DAY 7

Matt woke sore and with a stomach that wouldn’t stop rumbling. The room spun on him, making the nausea worse.

His sister had told him about vertigo while she was in medical school. She had said it only lasted a short while. Still, this knowledge didn’t help much. As the room spun, the couch and shelf jerked like he was on the Tilt-a-Whirl. He coughed, spraying phlegm onto the covers. His head throbbed and the shivers persisted, although his teeth no longer knocked. It took all his energy to initiate movement. He angled his legs off the bunk and the spinning grew milder and sort of manageable. He stood, reached out to the table, and fell forward. The sturdy table caught his fall. Then he pushed himself up, using the slate fireplace for balance. The rocks were smooth and cold on his hand and he swore he felt the hum of the Black River in their depths.

Matt shook his head, trying to chase away the vertigo, but instead an intense throb rocked his skull and shot sparks across his vision.

Wonderful.

He stumbled past the fireplace, reaching for the shelf. The shelf bowed under his weight, but held. He grasped the aspirin bottle and swallowed four orange pills. They clung to his dry throat but he forced them down anyway. Sweat dripped from his chin, only to be absorbed by the grungy red couch. Fresh air streamed in from behind the taped cardboard and froze the sweat to his skin. He forced himself over to the stove table, his knees knocking.

Dull morning light crept into the shack, tinting everything monochrome. He felt like a man waking in his own coffin. He took several deep breaths, dismayed at how labored and rough his lungs sounded.

Not much longer now.

The time for escape had passed and now he’d rot away in the shack, sick and helpless.

Everything was so quiet—more so than at any other time he’d come to the U.P. Matt slumped against the stove table and looked out towards the dead oak.

Something looked back.

He looked away, his heart jumping into his throat, his nerves lighting afire. He came alive, raging through the pain and fever and looked out again.

Still there.

Sitting next to the dead oak. Matt blinked, just to double-check.

“Dear God,” he said. “Now this?”

He tried to make sense of the shape, of the tail, of the round aquamarine eyes and the flat, orange nose. Whiskers protruded from each side of the thing’s muzzle.