Brighter, a supernatural thriller

by V. J. Chambers

  * * *

  Ramona was already asleep when Heather got home, so she quietly got ready for bed in the dark, and slipped between the sheets on the air mattress. Ramona had suggested they switch off, each taking the air mattress for a night, but Heather felt guilty. She didn't want to impose on Ramona anymore than she already had. It was enough that she was staying in Ramona's house and wearing her clothes. She didn't have to take Ramona's bed too. But as she settled into the mattress tonight, she realized it was losing air. It wasn't the most comfortable bed. She could get up and put some more air into it, but she was too tired, so she just got as comfortable as she could and tried to let sleep wash over her like a tidal wave.

  But as tired as Heather was, she couldn't go to sleep. She kept thinking about things she needed to do at work. She had lists and lists of things she was trying to juggle in her head. She also wanted to research some of the places where Ramona had applied for a job. Look at houses for rent, restaurants where she could work, things like that. There was just too much to do. She half-felt like getting out of bed now and turning on Ramona's computer. But she knew that was probably a lost cause. The internet almost never worked up here anymore. Ramona claimed it had been fine before Heather moved in, and she'd seemed almost accusatory, as if it were Heather's fault or something. She hoped that Ramona didn’t feel put out. The two of them were moving away together. They were going to have to get used to living together. Heather rolled onto her back, adjusting for the lack of support in the mattress. She looked up at the ceiling and then firmly closed her eyes. With sheer force of will, she willed herself to sleep.

  She woke up what seemed like minutes later. She was hot and the air mattress had lost even more air. She hoped it didn't have a leak. It probably did. Mattresses didn't just lose air if there wasn't a leak, did they? Heather threw the sheets off and got up. She looked at Ramona's bed, but Ramona wasn't in it. The picture window was open and the curtains were blowing out into the night air.

  "Heather," called Ramona's voice. It was coming from the window. Slowly, Heather went to the window. She leaned out into the darkness. Ramona was outside, below the window, wearing her pajamas. She waved. "Come down here."

  What was Ramona doing outside? Heather wanted to ask, but it just seemed like too much trouble. She sighed and left the apartment. In a moment, she was standing beside Ramona.

  "Why aren't you in bed?" Heather asked Ramona.

  Ramona took Heather's hand and began to tug her up the street toward the library. The inside of the library was lit up with white light. The brilliance of the light pouring from its windows seemed to reflect off the sky. Heather squinted and resisted. "I don't want to go there," she said. "It's creepy. Regina said—"

  But Ramona wouldn't listen, and no matter how Heather struggled, it seemed that they got closer and closer to the library until it loomed huge and bright in front of them. The front door was wide open, and the oak tree in front of the door seemed engulfed by the white light. Its branches mirrored the brilliance, gleaming like polished bones. Inching past the skeletal tree, the girls entered the library.

  "I don't want to be here," whispered Heather.

  Ramona nodded. "Me either."

  Then why, in the name of God, had Ramona dragged her here? It was so bright in the library that it was difficult to see. Heather couldn't see the walls or the bookshelves. She clung to Ramona's hand. She was frightened that she might drown in this white radiance, be sucked out to sea. She turned to Ramona, but she couldn’t see Ramona anymore. She looked down, but she couldn't see her own body.

  And then she realized she couldn't feel Ramona's hand anymore. She was alone. Formless, shapeless, soundless. She was part of this blinding light. Heather tried to scream, but she didn't seem to have a mouth. She tried to run, but she didn't have legs. God. Oh God. Why had she followed Ramona to the library? She should be asleep in bed right now. She shouldn't be here. If she even existed anymore. Heather felt like she'd been stripped of her essence, of herself, of her being. She wanted to sob at the loneliness of it, at the coldness of it.

  There was a brush of wind. It seemed to go right through Heather. And then a whispered voice, not quite male or female. Maybe both. Maybe neither. "Stay," it said. "You have to stay."

  Suddenly, the air was full of a raw, agonized keening. It was as if the very world was being ripped apart by the sheer sound of the cries. They cut through Heather's soul. They sliced into Heather's heart. It stopped beating.

  And when it started again, she was awake. Really awake this time, sunlight streaming through the window of Ramona's apartment, her heart thumping violently in her chest. She sat straight up in bed and looked around, trying to convince herself that it had all been a dream, just a remnant from her discussion with Regina about the creepy library. Nothing more.

  Ramona was sitting up too. They looked at each other.

  "It's early," said Ramona. "You should go back to sleep."

  "I'm awake," said Heather.

  "It's like seven," said Ramona. "When did you get home? Three? Go back to sleep."

  Heather slowly lay back down, pulling her sheets around her body. She was shaking. She pulled the sheets tighter, squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't go back to sleep for a very long time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ramona came home from work to find Heather making dinner in the kitchen. She grinned, tossing her stuff onto the couch. "Honey, I'm home," she said.

  "I had a dream last night," said Heather.

  "Yeah?" said Ramona. "I had a dream too."

  "I had a bad dream last night."

  "So did I," said Ramona. "I don't think it's too odd that neither of us is sleeping real well. Everything's kind of a mess right now. I mean, we're under a lot of stress." She came around the bar into the kitchen area and peered over Heather's shoulder at a pot of boiling water on the stove. "Whatcha making?"

  "Spaghetti," said Heather.

  "It's awesome that you're making dinner. Thank you so much."

  Heather smiled. "This is why best friends are so much better than men. I can't count the times I wanted that response to my cooking from Rick."

  "Did you dream about Rick again?" asked Ramona, moving out of the kitchen area, so as to be out of Heather's way. She perched on one of her bar stools.

  Heather dumped an entire box of spaghetti into the boiling water. "No," she said.

  "That's a lot of spaghetti. Feeling really hungry?"

  "You can have leftovers for lunch."

  "We do sound domestic, don't we?" Ramona sat up straighter on her stool. "So, are you the wife, and I'm the husband?"

  "Absolutely not. You can cook dinner tomorrow night."

  Ramona laughed. "Okay. I will cook tomorrow." She slumped on the stool again. "What did you dream about?"

  Heather began to stir the spaghetti violently. "I dreamed about you."

  "That's funny. You were in my dream too."

  "I dreamed that you woke me up in the middle of the night and dragged me to the library."

  Ramona got up off the stool. "That's really weird. Because that's what I dreamed."

  "Why did you take me there?"

  "I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, it was just a dream."

  "Was it?" asked Heather. "When we got to the library, it was all...lit up. And when we went inside, I became, like, bodiless."

  "And then everybody started screaming."

  "Right. But first, this voice said—"

  "—Stay."

  "Yeah."

  "So we had the same dream?" Ramona asked. She began to pace in front of the bar. "Is that even possible?"

  "Apparently, it is."

  "Weird. We are close friends."

  "I don't think it was just a dream," said Heather. "I think it meant something."

  "Like what? What do you think it meant?"

  "Well, you notice how we've been having all these problems trying to leave Elston? The internet and your references and tha
t freak rainstorm on Saturday? And you remember how Blair said we had to stay strong if we were going to try to leave?"

  "Yeah, I remember that."

  "I think that something is trying to keep us from leaving."

  "But Blair wanted us to leave. She was really happy about it."

  "I don't think it's Blair and her people. I think it's something else."

  "The body-snatching monsters aren't enough? You want things to get weirder?"

  "I don't want anything to be any harder than it is," said Heather. "But I don't know. The voice said, 'Stay. You have to stay.' And it's been like fighting an uphill battle just to leave."

  "So what do you think is trying to make us stay?" asked Ramona.

  "I don't know."

  Ramona remembered the article she'd read about Ben Helzey the other day and the thoughts she'd had. "You ever hear about the vortex in Elston?"

  "The what?"

  "The vortex. It's like a joke among people who live here that there's a vortex under the library, and it keeps people from leaving."

  "Really?" said Heather.

  "Well, people are always complaining about how hard it is to leave Elston. Everybody wants to leave, but nobody can. So people started joking that there was some supernatural force keeping people here. Do you think maybe it's real?"

  "A supernatural force, a spirit, for instance, could mess with the internet signals."

  "Could it make it rain?"

  "Maybe. If it were strong enough."

  "So what are you saying? It's a lost cause? We can't get out of Elston?"

  "No, that can't be true. Because people leave here all the time."

  "Like Owen?" asked Ramona pointedly. "Because he didn't really leave, you know." Even though she'd talked herself out of this very argument with herself, she couldn't seem to stop herself from pointing it out.

  Heather stirred the spaghetti. "That's true. I guess we don't know how many of the people who moved away weren't really people. How many of them weren't already dead."

  Ramona nodded. "You know," she said. "This isn't the first time I've dreamed about the library. And the vortex is supposed to be under the library. And, I found an article at work about the library." She explained about Ben Helzey's miraculous turn-about, deciding not to tear the library down after all.

  "So," said Heather. "You're pretty sure the monsters killed him to keep him from tearing down the library."

  "Don't you think so? I mean, isn't that what it sounds like?"

  Heather stirred again, furiously this time. "I don't understand. If the vortex exists independently of the monsters, why did they try to protect it?"

  "Well, I don't know. Maybe they don't want people to leave because then they wouldn't have anybody to kill or whatever. We aren't even sure why it is they steal bodies. We don't know anything about them for sure."

  "There's a connection, though. And it has something to do with the library. Something's going on."

  "Do we care? I mean, we're moving away as soon as we can. Do we even want to bother?"

  "What if it won't let us leave?" asked Heather. She gazed at the spaghetti, looking very worried. "We have to look into this. We have to at least make sure we can get out. Don't we?"

  "I'm game," said Ramona. She kind of hoped they'd find out something that could hurt the monsters. Part of her wanted revenge. "It'll give me something to do while I'm waiting in breathless anticipation for responses to my applications, anyway."

  * * *

  Instead of looking for research on Elston for the brochure, Ramona was searching almost exclusively for information on the library now. Apparently, Ben Helzey hadn't been the only person who'd wanted to tear down the library. There had been a huge lobby to have it torn down, comprised of more than half of the population of Elston. Even when Helzey had turned the library over to the historical society and the building had become protected, the people of Elston hadn't given up for some time. A lot of people had seriously hated that library for some reason.

  Ramona found a local ghost story about the library, in which someone claimed to see the ghosts of Civil War soldiers inside the library at night, moving in front of the windows.

  One night in the eighties, there had been reports that the library was brightly lit up late at night. The incident had been chalked up to some kind of fraternity prank or something. The culprits had never been found.

  She googled "vortex" and found that there were clubs in Michigan, Reno, and London called "The Vortex." She also discovered that a vortex was swirling air or water that sucked things in. But she couldn't find anything about supernatural vortexes. She didn't even really know what she was looking for. Idly, Ramona decided to go to the library. She hadn't been there in quite some time. She thought that maybe if she was in the building, she might be able to gain some insight as to what was going on.

  So, she told Maxine she was doing brochure research and wandered over to the library. When she walked in, no one was manning the desk. She wound through the bookcases for a while, not entirely sure what she was looking for. Then, noticing the public computer in the library, she thought she would maybe try to surf the internet in the library. Maybe the search results would be different. She sat down at the computer and pulled up its web browser. She navigated back to Google, and searched for information about the library. The same search results popped up that she had seen before. So much for being in the library. She hit her back button, and prepared to stand up and leave, but the page didn't go back to the page she'd been on before, the Google homepage. Instead, it went back to another page of results, for a search query she hadn't put in.

  Ramona scrolled through the page. It was a list of missing people, all over the United States. Some of the names she recognized, but many she did not. What the heck was this? Was this like the missing Dawn Trimbley in Texas? What was the point of this? She hit her back button again, determined to get back to the home page. Instead, another list of results filled the screen.

  Ramona read some of the titles: "Freeing a trapped spirit," "Breaking through the other side," "Diverting vortex energy." She clicked on the latter search result and started to read. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, that another person was coming up behind her, but whatever. This was a public computer for goodness sake. Whoever it was would have to wait until she was done.

  Someone tapped on her shoulder. She turned around, ready to tell the person that she'd just be a few more minutes.

  It was Garrett. Ramona realized it might not be especially safe for her to be in the library, all alone, with Garrett. She decided to just play dumb. "Hi Garrett," she said brightly.

  "What are you doing?" asked Garrett.

  "Using the computer in the library."

  "For what?"

  "Research."

  "Research on what? Why do you care about diverting energy from vortexes?"

  "I don't know if I do. That's why I'd reading about it."

  "Can't you use your own computer?"

  "I have problems connecting to wireless networks in my apartment. I understand wireless networks don't work here in the library."

  "So?"

  "So, nothing. Someone just told me that was true. This library is kind of a weird place, isn't it?"

  "I thought you were moving away," said Garrett.

  "I am," said Ramona. "And may I just say that it kind of hurts that you seem so eager for me to move away. I thought that we could at least be friends, Garrett. After everything we shared together."

  "Drop it," Garrett muttered. "You don't have to act like you don't know what's going on."

  "Like what's going on?" Ramona said innocently.

  "I mean it. You're supposed to be moving away. It's going to make everything easier if you move away."

  "I told you. I am moving away."

  "Then why are you in here reading about vortexes?"

  "Why do you care?"

  Garrett took a deep breath, stood up, walked away from Ramona and then walked bac
k. "Look," he said. "You probably shouldn't come back in here."

  "Why not? It's a public place, isn't it? You can't keep me out of a public place."

  "It's just, if you're moving away, you don't need to concern yourself with this place. You don't need to worry about anything. You just need to concentrate on leaving, because trust me, that will be hard enough."

  "It is kind of hard to move. You're right. Why do you think that is, Garrett? People are always joking about the vortex under this building, but that's just a joke, isn't it? I mean, something like that couldn't possibly be real, could it?"

  "No," said Garrett sullenly.

  "So, then why are you getting so bent out of shape when I'm reading about vortexes? And what do you guys care anyway? What does the library have to do with you?"

  "Nothing," said Garrett. "Just get out, okay? Get out."

  Ramona started to make an idle quip back, but something in Garrett's eyes went dark and hollow. She stood up, knocking over the chair she'd been sitting on in the process.

  "Out," Garrett growled.

  Ramona got out.

  * * *

  "Hi, it's Heather," said Heather into the receiver of the phone.

  "Heather," said Janice, the receptionist at the place Rick worked, "we haven't heard from you in a while."

  "Um, yeah," said Heather. "Didn't Rick tell you? We separated."

  "No, honey. He hasn't breathed a word about that to me. But he sure has seemed different lately. Maybe that's got something to do with it. I sure am sorry. I hope you two can work it out."

  "Well..." Heather decided there was no point going into that. "Anyway, I'm just calling because I'm trying to find out where he is. I left some of my things at the house, and I want to come get them, but I don't want to see him. Is he at work now?"

  "Yes. He's here. What happened, honey? Why are you two having problems?"

  Heather didn't want Janice to be suspicious, but she didn't want to have a long conversation. "I don't want to go into it," she said. "But it's like you said. He's different. A lot different. He got...violent, and, anyway, I don't want to talk about it."