The Servants of Twilight

But she wasn't going to look for another cave just because she didn't like the decor of this one. The natural fireplace more than outweighed the previous occupants' taste in art. With a fire for heat and light, the cave would provide almost as much shelter as the cabin they had left behind. It would not be as comfortable, of course, but at the moment, she wasn't as concerned about comfort as she was worried about keeping her son, Charlie, and herself alive.

In spite of the stone floor that served as chair and bed, Charlie was delighted with the cave, and at the moment it seemed as luxurious as any hotel suite he'd ever occupied. Just being out of the wind and snow was an incomparable blessing.

For more than an hour, Christine gathered dead wood and crisp dry evergreen branches with which to make a fire and keep it going until morning. She returned to the cave again and again with armloads of fuel, making one stack for the logs and larger pieces of wood, another for the small stuff that would serve as tinder.

Charlie marveled at her energy. Could such stamina spring entirely from a mother's instinct to preserve her offspring's life?

There seemed no other explanation. She should have collapsed long ago.

He knew he should switch the flashlight off each time she went outside, turn it on again only so she would be able to see when she came in with more wood, for he was concerned the batteries would go dead. But he left it burning, anyway, because he was afraid Joey would react badly to being plunged into total darkness.

The boy was in bad shape. His breathing was labored. He lay motionless, silent, beside the equally depleted dog.

As he listened to Joey's ragged breathing, Charlie told himself that finding the cave was another good sign, an indication their luck was improving, that they would recover their strength in a day or two and then head down toward the lake. But another, grimmer voice within him wondered if the cave was, instead, a tomb, and although he didn't want to consider that depressing possibility, he couldn't tune it out.

He listened, as well, to the drip-drip-drip of water in an adjacent chamber. The cold stone walls and hollow spaces amplified the humble sound and made it seem both portentous and strange, like a mechanical heartbeat or, perhaps, the tapping of one clawed finger on a sheet of glass.

The fire cast flickering orange light on the yellow bear totem, making it shimmer, and on drab stone walls. Welcome heat poured from the blazing pile of wood. The natural flue worked as Christine had hoped, drawing the smoke up into higher cavems, leaving their air untainted. In fact, the drying action of the fire took some of the dampness out of the air and eliminated most of the vaguely unpleasant, musty odor that had been in the dank chamber since she had first entered.

For a while they just basked in the warmth, doing nothing, saying nothing, even trying not to think.

In time Christine took off her gloves, lowered the hood of her jacket, then finally took off the jacket itself. The cave wasn't exactly toasty, and drafts circulated through it from adjacent caverns, but her flannel shirt and long insulated underwear were now sufficient. She helped Charlie and Joey out of their jackets, too.

She gave Charlie more lylenol. She lifted his bandage, dusted in more powdered antibiotics and more of the anaesthetic as well.

He said he wasn't in much pain.

She knew he was lying.

The hives that afflicted Joey began, at last, to recede. The swelling subsided, and his misshapen face slowly regained its proper proportions.

His nostrils opened, and he no longer needed to breathe through his mouth, although he continued to wheeze slightly, as if there was some congestion in his lungs.

Please, God, not pneumonia, Christine thought.

His eyes opened wider, but they were still frighteningly empty.

She smiled at him, made a couple of funny faces, trying to get a reaction out of him, all to no avail. As far as she could tell he didn't even see her.

Charlie didn't think he was hungry until Christine began to heat beans and Vienna sausages in the aluminum pot that was part of their compact mess kit. The aroma made his mouth water and his stomach growl, and suddenly be was shaking with hunger.

Once he began to eat, however, he filled up fast. His stomach bloated, and he found it increasingly difficult to swallow. The very act of chewing exacerbated the pain in his head, which doubled back along the lines of pain in his neck and all the way into the shoulder wound, making that ache worse, too. Finally the food lost its flavor, then seemed bitter. He ate about a fourth of what he first thought he could put away, and even the meager meal didn't rest well in his belly.

"You can't get more of it down?" Christine asked.

"I'll have more later."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Do you feel nauseous?"

"No, no. I'm okay. Just tired."