situation for the better, and nothing in this situation would change either way, and was situation the right word, or was it too general? It was more of a fix than a situation, fix in this context meaning not to repair but—
“Stop it,” he said. “Do you want to drive yourself crazy?”
He was pretty sure a part of him wanted exactly that. Somewhere inside his head, control panels were smoking and circuit breakers were fusing and some mad scientist was shaking his fists in exultation. He could tell himself it was the fever, but he had been in fine fettle when Village had gone bad. Same with the other two. Physically, at least.
He got up, wincing at the aches that now seemed to be afflicting all of his joints, and went to the door, trying not to hobble. The wind tore it from his grasp and bounced it off the wall. He grabbed it and held on, his clothes plastered against his body and his hair streaming back from his forehead. The night was black—black as the devil’s riding boots, black as a black cat in a coalmine, black as a woodchuck’s asshole—but he could make out the bulk of his Suburban and (maybe) tree branches waving above it on the far side. Although he couldn’t be sure, he thought the tree had spared his Suburban and landed on the equipment shed, no doubt bashing in the roof.
He shouldered the door shut and turned the deadbolt. He didn’t expect intruders on such a dirty night, but he didn’t want it blowing open after he went to bed. And he was going to bed. He made his way to the kitchen counter by the shifting, chancy light of the embers and lit the Coleman lantern. In its glare the cabin looked surreal, caught by a flashbulb that didn’t go out but just went on and on. Holding it in front of him, he crossed to the stairs. That was when he heard a scratching at the door.
A branch, he told himself. Blown there by the wind and caught somehow, maybe on the welcome mat. It’s nothing. Go to bed.
The scratching came again, so soft he never would have heard