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“I can’t even get mad without hurting myself, But-But.”

  The dog whined at the sound of her voice. He looked up at her from the floor, tongue lolling from his mouth.

  “But you know what, I’m not going to let it get me down. I mean, look at that view.”

  Sunlight speckled the lake, the tops of the trees swaying in the wind.

  A huge bird – was that an eagle? – circled overhead. No, it couldn’t be an eagle. She had just enough strength to get up and open one of the doors a crack. The cool, fresh air that wafted in was as delicious as fresh cinnamon toast.

  She couldn’t find the remote to the TV, or her tablet, so she had to get out of her comfort zone and enjoy the silence. A leaf skittered into the cottage. Buttons gave it a sniff before settling back down. By one o’clock, she started to feel achy and hot. Andrew was right. She washed down the Tylenol, along with her Percocet and two nerve blockers.

  Once her fever went back down, she’d take a much-needed shower. Maybe she could even surprise Andrew by wearing that lacy red bra he loved. She might not be able to do much, but she could work out some way to thank him. The first of many thank-yous to come, she hoped.

  If she wanted them to have some fun, she needed to get better.

  An image of her smiling brother popped into her head. He was sitting on the porch, looking in at her, the door open and letting in the fresh, piney air.

  “Hey sis. If you can’t meditate here, I mean really meditate, you might as well give it up altogether.”

  He was right. Or more accurately, she was right. Kate couldn’t imagine more peaceful surroundings.

  It can’t hurt to meditate on this fever taking a hike.

  She fluffed her pillows at her back, sat up, put her hands on her lap, closed her eyes, and took three deep, cleansing breaths. Focusing on her breathing, she felt the tension in various parts of her body and released it. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts, her excitement at being here filling her with lists of things she wanted to see and do. It took a long time to quiet her mind, always dragging herself back to her breath.

  Unaware of the passage of time, her mind eventually quieted down.

  It was only then that she thought of the word fever. It was lit up in bright lights against the black backdrop of her still mind: FEVER.

  Breathing in. Breathing out.

  FEVER.

  With each inhalation, she repeated the word.

  With each exhalation, she pictured another piece being broken off the lighted FEVER in her imagination. Bit by bit, breath by breath, the word crumbled.

  It was down to its last remnants when Kate felt an intense pain in the small of her back. A spark whooshed into an inferno, the flames engulfing first her back, then her entire body.

  What remained of FEVER shattered into tiny projectiles.

  Kate gasped.

  A ball of flame roared in her core. The pain was excruciating.

  No!

  Her eyes flew open, fingers knotted, her back arched to the point of breaking.

  Opening her mouth to scream, she slipped down the pillows, her body covered in acrid sweat.

  In an instant, the fireball rocketed from her body, leaving her cold and empty and shivering. It took her several minutes to catch her breath, using the sheet to wipe her face.

  “What the hell was that?” she said to Buttons. The beagle opened one eye but offered no advice. He rarely did.

  Kate massaged her back. It felt as if she’d been kicked, and then burned with a lit cigar. She couldn’t stop shivering.

  She wrapped the sheet around her and padded to the bathroom to find the thermometer. She took her temperature while she sat on the closed toilet, the soreness and cold dissipating. After two minutes, she checked the thermometer and smiled.

  “It worked.”

  Her temp was back to normal.

  And now she was exhausted.

  She went back to bed in the living room, thinking she’d take a quick nap before Andrew came home. She couldn’t wait to tell him her fever had broken.

  That was one powerful meditation, she thought, snuggling in the bed. I won’t tell him that part. He thinks it’s all a crock of shit anyway. He’ll say it was the Tylenol he left for me. Who knows, maybe he’s right. But what the hell was up with that session?

  When the door opened, startling her, she was shocked to see that it was almost four o’clock.

  “Hey, you’re awake,” Andrew said, both hands filled with multiple plastic bags.

  “I guess I am.” She didn’t remember falling asleep, but it also didn’t feel like she’d just been lying there thinking about what had happened for three hours. She was more tired now than she’d been before she’d come back to bed.

  “Sorry it took so long. I did a little exploring, not that there’s a whole lot to see. Then I found this used bookstore and got really lost. Hold on.”

  Her knees popped when she got up to walk to the kitchen. She had to settle into a chair before she fell.

  He came back with a paper sack full of books and put it on the counter in front of her.

  “Guess how much these cost?”

  She looked inside the bag, turning the mildewed paperback books over to look at the covers. Most of them were old crime novels, with some science fiction and courtroom dramas thrown in.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Twenty bucks?”

  “Try five.”

  “But there have to be at least thirty books in here.”

  He started unpacking the bags, canned food, bread, and boxes of macaroni filling the counter space.

  “I know. You buy the bag for five bucks and fill it to the brim. I have enough reading material to keep me going for the summer.”

  Kate sneezed again and again until she was gasping for air.

  “I think they’re a little too moldy for my taste,” she said.

  He took the bag away from her and stowed it in the bedroom. “I’ll have to find a place that sells new books for you, my fragile flower. Boy, I remember when I used to brag to my friends that I was dating this super low-maintenance chick.”

  “Oh? And what do you say to them now?”

  He chuckled as he filled the fridge with soda, water, and beer. “That I was deceived, tricked, and bamboozled.”

  She smiled. “That’s right. Boys are suckers.”

  Once he had everything put away, he ushered her back to the bed and found the remote that had been underneath Buttons.

  “I really need to take a shower,” she said, feeling her body melt into the bed.

  “You’ll live without one for now. I can tell you’re beat.”

  He poured himself a scotch and added some ice. “I got you a nice protein shake.”

  “I’d rather that than scotch. At least it doesn’t burn.”

  “There are good burns and bad burns.” He held up the glass, tinkling the ice. “This is a good burn.”

  Andrew sat in the chair opposite her, taking a long sip.

  “I didn’t realize how much I needed this until we got here,” he said.

  “A drink? You could have one anytime.”

  “No, all of this. And some scotch. I still feel all bunched up inside, but I know it’s going to loosen up soon. It’s weird how you don’t know how wired you are until you take a step back.”

  Kate was surprised to hear him talking so candidly. Normally he told her he was just fine, no worries, everything was under control. Not that she believed a word of it. He’d have to be a robot or sociopath not to be deeply affected by their situation.

  His words hurt her more than she could tell him. It was her turn to put on a happy, brave face. She knew he didn’t mean to make her feel bad, but she did just the same. She was the reason he was so balled up and stressed, and there was nothing she could do to make it better.

/>   “Well, you have three whole months to unstress yourself,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Unstress?”

  Kate blushed. “Isn’t that what people say?”

  “Not any people I know.” His laughter was infectious.

  She drank her shake and he had two more scotches. They played cards until eight, when her eyes started to roll up in her head. At one point she came to with cards still in her hand. Andrew’s attention was on the TV.

  There would be no red bra tonight. She couldn’t even cut through the fog in her brain to tell him she loved him.

  * * *

  Kate dreamed she was in the woods, rocks and sticks pressing into her palms and knees as she crawled through the brush. She sniffed the air, filling herself with pine and mold smells. Something skittered to her left, dashing under the carpet of dead leaves.

  Lashing out, she reached under the crunchy leaves, casting them aside, blowing the tiny critter’s house down. A chipmunk cowered before her, trembling, furry chest pulsing with fevered breaths.

  “I’m sorry, little guy. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She wanted to offer him some food, but she had no pockets to check. She was startled to realize she was naked. A cool breeze danced across the lake, raising goose bumps on her exposed flesh.

  The chipmunk chittered.

  Then hissed.

  Chipmunks didn’t hiss.

  Its eyes swirled, the blackness dissipating until they were red as fresh blood. Kate cringed at the sound of its tiny bones popping. A yellowed ridge of bone ripped through the fur on its back, twisting it into an L shape. The chipmunk’s jaw opened wide, wider, until it was large enough to swallow her fist.

  Oh, but she wouldn’t put her hand near that thing. Its gums separated as rows of jagged teeth pushed through like shards of glacial ice.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” the woodland creature spat.

  Kate scampered back, a sharp rock slicing her knee.

  “You don’t belong here,” the chipmunk said, its body continuing to morph, distorting into a mass of bone and teeth, its crimson eyes holding her in place, even though she desperately wanted to run. “Don’t belong here. Don’t belong anywhere. Don’t belongdon’tbelongdon’tbelongdon’tbelong.”

  “Stop it!” she screamed.

  The eyes disappeared, replaced by shields of cancerous bone.

  Kate opened her mouth to scream.

  The bone chipmunk sprang from the moldy earth and leaped down her throat.

  She flipped onto her back, hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing, trying to stop it from plummeting into her stomach.

  Echoing in her mouth as she struggled was the chipmunk’s chant…

  “Don’tbelongdon’tbelongdon’tbelong.”

  * * *

  Kate woke up with a sore throat, tangled up in the sheets. Somehow, Andrew had slept through her flailing about. The scotch must have helped.

  She looked around the cottage for the shadow. Beyond the glare of the television, everything was in utter darkness.

  There was no shadow. Or none she could perceive.

  What had her all worked up wasn’t exactly the bad feels.

  Her hands were cold, but she felt hot inside, as if someone had poured molten lead down her throat. It was just like the other night.

  First, she checked her fentanyl patch to make sure it hadn’t split and she wasn’t on the verge of overdosing, her brain and body misfiring as the drug raced through her system.

  It was fine.

  It was also time for her nerve blocker. A Percocet wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Anything to put her back to sleep, where she’d stop feeling like this.

  She just hoped that evil chipmunk wasn’t waiting for her.

  Chapter Eight

  Things settled into a pleasant routine by the end of their first week. Kate was still fighting off the strange ‘microwave’ feelings. Andrew thought she had a cold, but she knew better. The fever stopped, but it left her weak as a kitten. She’d had some wicked nightmares, waking him up several times in a panic, but that was to be expected. The meds made her imagine things that would send Stephen King running for his blankie and momma’s breast. Add a fever to the mix and there was no way she could rest easy. This only added to her frustration, because, as naive as it sounded, she’d really thought things would be different up here.

  In a way, they were. The bad feels had been replaced by the microwave feels, and her shadow visitor had morphed into nightmares about the wildlife outside the cottage. Just lovely.

  * * *

  Kate had yet to venture outside. Andrew really wanted to get her down to the dock so they could do some proper lake gazing. The temperature had almost hit eighty a couple of days, warming the lake up a notch.

  “Maybe we could light the old fire pit tonight,” Andrew said, slipping on his running shoes.

  Kate was on her side, clutching Mooshy to her chest.

  “Maybe. That would be nice.”

  The tone of her response told him it wasn’t going to happen. He deflated a bit but hid it from her. He’d been dying to light a fire outside and just stare into the flames for an hour, the heat keeping the night’s chill at bay. So far, the pit remained cold and empty.

  “Where are you going?” she said. Her eyes were closed, her hair tied in a ponytail.

  “Out for a quick run. You need anything? Pine cones? Crusty leaves? A gnarly walking stick?”

  “If you see a spare, healthy body lying around, I’ll take it.”

  “If I see any bodies in the woods, I’m hauling ass the other way and calling the cops.”

  “You know what I’d really like?” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “To get my butt well enough for us to lie on our little beach and watch a sunrise.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  Her eyes closed and she pulled the sheet around her. “Mmmm. Very. Like something out of a Cary Grant movie.”

  “Pretty soon the mornings will be warm enough to do just that.”

  “I hope so. For some reason, that’s what I want more than anything.”

  He was pretty sure she’d fallen back to sleep by the time he walked out the door. Taking a long, deep breath, he jumped off the short porch and hit the trail, his quick, steady stomping scattering any small critters in his way.

  Before embarking on the path in the woods, he ran down to the dock to say hello to the lake. As usual at this time of day, it was empty and quiet. He pictured him and Kate down here, beach towels laid out next to one another, holding hands while they watch the sun come up. He had never been accused of being a hopeless romantic, but he really looked forward to doing that with Kate. After what she’d been through, she deserved anything she asked for, especially something so pure and simple.

  Turning to head to the trail, he tripped on a thick tree branch. Looking to see what had nearly sent him sprawling, he noticed the gash of fresh, exposed wood in the center of the branch. He crouched down to get a better look at it.

  Looks like something took a bite out of it, he mused. His fingers traced the grooves of what looked like teeth marks around the outer rim of the oval of fresh, pale wood. What the hell kind of animal likes to eat trees?

  He picked up the branch to get a closer look.

  Now he wasn’t so sure those were bite marks. It was probably just the way the bark had fallen off. What did he know about the great outdoors anyway?

  No matter. He tossed the branch in the lake and went running.

  * * *

  Kate heard the door close and started to cry.

  God, she wanted to be able to be out there with him. Her frustration mounted more and more every day. It was bad enough that the treatment flashbacks were making her feel like the Hulk boiling under a shower of gamma rays
. Her growing irritation with her broken, truly fucked and out-of-luck body was burning her twice as much.

  It wasn’t easy only being able to watch people slip by on their boats, listen to the warble of the loons at night, or see Andrew on the porch, reading one of his moldy books, a beer on the short table beside him, almost as confined to the house as she was. He said he loved every minute of it, this learning how to relax. How long would that initial fascination last?

  Even Buttons was sitting by the glass doors, looking wistfully outside.

  She felt like a failure, and that was one thing she had never told anyone. She’d failed herself, her husband, her family, her friends, everyone. What good was she to them when she could offer them nothing but a litany of complaints? How could she be a part of their lives when she couldn’t even partake of her own?

  Crying in her beer – or protein shake – was repugnant to her, but some days, she just couldn’t help it. Especially days when she was too weak to keep the bad feels at bay.

  Thwack!

  Kate flinched at the sound of something smacking against the glass doors. Andrew had pulled the blinds open so she could see the lake. Leaning forward on the bed, she couldn’t see anything on the porch that could have hit the door. But she did spot a tiny crack in the glass.

  “I wonder if a bird tried to fly in here,” she said to Buttons. “I hope he’s okay.”

  The porch was bathed in late morning sun. Andrew’s book was on the arm of the chair, its cover wagging in the breeze.

  Swinging her legs off the bed, she said, “Hey, But-But, come help your momma.”

  Buttons trotted to her side, nuzzling her leg. As soon as she stood up, he backed away, giving her space. It was amazing how he knew not to trip up his unsteady master.

  Kate was several steps away from the door when her knee popped, the entire joint dislocating. Bright sparks exploded in her brain and she cried out, tipping, falling. Her spine burst into a great wall of flame. The blast of heat baked her core, flashing to her extremities.

  Did the house just rumble, or was that her nerves jittering from the instant explosion of agony?

  Buttons barked as she toppled to the floor. Her hip hit the hardwood with a dull thump, also dislocating. She was powerless to stop the tide of tears as she rocked on her good hip, blubbering incoherently.