The Initiation Page 0,45

feel it. She sensed it like a pressure on her skin, like a radiation of cold. There was something in her bedroom.

Her eyes were staring into the utter blackness, her body trembling with tension. Insane as it was, she had the wild thought that if she didn't move, didn't make a sound, it couldn't find her.

But she was wrong.

She heard a shuffling noise, a stealthy advancing. Then the unmistakable creak of a floorboard.

It was coming toward her.

Suddenly she could move. She drew in breath for a scream - and there was a rush in the darkness and something clapped over her mouth.

Instantly, everything changed. Before, all had been stillness, now all was dizzy motion. She was fighting. It didn't do any good; her arms were being caught and held. Something else had her feet.

She was being rolled over and over. Wrapped in the sheet. She couldn't move. Her arms were trapped in the material. She was trying to kick, but her feet were trapped too.

She felt herself being lifted. She couldn't scream; she was choking. Something was over her head, suffocating her. And the most terrible thing was the silence, the utter, continuing silence. Whatever had her was as noiseless as a ghost.

As a ghost... and she herself was now wrapped in a shroud. Wild thoughts careened in Cassie's head.

It was taking her out of her bedroom. Taking her downstairs - out of the house. It was taking her outside to bury her.

She had envied Kori - now she was going to join her. It was going to put her in the ground - or in the sea. Frantic, she tried to thrash, but the restraining material was too tight.

She had never been so frightened.

In time, though, the violence of her first panic exhausted itself. It was like fighting against a strait jacket; her struggles only served to tire her out. And overheat her. She was smothering and she was so hot... if only she could breathe...

Panting, Cassie felt her body go limp. For the next few minutes all her concentration was devoted to getting enough air. Then, slowly, she began to think again.

She was being carried by more than one person. That was certain. Her arms and legs were being restrained not only by the winding material of the sheet, but by hands.

Human hands? Or... images flooded her mind. Images out of horror movies. Skeletal hands barely covered by withered flesh. Dusky hands with nail beds the cyanotic blue of death. Mutilated hands, hands from the grave...

Oh, God, please... I'll lose my mind. Please make it stop or I'll die. I'll die of terror. Nobody can be this frightened and live.

But it wasn't so easy just to die after all. It didn't stop, and she went on living. It was like a nightmare, but Cassie knew she was not asleep. She could pray all she wanted, but she wouldn't wake up.

Then everything stopped.

She was no longer being carried; she was being held. Then tilted... her legs kicked and touched ground. She was being set on her feet. The sheet was unwinding; she felt a breeze on her legs, and her nightgown hem flapping against them. Her arms were free.

Weakly she grabbed out, and her wrists were caught and held behind her. She still couldn't see. Something was over her head, some kind of hood. It was hot inside, and she was breathing her own carbon dioxide. She swayed, wanting to kick, to fight again, and knowing she didn't have the strength.

Then, from directly behind her, she heard a sound that changed everything.

It was a chuckle.

Slow and rich. Amused. But with a grim edge to it.

Unmistakable.

Faye.

Cassie thought she had been frightened before. She'd imagined ghosts, the living dead come to drag her back into the ground with them. But all those wild and supernatural fears were nothing compared to the sheer terror she felt now.

In one blinding instant she put it all together. Faye had killed Kori. The way she was going to kill Cassie now.

"Walk," Faye said, and Cassie felt a push in the center of her back. Her hands had been tied together behind her. She staggered and then took a step. "Straight ahead," Faye said.

Cassie staggered another step, and an arm steadied her. It came from the side. Faye wasn't alone, then. Well, of course not; she couldn't have carried Cassie by herself.

Cassie had never realized how important it was to see. It was terrifying to be made to walk like this, on and on into nothingness.