The light shone in Ray's face, the bright white halogen light.

"What's going on?" Josh asked, in a high-pitched, nervous voice. "Amanda -- what's happening?"

Ray cried out and dropped back to the ground. "Turn that off! Turn it off!" he screeched, his voice a shrill whisper, like wind through a broken windowpane.

I could breathe again. As I stared into the light, I struggled to stop my heart from pounding so hard.

Ray moved his arms to shield himself from the light. But I could see what was happening to him. The light had already done its damage.

And then, suddenly, light broke through the darkness.

But Josh held the bright beam of light on Ray. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

Ray's skin seemed to be melting. His whole face sagged, then fell, dropping off his skull.

I stared into the circle of white light, unable to look away, as Ray's skin folded and drooped and melted away. As the bone underneath was revealed, his eyeballs rolled out of their sockets and fell silently to the ground.

Josh, frozen in horror, somehow held the bright light steady, and we both stared at the grinning skull, its dark craters staring back at us.

"Oh!" I shrieked as Ray took a step toward me.

"Come on!" Josh shouted. "Amanda -- come on!" He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me away.

I jumped aside as he crumpled to the ground. And gasped as his skull hit the top of the marble gravestone, and cracked open with a sickening splat.

"They -- they won't believe it!" Josh said, as we reached the street. We kept running, our sneakers thudding hard against the pavement. "I'm not sure I believe it myself!"

Then, before I even realized it, I was running, running beside Josh as fast as I could down the long row of graves toward the street. The light flashed against the blur of gravestones as we ran, slipping on the soft, dew-covered grass, gasping in the still, hot air.

But I couldn't stop staring down at Ray, now a pile of bones inside a puddle of crumpled clothes.

But then I realized that Ray wasn't walking. He was falling.

"Amanda, come on!"

"We've got to tell Mom and Dad. Got to get away from here!" I cried.

"They've got to believe us!" I told him. "If they don't, we'll drag them out of that house."

"The potluck party," Josh suddenly remembered. "Can they still be at that party?"

Silence.

And now it was time to get out.

We searched the house. They weren't home.

Please be here, I thought, my heart racing, the pain in my side still sharp. Please be here.

The white beam of light pointed the way as we ran through the dark, silent streets. There were no streetlights, no lights on in the windows of the houses we passed, no car headlights.

We ran into the living room. The lights were all off.

"Mom? Dad? Are you here?"

Such a dark world we had entered.

I had a sharp pain in my side as we reached home. But I forced myself to keep running, up the gravel driveway with its thick blanket of dead leaves, and onto the front porch.

We ran the rest of the way home. I kept looking back to see if we were being followed. But I didn't see anyone. The neighborhood was still and empty.

I pushed open the door and both Josh and I started to scream. "Mom! Dad! Where are you?"

We were standing in the living room, both of us breathing hard. The pain in my side had let up just a bit. I had turned on all the lights, but the room still felt gloomy and menacing.

What if something has happened to them?

"Where did they go? Did they leave a number?" Josh was already on his way to the kitchen.

Nothing. The pad was blank.

"I don't know," I said, pressing my hot forehead against the cool glass. "I just don't know what to do. I want them to be home. I want them here so we can all leave."

"We've got to find them!" Josh cried. He sounded very frightened. His wide eyes reflected his fear. "We have to get away from here."

Besides, he'd probably thought of that, too.

"They should be home by now," I said, my voice shaky and weak.

"What's your hurry?" a girl's voice said from behind me.

That's what I started to say. But I caught myself just in time. I didn't want to scare Josh any more than he was already.

I followed him, turning on lights as we went. We went right to the memo pad on the counter where Mom and Dad always leave us notes.

I glanced at the clock on the mantel. Nearly two in the morning.

"Should we call the police?" he asked, as we walked back to the living room and peered out the front window into the darkness.

And another kid, Jerry Franklin -- another dead kid -- appeared by the fireplace. And I saw the girl with short black hair, the one I had seen on the stairs, move beside me by the curtains.

"Huh?" I cried.

They were all smiling, their eyes glowing dully in the dim light, all moving in on Josh and me.

"But -- you're dead!" I blurted out.

"What do you want!" I screamed in a voice I didn't even recognize. "What are you going to do?"

Karen Somerset was standing in the center of the room, her arms crossed over her chest.

The others started to laugh, crackling, dry laughs, as they all closed in on Josh and me.

"We used to live in your house," Karen said softly.

She smiled, a sad smile, a bitter smile.

"We used to live in your house," George said.

And then two more kids stepped in from the hallway. One of them clicked off the lights. "Too bright in here," he said. They moved next to Karen.

"And now, guess what?" Jerry added. "Now we're dead in your house!"

Josh and I both cried out and spun around.