“I’ll tell you what,” Jeff said. “If you can tell me where that cave is, then I’ll believe the rest of it.”
Elizabeth looked at him petulantly and tried to figure out how to convince him.
“Well, she said nervously.” There’s a place.
Sarah turned from the window and stared vacantly across the room at Elizabeth. Neither Elizabeth nor Jeff seemed aware that she was there.
“What kind of place?” Jeff said, disbelief filling his voice.
“A—a secret place,” Elizabeth said.
Sarah began screaming. The first high-pitched wail tore out of her throat as she charged across the room. Her face contorted, she grabbed the Ouija board and flung it at the window. It shattered the glass, then clattered down onto the roof of the porch.
Jeff leaped to his feet and stared at Sarah, who was running wildly around the room, as if she was looking for something. Suddenly she bolted for the door, flung it open, and disappeared into the hall. Jeff, his face pale, looked helplessly at Elizabeth, but Elizabeth was unruffled. She went to the window, opened it, and picked the Ouija board from among the splinters of glass in which it lay, brushing her finger against one of the fragments accidentally as she did. Carefully she sucked at the wound after making sure it didn’t have any glass in it. When she was finished she turned back to Jeff and smiled. “It’s all right,” she said. “It happens all the time. Don’t worry, she’ll be all right.”
As Sarah’s first scream resounded through the house, Barbara Stevens dropped her cards, and her hands flew to her mouth.
“My God,” she said. “Something’s happened to the children.” She was halfway out of her chair before Rose could stop her.
“It’s Sarah,” Rose said. “It’s all right. It happens every now and then, and I know it’s awful, but please, just sit still.”
Barbara sank uncertainly back into her chair, her face pale, and Carl Stevens sat as if rooted to his seat as the screams built in intensity. And then they heard the pounding of feet coming down the stairs.
The door of the living room flew open, and the room was immediately vibrating with the agonized screams of the hysterical child. Sarah looked around wildly, her eyes seeming to be searching for something but seeing nothing, and then she was across the room, charging toward the French doors, her arms outstretched.
She hit the doors full force, and her hands struck the wood frames of the panes rather than the glass itself. The doors buckled under the strain and flew open, banging back against the walls, shattering the panes. Sarah was already across the porch.
“Jack,” Rose cried out. “Stop her! Hurry!”
Jack was already on his feet, and as the Stevenses looked on in horror, he bolted across the room and through the doors. They heard Sarah’s screams begin to fade as she raced into the field, and watched in fascination as Jack chased her. In her hysteria Sarah moved unnaturally fast, and the three people in the living room saw that she was almost outrunning her father. She was heading toward the woods.
In the sudden silence of the house, Rose moved to the French doors to watch the pursuit Upstairs, directly above her, Elizabeth and Jeff also watched the activity in the field, which, in the grayness of the day and the slight drizzle, seemed to be some manic form of tag. No one spoke, and time almost seemed to stop as Jack Conger tried to catch up with his fleeing daughter.
Jack felt the rain in his face as he leaped the five steps from the porch and dashed into the field. He could see Sarah ahead of him, her small legs pumping as she charged headlong for the forest. He had thought he would have no trouble catching her, but as she maintained the distance between them Dr. Belter’s words came back to him and he realized that her body was working on adrenalin, not strength. He wondered how long she could hold her pace.
She began slowing perceptibly when she was a little more than halfway across the field. She ran straight as an arrow, as if she had a spot picked out and was heading for it. As he chased her Jack felt his feet slip on the wet grass, and twice he stumbled. Sarah did not, and each time Jack lost his footing she widened the gap again.
And then, finally, she began to falter, and Jack could feel that the