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still felt a thrill of excitement just saying his name. Every night this week he'd come to her house,
appearing at the door around sunset, hands in pockets, wearing his jacket with the collar turned up.
They usually took a walk in the dusk, or sat on the porch, talking. Although nothing was said about it,
Elena knew it was Stefan's way of making sure they weren't alone together in private. Since the night
of the dance, he'd made sure of that. Protecting her honor, Elena thought wryly, and with a pang,
because she knew in her heart that there was more to it than that.
"He can live without you for one evening," said Bonnie callously. "If you get talking to him you'll
never get away, and I'd liketo get home in time for some kind of dinner."
"Hello, Mr. Shelby," said Elena to the janitor, who was still patiently waiting. To her surprise, he
closed one eye in a solemn wink at her. "Where's Meredith?" she added.
"Here," said a voice behind her, and Meredith appeared with a cardboard box of file folders and
note pads in her arms. "I've got the stuff from your locker."
"Is that all of you?" said Mr. Shelby. "All right, now, you gals leave the door shut and locked, you
hear? That way nobody can get in."
Bonnie, about to enter, pulled up short.
"You're sure there's nobody already in?" she said warily.
Elena gave her a push between the shoulder blades. "Hurry up," she mimicked unkindly. "I want to
get home in time for dinner."
"There's nobody inside," said Mr. Shelby, mouth twitching under his mustache. "But you gals yell if
you want anything. I'll be around."
The door slammed shut behind them with a curiously final sound.
"Work," said Meredith resignedly, and put the box on the floor.
Elena nodded, looking up and down the big empty room. Every year the Student Council held a
Haunted House as a fund-raiser. Elena had been on the decorating committee for the last two years,
along with Bonnie and Meredith, but it was different being chairman. She had to make decisions that
would affect everyone, and she couldn't even rely on what had been done in years past.
The Haunted House was usually set up in a lumberyard warehouse, but with the growing uneasiness
about town it had been decided that the school gym was safer. For Elena, it meant rethinking the
whole interior design, and with less than three weeks now until Halloween.
"It's actually pretty spooky here," said Meredith quietly. And there was something disturbing about
being in the big closed room, Elena thought. She found herself lowering her voice.
"Let's measure it first," she said. They moved down the room, their footsteps echoing hollowly.
"All right," said Elena when they had finished. "Let's get to work." She tried to shake off her feeling
of uneasiness, telling herself that it was ridiculous to feel unsettled in the school gym, with Bonnie
and Meredith beside her and an entire football team practicing not two hundred yards away.
The three of them sat on the bleachers with pens and notebooks in hand. Elena and Meredith
consulted the design sketches for previous years while Bonnie bit her pen and gazed around
thoughtfully.
"Well, here's the gym," said Meredith, making a quick sketch in her notebook. "And here's where the
people are going to have to come in. Now we could have the Bloody Corpse at the very end… By the
way, who's going to be the Bloody Corpse this year?"
"Coach Lyman, I think. He did a good job last year, and he helps keep the football guys in line."
Elena pointed to their sketch. "Okay, we'll partition this off and make it the Medieval Torture