Rendezvous: a hypertext adventure

by Nowick Gray

I awoke with a start, my throat constricted with a strangled cry from deep within the darkness. As the morning dawned through thick fog, sporadic gusts of wind still blew scattered rain against the roof and walls.

All right, I thought to myself. It's all right; I didn't even come back here through any goddamned door--at least, not that I remember.

Faron may have been still asleep, but I hugged her so tightly she woke up, turned to face me and smiled. Then I leaned out of bed to peek at Suze. She lay neatly tucked in her bed, peaceful as an angel . . . her rosebud mouth relaxed, her eyelashes so delicate as they lightly lay on her downy, cream-colored cheeks. Then quite suddenly her eyes opened, and blinked several times.

"I have a bad dream."

"Oh," I said. I'm sorry to hear that. Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No-ey. Was too scary. Will, we are gonna go home, today?"

"Yes. Except, Suze, you know what?"

"What?"

"You and Faron are going down one side of the mountain, and Matt and I are going down the other."

"Oh, but . . . I want to go treepranting wif you."

"That would be nice, Suze, but you can't. I need to make lots of money so we can buy things we need, like food for you, and gas for the truck."

"Oh."

"Besides, you'll be with Faron."

"Yeah," she said, with a strange little darkness crossing her brow. "But Will, Faron might miss you, too."

"Yes, I said. "And I'll miss Faron, and you too."

When I finally got up and went outside to pee, I shivered in the icy drizzle on my hair and bare arms and shuddered back inside as quickly as I could.

Faron was sitting up looking out the window. "I don't know how I'm going to find the trail like this."

"You mean naked? You'd better dress warmly, then." I hurried back onto the bunk and draped my arms around her.

"No, silly . . ." She turned her head and smiled briefly, brushing a kiss against my shoulder. "I'm serious. I mean, it was hard enough to follow the trail on the way up when I could see. This is ridiculous."

Matt poked his head down from his bunk. "Good morning­-such as it is."

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"Well, it looks like a mess out there all right. But it's likely to be clearer as we get farther down in elevation."

"What about Faron's trail, which she lost even on the way up?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should go with her till we find it."

"Yeah, that makes sense." I gave Faron a little squeeze with my long, bare arms; she still held the bedclothes in front of her. I said to her, "Matt and I could leave our packs back at the cabin, and we could help you carry Suze and your backpack at least part of the way down."

Faron was still dubious. "What if you guys got lost on the way back? You wouldn't even have your packs."

Matt and I discussed briefly the problem of timing, whether we could make it down the east side for our four-thirty phone call. It seemed as if it could work if all went well.

Faron turned to the window again. "Now it's snowing."

Large, soft flakes streamed down in a spontaneous blizzard.

I quickened the pace: "We should eat and run, then, if we're going ahead with our plan, before it gets too bad out there."

"Yeah," Suze chimed in. "Eat and run!"

By the time Matt returned from washing dishes at the pond, he could report that the fresh snow was an inch deep. He couldn't see the cabin from the pond and could barely follow his own tracks back.

When Faron heard that, she stopped packing. "Goodness. I don't know about this. With all that snow on the trail, maybe we should wait. It's bound to melt . . ." She looked unhopefully out the window again.

"Or get deeper," I added. "It's not as if we had a week's food supply here. We should decide pretty quick if we're going at all."

Was this, too, a dream? I wished it was. I saw myself standing in that dream-box before two doors: one says "Out" and the other "In." Unfortunately the consequences of my choice, this time, were real.

DREAMBOX: To remain in cabin, Press .

To opt for descent, Continue reading.

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