It was early. Gray dawn. More gray than dawn, really, because the clouds were hanging low over the lake. It was chilly, which is how I like it when I go for a run.

I run maybe three times a week. I'm no athlete, it's just that sometimes I'll wake up way too early and be full of this dangerous energy. The kind of feeling that makes you go looking for trouble. Maybe it was some hangover from my dream. Maybe I just hadn't slept well.

All I know is I woke up tingling, teeth grinding, eyes way too clear and alert. So I got up and ran.

I rolled out of bed and pulled on a jock, a pair of gray shorts, a faded Radiohead t-shirt and a sweatshirt with the arms cut short. I dug in my drawer for clean socks and laced up my shoes.

I crept down the stairs past my mom's room. Her door was partly open. A man's leg was sticking out from beneath crumpled sheets. I looked away.

We have a house in a kind of old neighborhood. It's a nice house, with a standard lawn and a fence around the back yard. The street is quiet. It's eight, nine blocks to the lake and downhill all the way.

I headed toward the lake. No warm-up. I wasn't planning a long run. Through the still-sleeping downtown, past the Breugger's and the Barnes and Noble and the health food store.

I listened to the sound of my shoes hitting sidewalk. I listened to the sound of my own breathing, calm and steady for the first few blocks, getting a little harsher after that. I had to breathe through my mouth. My nose hurt less that way.

Down to Sheridan, still mostly devoid of traffic. I caught a red light, shot a look each way and ran across. It's park all along the lake. Grass and big trees and winding paths for runners and bikers. People take their dogs there. Kids play there. At this hour of the morning, though, there were just a few runners spaced far apart on the crushed shell path.

There's an L-shaped pier of concrete blocks. It shelters the power boat launching ramp. I saw someone sitting out there on the end. Past the railing, perched on a rough, white concrete boulder. I knew right away it was her.

Senna sat gazing out at the mist-shrouded lake, hands pressed down on the rock, legs drawn up to her chin, a little girl. She was wearing a jean jacket a couple of sizes too big. She looked so small. Weak. Not the creature from my dream.

My steady steps faltered. I heard the different rhythm as my feet slowed, then sped up, then slowed again.

I should have wanted to go to her. But I didn't. I should have felt lucky. Lucky to see her alone on a morning when I expected to be alone with myself.

But that's not what I felt.

Dread.

That's what I felt. Dread.

There was a voice in my head, a lunatic voice screaming, "Run away! Run away!" A panicky voice.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked myself, wanting to hear my own, true voice. "Getting jumpy? That knee in the face must have rattled your brain, David."

I headed toward Senna, toward the start of the pier. But my feet were listening to that other voice, that faint but insistent madman in my brain. My feet were out of rhythm, they missed steps, they dragged, they didn't want to go any closer.

And then I saw the others. And they saw me, and I swear the chill breeze became a frozen wind that went right through my skin and iced my insides.

Jalil was just pulling up in his car. I saw him clearly. He saw me. I guess we were both trying to look normal, but we both knew there was nothing normal here.

Christopher was walking from the other direction. He looked worried and harassed. Like a guy who's late for an appointment he doesn't want to make.

April was sitting on a bench, looking out at Senna. I would be next to her in a dozen steps. I stopped.

"Hi, April," I said trying to sound normal.

She turned her startling green eyes on me. "What does it mean, David?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

I heard a car door close. Jalil joined us. He said nothing. He looked at me. He looked at April. Only his eyes moved. Then, as if he didn't want to look, as if he didn't want to have to turn his head, he looked at Senna. At Senna's profile, because she did not turn to look at us.

"Excuse me, but does anyone else have a case of the unholy creeps?" Christopher asked. Christopher's a big guy, bigger than me. Blond. Looks like a surfer dude. His tan was looking a little green.

He had walked up and stopped, like me, a few feet away from April.

"I was blaming it on brain damage," I said, pointing at my bandaged nose.

"My brain's fine," Jalil said. "It's my stomach telling me to get the hell out of here."

"Too weird," Christopher said. "We're all here? She's out there? What is this?"

"I heard her leave, really early this morning," April said. "We share a wall between our rooms. She . . . and then, I felt like I had to follow her." She shrugged.

"What is this?" Christopher demanded in a loud voice. Deliberately loud. Maybe loud enough for Senna to hear if she was listening.

"Ask her," April said.

Slowly Senna climbed to her feet. She turned and looked at us. She was maybe a hundred feet away.

I could see confusion on her face.

Her mouth formed the word "no."