A cry broken the stillness and Anaya jolted upright.  She had drifted off.  The keening cry she had heard earlier was closer now.  Far TOO close.  It sounded as though it was nearly upon them.  Gasping, she rose to her feet.  "Up!  Get up!  We've got to go!"  The other girls were not as quick to alert as she and she had to physically pull some of them to their feet.  "Get up!!  Run!"  She grabbed her pack and started up the road north again running.  Behind her she could hear the girls becoming aware of the keening cries approaching and their cries of fear as they grabbed whatever was at hand and raced after her.  Moonlight glistened on the sand all around her like diamonds, but as Anaya glanced behind her she saw that there was some sort of weird darkness creeping up like a cloud of doom.  It was blotting out the moon, the stars, the skies, everything in its path.  It came like a slow, but steady black wave and dissolved everything in its path with darkness.  She heard one of the girls trip.  She looked back.  Josie!  The girl had fallen heavily and could not rise.  Anaya started back towards her, but... the black cloud was too close.  Josie screamed as the darkness poured over her legs and as Anaya watched in horror it enveloped her completely.  Josie's screams rose to an unbearable high shriek --- then suddenly silenced.<br/><br/>Stunned, the girls stopped to stare until Anaya grabbed the closest arms and pulled.  "Keep running!  Its still coming!"  The girls ran heedless of their former weariness, of time, of all other thought except escape.  Then from the back of the group, Elise, one of the bigger girls gave a gurgling cry.  Anaya looked back to see a sharp stick protruding from her middle, thrust from behind.  Josie's figure lurched into frame.  But something was VERY wrong.  Josie's face was horribly disfigured.  It looked as though acid had been sprayed over her face and it had melted like hot wax.  She was recognizable only by her clothes which were smoking and trailing black wispy tendrils from the fog that followed in her footsteps.  Her eyes were black and completely devoid of emotion.  She stepped onto and over Elise's fallen form and walked with heavy footsteps towards the rest of them.  "Josie!"  Anaya called.  There was no recognition in her gaze, only hate, and madness.  And she came on.<br/><br/>Turning, Anaya ran again like the wind fleeing some unknown, grotesquely distorted monster.