The screams got louder.
“Oh, what is it!” cried Coco. “What—?”
Ollie’s watch beeped again; it was glowing a faint blue. The countdown stood at zero.
Behind them came achink, as of metal dragged along wood. Ollie thought she saw a pale patch, like a face, glimpsed between trees, then lost.Chink.But no, it couldn’t be—it just couldn’t...
Coco was breathing like someone trying not to scream. “I saw something moving. I saw it—just there.”
Crunch,went the footsteps.
“There!” cried Brian. “I saw a face.”
“It could be someone nice,” said Coco, but her voice was trembling.
“It’s not,” said Ollie. “A nice person—a nice person would call out or something.” She thought of scarecrows with trowel hands, and that thought was enough to send her onto her knees, scrabbling for the cleft between the rocks. She dove forward, found herself in a surprisingly roomy crawl space, and turned.
Up above, Coco really did scream. Brian shouted. “Coco!” Ollie cried. “Brian!” A hulking thing had come up behind them, walking on limbs that were too long and jointed in weird places. A hand—arake hand—gleamed in their shaking phone lights.
“Come on!” Ollie bellowed, backing up. Coco hurtledinto the cave, bowling Ollie over. Above them, Brian screamed. Coco flipped around at once and scrabbled back to the cave entrance. “Brian!”
Ollie had an impossible glimpse of Brian lying on the ground while the black-suited scarecrow bent down toward him, rake hand reaching, as though it meant to hook itself under Brian’s collar and drag him away. There were small stones in the mouth of the cave, gritty under Ollie’s hands. She groped for one. The stone bounced with apingoff the rake, and the sound was enough to jar Brian out of his shock. “Come on, Brian, come on!” cried Coco. Brian began crawling under the rocks, Ollie let fly another stone and hit the scarecrow right below the eye.
A nightmare face turned to Ollie: stitched-on snarl, eyes like two finger-sized holes. The rake reached out again. With a desperate heave, Brian got himself into the cave and they all scrambled toward the back, panting.
A huge, straw-smelling arm thrust itself into the hole. Coco’s breath sounded more like a sob. The three pressed themselves up against the back of the rock. The arm groped, almost touching Ollie’s ankle. She pulled it beneath herself. Her heartbeat shook her like a rabbit in an open field.
Then the arm withdrew.
The rustling footsteps faded. A silence fell.
After a moment, Coco and Ollie and Brian turned to look at each other.
“What,” said Coco, “inhellwas that?”
Brian began to giggle. Then he began to laugh.
“What,” snapped Ollie, still out of breath with fright, “isso funny?”
“Alice in Wonderland,” said Brian. “Remember? ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ asked Alice.”
“‘You must be,’” Ollie said, finishing the quotation slowly, “‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
Brian buried his face in his hands.
14
A FEW MINUTESpassed. Brian wasn’t laughing, and he wasn’t crying; he was doing a little of both. Coco awkwardly patted his arm. Ollie was too occupied with listening to whatever was outside the cave.HIDE, her watch still said.
Finally Brian fell silent, and for a moment the only sound was three people’s frightened breathing. Then Ollie said, “Listen.”
They all held their breath.
Faint but clear came the sound of feet in old leaves. “Maybe that’s help,” said Coco. “Maybe—”
“Hush,” said Brian. “It’s not. Help would be talking. Calling. No one is talking.”
“More scarecrows?” whispered Ollie.
