"Right. That was the place back there, where we saw it. It just suddenly appeared in the middle of the - hey!"
"Go right! Righthere !"
"Just like that! It was just like that!"
The Jaguar screeched almost to a stop, turning right, not into a ditch but into a small lane that no one would notice unless they were looking directly at it.
When the car stopped, they both stared up the lane, breathing hard. Neither had to ask whether the other had seen a reddish creature zip across the road, bigger than a fox but smaller than a wolf.
They looked up at the narrow lane.
"The million-dollar question: should we go in?" Matt asked.
"NoKEEP OUT signs - and hardly any houses on this side of the wood. Across the street and down a way there's the Dunstans'."
"So we go in?"
"We go in. Just go slowly. It's later than I thought."
Meredith, of course, was the one to calm down first. "Allright , Bonnie," she said. "Stop it! Now! It's not going to do any good here!"
Bonnie didn't think shecould stop it. But Meredith had that special look in her dark eyes; the one that meant she was serious. The look she'd had before laying Caroline out on Stefan's floor.
Bonnie made a supreme effort and found that somehow she was able to hold in the next shriek. She looked dumbly at Meredith, feeling her own body shake.
"Good. Good, Bonnie. Now." Meredith swallowed. "Pulling doesn't do any good, either. So I'm going to try...peeling her fingers off. If anything happens to me; if I get - pulled under the bed or anything, then yourun , Bonnie. And if you can't run, then you call Elena and Matt. You call until you get an answer."
Bonnie managed something almost heroic then. She refused to picture Meredith being pulled under the bed. She wouldn't let herself imagine how that would look as Meredith, struggling, disappeared, or how she would feel, all alone, after that. They'd both left their purses with their mobile phones in the entryway to carry Mrs. Forbes, so Meredith wasn't saying to call them in any normal sense. She meant Call them.
A sudden radical burst of indignation swept through Bonnie. Why did girls carry purses anyway? Even the efficient, reliable Meredith often did it. Of course Meredith's purses were usually designer handbags that enhanced her outfits and were full of useful things like small notebooks and keychain flashlights, but still...a boy would have his mobile phone in his pocket.
From now on, I'm wearing a waist pouch, Bonnie thought, feeling as if she were raising a rebel flag for girls everywhere, and for just a moment also feeling her panic recede.
Then she saw Meredith stooping, a hunched figure in the dim light, and at the same moment she felt the grip on her own ankle tighten. Despite herself she glanced down, and saw the outline of Caroline's tanned fingers and long bronze nails against the creamy white of the rug.
Panic burst out in her again, full force. She made a choked sound that was a strangled scream, and to her own astonishment she spontaneously hit trance and began to Call.
It wasn't the fact that she was Calling that surprised her. It was what she was saying.
Damon! Damon! We're trapped at Caroline's house and she's gone crazy! Help!
It flowed out of her like an underwater well that had been suddenly tapped, releasing a geyser.
Damon, she's got me by the ankle - and she won't let go! If she pulls Meredith under, I don't know what I'll do! Help me!
Vaguely, because the trance was good and deep, she heard Meredith say, "Ah-hah! It feels like fingers, but actually it's a vine. It must be one of those tentacles that Matt told us about. I'm - trying - to break one of the loops - off..."
All at once there was a rustling from under the bed. And not just from one place, either, but a massive whipping and shaking that actually bounced the mattress up and down, even with poor little Mrs. Forbes on it.
There must be dozens of those insects under there.
Damon, it's thosethings! Lots of them. Oh, God, I think I'm going to faint. And if I faint - and if Caroline pulls me under...Oh, please come and help!
"Damn!" Meredith was saying. "I don't know how Matt managed to do this. It's too tight, and - and I think there's more than one tentacle here."
It's all over,Bonnie sent in quiet conclusion, feeling herself start to