She was terrified, rooted to the ground, and try as she might she couldn't tear her eyes from those wet streaks on the fence.  She stood there for what seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds, unable to twitch.  She was too frightened even to react when a shadowy form approached the fence from the opposite side with something in its hand.  Her mind was racing.  Wasn't old Mr. Harris supposed to be in a mental hospital?  They wouldn't have let him out if he killed his whole family, would they?  Didn't that property belong to some other family now anyway?       Of course, spoke that same, quiet, mocking voice again.  It probably went to another branch of his family.  But you know, family's family.  Look what he did to his wife and kids.  Why shouldn't he start on his nieces and nephews?        The laughter had halted and become silence.  Out of that silence came a single scream, cut off as sharply as the laughter.  That scream gave her the impetus she needed.  Spinning around just before the approaching shadow could come into full view, she sprinted back down the path the way she'd come.       I'm gonna die.  I'm gonna die.  He saw me, he's coming, and I'm gonna die.       Her thoughts kept repeating the same three sentences over and over again.  Though she ran with only the sound of her passage through the brush, in her mind she was shrieking at the top of her lungs.  She could swear she heard him close behind her, closing the gap between them, carrying his saw.  Sure in the knowledge that if she paused to so much as breathe she would be dead in the next heartbeat, she raced along the path, not watching where she was going, blinded by tears.  In panic she careened full tilt through the woods, bumping into trees right and left, tripping uncounted times and just managing to regain her footing each time in terror completely beyond thought.       Her progress was finally halted by a tree directly in her path.  As she crashed into it, she barely had time to think, It's over; I'm dead, before falling unconscious to the dirt.       When she came to, it was to a roaring silence and blood caked on her forehead.  In pain and gratitudfe for her life, she hugged the tree as if it were her mother, crying in great heaving sons for release from this nightmare.  Every pain and injustice she'd suffered since her birth was released in that crying.  She cried as she hadn't since she was very small, and her angry, despairing sobs almost tore her apart as if to make up for all the lost time.  She cried there with her face pressed against the cold bark of the tree for a very, very long time.       When she'd cried herself out, she pulled herself up off the ground with the help of a low branch and chose another random path to follow.  It led her through mud and over fallen trees, but no matter what the obstacle she pushed on.  With the release of all that pent up emotion, she was in a better mood than she'd been in since this whole thing had begun.       The farthest you can ever be into the woods is halfway, she kept reminding herself.  I must be at leat halfway out.       Seconds, minutes, or hours later, she couldn't tell, she saw in the distance a bright spot in the darkness.  She approached cautiously, determined not to be caught unawares again.  The closer she got the more certain she was that the light was a fire.  Not a forest fire, but some other type of fire.  Yellow light danced on the leaves overhead, and the air grew more hazy as she drew closer to the source.  When she was just close enough to see what was going on in the clearing ahead, she stopped, anxious to remain in the shadows, unseen.  If anythingm the scene before her was more hellish than she could ever have imagined.       It was the woodpile, of course, but transformed into a bonfire.  The flames leapt more than fifteen feet in the air, consuming the old, dry wood as if it had no substance.  The fire looked like a monster: some awful, hungry devouring thing dancing and jumping in anticipation of a grat feast that would perhaps placate it.  It's hungry, she thought, These people don't know what they've trapped here.  When she actually took a closer look through the searing heat and smoke at the twenty or so people gathered around the flames, however, she wasn't so sure.

When she actually took a closer look through the searing heat and smoke at the twenty or so people gathered around the flames, however, she wasn't so sure.      The stench of sweat and alcohol hung heavy in the air as blurrily seen figures cavorted drunkenly in front of the fire.  People she only half recognized from town here were alien creatures dancing in a swirling miasma of gleeful, willful evil.  Unsure if she was seeing real people or demons just abandoning their disguises, Chelly looked wildly about to find the victim.  There must be a victim.  That roaring flame's hunger had to be satisfied, even Chelly could see that, and those...things, as they laughed and dumped beer over their heads or fell limply to the ground were quickening the tempo, heading toward some climax.  Covering her ears to block out the sound, Chelly tried to see through the sparks as they rose defiantly toward the sky.  She couldn't leave someone there to burn.

Suddenly there was movement not three feet from where she stood.  In the darkness and the glare of the fire she had missed one couple who had distanced themselves from the blaze, and now the girl was screaming and shouting for the others.  In less than a second every alcohol-bleared gaze was locked on Chelly where she stood shadowed by the trees.       The sudden silence crawled with menace.  Chelly stood for another moment, paralyzed with fear.  SHe knew with absolute certainty that another of them stood just behind her, his hands poised above her shoulders, ready to clamp down as soon as she so much as flinched.  She could feel their weight pressing down on the air behind her back.       The hell with it, she rashly decided.  Better to faint or die of fright than wait to be given to the fire.       Ducking and pivoting at the same time, she broke half-heartedly into a run.  She felt the brief sensation of a hand (or a branch) catch at her hair and scrape along her back, and then she was running freely away from that madness, escaping death for a second time that night.  There was no sprinting this time, no frenzied thoughts, no headlong rush into the blackness.  There was in fact no thought at all in Chelly's head.  Exhaustion had finally won out over determination.  She kept on going, following whatever path happened to be in front of her, stumbling over every root and pebble not because she wished to go on, but because it would have required an act of will to stop.