Matt went to the shelf above the couch and took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He unscrewed the white cap, letting it fall to the floor. Then he tilted the plastic nozzle, allowing the liquid to drip into the wound. His face scrunched up and he muted a scream by biting the inside of his right cheek. Sure he wouldn’t feel the need to scream again, he applied the hydrogen peroxide to the smaller cuts and scrapes, gnashing his teeth.

The last thing he needed was an infection. He could not escape if he was sick. That terrified him just as much as whatever was out there.

Panicking won’t help you either Matthew, the little voice said. Panicking won’t help you at all.

“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”

With his arms smarting but fresh and clean, Matt reached back onto the bunk, grabbed his headlamp, and stretched the band over his head. He flicked the switch on and snatched a copy of National Geographic from the shelf. Gracing the cover was a picture of a Yellowstone wolf, with the title, WOLF WARS. After a few page flips he looked up from the magazine to the chair that was barricaded the eastern window. Hints of the outhouse and the aspen appeared between the chair legs. He was at war also, except he couldn’t see his enemy. It lay out there somewhere near the shack, doing whatever it liked to do. Today, it liked to hurt him. How long it would be amused by that, who could say?

It also liked to hurt that moose.

He pictured the majestic animal, its eyes wide with fear as it was dragged away, a Northwoods icon reduced to a plaything.

His eyes pooled with moisture and he wiped them with the back of his hand.

Don’t, Matthew, the little voice said. You have to be strong. You also need rest. You can’t beat this without rest.

He tossed the magazine against the slate fireplace and limped over to the southern window. The dead oak loomed out there in the darkness.

“Tomorrow there’ll be a test,” he said, sniffing.

A few minutes later Matt fired up the lantern. His bruised bones and skin warmed with each revolution of the intensity dial. In the heavenly light he thought of his family and how to contact them. He’d left his cheap prepaid cell phone in the truck glove box, but cell phones never worked from the shack anyway. Way too far in the boonies.

As he painfully laid across the bottom bunk, he placed the knife and hammer on the outside edge of the mattress. The lantern would be left on all night. Matt crawled into his sleeping bag, sore and scratched, but not beaten. Not yet, anyway, he thought. And that was enough of a crack in the gloom to give him hope. Just enough.