Six. Only six!

Calm down! Take it by quadrants. Locate a light. Locate an exit.

Orienting toward what I hoped was the room’s center, I spread my feet, detached a match, and dragged it across the striker.

The head tore off without igniting.

Damn! Down to five!

I detached and struck another, pressing the head against the friction strip with the bal of my thumb.

The match sputtered, flamed, il uminated my shirt but little else. Holding it high, I crept forward and took a mental snapshot. From what I could see the room seemed fairly large.

Crates and cardboard cartons along the wal I’d been fol owing. Headstone that had taken a piece of my shin lay flat on the floor. Metal shelving, perforated strips holding the shelves in place. Gap between shelving and wal .

Fire burned my fingers. I dropped the match.

Darkness.

More Brail e-walking. At the end of the shelving I struck my third match.

Wooden door in the middle of the far wal .

Angling the match downward so the flame rose, I searched for a light switch.

Nothing.

The flame went out. I dropped the match, strode toward the door, groped for the knob, and twisted.

Locked!

I flung my weight against the wood, banged my fists, kicked, cal ed out.

No reply.

I felt like screaming in anger and frustration.

Stepping back, I turned toward three o’clock, took several steps, and lit my fourth match.

A table emerged from the inky black. Objects lined up on the tabletop. Bulky items stacked beside it.

The match died.

My visual recal centers pasted the three glimpses to form a composite sketch.

The room was about twenty by twelve feet.

OK. Manageable. My claustrophobia ratcheted down a notch. My fear did not.

Boxes and shelving along one wal , table or workbench opposite, storage beside that, door at the far end.

Recentered in the room, I turned my back to the door and inched forward, planning on a closer inspection of the back wal .

Trembling, I placed the next-to-last match head on the striker strip. Before I struck it, I sensed that this part of the room was more pewter than black.

I turned back. A smal rectangle was visible high above the table.

I peered more intently.

The rectangle was a window covered with gril work, grime, and dust.

Shoving the matchbook into my pocket, I climbed onto the table, stretched up on my toes, and looked out.

The window was half underground, surrounded by a vine-clogged wel . Through the top portion I could see trees, a shed, moonlight oozing through a crack between eggplant clouds.

I heard more geese, realized their squawking was muffled by earth and concrete, not altitude or distance.

My pulse began to race again. My breath came even quicker.

I was trapped in an underground room, a basement or cel ar of some sort. The only way out was probably a stairway beyond the locked door.