“Kelsey!”

She froze.

The scream came out of the rain, not behind her now but above her, and not the same scream, but a different one.

“Kelsey!”

Panting, she stopped. The road, the rocks, everything was deserted. Through the curtain of gray rain she could see the lighthouse like a tall, wavy ghost, and the vague outline of its door at the bottom…and the vague black silhouette of someone just inside.

“Kelsey,” the voice implored her, full of fear and pain, “It’s Donna—help me—”

Somehow Kelsey made it. Somehow she managed to pull herself the last few yards across the ledge and fall in at the door, exhausted, grateful.

“Donna!” she gasped. “Donna, where are you?”

But the wind had come with her, slithering in through the holes and the cracks, and the only sound that answered was its long, shrill, empty moan.

“Donna?” Kelsey whispered, and her voice throbbed back again in a hollow echo…Donna…Donna… She got unsteadily to her feet, looking around in awe.

Most of the floor had rotted away, along with the floors up above. Where Kelsey stood she could look up through broken boards and fallen ceilings, up into the yawning hole of the lighthouse dome…the shattered remnants of the old light tower. High above her the rain came in, pattering around her in sharp, tinny drips, making puddles around her feet. Where doorways had once been, groups of small black shapes now clotted over broken beams, and as one of the shapes gave an uneasy stir, Kelsey stepped back in alarm, watching its bony bat wings enfold it once again.

“Donna,” she murmured, and her eyes swept the gloom around her, indistinct forms she couldn’t quite make out because they loomed so far beyond the pale light…

Light…

Kelsey’s heart stopped. Across the room there was a grimy lantern, spilling light weakly onto the bare rock floor. Someone was here…

“Kelsey, help me!”

She whirled at the cry, ice in her veins. “Donna!”

“I’m hurt! I think I’ve broken my leg—down here!”

Down here…but I could have sworn I saw you standing in the doorway… “Where?” A mixture of fear and relief took over, guiding her gingerly over the rocks, making her voice quiver. At least Donna was safe—but what in the world had she been doing in here where she knew no one was ever supposed to be? “Hang on, I’m coming!”

Kelsey picked her way nearer to the lantern. Now she could see the stairwell—or what was left of it—a yawning hole in the floor flanked by a wobbly rail. “What did you do? Fall?” She paused, waiting for an answer, but there was nothing. “Donna?” she called softly.

Picking up the lantern she started down. It was a winding staircase of rusted iron, and with each careful footstep the whole thing threatened to tear away from its shaky bolts. Kelsey strained her ears, forcing her eyes straight ahead, away from the slimy walls and the mold that clung there, the grotesque shadows pulsing around her. Every footfall, every beat of her heart seemed magnified a hundred times. She felt as if she were descending into a grave. “Donna? Please answer me—”