"You just stay away," she said as clearly as she could. "Stay away or I'll dial 1-800 and call the giant. Do you understand me?"
Something heard her. It might or might not understand, and it did not reply, but it was there. She could feel it. Was it still letting her ripen? Feeding on her fear before it came out to feed on her? If so, the game was almost over. She was nearly out of fear. She thought suddenly of calling to it again, of telling it she didn't mean what she'd just said, that she was tired and it could come get her if it wanted. But she didn't do it. She was afraid that it might take her up on it if she did.
She drank a little water and looked up at the sky. She thought of Bork the Dork saying the God of Tom Gordon couldn't be bothered with her, that He had other fish to fry.
Trisha doubted if that was exactly so... but He wasn't here, that seemed certain. Maybe it wasn't couldn't so much as wouldn't. Bork the Dork had also said, I must admit he is a sports fan... not necessarily a Red Sox fan, however.
Trisha took off her Red Sox cap - now battered and sweatstained and smeared with bits of the forest - and ran her finger across the bent brim. Her best thing. Her father had gotten Tom Gordon to sign it for her, had sent it to Fen-way Park with a letter saying Tom was his daughter's favorite player, and Tom (or his accredited representative) had sent it back in the stamped, self-addressed envelope her father had provided, autographed across the visor. She guessed it was still her best thing. Other than some murky water, a handful of dried, tasteless berries, and her dirty clothes, it was just about her only thing. And now the signa-ture was gone, blurred to nothing but a black shadow by rain and her own sweaty hands. But it had been there, and she was still here - for the time being, at least.
"God, if You can't be a Red Sox fan, be a Tom Gordon fan," she said. "Can you do that much, at least? Can you be that much?"
She dozed in and out of consciousness all night, shiver-ing, falling asleep and then snapping awake, sure that it was there with her, It, that it had finally come out of the woods to take her. Tom Gordon spoke to her; once her father also spoke to her. He stood right behind her, asking her if she'd like some macaroons, but when she turned around no one was there. More meteors burned across the sky, but she couldn't tell for sure if they were really there or if she was only dreaming them. Once she took out her radio, hoping the batteries had come back a little - sometimes they did, if you gave them a chance to rest - but she dropped it into the high grass before she could check and then couldn't find it no matter how much she combed her fingers through the tangles. Eventually her hands returned to her pack and felt the straps still threaded snugly through the buckles. Trisha decided she had never taken the radio out in the first place, because she never could have refixed the buckles and straps so neatly in the dark. She hacked her way through a dozen coughing fits, and now they hurt way down in her ribcage.
At some point she hoisted herself up enough to pee, and what came out was hot enough to burn and make her bite her lips.
The night passed as nights of deepening sickness always do; time grew soft and strange. When the birds at last began to chirrup and she saw a little light beginning to strain through the trees, Trisha could hardly believe it. She lifted her hands and looked at her dirty fingers. She could hardly believe she was still alive, either, but it seemed she was.
She stayed put until the day was light enough to see the ever-present cloud of bugs around her head. Then she got slowly up and waited to see if her legs were going to support her or give way and spill her back down again.
If they do I'll crawl, she thought, but she didn't have to crawl, not yet; they held her. She bent and hooked a hand into one of the pack-straps. When she straightened back up again, dizziness roared through her and a squadron of those black-winged butterflies clouded her sight. At last they faded and she managed to get the pack on.