Chapter 2

Deliriums

Michael slept fitfully through the night. He wakened to use a plastic bottle to save crawling out of the sleeping bags into the sub-zero cold. While he was awake he chewed two pain pills and swallowed an oral dose of antibiotic from the med kit.

The storm blew harshly for two days, then abated somewhat. He half-hoped to hear aircraft engines that day. He scrambled outside, bellied over the snow in a leg-dragging crawl to gather up scattered cartons and crates. He piled them three cartons high beside the tent against the prevailing storm winds. This might reduce the tent buffeting and thrashing. He dragged more food containers inside to put them against the side walls to hold them against the wind. He pushed himself hard. He wanted everything close at hand if he weakened and couldn't crawl out of the tent again.

Mike silently thanked whoever so competently packed the med kit. It went far beyond being a simple first aid kit; it contained meds that required a physician's prescription.

He changed his wound dressings again, but he was running low on sterilized pads. He considered whether to tear up spare undergarments and boil them to make new dressing pads, or rinse and boil the less soiled dressing pads to reuse them. A full case of screw-on gas cylinders were packed with the food crates for the camp stove. It was a good supply of fuel to melt snow for cooking food and sterilizing the dressings, and he had lots of time.

His wound was still swollen and red around the stitches, draining where he'd left openings. He briefly considered inserting plastic drain tubes, but he had nothing that was suitable. No, he thought, as long as it drains naturally, I'll be fine.

He saw no sign of the onset of gangrene. If he ever found who had packed that med kit, he'd promise them anything their heart desired as a reward for saving his life. The pain-killers and antibiotics made it possible to function against impossible odds.

On the fifth day he lay in his sleeping bag, feverish, listening to the rising wind outside. The outside crates and the row of inside crates held the windward side of the tent sandwiched between them. Fine-grained snow crystals drifted between the outside crates filling the spaces to press and hold the tent securely. The upper half of the tent thrashed wildly. The wind howled and screamed a full storm. He dare not open the zippered doorway. He cut out a circle in one corner of the tent floor and scooped out a cat hole for a latrine. His deposits froze solid within minutes.

Wait. Wait and listen. Try not to fear the storm. Try not to fear the endless darkness. The day might break only briefly with dim twilight on the northern horizon if the storm clouds would allow. The wind could rise to hurricane force. He would be secure in his snow-anchored habitat. While he had stove fuel for hot water, food to eat, beverage to warm his stomach, and if his clothing and sleeping bags remained dry, he would make and retain body heat to survive.

Dry insulation and body heat are the keys to survival. Stay dry, generate heat, and retain it. Avoid sweat, avoid chill, maintain hydration and nourishment. It becomes a religious mantra, a dogma of survival. Training and experience are the keys to self-preservation.

On the seventh day the winds did reach near-hurricane strength and Michael feared that the seams and anchor points of the small tent would tear away. He had to trust the tent. He had no choice. He'd done all he could; worrying was energy-sapping and he needed his energy to stay warm, to heal.

He lay awake through the screaming, buffeting horrors of the night, the seething, whining sound of snow and ice crystals driven against the tent fabric by seventy and eighty knot winds. The upper half of the tent whipped far over, yielding like a slender reed in a gale. That was its salvation. Upright resistance would be flung from the ice shelf and driven into the sea.

He slept, feverishly; his leg throbbed, his face flushed. Breathing came fast and shallow. He gasped with the exertion of living. His body rallied its defenses against the infection in his deep wound, festering and spreading its poison.

He dreamed of struggle. He dreamed of standing against invisible enemies, using his will to live as a shield against their offer of blissful surrender, of their call to submit to the inevitable, to ease into sleep and calm acceptance, to be released from pain, to accept the numbing cold ... to escape into unfeeling death ... into sweet sleep...

No!

There was no word but the impact pushed him back in his dream state, startled him. The blast of light and feeling repeated itself.

NO! Do not!

No sound. No words. Feeling. Feeling and light and a growing sense of presence, some other entity, being, intelligence. He is the only human alive for a thousand miles on this frozen, storm-wracked coast, yet ... he was not alone?

No ... what ... not what? he threw out with his mind, rallying his will to focus, to ask whatever was touching his mind.

The answer came in a wordless response. This flash of light was softer, less 'blinding' in his mind. It felt gentler, less commanding.

Live. Strive to live. Apply your will to continue living. Heal yourself.

Michael felt calm settle upon him. His ears closed to the chaos and crescendo of the storm raging around him. He felt wrapped in a warm calm. His thoughts turned to his body, assessing, taking stock. He was warm, nourished, dry, and his leg throbbed but not to an excruciating degree. He focused inner sight on his wound; he willed the flesh to knit, his defenses to rally, to consume the attacking hordes. He calmed his mind, set aside his worry, and slept. He felt relief in the sense of the presence he felt lingering there with him, and it was good. He slipped deeply into a peaceful, healing sleep.

The storm raged and gathered itself for a last assault against the impudent intruder in its path. The half-burned crates and their charred contents tumbled and rolled, and went bounding, hurtling off into the darkness. They crashed and broke apart on the ice shelf. Those crates and cartons that Michael stacked and wedged in place around his tent were packed tightly by the drifted snow. They would not yield.