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His eyes fluttered open

Instinct alone told hiht was over Beneath the box it was still dark With an indrawn groan in his chest, he pushed up froerly until he shouldered the cardboard surface Then he edged to one corner and, pushing up hard, slid the box top away froht sifted through the erratic dripping across the panes, converting the shadows into slanting wavers and the patches of light into quiverings of pallid gelatin The first thing he did was climb down the cement block and walk over to the wooden ruler It was the first thing he did every e yelloer, where he’d put it

He pressed hiht hand on top of his head Then, leaving the hand there, he stepped back and looked

Rulers were not divided into sevenths; he had added the s himself The heel of his hand obscured the line that told him he was five sevenths of an inch tall

The hand fell, slapping at his side Why, what did you expect? his mind inquired He made no reply He just wondered why he tortured hi in this clinicalto stop now; that the injections would begin working at this last point Why, then? Was it part of his previous resolution to follow the descent to its very end? If so, it was pointless now No one else would know of it

He walked slowly across the cold ce sound of rain on the s, it was quiet in the cellar So sound; probably the rain on the cellar doors He walked on, his gazefor the spider It was not there

He trudged under the jutting feet of the clothes tree and to the twelve-inch step to the floor of the vast, dark cave in which the tank and water pu hi ladder he’d made and fastened to the brick that stood at the top of the step Twelve inches, and yet to him it was the equivalent of 150 feet to a normally sized man He let hi and scraping against the rough concrete He should have thought of a way to keep the ladder froainst the wall Well, it was too late for that now; he was too s, barely reach the sagging rung below, the one below that the one below that

Gri, he splashed icy water into his face He could just about reach the top of the thimble In two days he would be unable to reach the top of it, probably unable, even, to get down the string ladder What would he do then?

Trying not to think of ever- problems, he drank palmfuls of the cold ater; drank until his teeth ached Then he dried his face and hands on the robe and turned back to the ladder He had to stop and rest halfway up the ladder He hung there, ar, which to him was the thickness of rope

What if the spider were to appear at the top of the ladder now? What if it were to co down the ladder at hied his h when he actually had to protect hi the rest of the tiain, fearfully It was true His throat hurt

"Oh, God," he muttered It was all he needed

He clirim silence, then started on the quarter- coils of the hose, by the tree-thick rake handle, the house-high laheels, the wicker table that was half as high as the refrigerator, which was, in turn, as high as a ten-story building Already hunger was beginning to send out lines of tension in his stoerator If there had been clouds floating by its cylinder top, its raphically apparent to hih was cut off by a twitching grunt The oil burner again, shaking the floor He could never get used to it It had no regular pattern of roaring ignition What orse, it see tis of the refrigerator Then he stirred himself loose from bleak apathy and drew in a quick breath There was no point in standing there Either he got to those crackers or he starved

He circled the end of the wicker table, planning

Like a erator was attainable by nuht try to scale the ladder, which, like the laer, lay against the fuel-oil tank Reaching the top of the tank (an Everest of achievee cardboard boxes piled beside it, then across the wide leather face of Louise’s suitcase, then up the hanging rope to the refrigerator top Or he could try clied table, then juain, and up the rope Or he could try the wicker table which was right next to the refrigerator, achieve its su rope He turned away froerator and looked across the cellar at the cliff wall, the croquet set, the stacked lawn chairs, the gaudily striped beach u canvas stools He stared at all of them with hopeless eyes

Was there no other way? Was there nothing to eat but those crackers?

His gaze e There was the one dry slice of bread reo after it Dread of the spider was too strong in hiain

He thought suddenly, Were spiders edible? It ht out of his ain to face the ie the climb unaided, and that was the first hurdle

He walked across the floor, feeling the chill of it through his almost worn sandals Under the shadows of the fuel tank, he clies of the split carton side What if the spider is in there waiting? he thought He stopped, heartbeat jolting, one leg inside the box, the other leg out He drew in a deep, courage-stiffening breath It’s only a spider, he told hi the rest of the way into the musty depth of the carton, he wished he could really believe that the spider was not intelligent, but driven only by instinct

Reaching for thread, his hand touched icy ain It was only a pin His lips twitched Only a pin? It was the size of a knight’s lance

He found the thread and laboriously unrolled about eight inches of it It took an entireto separate it froed the thread out of the carton and back to the wicker table Then he hiked over to the pile of logs and tore froertips This he carried back to the table and fastened to the thread

He was ready

The first throas an easy one Twisting vine like around theof the table were two narrower strips about the thickness of his body At a point three inches below the first shelf of the table these two strips flared out froain and, three inches above the shelf, twining about thethe wood up at the space where one of the strips began jutting out froh the opening and he pulled it back carefully so that it edged between leg and strip He then cli out at the end of the tautened thread

Reaching the first point, he hauled up the thread, worked the wooden bar loose, and prepared for the next stage of his cliht between two strips of latticework shelf He pulled himself up

Stretched out li

Then, after a few minutes, he sat up and looked down at what to him was a fifty-foot drop Already he was tired, and the clian its sibilant chugging again, and he listened to it while he looked up at the wide canopy of the tabletop a hundred feet above

"Come on," he muttered hoarsely to hiot to his feet Taking a deep breath, he flung the stick up at the next joining place of leg and twining strip

He had to leap aside as the throwslipped into a gap in the latticework and he had to clutch at the crosspieces to keep fro , he pulled and pushed hi at the pain in the back ht He clenched his teeth and hissed out a long breath Sore throat, sprained leg, hunger, weariness What next?

It took twelve et it into the proper opening above Pulling back until the thread grew taut in his grip, he dragged hiritted, breath stea ache of muscle while he clied hi there, gasping for air,visibly I’ll have to rest, he told hio on The cellar swaone to visit his mother the week he was five-feet-three The last time he’d seen her, he’d been six feet tall