October- "okay"

"Okay," said Zach, "positions?"

"I'm at the foot of the bed, against the wall," answered Nick.

"Head of bed, wardrobe," said Mike.

"Keep talking Mike, I'm coming over. Marco!" said Zach. "This is a really lousy time to play that game, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah," said Mike wryly. "Polo!"

"Eh?" said Nick.

"Marco?" said Zach. "It's a kiddie game, sort of like hide and seek," he explained to Nick.

"Except not," added Mike. "Stop walking, Zach, before you walk into ME."

"Will do," said Zach, before walking into the bed right next to Mike. He found the girl's head, then the thermometer, and tried to read it in the dim yet very green light of his watch. "I can really do with some light here...."

"Actually..." said Nick, and opened his laptop. In the sudden pale light Mike and Zach stared at him, looking slightly annoyed and, in this case, blue from the light of his desktop background.

"You had this all along," said Mike. "And we had to move the furniture around in the dark?"

"At least I remembered," mumbled Nick a little guiltily. His laptop was emitting beeping sounds, as if it was agreeing, except that wasn't it because a moment later the laptop turned itself off.

"Nick, did you rememember to recharge the batteries?" asked Zach mildly.

"Uh, no?" said Nick. "Mike, stop glaring at me."

"How do you even know I'm glaring at you? You can't even see me!" yelled Mike.

"Well I can FEEL you glaring," answered Nick.

"Can you FEEL how much I want to punch you right now," asked Mike.

"I'm getting a pretty good estimate," muttered Zach, carefully edging away from where he saw Mike last.

"Shut up," sighed Mike.

"Yessir," agreed Mike cheerfully. "Guess what, though?"

"What?" asked Mike and Nick at the same time.

"You're suppose to guess," said Zach, mischieviously.

"Just tell it already!" growled Mike.

"Fine. Her temperature's done to a hundred. I saw it before Nick's computer sputtered out." There was no mistakening for the good cheer in his voice. "I'm going to move out the cans now, the towels should be cold enough and we don't want her to get any frostbites."

"Right. You do that," said Mike. He leaned back agains the wardrobe and crossed his arms. "So, Nick, what's up?" He asked over the faint sounds of clinking aluminum cans.

"Not much," answered Nick. He was just about to say how thing'd calmed down a bit when there came a thunderous crashing sound outside.

"What was that?" yelped Zach.

Nick, being the closest to the window, peered out. Not that there was much that he could see, since all the lights outside were out too, but there definitely seemed to be something wrong with the shadows outside. Or rather, there seemed to be a certain shadow missing. "I think a tree just tipped over."

"From what?" demanded Mike. The rest of his words were cut off by the sound of soda cans crashing to the floor. It was pure luck that Nick's soda cans held and the soda stayed where they were suppose to stay.

"Zach?" asked Nick.

"Do either you or your roommate have a pet hidden away somewhere in the room?" asked Zach with a strained calmness. "Something just brushed against me, and it was moving pretty fast too.