I heard footfalls and heavy breathing just outside. I shuddered. The ground beast was stalking me, so close I could feel its wet heat, smell its animal scent. It couldn’t fit through the cave’s mouth—could it?

I pushed myself to the back of the cave, but even then I was only four feet from the breathing. I heard sniffing now. Whatever it was, it had locked on to my scent. I couldn’t stop shaking. Only my headache and the pain in my neck kept me from yielding entirely to terror.

After a long shivering stillness, I took off my jacket and tore the left sleeve off my shirt. With trembling fingers, I wrapped it around my neck to protect the wounds.

The ground beast fell silent. After a long while sitting against the cave wall, my back and legs cramped. I stretched them. Trying to find the least painful position, I curled up like an old soldier digging in for a long night.

When I awoke again, I listened carefully to the darkness. I heard no movement, no breathing but my own.

I sat up, blew on my fingers, took off my boots, and briskly rubbed my sore feet in my hands. The cave smelled gamy, like wet sneakers. I had the eerie feeling others had held up here. I wondered where they’d come from and what fate they’d met.

My migraine started to subside. My head felt clearer and my fear had loosed its grip—enough to let me reason. Maybe now I could piece this all together.

It was just too weird. I was Mr. Rational, the last guy to ever be abducted by aliens. Yet here I was, chased into a cave by an otherworldly storm and the monsters it had unleashed from who knew where. Was I living out my own episode of The Twilight Zone?

I revisited my last memories: changing out of my suit at the office, then driving to the mountains to the cabin, then …

Why can’t I remember?

I lit the third match and examined myself. I fingered the blood-soaked collar of my shirt—my favorite blue flannel, ruined now—and reached down to touch my mud-caked boots which I’d last worn while hiking with Amy and Brian months ago. The hike from hell—I shuddered at the memory of the angry words we’d exchanged.

I ran my hand over the right side of my face and felt it twitch. That stupid embarrassing tic had developed over the last few years, showing my hand when the stress got to me, a telltale spasm that threatened my legendary rep as the Iceman. Even with no one here to see it, it angered me.