The well had gone as dark as the inside of a tomb, the sun having disappeared from above, and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. And that meant I still couldn't see wh.o.m.or what-I was dealing with. But it was there, I knew that, because it had a grip on me like an octopus with claws.

"Let go of me!" I sc.r.a.ped a foot down each of my ankles, pushing the rope off, then dug into the muck with my sneakers. Now or never. Do something or become Paolo's grave buddy.

I wheeled around. The creature let out a shriek of surprise, nails skittering as it stumbled across the slippery bottom. It was the same shriek my mother had made in the woods the other night when I'd grabbed that tree.

I couldn't think about that now.

I pressed my back against the wall, then raised my right hand. A faint glimmer of silver winked back at me.

All this time, I'd had the knife in my hand, and I'd for gotten. I couldn't have been more stupid if the word had been branded on my forehead. I shifted my grip, and with the weight of that handle, I finally felt as if I had a way out.

All I had to do was stab the thing. a.s.suming I could find it in the dark. Get in one deep wound, and then- Okay, getting out of the well itself would be a problem of a whole other sort, but once the thing was dead- That's all I had to do. Make it dead before it made me dead.

"I've waited a long time to meet you, Cooper," it said.

Don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me. Its voice was like nails on a chalkboard. I pressed my free hand to my ear and tightened my relationship with the wall.

"Get away from me, freak!" I arced out with the knife and hit nothing but air. The creature had slinked away. Or was it smaller than I thought?

Had it ducked down? Decided to crawl instead?

I tried to reach around for the backpack zipper in order to get the flashlight, desperate to bring light to the fear holding me. Where was the zipper?

Where was it?

"We're two of a kind, you know, Cooper. We're two a" Its voice trailed off-because it was tired? Dying? Or just thinking?-and it began that huff-huffing again. "Very, very special two of a kind."

"Shut up!" I screamed, giving up on the flashlight. I slashed out again with blind circles. "I'm not anything with you. To you or about you. Just get the h.e.l.l away from me before I kill you!"

It chuckled, the sound deep and throaty, an evil Santa laugh. "You can't kill me, dear Cooper. I'm the whole reason you're here. And now you're going to be my a" Huff-huff, closer now, and even in the inky black, I could feel it, smell it coming closer. "Be my-"

"No!" I didn't want to hear any more. I lunged for the creature as it approached, the knife raised, aiming for chest level-did it have a heart? Lungs? Whatever it had, I was going to stab it there-but all I saw in the darkness were two eyes- Two human eyes.

Green, like mine.

Exactly like mine.

Like looking in the mirror.

For a split second, I froze, and the creature started to laugh again. "You can't hurt me, Cooper. Not me."

I shut my eyes, and before I could think another thought, I jabbed forward, knowing if I kept my eyes open, I'd never do it. I'd never be able to stab something that looked so much like me.

Do it.

Do it now.

The knife sank into something soft as Jell-O and my stomach flipped over in disgust, but still I kept going and turned my fist to the right, carving into more soft, fleshy stuff.

The creature howled in pain. Shrieked my name.

Then something clawed at my arm, sc.r.a.ping through the heavy fleece of my sweatshirt. There was a horrible ripping sound, fabric giving way, then flesh, and the coppery scent of blood filled the air, the thing still shrieking, jerking away from the blade, but even as we separated, I kept waving the silver knife, screaming at the thing to get away.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

The thing had gone.

I don't know how I knew. I just did. It was as if a part of me had left, and a whisper of relief ran through me. The heavy, thick stench of its breathing had stopped. The shrieking had cut off like a stereo ripped out of the wall. The smell had eased by tenths of a degree. I opened my eyes, half expecting to see my own eyes staring back at me.

But I found only blackness.

I swung the backpack down, dug inside for the flashlight, clicked on the beam. As soon as I'd illuminated my surroundings, I wished I hadn't.

I was standing in what looked like maybe a rodent graveyard. Tiny bones littered the floor, little skulls-those were rat heads, right?-scattered like white bowling b.a.l.l.s all over the murky floor. But that didn't make me want to hurl. It was the bigger bones, a towering stack of them, that sat in one corner.

Human bones.

Licked, or maybe chewed, clean.

And from the size of the pile, Paolo's weren't the only bones in there. "Holy s.h.i.t!"

I jumped back and hit the wall, and when I did, I dropped the flashlight. It hit the stone floor with a smack. The light sputtered for one second, then disappeared.

No, no, no. Not the light-don't go out. Don't leave me down here in- The dark closed around me again like prison walls.

Beneath my feet, the tiny rodent skeletons crunched. I kept the knife out and ready, waving it in a wild circle. Panic clawed at my mouth, squeezed my throat, crushed my lungs. I had to get out of here. Now. Before Iwas added to that pile.

"Megan!"

No answer.

"Megan! You there?"

Silence from above.

I chanced a glance up, and as if on cue, the blanket of dark began to peel away and the late-day sun returned. What the h.e.l.l?

What just happened? And where was Megan?

I kept calling for her, searching above for her face, but there was no sign of her. Not so much as a peep in response. I told myself she'd gotten scared. Run off. Run home to her parents.

Except the sickening thud in my gut told me she wasn't safe in her bed, tucked between her lilac-decorated sheets.

She was gone. And down here, a note of terror struck my heart. The creature I'd just royally p.i.s.sed off was gone, too, and I had no way out.

In the movies, the hero gets out of a sticky situation in one or two tries. He's the hero, after all, so he's smart and Mac- Gyvers a quickie solution with a broomstick and a piece of gum.

I'm no genius, so it took me a good half-hour, maybe longer, to finally get out of the well.

This time, I had the rope, which didn't do me much good without someone at the other end. But I sucked it up-had to; my other choice was to stay down there, and that was so not an option-and felt around in the dark corners of the well until I managed to find a big rock. I tied the rope around it and, after a lot of attempts, finally winged it out of the pit. It caught on something above-a stump, tree branch, whatever. I didn't care. It was strong enough for me to climb.

On any other day, the chances of throwing a rock twenty feet up and landing it around a tree just right so that it holds enough for me to climb out would be, like, nil. But on this day, with a creepy talking monster waiting in the wings, I was way more motivated to perfect my pitching arm, which wasn't bad but wasn't Roger Clemens's, either.

As soon as I climbed over the well's ledge, I started searching for Megan, calling her name, looking all over in the woods. By now it really was dark, and I couldn't see much. There was no trace of her. I swept the area, over and over again, looking for a footprint, anything.

"Megan!"

I listened but heard nothing. Not so much as a bird calling back. "Megan!"

A flash of red in a shrub caught my eye and I stumbled toward it, going down on my knees, my heart lurching hard, sure for a second that the color was blood, then seeing right away that it was the bandanna she'd been wearing in her hair. Torn, caught in the briars.

No Megan. On the ground, I found her small Maglite. She wouldn't have left that behind, would she have?

Not unless- I wouldn't think about that.

I got to my feet and spun around. 'Megan!" No answer. 'Megan!" The yellow light from the beam bounced off the ground, the shrubs, the trees, showing me everything but her heart-shaped face. 'Megan!"

I ran back toward the well. I didn't watch where I was going, and my feet tangled in the rope I'd used to pull myself out of that pit. I fell to the ground, the flashlight bouncing out of my grip and spinning away. When it stopped, the circle of light illuminated the rock I had tied on to the end of the rope.

Not a rock at all.

I was half standing when I stopped, my brain taking in what lay three feet away, one horrible detail after another. Something hard and white. Round, smooth. Two small openings, one large, all three staring at me, as if to say- What are you, a freakin' idiot? You didn't realize you attached your rope to a- Skull.

Oh G.o.d. A skull. An honest to G.o.d dead man's head.

I screamed. Let out a string of curses that would have fried my grandmother's hair. I backed up so fast, I fell on my b.u.t.t again and scrambled like a crab, the flashlight rolling away into the leaves. I kept going until I hit a tree, and I screamed again because for a second I thought the tree's branches were the monster reaching out again for me.

Megan gone. Talking monster in the well trying to grab me. And now a dead man's skull at my feet.

Maybe it was Paolo's skull?

G.o.d no, don't let that be Paolo. Tell me I didn't take Paolo's head and use it as a personal baseball to help me climb out of the well.

Everything in my gut lurched upward. I puked until there was nothing left to heave, and then I heaved air.

"I'm sorry, Paolo," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Paolo's empty eye sockets stared back at me. I lunged for the flashlight and turned it off. The skull went away, but the night invaded twice as thick and dark. Okay, not a good plan. I flicked the bulb back on, turning the beam away from the skull.

Breathe, Cooper, I told myself. Breathe and think.

I did just that for a good five seconds. It was just a skull. I'd seen them in science cla.s.s a hundred times. In fact, we had a whole skeleton in Mr. Spinale's room. Called him Mr. Body, dressed him up for Halloween, threw a red hat on him for Christmas. That's all this was, another Mr. Body.

Yeah, one that might be someone I knew. One that had been eaten by the monster. That could be me next. Or worse- Megan.

I breathed some more. Refocused again. Beside me, Megan's bandanna sat in a tiny, sad, crumpled pile. I stuffed it into my backpack and headed out of the woods. She wasn't here, or if she was, I couldn't find her.

Something had happened to Megan. I knew it.

I booked it for the house, sneaking into the bas.e.m.e.nt, thanking G.o.d for small favors like an unlocked bas.e.m.e.nt door and a phone extension in the second office on the lower level. My fingers shook so badly, it took three tries before I got Megan's number punched into the handset. In the s.p.a.ce of the few seconds it took for the phone to ring on the other end, I must have whispered four hundred prayers. "Mrs. Garrett, this is Cooper-"

"Cooper!" Her voice. Panicked. I glanced at the clock on the wall and realized hours had gone by while I'd been searching.

It was after eleven o'clock at night. No wonder she had that tone.

"Thank G.o.d you called me back," Mrs. Garrett said. "I've been calling your house all night. Have you seen Megan?"

Megan hadn't gone home. Hope deflated in me like a popped balloon.

I couldn't tell Mrs. Garrett the truth. One, she'd never believe me, and two, I'd be in serious trouble. I had to buy time until I had some answers.

"She and I went for a walk after dinner," I said-not a total lie-"and then she said she was going to go back home. I think that was around a six." That, I thought, was about the time the rope fell into the well.

Guilt pulled a Rocky in my gut. What had I done? What had I been thinking? I did this. I asked for Megan's help. And now she was missing.

"She's always home by ten on a school night, always," Mrs. Garrett went on, "and she never called, never came home." The last three words were high-pitched, every parent's worst nightmare.

I hated myself for being responsible for that sound in Mrs. Garrett's voice. But what was I going to tell her?

I didn't know what had happened, not really. Megan could be okay. She could, in fact, be out looking for me right now. Except a part of me knew Megan's disappearance was wrapped up inside the creature and the well.

I leaned against the wall, my head pounding. All I kept seeing was that skull, then Megan's face, her trusting eyes, so ready to help me.

G.o.d, what if that monster did have her?

I pictured it breathing down her neck, its slime all over Megan's peach-soft skin, and I wanted to puke but couldn't. There was nothing inside me. Nothing but fear.

"Call us if you see her," Mrs. Garrett said, her voice shaking, tears heavy in her words. "Or hear from her. This isn't like Megan at all. In fact, as soon as I hang up with you, I'm going to call the police."

"I will, Mrs. Garrett." I hung up the phone, then slid down against the desk and dropped my head onto my knees. Oh G.o.d.

Megan, Megan, Megan.

What had I just done?

Had I just sent Megan to- Her death?

They hung up colored posters with Megan's picture, organized search parties, sent cops crawling through town, and had reporters talking to everyone from the mailman to Megan's third grade teacher, people popping out opinions like Pez.

I was dragged down to the police station early Monday morning, hours after the missing-persons report was filed. Held there for six hours and questioned by Mike's dad, the cop a.s.signed to the case. He slammed his hand on the metal table so hard, I thought he was going to leave a dent or break a bone. "I know you did it, Cooper. I know you killed her. Just admit it and we can all go home."

"I didn't do anything." I glared at Sergeant Ring, a balding guy in his late fifties whose belt wasn't doing a very good job of keeping his gut in check.

Guilt twisted a tightening rope around my intestines. Had I killed her? Had I led her to that thing and let it eat her, like it had Paolo? Had I done this?

That's all I kept thinking about, all that kept running through my mind.

Oh G.o.d, Megan.