Carl isn't mine, but I'm borrowing him for this story.

Cork in the Bottle

By SpunSilk

I'm thirsty.

I groaned the first time that simple thought flashed through my mind. The thought had to come up eventually, I grumbled.

Think of something else, I commanded myself. I wrapped my arms around my chest tightly and shifted my position. I glanced up once more, and scowled. The dim light gave only the most general of impressions of the opening at the top of the chamber. I've researched many a newspaper story in my day, and thanks to this vast general knowledge on a plethora of subjects, I know this; that the average human body can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three months without food.

I was doing fine on the oxygen-thing.

It seemed, however, that starving to death was a issue I would not be having to deal with. I took in a long breath, and let it out even longer.

I estimated it was just passed midnight. Not having slept at all, I was fairly confident of my guess. I fumed in frustration. All the times I had faced threats, all the times I had looked death in the eye... Terrifying, yes, but I had been ready to go down swinging. Doing... something; trying for Pete's sake. Not sitting idly around waiting for the damned Grim Reaper. Frustration had been everything I felt while I lay on the unforgiving stone.

–I'm thirsty–

But now, there was this new sensation. This quiet voice that insisted on my attention. I pushed it down again.

It had all been going so well. Back 20 hours ago when I had led the troll on a merry chase through the labyrinth of tunnels that was his home and lair, it had all been going so well. The wit and cunning of Carl Kolchak had led the creature to this very dead-end chamber at the precise moment when the first shaft of morning sunlight had broken over the lip of that opening above, and caught the fiend – distracted as he was in the delight of finally having cornered me – in the light of the morning sun. Ha! He never knew what hit him. He turned into stone right there in the passageway, gazing up with a look of amazement on his face. I punched the air with victory and celebration.

Sadly, the wit and cunning of Carl Kolchak had not been sufficient to actually manage to position myself on the other side of the troll before he did this turning to stone, thus trapping me like a firefly in a Mason jar, with the troll himself playing the part of cork in the bottle-neck. Ah. What now?

I had spent the first full day of daylight trying to somehow slip past him – or over him or under him – in the narrow gap that was left (all of which was very much not happening), after that, I'd spent time yelling myself hoarse towards the opening, some 200 feet up, hoping that someone might happen along the remote stretch of the road (that was actually probably two thirds of a mile from this point) and hear my pitiful calls over the sound of the traffic. Next I had tried breaking bits of him off, with other rocks, in an attempt to try to chip my way larger. Here's news: turned trolls are granite.

Definitely a bad day to be against cell phones on principle.

So I there lay, not sleeping, trying to retain my strength for the daylight tomorrow.

I spent that next morning in some amusing, but completely futile (and in one case near-fatal) attempts to climb up towards the opening. I was remembering why I hated caves.

Thirsty–

My prison was not cold. If anything, it was too warm. I wiped my brow and felt the moisture of my own sweat there. Stop that, I chided my skin. What a waste! You're going to need that later on. I loosened my tie even further. My thirst was an annoying, constant buzzing in the background of my thoughts.

That day passed in slow motion. I tried chipping at the native rock around the troll, but found it to be as hard as he was. I was tired, hot and irritable. I sat and watched the small patch of sun move lazily over the face of the stone troll through out the morning, it seemed pleased with the work it had wrought.

It was starting to dawn on me that this situation was serious. Too serious. My thirst complained loudly by now.

I must have dozed off, can't say for how long. While I was gone, I dreamed of water, water splashing down on my thankful body. I was in the tiny shower in my room, fully clothed, and feeling the droplets spray down on me with a thrill of real joy. But as I tried to catch the water stream from the shower-head in my mouth, it jumped suddenly sideways in midstream to avoid me. When I woke with a start it was because my throat was parched and painful.

I shook off the momentary confusion of the dream and tried to rally my wits. My wits have pulled me out of many a sticky spot before, but thinking in the face of the thirst was getting more challenging. Granted, God alone knows what chunks of my brain had already crossed the River Styx since I started... well... since I started therapeutic alcohol consumption... since just after Vegas... but we work with what we have. No regrets; I'd had to cope.

–Thirst –

Now it was getting difficult to ignore. I swallowed, but like a snake devouring its own tail, that was not sustainable. Visions of water started flashing through my brain; my subconscious trying to get my attention by any way it could, and get my sorry self to move and organize it some water. Water! Visions of it were thrown at me; water in a glass with condensation dripping down the outside, water springing from a drinking fountain complete with the sound of it hitting the sink and wastefully slipping down the drain, glistening drops dripping temptingly off icicles in the sun during the Spring in Chicago, a cold frosty beer –oooh! That one hurt.

My imagination tormented me with the memory of how drink had felt moving across my tongue. I had never in my life fully noticed the seduction, the raw pleasure of having it on my lips. How could I have been so blind? How could I possibly have carried on a conversation with other guys at the table– actually thought about and discussed other topics – and let the thrilling raw pleasure of cool, plentiful liquid in the mouth be noted by my brain as just a passing footnote to the evening? I had delighted in the buzz, and actually ignored the blessed amber liquid ( – I'm thirsty – ) that provided it. I groaned.

I rose and paced a bit, but that did not make me feel any better, and actually winded me. I returned to the floor, discouraged. Hunger was there too, of course, but hunger was a pleasant little ditty compared to the cacophony of the thirst that seemed to beat on my very eardrums. The daylight was fading, and my strength with it. I closed my eyes and tried to think through the haze of thirst that surrounded me. After a long stretch of this, I picked up my recorder.

"Okay, Tony..." I started, my voice sounding out of place in the hollow chamber. I searched for words, but only with limited success. Words are my business; I should be able to gather a few words, here! I forced my thoughts to congeal. "I don't see this ending well. I don't see a way out. I really hope it's not you who has to be the one to discover Desiccated Carl... but I guess I don't have a say in that." I stopped the recorder, and sat waiting until the next thought congealed. I pressed the button again. "Nah, it'll probably be some archeologist centuries in the future who won't even know what to do with a digital recorder of our era, so why am I wasting my breath?" I shut off the device and stared into space for a while longer. I turned it back on. "When you do find this, take a close look at what's blocking the passage out of here, and then try to tell me I imagine these things! Ha!

"Tony, you and I both know our disagreement about this story is over. Finito, Antonio: it prints! It has to print! Anybody with an IQ above room temperature will tell you the same! I got you pictures of the thing before, during, and after! It's all here, everything! Print it, Vincenzo, do it. –And above the fold too, or I'll haunt you. I swear I will, and you know I'm good for that threat..."

That last bit of enthusiasm winded me again. I contemplated, then spoke more gently. "Don't feel bad, Tony. I know. My Grandad used to tell me often that he would 'rather be wrong than dead-right' but, well..." my voice trailed off and my eyes unfocused. "It is what it is."

I tapped the off button. "At least the fatal accidents off that damned bridge will end," I said to myself, not to the recorder. I sat on the floor, my tie now history, and my suit-coat hung unceremoniously on the amazed granite nose of the troll.

I'm thirsty...

Any other loose ends? Not a lot. I started out this life with nothing at all –– and through effective actions on my part, still have most of it left. After a number of minutes, I started the device again, "I, Carl Kolchak, being of sound mind and body do bequeath my Mustang to Miss Emily Cowles." I paused. "Now, Emily Honey; no drag racing, promise?" The mental image brought a brief smile to my face, but then it faded. I stared for a long time into the rock in front of me in silence. Finally I noticed the recorder was still listening, and I shut it off.

My brain was getting frantic with me. My thoughts stumbled along, quite literally falling over the urgings and commands to attend to getting to water. I guess my subconscious hadn't gotten the memo about the walls around me. These commands lay littering the path of my thought-scape. It was getting harder and harder to pick my thoughts up after each stumble.

I faded in and out of consciousness through that night. When I woke, at I'm not sure what time of the morning, my tongue was swollen, my mouth felt like it held school paste, and I felt feverish. The lack of water was playing the bongo drums with my brain chemistry. Where once the thirst was just a stumbling block, now it was a road block, I couldn't see straight for the Want in front of me. I thought I saw myself as an incredible oak tree, straining for the water-table that flowed just, just outside my deep reach, while scores of people tread unconcerned across my exposed roots on the surface of the ground. I pictured my body covered over in a deep snow-bank in Chicago, cold but hot; melting the snow around me, fast, to water – that then flowed away from me before I could capture it. It was then I realized I was shivering. ––Thirst––

My whole focus was on the thirst, it held me, it distorted me, it was squeezing the life out of me. It made me two-dimensional; the thirst in one direction, and the yearning for water in the other – this was all that I was made of. A kind of madness slid in from the sides.

"Well, now!" came a thickly accented voice out of the silence. "What have we here?" I looked up groggily and saw a pair of feet in front of my face. This made no sense, and my poor half-mummified mind puzzled on it. "Do you now feel The Thirst yourself?" a dark chuckle sounded, "Maybe you'll be less quick to judge another creature." I gave up trying to make sense of the feet being in front of me and let my amazed eyes follow the legs upward to see – the contorted grimace of Janos Skorzeny standing a few paces in front of me. My mouth fell open, but no sound came out. The gaunt figure came a step closer, delighting in my apparent discomfort. "What would you do to satisfy that Thirst? Heh? Answer me."

My mind switched into overdrive as I tried to puzzle-out the situation. Moving like lead, I slowly rose and faced him. Once I was upright I stared at him for long moments. I finally pried my tongue off the roof of my mouth to speak. "You're not really here..." I informed him in slow motion, pointing my finger accusingly. "You can't be. You're dead."

"I was dead back in Las Vegas, too," an ironic smile played on his too-thin lips.

"You know what I mean!" I slurred. "I put an end to you."

"Oh, you mean this? That's true." he pulled his cloak back, revealing the stake sunk deep into his chest. My legs almost buckled as the horror of that fateful morning came rushing back to me. I was more than two dimensions; I had a past. I had defeated... defeated...

My thoughts floundered in the face of my Thirst. None of this made sense. He replaced his cloak. "You're not here." I repeated, as much for my benefit as for his. "This is just an effect of the fever. My... thirst–" I had a hard time even speaking the word, so large was its presence in the chamber "–brought you up. You are a figment of my imagination!"

–I'm thirsty–

He pressed, "Answer my question: What would you do to answer the Thirst? This Thirst that fills your whole mind – what would you do to satisfy it?" A self-satisfied smile grew on his face. "We are not so different, you and I, as you once believed back in Las Vegas. Examine yourself honestly, and you'll find you're a man of no stronger character than myself."

I stared at him like a dumb fish. "That can't be right," I answered nervously.

"Study your Thirst. Know it! See how weak is your identity in the face of it!"

"You killed to satisfy yours," I accused. "That was wrong. Life is precious."

"Mmmm," he conceded. "Precious. But is someone else's life more precious than – your own?" his black eyes caught me in a penetrating stare. I swallowed – a painful and futile exercise – but did not answer him. "Every creature on the earth aims for survival, no matter what the means. This is what makes us animals." he stated in a voice as cold and hard as the stone around us.

My mind flailed to prove him wrong. I saw the temptation he spoke of, it was huge in front of my eyes. If someone in front of me held...water... I closed my eyes in an attempt to shut out the thought.

"What would you do to answer the Thirst?" he goaded me. "What deeds are you capable of, Mr. Self-Righteousness?" He watched me closely. "Would you not do the same as I?"

My thirst-twisted mind spun its wheels on his question. What was I capable of doing if obtaining water itself were in the exchange? What would I do? But even with the pain of my throat, the distraction of my Need, a sort of... isolating calm settled over me. In the middle of so much I didn't know or didn't understand; this was something I was sure of. "No." I said clearly, realizing the truth of what I was saying. "You're wrong. I would not take human life. Not even to get water. No."

"You lie!" he snarled, but he knew it was true, because I knew.

"I don't lie. I would not kill, not even to live. That's the difference between us." I answered him honestly, suddenly more comfortable with myself and my state, suddenly more comfortable inside my own skin. I knew myself, really knew myself; and it was a great relief.

He lunged at me in anger, and I fell backwards. I was not fit for a fight – if my hunch were wrong and he turned out to be solid after all. But he vanished instead of laying hands on me. I landed hard anyway. It had been my fever... playing tricks on me...

I lay recovering from the ordeal, my heart beating hard in a valiant attempt to pump its thick blood. I wasn't two-dimensional; I was fully human. I could see and cherish human life – even another's, even when mine was in danger of snuffing out. And that made me different from the animals. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the isolating calm.

Two-dimensional? I looked down at myself. My shirt was off - when had I managed that? – and my body had shrunk to surprising thinness. Near a quarter of my body bulk was simply missing, and my grayish skin hung oddly loose. My fever assured me I could become two-dimensional with some effort, and flutter in the breeze like a flag. Another thought flashed through my head. Maybe, as a 2D, I could just slip through the gap...

"Slip" is too generous a word for what I did. "Sliding across a grater bare-chested" is more apt, a slow and uncomfortable procedure. But in the end, only the result counted. I landed on the floor on the correct side of the stone troll with an bloodied chest and an undignified thump. I didn't care a wit about 'undignified'. After resting a few minutes in giddy, if exhausted, delight I got to my feet and started picking my way out. "So sorry, Emily, change of plans," I chuckled to myself. "No sports-car for you, Honey."

I moved slowly, but with renewed clarity and purpose. "Not yet anyway."