And she’s standing right outside your house.

There’s an old wooden baseball bat under my bed. I reach under the box spring and grab it. I haven’t used it since middle school, and the handle is fuzzy with dust. I grip it tight. I close my keys in my other fist.

Now I can stay here, trapped, with a target painted right on me. Or I can get out and move.

I fly through the house’s front door. I shove it shut behind me, moving so fast that I’m already beside the car when I hear it slam.

I yank open the car door. My hands shake as I shove the key into its slot. Damn it, why am I so afraid of a wispy-haired girl on an old blue bicycle?

I can do this. I can do this.

The Nissan roars. I surge down the driveway, into the road, hoping that it’s as deserted as usual. The baseball bat rolls in the footwell beside me. I have to get away before she can catch up. I have to get to Jezz and Patrick before she has time to call her aunt, bike home, do anything else that could get in the way. I have to be fast.

Something flashes in my rearview. I glance up.

No cars behind me.

I flick on my brights and push the accelerator: Fifty. Sixty-five. Seventy-five mph. The roads are twisty, and the trees come close to the shoulders. I have to slam on the brakes at one tight curve. Centrifugal force drags the Nissan sideways, its tires shrieking. My stomach flips. Then the road straightens, and I’m back on steady ground.

I reach the straightaway that will take me to County N, where I’ll turn again. I hit the gas. Seventy-five again. Eighty. There are no other cars anywhere, and no lights but mine, casting their foggy streaks on the road. From the corner of my eye, in the mirror, I see something flicker through my taillights again.

Maybe it’s some big nocturnal bird, I think. But this time, when I look in the rearview, I see something else.

A girl on a bicycle.

She’s only there for a second, but she’s there, keeping pace with me. Her white hair is flying. The spokes of her bike are a silver blur.

We’re going eighty miles per hour.

I nearly skid off the road.

I force my focus forward again, watching the painted line on the pavement. My heart is banging against my ribs so hard that it hurts.

It wasn’t real. No. My imagination is messing with me.

I careen around the curve onto County Road N. My hands are freezing cold and sweaty at the same time. The wheel slips in my palms. Almost there.

This road is narrower. Rougher. The trees lean closer.

I’ve never been to the Malcolm house, but I know which one it is. Everybody does. It’s the sagging, paint-peeling blue place up a bumpy dirt drive, just past the next bend. I need to get close, park the car, and then run, alone, into the darkness and the trees and hope that I find my friends before anything finds me.