“Look!” gasped Coco, pointing. Ollie followed her finger.
The first scarecrow was gone.
“I’m scared,” whispered Coco. “I’mreallyscared.”
A stick cracked quite nearby.
“Coco, hush,” said Ollie. “Be still.”
“It wasn’t me,” Coco replied. A pause. Then she said, in a trembling voice, “We should have stayed on the bus.” She was turning in circles like a scared puppy. “Which way? I can’t remember. Which way is the bus?”
“Duh,” said Brian, and his voice was thin with fright. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. We should havestayed on the bus. That’s what they tell you to do when you’re lost—stay in one place. Until they come help you.”
Ollie wondered if Brian was right. Better the bus than alone in the forest with—with... Another stick cracked somewhere out in the darkness. Then another, louder. Closer. Their phone lights were flickering now, just like the bus lights, just like Ollie’s watch.
“We can’t go back right now,” said Ollie. “We have to hide.”
Coco and Brian hesitated.
“It will be warmer that way,” Ollie improvised. Her hands had begun to shake. “It’s getting colder.” It was. The wind was cold as dead fingers, creeping through their sweaters and rain jackets.
“Come on,” she said.
On they went, stumbling through the woods. Out in the forest came the steady cracking of sticks. “Who isdoing that?” asked Brian, breathless and frightened. “If one of you set this up...”
Coco shrieked.
“What!” cried Ollie.
“Eyes,” Coco whispered. “I thought I saw eyes, shining.”
“Just an animal,” said Brian.
Ollie didn’t say anything. The spatters of rain had become the occasional snowflake, cold on her tongue and fingers. “Look,” she said, stopping.
Two rocks sat leaning together, a little triangular spacebetween them, like a jack-o-lantern’s eye. “Let’s hide in there,” said Ollie.
Unenthusiastic silence.
“It’s too small,” said Brian at last. “There might be anything in there. A snake. A skunk.”
“We have to hide,” said Ollie. “We have to hidenow.” 02:12, said her watch. Overhead, bare branches groaned. Ollie shone her dim phone screen into the triangle made by the leaning rocks. Damp, dark, empty. “Come on.”
Brian and Coco didn’t move. Behind them came a shrillwheeee, faint but clear through the trees. It sounded like an alarm. “What is that?” Coco whispered. Her fair hair stuck to her cheeks; she was sweating in spite of the cold.
Brian had gone still. “The alarm at the back of the bus,” he said.
“What?” demanded Ollie.
“Mike or Phil must have opened the back door, those idiots,” said Brian. Even in the weak light from their phones, Ollie could see that Brian didn’t quite believe what he was saying. “There’s an alarm on buses that goes off if the back door is opened.”
“But,” breathed Coco, “what if itwasn’tthem?”
A scream tore through the twilight. Then a whole chorus of screaming.
A bus full of kids...
They stared at each other.
