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