Careful to avoid the charred remains and brown smears, Abilene stepped onto the threshold. She leaned forward. To the right of the tile foyer was the living room. From where she stood, she couldn't see much of it.

She heard nothing except her own heartbeat.

'Let's do it and get out,' Vivian whispered.

Nodding, Abilene shook the can of shaving cream and pried off its lid. She crept across the foyer and stepped onto the carpet. The television was off. The only light came from a single lamp at one end of the sofa. Its dim bulb left deep shadows in the corners of the room.

'Nobody here,' Finley said.

'I guess...'

An egg came from behind, dropped just in front of Abilene's face and shattered on the carpet at her feet.

'Watch it.'

Finley laughed.

Another egg sailed by. This one smashed against the wall above the TV set. Its viscous contents splattered and dribbled. Turning around, Abilene watched Finley and Vivian pluck more eggs from the carton in Helen's hand and hurl them. The missiles exploded, splashing yellow glop against walls, the ceiling, a lamp table, a rocking chair barely visible in one corner.

Abilene hurried over to the coffee table. A glass half full of soda was there. With a quick squirt, she gave the soda a frothy head of shaving cream. Eggs exploding all around her, she drew curlicues of suds on the table top. Then she went to the sofa. Its upholstery was covered with something that looked like an old bedspread, so she figured the shaving cream wouldn't do any real damage. She started at the lighted end of the sofa and made her way down its length, leaving thick, fluffy designs along its cushions.

She kept her eyes on the job.

Until she came to the far end of the sofa.

In the gloom between Abilene and the wall, some five feet away, she saw a chair. She'd noticed the chair earlier. Hidden in a dark corner as it was, however, she hadn't realized it was a wheelchair. Nor had she noticed that it wasn't empty.

Something was in the chair.

A bundle of blankets topped with a small, gray orb that almost resembled a head.

Her heart gave an awful lurch.

She stared at the thing. It didn't move. It didn't make a sound. The head really didn't look much like a head, at all, more like a shriveled grapefruit perched on a stalk above the blankets. But it seemed to have a face.

A dummy? A mannequin? Maybe one of those inflatable sex dolls.

'Hey,' she gasped. 'Over here.'

'What is it?' Finley came up beside her. 'What is it?'

'I don't know.'

'We've gotta get out of here,' Vivian said, hurrying over with Helen to see what they'd found.

Finley pulled a flashlight out of a pocket of her coveralls. She switched it on. She aimed it at the thing in the wheelchair.

The small head was hairless, the color of wet, dead leaves. Its face looked like something that a careless child might've formed out of papier-mache: lumpy, ragged flesh; eyes holes poked by fingertips; a couple of quick pinches to make the nose; a slit for a mouth; a tiny knob of chin.

'It... it isn't a corpse, is it?' Helen whispered.

'Christ, no,' Finley said. 'It's just a dummy. A homemade dummy, at that.'

'It's hideous,' Vivian muttered.

'Maybe that bastard has some Halloween spirit, after all,' Finley said. 'Hold the flashlight. I've gotta get this.'

She gave the light to Abilene.

Then she raised her video camera, turned around for a slow pan of the trashed living room, and pointed her lens at the ghastly thing in the chair. 'Say cheese,' she said.

It said, 'Cheese.'

The slash of its mouth spread open and it said, 'Cheese,' the word rolling out slow and deep like a voice on a record player at low speed. A tinny, scratchy voice. A voice that resounded as if spoken in an echo chamber.

Finley gasped, 'Fuck!'

Helen made a high, whiny noise.

Vivian gagged.

Abilene wet her pants.

The four girls didn't stop running until they reached the convenience store. Cora, as planned, was waiting outside its door.

'I got away from that bastard quicker than... What's the matter with you guys?'

She was answered with shaking heads as the girls struggled for breath.

Helen removed the noose from around her neck, and pulled off the sheet. Crumpling it, she slumped against the store wall. 'He didn't catch you, did he?'

Vivian shook her head. She was bent over, hands on knees, in his house,' Abilene gasped. 'He had... a guy. Someone. In a wheelchair.'

'It didn't look human,' Finley blurted.

'Like a dummy. Something. Horrible.'

'Its face,' Vivian murmured.

'What was wrong with him?' Abilene gasped.

'What was right with him?'

'Never... seen anything like it,' Vivian said. 'God. I'm gonna have nightmares forever.'

Abilene met Cora's eyes. 'You're really lucky. You didn't see him.'

'Oh, come on. He couldn't have been that bad.'

'Oh, yeah?' Finley asked.

Back at their apartment, Finley inserted the tape cassette in the VCR. She fast-forwarded past the skirmish with the four teenagers...

Then the living room of the house was on the television screen. Eggs splattered everywhere. Thick curls of shaving cream on the coffee table, the sofa.

'Boy,' Cora said, 'you done good.'

Abilene couldn't watch the rest. She stood very still, itchy in her damp corduroys, and watched Cora.

Cora's eyes went wide. 'Holy shit,' she said.

When the thing said, 'Cheese,' the color left her face.

Finley shut off the tape.

'Maybe that's why the man was such a creep,' Vivian said. 'I mean, he lives with that. Takes care of it. Maybe it's... one of his parents, or something.'

'We shouldn't have trashed the place,' Abilene muttered. 'Oh God. How could we?'

'We didn't know,' Finley said. 'I'm gonna tape over that part. I never wanta see that thing again. I don't even wanta think about it.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A tickle on her shin roused Abilene from sleep. A moment later, she felt the tickle moving. She bolted upright, saw a spider scurrying toward her knee, and whisked it off. Squirmy with goose-flesh, she inspected her legs and arms. Nothing else seemed to be on her. Except for a film of dew, which made her skin feel clammy and had dampened the front of her blouse and skirt.

She stretched and yawned. The morning air was pleasantly warm, not yet hot. Though no sunlight was on her, she saw paths of dusty gold slanting down through the trees.

Probably no later than seven o'clock, she supposed.

She'd slept very well. It looked like a beautiful morning, and she felt wonderful until she remembered the task that awaited her and the others: returning to the pool and searching for the keys.

Won't be so bad in daylight, she told herself.

Then we'll be out of here.

If we find them.

Ought to wake up the rest of them and get it over with.

On the sleeping bag next to Abilene, Finley continued to sleep. Helen's bag was flat against the ground. She'd crawled into it last night, in spite of the heat.

But she wasn't in there now.

Abilene scanned the clearing. Cora and Vivian continued to sleep. There was no sign of Helen.

With a flutter of worry, Abilene decided that she must've gone off. To take a pee, or something.

Her blouse and Bermuda shorts were still spread out on top of her sleeping bag. But her swimsuit was missing. So were her shoes.

She must've taken the suit with her, Abilene thought, to put on after she finished.

She'll be back in a minute.

Abilene waited, sitting motionless, listening. The forest was noisy with birds. There were rustling sounds. Buzzes and hums of insects. But no heavy, crunching sounds. Nothing that might indicate a person moving about.

How far did she go, anyway?

Helen was really too timid to go wandering off alone.

Wasn't she?

It passed through Abilene's mind that someone might've found the encampment and taken her. But that seemed very unlikely. Why would anyone just grab Helen? And how could that happen without a struggle that would've disturbed the rest of them? Besides, nobody abducting her would've bothered to take her swimsuit and shoes.

No, she'd gotten up and left of her own free will.

In her swimsuit.

Good God!

No, she wouldn't. She wouldn't dare go back to the lodge by herself. To go swimming and look for the keys.

She'd offered to go in and search for them last night. Not alone though.

But what if she woke up just a while ago? Already daylight. Everyone else still sleeping. And she'd decided to go ahead and find the keys and return and surprise everyone.

Any minute, she might come tromping through the woods, all wet and grinning, holding up the key case, saying, 'Look what I found.'

She might be in the pool right now.

Maybe not alone. Maybe struggling, this very moment, with the guy who'd thrown their things in the water last night.

Sick with worry, Abilene shook Finley awake. As the girl groaned and mumbled, she twisted around and shook Cora. 'Wake up. Quick. Everyone. Helen's gone.'

'Huh?' Finley murmured. 'Whuh?'

'She's gone! I think she went to find the keys.'

Abilene slipped into her moccasins as the others stirred and sat up.

'Holy shit,' Cora said.

'We've gotta go after her. Quick.'