Tales Of Corwin

By the next morning, Sandra’s fever was gone, and she was feeling reasonably well—still a little shaky, but not in any need of help to go up and down stairs. Mark was another matter. He had slept fitfully: quite a lot, with the help of Lois’ concoctions, but always waking in pain and having to struggle just to get out of bed. When, at nine o’clock, he struggled out of bed once again, the day just got worse. He was trying to be grateful for his blessings, but reality kept intervening. First, predictably, every breath hurt, and every cough hurt a lot; sneezing was unbearable. Second, surprisingly, his house was full of strangers. Apparently, a number of neighboring families had availed themselves of his hospitality overnight. He first discovered this when he met old Mrs. Teep, who was coming out of his second-floor bathroom; she couldn’t get over having ridden on a snowmobile, at her time of life, and ominously she thanked him on behalf of “all of us.” When Mark got downstairs, he discovered that “all of us”