Tonya rode her bike along the path between campus and the cemetery. It was getting dark and she didn’t have time to walk or even run. She must have looked unhinged, wobbling along the path with the yellow Hazmat suit tangling and impeding her legs as she pedaled. With the hood limiting her vision to one small plastic window in the front, it was hard not to drift off the path.

She crossed the road, walked her bike through the Eastern Gate and rode west. This was it, the moment which would define her career at the university and her life in Loon Lake.

There are those who give their lives in battle. Others sacrifice themselves at sea like the captain who goes down with the ship. Tonight was Tonya’s weigh-in on the scales of Fate, and henceforth she would know her worth. Heck, the whole town would know. And so, for the good of the many, she had come equipped for self-sacrifice on the altar of social suicide.

The yellow Hazmat hood made her stumble by limiting her vision, but it protected her from inhaling infected air. She walked her bike into some bushes and left it hidden, beside the abandoned chapel. With gloved hands, she pulled a penlight out of her plastic pocket.

Inside, the chapel ceiling was too high to illuminate with her little flashlight, but she could see a set of dusty wooden steps which took her up to the choir loft. At the top of the stairs, gauze blurred the mask of her hood. Ugh! She had walked through a cobweb. She wiped her mask and walked toward a patch of moonlight.

Peering through a gap in the broken stained-glass window, she spotted a bonfire just outside the cemetery. To get there, the students would have passed the great Ash Tree. She shivered. They could already be infected.

Tonya left the chapel and took the southward path. She was familiar with every cemetery trail. The Old Families treasured their graveyard and revered the ancestors buried there. They were the first Europeans to settle the area who, legend had it, survived their first winter by using old country magic.

Tonya could hear the shouts of students coming through the Eastern Gate. Through the trees, she heard laughing and screaming as they encountered Priya’s monsters. Tonya hesitated. Every moment they spent in the cemetery put them at risk. Should she break up the bonfire first or turn back the arriving crowds? She decided to detour east.

Students strolled in through the gates and cut south on the path which led around the hill into the old section and the Three-Century Ash. Tonya rushed to intercept them. When she got close enough, she yelled through the plastic window of her Hazmat suit:

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“Leave the cemetery immediately!”

A couple stopped and stared.

“This area is quarantined!” Tonya shouted.

“Funny!” said the guy.

“Who are you supposed to be?” asked the girl.

“I mean it. It’s not safe.”

“Don’t worry,” said the guy. “We’ll use precautions.”

The girl giggled and punched him in the arm. They brushed past her as if compelled to visit the Ash Tree.

Tonya watched couples, singles, and groups take the path leading to the ash, drawn by some unseen force. To anybody else, they might appear to be wandering randomly but Tonya was convinced the gravedigger plant was manipulating them, drawing in victims for a sinister purpose. Professor Rudolph’s behavior had proven it. Yet how could the beloved tree of her childhood have been corrupted to cause harm? There was dark magic at work here, but who was behind it?

Another handful of students approached Tonya who was blocking the path.

“Go back or die!”

“Very scary,” some said. Others mocked her plastic suit but not one listened. For a moment she stood, too frustrated to move. Their refusal to listen brought back high school memories of rejection, like being chosen last in Phys. Ed., except there were no captains to pick or leave her anymore. She had volunteered for this job herself.

Tonya walked to the pinch point in the pathway between the small hill and the cemetery gate. They would have to get past her to reach the Ash Tree and the bonfire beyond. Squaring her shoulders, she pressed the button on the loud hailer with her bulky gloves and shouted:

“Attention! Attention!”

No sound came out. All she could hear was her voice, muffled by the thick Hazmat hood. She held the handle up to her face and angled it this way and that in the moonlight, trying to see what was wrong, but it was too dark. She pulled a flashlight out of the suit pocket and looked again. The buttons were clearly labeled. She tried again. Nothing. Even the power light didn’t come on.

Fumbling with her gloves, she pressed a release and snapped open the back. No batteries. Donna said the equipment was tested. What now? With the suit and hood on she could never shout loud enough to warn people. If she took it off, she would be infected. There had to be another way.

Tonya replaced the flashlight and took out her phone. She removed the plastic glove, so she could work the touch screen. Video cameras fed online images. She would be able to see whatever was happening by the tree as soon as the page loaded.

The first thing she noticed were the flowers, garlands, and photos attached to one side of the massive trunk in memoriam for Professor Rudolph. Priya had removed the evil-looking mouth and teeth as promised.

A woman carrying a bow came around the side of the tree. She was dressed in white. Tonya had another look. The woman wasn’t visible because of light reflecting off her white toga as Tonya first thought. She glowed from within. It must be Artemis, Priya’s showpiece.

Tonya watched as Artemis knocked an arrow to her bow, stepped around the tree, and fired a shot into the darkness beyond. She blinked out of sight much too soon.

Why did Priya’s creations have to be so breathtaking? It made what Tonya had to do that much harder.

With a few taps on her phone, it was done. Priya would never forgive her.