The Awakening Page 0,44

Living Dead..."

"I think we should have druids," said Bonnie abruptly.

"Have what?" said Elena, and then, as Bonnie started to yell "droo-ids," she waved a quelling hand. "All right, all right, I remember. But why?"

"Because they're the ones who invented Halloween. Really. It started out as one of their holy days, when they would build fires and put out turnips with faces carved in them to keep evil spirits away. They believed it was the day when the line between the living and the dead was thinnest. And they were scary, Elena. They performed human sacrifices. We could sacrifice Coach Lyman."

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," said Meredith. "The Bloody Corpse could be a sacrifice. You know, on a stone altar, with a knife and pools of blood all around. And then when you get really close, he suddenly sits up."

"And gives you heart failure," said Elena, but she had to admit itwas a good idea, definitely scary. It made her feel a little sick just thinking about it. All that blood... but it was only Karo syrup, really.

The other girls had gone quiet, too. From the boys' locker next door, they could hear the sound of water running and lockers banging, and over that indistinct voices shouting.

"Practice is over," murmured Bonnie. "It must be dark outside."

"Yes, and Our Hero is getting all washed up," said Meredith, cocking an eyebrow at Elena. "Want to peek?"

"I wish," said Elena, only half jokingly. Somehow, indefinably, the atmosphere in the room had darkened. Just at the moment shedid wish she could see Stefan, could be with him.

"Have you heard anything more about Vickie Bennett?" she asked suddenly.

"Well," said Bonnie after a moment, "I did hear that her parents were getting her a psychiatrist."

"A shrink? Why?"

"Well... I guess they think that those things she told us were hallucinations or something. And I heard her nightmares are pretty bad."

"Oh," said Elena. The sounds from the boys' locker room were fading, and they heard an outside door slam. Hallucinations, she thought, hallucinations and nightmares. For some reason, she suddenly remembered that night in the graveyard, that night when Bonnie had sent them all running from something none of them could see.

"We'd better get back to business," said Meredith. Elena shook herself out of her reverie and nodded.

"We... we could have a graveyard," Bonnie said tentatively, as if she'd been reading Elena's thoughts. "In the Haunted House, I mean."

"No," said Elena sharply. "No, we'll just stick with what we have," she added in a calmer voice, and bent over her pad again.

Once again there was no sound but the soft scratching of pens and the rustle of paper.

"Good," said Elena at last. "Now we only need to measure for the different partitions. Somebody's going to have to get in behind the bleachers... What now?"

The lights in the gym had flickered and gone down to half power.

"Oh,no ," said Meredith, exasperated. The lights flickered again, went out, and returned dimly once more.

"I can't read a thing," said Elena, staring at what now seemed to be a featureless piece of white paper. She looked up at Bonnie and Meredith and saw two white blobs of faces.

"Something must be wrong with the emergency generator," said Meredith. "I'll get Mr. Shelby."

"Can't we just finish tomorrow?" Bonnie said plaintively. "Tomorrow's Saturday," said Elena. "And we were supposed to have this done last week."

"I'll get Shelby," said Meredith again. "Come on, Bonnie, you're going with me."

Elena began, "We could all go-" but Meredith interrupted.

"If we all go and we can't find him, then we can't get back in. Come on, Bonnie, it's only inside the school."

"But it'sdark there."

"It's dark everywhere; it's nighttime. Comeon; with two of us it'll be safe." She dragged an unwilling Bonnie to the door. "Elena, don't let anybody else in."

"As if you had to tell me," said Elena, letting them out and then watching them go a few paces down the hall. At the point at which they began to merge with the dimness, she stepped back inside and shut the door.

Well, this was a fine mess, as her mother used to say. Elena moved over to the cardboard box Meredith had brought and began stacking filing folders and notebooks back inside it. In this light she could see them only as vague shapes. There was no sound