“It may be nothing, but I’ve seen what she can do. You’ve seen it! You saw what she did to my hand. You know it’s real.”

“Just what are you hoping to accomplish here?”

“Mona thinks she might be able to … to bring the bus up.”

“Well, I don’t believe it. And even if she could, I don’t want to stand here and look at a bus full of my dead classmates. It’s sick, Cole. Sick!”

“But that’s the thing. She might be able to bring them back to life.”

She actually laughed at this. “Good-bye, Logan. It’s been real.”

“Savannah, wait. Damnit, stop!”

“What is it now?”

“Remember the cat we found in the woods yesterday, the one with the blood all over it?”

“It was yesterday, idiot, of course I remember.”

“Well, that same cat was killed with a hatchet on my front lawn yesterday morning. I saw it myself, right before I was attacked. Mona brought it back to life. I’m certain of it now.”

“It’s not possible.”

“You’re right. It’s not. But it happened. You got nothing to lose in just waiting. Will you please just wait and see what happens? I need you here.”

“I don’t want to stand here and look at a bunch of dead football players, Cole.”

“No football player deserves to die in the service of his team,” Mona said. She stood on the opposite side of the fire, every inch of her naked body visible in the light. “I think we owe these boys something for their sacrifice, don’t you? Something better than sitting at the bottom of a river?” She peered at Savannah through the rising flames. “Don’t you think we owe it to them to save their poor souls?”

The light glistened in Savannah’s eyes. Cole waited until she moved back to the fire, passing him without a glance. He followed.

Mona reached back into the Tupperware box and came out with a handful of chicken bones, which she dropped onto the flames. Cole went back into the trees for more brush and promptly fed the fire, stoking it with his boot.

“Savannah, honey, I need some hair,” Mona said.

“Pardon?”

“Just a strand or two for the fire. I’d use mine, but it tends to work better with the fruits of youth.”

Savanna rolled her eyes and tugged out a few strands. Mona motioned for her to toss them into the flames.

Next, Mona took from the box an old Pepto-Bismol bottle. The screw cap had been replaced with tinfoil and most of the label had been scratched away. She removed the foil and tipped the bottle. What trickled out looked like a stream of white rice.

“What’s that?” Cole asked.

“Toenail clippings. Save ’em up for occasions like this.”

“What, may I ask, is the purpose of all this?” Savannah huffed.

“Gotta feed the dead with life, honey.”