You hurry onto the tram just as the doors close.  


You aren't stupid--no way is this hell over with. But at least you're safe for now.


The tram slows at B Gate. Will any of them get on? You edge near the doors, ready to leap out, but none do, and the tram ambles onward.


A guy about your age, tall and skinny with a t-shirt advertising a Dropkick Murphys show from eight years ago gets on. He notices you.


Huh. Come to think of it, not many people have done that since you found the first postcard. You're no Megan Fox, but you are a reasonably attractive twenty-year-old girl, and you're used to a moderate amount of male perusal while in public. And yet, for the most part, people's eyes have been sliding past you all day. Only airport employees have acknowledged your existence. Weird.


And yet this guy sees you.


That's probably not good.


You edge a little closer to the doors. What if he's one of them? A normal college-age boy outside, a goblin inside? Maybe that's the next level of this--at first the monsters are easy to spot, and then they're in the form of fairly cute guys.


He walks up to you. "Hi."


This close he looks familiar. Familiar like a human I've seen before, or familiar like a goblin?


"I think we went to camp together."


His eyes are a yellow-striped green--what color were theirs? You can't remember. You were too panicked to notice.


"Guess not," he says. You must look pretty freaked out, because he starts backing away.


And then his face clicks into place. Triple R Ranch. Summer before fourth grade. His name is Dmitri, and the reason you still know that is that he was almost your first kiss. (Instead it was this loser named Jason in sixth grade. He told everyone you tasted like bubble gum--which doesn't seem that bad, but somehow he made it sound absolutely disgusting. What a prick.)


"Wait," you say. "Dmitri, right?"


"Yeah. You're Claire."


"Clara, actually. That's my real name." You like Claire better, but it was too hard to keep telling everyone to call you Claire. They kept forgetting, and finally you just gave up and went with it.


He asks where you're going, and you tell him. He says he's going to Philadelphia to spend Christmas with his dad--he's headed to the same terminal you are.


His eyes move over you, but not in a flirtatious way. "Are you okay?"


You look down. One of the goblins has ripped your jeans from knee to ankle. Also you are sweating profusely. "It's been...a stressful trip," you finish lamely.


"How so?"


He seems to know there's a deeper meaning to that--which isn't itself strange, Dmitri's always been able to read people pretty well--but you can't shake the feeling that running into him is a little too coincidental. Should you trust him enough to tell him you're being stalked, or just politely brush him off?

You brush him off. Things are risky enough, thanks.

You decide to get off at Terminal D, since that seems to be physically the closest to C. Maybe they won't be waiting for you.


 

When it slows, you look out the windows. They don't seem to be there.


 

You pull your hood up and walk out. You go up the escalator.


 

They're waiting at the top. Three of them this time.


 

You try to turn around, but there is a solid wall of people behind you. They yank you away from the crowd--no one seems to notice, it's like you're completely alone, it's so unfair-- and push you so hard against the wall that you're out before the first bite sinks into your skin. As dying goes, it's pretty painless, but it's still dying--alone, with no one to help you.