Claudia was still motionless in the chair, watching the snake squirm and slither around her head. Finally the reptile got tired and sank down to her lap, but she didn't dare call for help because it might frighten the cobra and cause it to attack her.

She must have sat there for an hour before the thing slid down to the floor and curled itself up by her feet. When she tried to move herself, she found it was easy and slowly, gingerly she started to stand up.

Suddenly she felt her foot land on something squishy and in that instant, she realized it had been the snake. A split second later, she felt a searing pain not unlike needles slam itself into her bare ankle. As the original pain receded, a new burning sensation enflamed her foot and as she fell back into the chair, she understood what had happened.

The snake had bitten her.

Claudia exhaled and winced. Ok, cobra…cobra…how long do I have to get help? She thought frantically, trying to recall her girl-scout days. But they had never studied the cobra; none were native to the United States. So she fell back on the only plan she had; try to keep the poison from spreading by not moving and call for help.

"Mom!" she yelled, praying the party was over and her mother was back in the house. "MOM!"

But she didn't hear any hurried footsteps on the stairs, nor any calls from the floor below to even tell her if her mother was in the house. So Claudia risked it and stood up and hobbled to the window. What she saw outside was what constituted a scene from a horror movie.

The EZ-tent was broken into five different parts, scattered all over the lawn. Food was thrown everywhere, splattered against everything, and people were tied up and wriggling in the tent canvas, which was hanging from a tree branch ten feet off the ground.

Her mother, however, was nowhere to be found. Claudia searched the scene with a growing sense of dread, until she finally found the missing woman struggling to free herself from some bushes. Claudia sighed, relieved, then remembered her situation and tried to open the window. But it was jammed.

"Mom…" she whispered, her voice growing weak and distant. Here it came, the nausea and the vertigo and burning in her gut now. She felt gravity increase and her vision began to white out. As the floor began to look more and more comfortable, she realized she was sinking down.

The last thought that went through her mind before the blackout was that she thought she heard a faint ringing in the background, followed by the sound of glass breaking…

"Clauds, you missed out!"

Beetlejuice slammed through the glass of her small window and stretched contentedly in midair, brushing bits of broken glass off his jacket. Then he grinned, set foot on the dusty boards, and looked to the chair where he had last left the girl, tangled up in a snake.

Problem was, she wasn't there anymore.

He looked around, and then his face fell when he saw she was lying on the ground, motionless. Her breaths were shallow and her wide eyes were dilated. And he saw the bite marks on her ankle.

Shit.

It wasn't supposed to go this way! He hadn't even meant to summon a cobra; he had aimed for a garter snake: harmless but still scary. He had overshot with his powers, and had made the terrible mistake of leaving her here with it.

As he reached down and tried to revive her, his mind raced. He didn't really care about her, it was just that he couldn't kill any mortal without suffering terrible retribution back in Juno's office. Worst-case-scenario, he might even be thrown into Purgatory. He could be exorcised if she died!

"Hey! Hey, Clauds! Wake up! You can't die! C'mon, c'mon you can't! Don't do this to me!" he pleaded, picking her limp body up and shaking it a bit. But she still didn't move on her own, although he thought he saw her eyelids flutter a tiny bit.

"Alright, we're gonna get you to a doctor. I gotta take you into Hartford cause Winter River doesn't have a hospital." He picked her up and flew her out of the window into the darkening sky, disappearing just as Mrs. Lowe breathlessly burst into the attic.