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"Bonnie?" she said. "Bonnie, what's wrong?"<br />
Bonnie was staring straight out into the graveyard, her lips parted, her eyes as wide and blank as the<br />
stone cherub's. Fear washed through Elena's stomach. "Bonnie, stop it. Stop it! It's not funny."<br />
Bonnie made no reply.<br />
"Bonnie!" said Meredith. She and Elena looked at each other, and suddenly Elena knew she had to<br />
get away. She whirled to start down the path, but a strange voice spoke behind her, and she jerked<br />
around.<br />
"Elena," the voice said. It wasn't Bonnie's voice, but it came from Bonnie's mouth. Pale in the<br />
darkness, Bonnie was still staring out into the graveyard. There was no expression on her face at all.<br />
"Elena," the voice said again, and added, as Bonnie's head turned toward her, "there's someone<br />
waiting out there for you."<br />
Elena never quite knew what happened in the next few minutes. Something seemed to move out<br />
among the dark humped shapes of the headstones, shifting and rising between them. Elena screamed<br />
and Meredith cried out, and then they were both running, and Bonnie was running with them,<br />
screaming, too.<br />
Elena pounded down the narrow path, stumbling on rocks and clumps of grass root. Bonnie was<br />
sobbing for breath behind her, and Meredith, calm and cynical Meredith, was panting wildly. There<br />
was a sudden thrashing and a shriek in an oak tree above them, and Elena found that she could run<br />
faster.<br />
"There's something behind us," cried Bonnie shrilly. "Oh, God, what's happening?"<br />
"Get to the bridge," gasped Elena through the fire in her lungs. She didn't know why, but she felt<br />
they had to make it there. "Don't stop, Bonnie! Don't look behind you!" She grabbed the other girl's<br />
sleeve and pulled her around.<br />
"I can't make it," Bonnie sobbed, clutching her side, her pace faltering.<br />
"Yes, you can," snarled Elena, grabbing Bonnie's sleeve again and forcing her to keep moving.<br />
"Come on. Come on!"<br />
She saw the silver gleam of water before them. And there was the clearing between the oak trees,<br />
and the bridge just beyond. Elena's legs were wobbling and her breath was whistling in her throat, but<br />
she wouldn't let herself lag behind. Now she could see the wooden planks of the footbridge. The<br />
bridge was twenty feet away from them, ten feet away, five.<br />
"We made it," panted Meredith, feet thundering on the wood.<br />
"Don't stop! Get to the other side!"<br />
The bridge creaked as they ran staggering across it, their steps echoing across the water. When she<br />
jumped onto packed dirt on the far shore, Elena let go of Bonnie's sleeve at last, and allowed her legs<br />
to stumble to a halt.<br />
Meredith was bent over, hands on thighs, deep-breathing. Bonnie was crying.<br />
"What was it? Oh, what was it?" she said. "Is it still coming?"<br />
"I thought you were the expert," Meredith said unsteadily. "For God's sake, Elena, let's get out of<br />
here."<br />
"No, it's all right now," Elena whispered. There were tears in her own eyes and she was shaking all<br />
over, but the hot breath at the back of her neck had gone. The river stretched between her and it, the<br />
waters a dark tumult. "It can't follow us here," she said.<br />
Meredith stared at her, then at the other shore with its clustered oak trees, then at Bonnie. She wet