Saber Tooth by Lou Cadle

Author:Lou Cadle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Time Travel, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781530722020
Publisher: Cadle-Sparks Books
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

She popped up to a sitting position. “Who is it? What’s wrong?”

Everyone else was coming awake too.

The scream came again. Then words. “Go away!” It was M.J.

“Someone wake him up. Shake him.”

Laina’s voice came through the night. “He is awake.”

“Shut up, shut up!” said M.J.

Laina said, “He’s just freaking out.”

Damn. She started crawling over people, apologizing. “I need some light.”

She neared M.J.’s moaning voice. Dixie had found her lighter, and a thin light from that helped her avoid kneeling on anyone else. Rex and Laina were nearest to M.J., who was at the outside of the group, nearest their campfire.

“Laina, you and Rex pull up a stockade stick and go build up the fire. Then get right back in here, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

“One of you keep watch!” She could see M.J.’s face, and his eyes were open. “Wake up!”

“I can’t! I can’t! Shut up!”

She hesitated only a second before she hauled back an arm and slapped him. “Wake up!”

“I’m awake! I’m awake! Just make them shut up!” He started sobbing.

Her hand, where she had slapped him, was wet. She felt his face. Covered with sweat. “Geez, M.J., what did you eat?” He had to be poisoned, or hallucinating. “Mushrooms?”

He kept sobbing, pitifully.

Zach, to her right, said “Is he going to make them come here?”

“Who?” Did she have some sort of mass hallucination on her hands?

“The saber tooth. Or something else. He’s awfully loud.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe they’ll stay clear of the commotion.”

The sticks being added to the fire were helping throw some light in here. M.J. was still sobbing, punctuated every few seconds by a sort of yelp. She made a quick decision. “I’m getting him by the fire. Everyone else, stay behind the stockade. Just in case he does bring predators.”

Bob called from the other end of the shelter. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Just everybody else, stay safe.”

Bob said, “I’m coming out with you.”

“No! We need one adult—” to survive “—in here,” she finished.

Rex helped her pull M.J. outside, and then she shooed Rex and Laina back behind the barrier and replaced the branch to complete the stockade wall.

M.J. was curled up into a little ball now, crying and shaking.

Hannah called, “Someone, pass out a water bottle.”

She sat by M.J. and tried to get him to straighten out, to sit up, to engage. But he stayed tightly curled up.

One of Hannah’s big water bottles got handed out. She filled it from the stream and poured it over M.J.’s head. He spluttered and sat up. “Why won’t they stop it!”

“Who?” she said. “Stop what?”

“They keep saying things.”

“M.J. You’re okay. Just fevered or something. There’s no one here but me. And the kids. And they’re all being quiet.” She could see the faces of four of them peering through the stockade wall. She thought about telling them to go to sleep, but that’d be useless. “You need to try to remember what you ate. Something is making you sick.”

“Just the squirrel. I didn’t have any bird.”

Hannah called to the kids, “Are any of you feeling bad? Having nightmares?”

A murmur of denials.

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