Brighter, a supernatural thriller

by V. J. Chambers

  "You didn't like it?" asked Rick. His voice still sounded thick with pain.

  "You almost killed me," said Heather.

  "Don't be dramatic," said Rick. "You were fine. It was just a little fun. We never shake things up in bed. You didn't have to squeeze my balls off."

  "Fuck you," said Heather. "Fuck you." She stood next to the bed in the darkness, unsure of what to do. Part of her didn't feel safe sleeping in the same bed with him. Part of her wondered if maybe he was right. Maybe she'd overreacted. Maybe Rick just had some sort of tendencies he'd never told her about.

  Well, if that were true, she didn't like them. She didn't want to be choked. Ever again.

  "I'm sorry," said Rick. "I shouldn't have tried it without talking to you."

  "You're damned right you shouldn't have," Heather said shakily. She settled warily back onto the bed, still sitting up.

  "I'm sorry," said Rick. He reached for her, but Heather moved away from him, evading his touch. "I'm really sorry, Heather. I mean it. Come here."

  "I think you should sleep on the couch," said Heather. She could lock the door. In the morning, maybe things would seem safer. Maybe they would make more sense. But she didn't think she could sleep next to him.

  "Come on. I won't do it again. I said I was sorry."

  "Where the fuck have you been anyway?"

  "I went to see Mason to ask him about all that crazy stuff you were talking about."

  He went where? "Oh. What did he say?"

  "He said that I should tell you to stay away. Stay far away."

  Warning bells went off in Heather's head. Those were almost the exact words Garrett had used. And the tone. It was so similar to the way Garrett had talked. Oh shit. "What did Mason do to you?"

  "Nothing. We just talked. I was right. You and Ramona are nuts."

  Okay, so maybe they were. Maybe it was nuts to think that someone had taken over her husband's body. But her husband's body had just tried to kill her. She didn't think she could chance it. If there were a possibility that Rick was any kind of a danger to her...

  Heather bolted out of the bedroom, thanking God she kept her purse and keys right beside the front door. Rick was behind her. He was faster than she was. He tackled her in the living room, just as she paused to take her keys off the key rack. Heather writhed under him. He grabbed both of her wrists and held them above her head. "Don't worry, baby," he said. "It doesn't hurt that much."

  Heather kneed him in the groin again. Rick swore. "God, it sucks being a man!" he screamed.

  She got her keys. She got her purse. She got out the door and into her car.

  As she backed out of the driveway, Rick threw himself onto her windshield. Heather screamed, but put the car into drive anyway and gunned the gas. Rick rolled off onto the road. It was only when she was several miles down the road that she started to cry.

  * * *

  Ramona watched as Heather tossed and turned in her sleep. She hadn't been prepared for her best friend to turn up at her apartment in the middle of the night, freaking out because Rick was different. She couldn’t believe that they'd gotten Rick too. From what Mason had said to her, Ramona hadn't believed that Heather would be in danger. It had seemed as if living in Freeburg had meant that Heather didn't really matter.

  Heather had been next to hysterical. Ramona hadn't thought she'd be able to get her best friend to go to sleep. Because clearly, Heather needed rest. Ramona was sure of that, but she wasn't sure of what else Heather needed. Her husband was dead, but she couldn't really grieve for him in a normal, natural way. There would be no funeral. There would be no time off work to settle into the numbness. As far as everyone else was concerned, Rick was still alive. Ramona wasn't sure that she could do anything to help Heather. Their situation was unbelievably awful. She sat down in the darkness and looked out her picture window onto the main street of Elston. It looked so peaceful at this time of night. No one was on the streets. The buildings looked the same as they might have two hundred years ago. God knew the historical society threw a fit if anyone tried to change them in any significant way. The street looked so unassuming. So quaint. So safe. Ramona stared at the streets, wondering how long people like Mason had been doing this in Elston. How long had this sleepy town been a cover for so much evil? Ramona didn't know, but she did know that she wasn't going to stay here. She'd been serious when she told Heather that she was leaving town. She was. She didn't know when or how, but she was getting the hell out of Elston.

  Maybe Heather would want to come with her. Maybe the two of them could leave together. With Rick gone, there wasn't anything left here for Heather. And Ramona was at a loss to try to understand why anyone stayed in this area. Elston was a tiny, tiny town. There was nothing here. Everyone knew each other. Everyone knew each other's business. It seemed to Ramona that Elston was suffocating her. She wanted out.

  It was strange, though, because earlier that evening, when she was at Heather's house, she had felt a strong urge to come home. It was as if, when she left Elston for a long time, something underneath her skin started to itch. She'd felt uncomfortable. Something inside her head had breathed to her that she needed to go back where she belonged. Back to Elston. Back home.

  But Ramona didn't know if she felt like she'd had a home since she graduated from high school. Sure, she'd had a host of places that she'd slept in and stored her stuff in, but none of those places had that magical home feeling to her. Truthfully, when she'd first come to Elston, she'd been so drunk on the freedom of leaving her parents' house that she hadn't wanted to leave the place ever. She'd lived in Elston for five years now, and she really hadn't left very often. A few short Thanksgivings and Christmases at home—a few weeks at the most. A few days was better. Occasional trips to Washington D.C. for plays and bands. A few summer vacations with the family. And at the end of each of them, she'd felt crazy to get back to Elston. Crazy to get back home. That was the difference, Ramona supposed. Before, she'd felt at home in her parents' house. Now, it didn't matter what her place of residence was, as long as it was in Elston. The whole town felt like home.

  But... Not in a comforting way. Elston didn't feel like a place where she was safe or taken care of. Instead, she just felt a strong, strong sense that she belonged here. She'd never felt as if she belonged anywhere. She'd always felt like her family was really different than she was. In her old high school, she'd been a freak. In Elston, she was part of an inner circle of people who cared about the same things that she did. But it was like Elston was a bubble the rest of the world couldn't penetrate. Things were just...strange in Elston. The strangeness in Elston called out to the strangeness in Ramona. Or maybe the strangeness in Elston had nested in Ramona. Maybe a piece of Elston grew somewhere in the reaches of Ramona's soul. And when she separated that piece from the whole for too long, it cried out for its other self.

  Ramona's phone rang. Frightened it would wake up Heather, Ramona snatched it up and answered it. "Hello?" she whispered.

  "Your friend Heather is in danger," said the voice on the other end.

  Mason. It was Mason. "You're a little late with that warning. She showed up in my apartment an hour ago. Her 'husband' tried to kill her," Ramona said.

  There was silence on the other end. Finally: "She's okay?"

  "Yes." Was Mason really concerned about her and Heather? Why had he waited so long to call then? "Heather said Rick went to your house."

  "Yeah," said Mason.

  "You did this to him?" Ramona didn't want to believe it, but she didn't know if she should trust Mason anymore. She didn't know if she should trust anyone.

  "Not alone," said Mason. "I wanted to call you earlier, but they wouldn't leave me." A pause. "I can't stop being what I am, Ramona. But I don't want anything to happen to you."

  "I'll be careful," said Ramona and hung up the phone. Fuck Mason. Not alone? He'd helped kill Rick? Why had she ever been attracted to him? What had she ever seen in Mason? There was nothing there. He was hollow inside
. Inhuman. Unfeeling.

  * * *

  Ramona fell asleep on the couch after the phone call with Mason. There weren't many hours left before daylight, so she slept lightly, but she dreamed. She dreamed she was back in the basement of the library, pounding on the door. Blair was on the other side of the door, telling Ramona to stop banging. If she kept making this much noise, she was going to wake Heather. "And Heather has had a very rough night, hasn't she?"

  Ramona stirred and came close to waking. Of course Heather was asleep in her bed. She should be quiet. For a second, the interior of her apartment swam before her. She began to lift her eyelids.

  But then, the dream sucked her back down, like being pulled under deep, cold water. Ramona was at the bottom of the steps in the library basement. The door at the top of the steps was open. She could see it. Bright white light was spilling out of it. Ramona scrambled for the door, for the light, but she couldn't move her feet. She looked down and saw that Blair was holding her legs.

  "Let me go," said Ramona. "I don't belong down here."

  "You think I do?" asked Blair.

  "Didn't you open the door to let me out?" asked Ramona.

  "I can't open the door," said Blair. "Even when the door is open, I can't leave. I have to stay here. In the basement."

  "But no," said Ramona, "because you locked me in here before. You locked me in. And you weren't in the basement."

  Blair shook her head. "No," she said. "No, I can't leave the basement. I can't ever leave."

  Ramona tried to free her legs from Blair's grip. "Let me go," she said again. She tried to kick Blair, but Ramona couldn't move her legs at all.

  "You can't leave," said Blair. "We don't let people leave. We have to stay. So you have to stay too."

  "No," said Ramona. "Let go of me."

  Blair shook her head.

  Ramona continued to struggle. Blair held fast, but Ramona could see that Blair was tiring. It was hard to hold Ramona down. Ramona pressed her advantage. Freed one of her legs.

  "Help," called Blair, and suddenly Mason was at her side. He grabbed Ramona's newly freed leg. He pinned it down.

  Ramona glared at Mason reproachfully. "I thought you didn’t want anything to happen to me," she said.

  Mason shrugged. "I don't care what happens to you," he said. "We have to stay, so you have to stay. Everyone stays. No one leaves. You can't leave."

  Ramona started to cry. She felt so helpless. Her tears did nothing to stir either of her captives. "Why won't you let me go?" she said. "You can come with me, I promise. We'll all leave together."

  Mason and Blair both shook their heads. "We can't leave," they said.

  "Yes you can," Ramona said, frustrated. "I see you both all the time outside of this fucking basement. All the time."

  "Do you?" said Blair.

  "You see us?" said Mason.

  "Are you sure?" said Blair.

  "Yes, I'm sure," said Ramona. "Of course I'm sure."

  "You're wrong," said Mason simply.

  Ramona stopped struggling. She stopped crying. She craned her neck back so that she could stare at the open door, and the brilliant white light. She wanted to be running out that door. Out of this basement. Ramona hated the basement. She looked back to her captors. "You can't keep me here forever."

  "Sure we can."

  "Why not?"

  Why not, indeed? "Well," said Ramona, thinking hard, "eventually, I'll have to go to the bathroom, and you won't want to hold onto me while that's happening."

  Mason and Blair looked at each other, puzzled. "We aren't keeping you from going to the bathroom," said Blair.

  "You're holding my legs," said Ramona.

  "But not really," said Mason. "Not really. That's just how you're seeing it."

  What the heck was he talking about? They weren't really holding her legs? Of course they were. They were holding her down, so that she couldn't move. They were crazy people. Ramona hated both of them. She wanted to start crying again, but she knew that wasn't going to do any good. There had to be some way to get free. "If I could get you out of the basement, would you let me go?" Ramona asked.

  "You can't get us out of the basement," said Mason.

  "But if I could," said Ramona.

  "If we weren't here, we couldn’t keep you here," said Blair. "But we can't leave."

  "No one leaves," said Mason.

  "You guys are like a broken record," said Ramona, even though she thought that it was really more likely that they were like a scratched record or a skipping CD, because she didn't think records were playable when there was a chunk broken out of them. But Ramona didn't know. Records had played a very small part of her very young life.

  "Ramona," called a voice.

  That was Heather. Heather, who was in her apartment, sleeping.

  "I have to wake up now," Ramona told Mason and Blair.

  "Okay," said Blair, shrugging.

  "You have to let go," said Ramona.

  "No, we don't," said Mason.

  "If I wake up, I'm going to leave," said Ramona.

  "Not really," said Blair.

  "Ramona, wake up," said Heather.

  Ramona squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. When she did, she was back in her apartment. Sunlight was streaming through her picture window, blinding her. Heather was leaning over her, a look of concern on her face. Ramona sat up, rubbing her eyes. She got up, went to the picture window, and pulled the blinds tight against the sun.

  "I didn't think you were going to wake up," said Heather.

  "Neither did I," muttered Ramona. What a weird, awful dream. Worse than the closet dreams when she was young. Totally different, of course. Ramona hadn't had any trouble breathing in the basement in her dream. No trouble at all. Still, thinking about it made her feel cold. She hugged herself, and turned to Heather. "How'd you sleep?"

  Heather shrugged. "I had a dream about Rick," she said. "He was trapped in all this blinding white light, and he was screaming."

  "Yeah," said Ramona. "I had a bad dream too."

  "I don't think it was just a dream," said Heather. "I think it was his spirit, trying to contact me."

  Ramona rolled her eyes.

  "Ramona!"

  "I'm sorry," said Ramona.

  "You think I'm nuts to talk about spirits, but people are stealing bodies."

  Ramona felt bad. "I didn't mean it. I'm just tired."

  "Wherever Rick's spirit is, he isn't resting peacefully," said Heather. "He's in pain. They sent him to some limbo or something... I have a book about that... But, damn it, I left it at home."

  "I think I'm going to call in to work today," said Ramona. "I don't want to leave you here alone."

  "No," said Heather. "You should go. I'll be fine."

  "Heather, your husband—"

  "I don't want to talk about it," Heather said. "I don't want to think about it. Just go to work. I'll be okay. I have to go to Applebee's later tonight, anyway."

  "You should call in too."

  "No. I should just keep going as if nothing's happened. It's the only way to get through this."

  Ramona shrugged. "Well. Okay. If you're sure. Um...there's food in the refrigerator. And you can watch cable. And when I get home—oh, I guess you'll be at work."

  "I need to stay here for a while," said Heather.

  "Of course. That's not even like a question," said Ramona.

  "I'll buy an air mattress when I'm in Freeburg tonight," said Heather. "So I don't have to take your bed. And, um, I guess I should open up a separate bank account than Rick.... But, um, we can't stay like this forever."

  "I don't think you should worry about that stuff yet," Ramona said, although she had to admit that she was relieved to find that Heather wasn't going to be sleeping in her bed indefinitely.

  "I don't like it here," said Heather. "In Elston. Were you serious about moving?"

  "Yeah."

  "Can I come with you?"

  "Absolutely," said Ramona.

 
* * *

  Ramona set an Icy Chalice down in front of Heather and sat down, sipping on her own Icy Chalice. The two were sitting outside The Holy Grind. It was Saturday morning. Ramona didn't have to work, but Heather had to go to work later that afternoon. It had only been a few days since both Rick and Garrett had been killed. The girls were both crammed into Ramona's small apartment, but they weren't having too much trouble dealing with the close proximity to each other. It reminded Ramona of what it had been like to live in a dorm room with Heather. Still, they weren't talking too much about what had happened. Ramona wanted to. She was upset and angry about her losses. She wanted to talk about how she felt, get it out so that it wasn't clanging around in her brain, ricocheting off the insides of her skull. But Heather didn't seem to want to talk about it at all.

  Ramona was worried about Heather. Ramona didn't think it was a good idea to keep this kind of emotion all bottled up inside. Whenever she tried to say anything about it, however, Heather just changed the subject immediately. The girls drank their coffee silently and watched tourists wander up and down the sidewalks of Elston.

  If the people who came to coo over the pretty old buildings and buy overpriced jewelry in the shops knew what was really going on in Elston, they wouldn't think the town was so cute and quaint would they? Ramona had always been annoyed with tourists. They took up parking spaces on the weekends. They stopped her on the street for directions to places that were two feet ahead of them. They often openly gaped at her and her friends because of the way they dressed or what they were doing. If the historical aspects of the town were a tourist attraction, then so were the dirty hippies, as far as Ramona could tell. This morning, however, she had an urge to go to them, grab them by the collar and scream at them to open their eyes, to help her.

  She didn't move, though. She just drank her iced coffee and lit a cigarette. Heather coughed. She didn't smoke. "Do you want me to move?" Ramona asked Heather. Heather shook her head.

  Ramona had been so interested in the tourists, she hadn't seen Blair approaching the coffee shop. Heather nudged Ramona, and Ramona looked up just in time to see Blair ascend the steps and go inside.

  "Should we leave?" asked Heather.