Brighter, a supernatural thriller

by V. J. Chambers

  "I have to."

  "She told everyone you raped her," said Ramona. "If you actually hurt her, everyone would think it was true."

  The image of strangling Blair began to deflate in Garrett's mind. He sat down opposite Ramona in one of the other chairs. "She should pay. She hurt you."

  "No," said Ramona. "No, that's not right. But...maybe she is after us or something. You said that they'd try to kill us. I don't think she wanted me to be dead, but..."

  "But she sure as fuck didn't want you to be okay, did she?"

  "No," said Ramona. "But we can't get to her by trying to hurt her physically. We have to try to figure out what's going on in town. Try to figure out what Blair is."

  The anger was draining away from Garrett's brain, leaving him tired and sad. He went to Ramona, brushed a few strands of blood-encrusted hair out of her face. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

  Ramona looked like she might cry. "I don't know," she said.

  He pulled her close, and she clung to him. Her shoulders started to shake gently. She was sobbing. Garrett stroked the back of her head and felt helpless. What was he going to do? One thing was for certain. Blair had played her hand now. Before, they could have talked themselves out of the fact she had anything against them. But now, she'd done something concrete. She'd actually made a physical move against them.

  He pulled back a little from Ramona. "Maybe we should go to the police?"

  "Is there a law against locking people in the basement?" asked Ramona. "I'm sure she'd say it was just a joke or something. Maybe a mean-spirited one, but I don't think what she did is illegal."

  "What can I do?" Garrett finally asked.

  "Walk me home," said Ramona.

  * * *

  "I am so sorry for the short notice, Maxine," Ramona rasped into the phone. She must have really screamed her head off last night, because her voice had yet to really return to her. "I just can't make it in today."

  "You sound awful," said Maxine. "Don't come back until you feel better. I mean it."

  Good. Ramona hung up the phone and collapsed onto her bed. She was exhausted, and she didn't feel like thinking. She set her phone down on her end table and started to plug it into her charger, but then realized she had missed calls and voicemails. She hadn't noticed before because she'd been too focused on calling in to work. She guessed it made sense. After all, she'd been separated from her phone all night since it had been in her purse. She hadn't heard it ring though, while she'd been trapped in the basement. She probably hadn't turned the ringer back on after work. She checked. Yep. Might as well fix that then.

  Then Ramona decided to check her missed calls. What? Why did she have ten missed calls from a local Elston number that she didn't know? Oh, and Garrett had called. That was nice. But who the fuck had been calling her all night? She pressed the button to dial her voicemail.

  "You have five new messages," said the automated voice on the other end. "Message One:"

  The message kicked on. "Ramona, this is Blair. I got your phone number from—well, it doesn't matter where I got your phone number. Pick up your phone, for God's sake. Look, I really need to apologize for what I did. It was really wrong. I'm really sorry. I'll explain more if you call me back."

  "Message Two:"

  "Hi, Ramona, it's Blair again. I realized I didn't leave my number. But then I guess it's probably on your caller ID. But anyway, here it is." Blair recited the number.

  Ramona took the phone away from her head and looked at it. Did Blair really think that stupid message was going to get her off the hook?

  "Message Three:"

  "Ramona, I'm outside the library. I'm realizing that you probably left your purse upstairs, and you don't have your phone on you. Shit! It's locked. I'm pounding on the outside door. If you're still in there, pound back.... Oh God, I don't know what to do.... Ramona, pound back, goddamn it, can you hear me pounding? Jesus. Um... This is stupid, me talking to the phone like this. Fuck."

  Weird. Blair did sound pretty upset. But Ramona hadn't heard any pounding while she was in the basement. None. Come to think of it, she hadn't heard anything. No sounds from outside. No car horns. No sirens. It was as if she'd been sealed inside....

  "Message Four:"

  "Hey, Ramona, it's Garrett. Um, you have my number, so call me."

  "Message Five:"

  "Okay, Ramona, it's Blair again. I don't know if you got out of the library or not. But if you didn't have your phone, you couldn't have called anyone, so maybe you didn't get out. In which case... Well, anyway, look. I don't know what to do at this point, but I hope that you are okay." Blair sounded like she was crying. "I am so, so sorry, Ramona. I know that probably doesn't sound like much, and it doesn't really mean anything to you right now. I should never have done what I did. And I don't know if I can even explain why I did it, because when I think about it, it just sounds kind of psycho and...

  "I saw you talking to Garrett Hillard in the bar the other night. And then somebody said that they saw him leaving your apartment early. And he looked like he'd slept there. And I don't know if that means anything, but I just assumed you were sleeping with him. That bastard was getting laid, you know? The guy who ruined my life was getting some kind of positive attention from somebody. And I just couldn't, like, handle it. And I punished you, because you were the person who was being nice to him, and that doesn’t make any sense, because—" Blair broke off in sobs. Finally, she got herself back together. Really together. Her voice was brisk and cold. "I shouldn't have acted like I did, Ramona. I shouldn't have done what I did. But if it helps you get the message to stay away from Garrett Hillard, then at least something good came of it."

  Ramona deleted all the messages. And then she stared at her TV. She should really try to figure out what she thought about what Blair had said to her voicemail. Because it was really disturbing. Really. Just the fact that Blair had locked her in there in the first place was fucked up. Not to mention the weird apologies. And then Blair's voice at the end...

  She guessed that what Blair was saying did make sense, in a really fucked up way. So maybe it was possible that all the stuff she and Garrett had been talking about—ghosts, clones, monsters—really was just some sort of figment of their overactive imaginations. But, she had to ask herself, did it make more sense that Blair was angry with her for sleeping with Garrett or did it make more sense that Blair was a monster whose existence was threatened by Ramona's knowledge of something she shouldn't know about? What the hell? Neither of those things made any sense at all.

  Ramona was tired. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything at all pretty much ever again for all that it mattered to her. She dragged herself to her couch and flicked on her television set. TV would drown out the noise in her head. She would just watch something mindless, and maybe she'd fall asleep. She stretched out, getting herself comfortable on one of her pillows. She did have a day off from work, after all. Ramona began flipping through the channels. There was nothing good on. TV on weekday mornings pretty much sucked balls. She settled for a few moments on an episode of Charmed, but then realized she had seen it and moved on. She almost flipped passed the classic movie channel without even looking, because there weren't many black and white movies Ramona actually liked. But the words on the TV screen jumped up at her, and she paused. It was the title screen of a movie, definitely in black and white.

  Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  Huh, thought Ramona. Body snatchers... She'd never seen this movie before. Had heard people talk about it, but had no idea what it was about. Still, the idea of it seemed to say something to her. She watched the entire film.

  * * *

  Ramona hadn't called her. Heather wasn't particularly surprised, but she was a little worried. She wanted to talk to Ramona, make sure she was thinking a little straighter these days. Heather was pretty sure she'd done a good job at talking Ramona down last time, but she wasn't sure what was going on in Ramona's brain t
hese days. Heather was going to have to force Ramona to come and see her. Soon. If Heather had to drive to Elston herself and collect Ramona to drag her out of that town, she would.

  That was a funny thought, Heather mused. After all, it wasn't like she couldn’t simply visit Ramona in Elston. But it was weird. Elston gave her a strange feeling. She never quite felt comfortable there anymore. She didn't know why, because she used to live in Elston, when she and Ramona roomed together at college. But it was different living in a dorm than it was living in the actual town the way Ramona did. Right on Main Street. Like she was in the center of the whole place. Or... Heather didn't know. She'd never minded Elston when she lived there. But she didn't really want to hang out there anymore. And, it seemed, Ramona didn't want to hang out anywhere else. Ramona always made the excuse that she didn't like driving someplace if she was going to drink, because then she had to watch her alcohol consumption. Heather wondered if it went deeper than that somehow.

  Anyway, it was clear that Heather was going to have to call Ramona this time. She couldn’t wait for Ramona to get some other crazy idea and call all shaken up again. Heather was sitting on the back porch sipping on iced tea. She'd just finished lunch. Her phone was in her purse, which was inside the house, so she got up and went inside to get it. She dialed Ramona's number, but as it started to ring, Heather realized that it was probably a bad time to call Ramona. Ramona was probably at work.

  Heather worked as a manager for Applebee's in Freeburg. It wasn't her life's ambition to be a restaurant manager, but Heather didn’t exactly know what her life's ambition was anymore. Heather had studied to be a teacher in college. She'd wanted to teach middle school social studies, because she remembered really liking social studies in school. And she thought middle school kids were a neat age. They were just growing up and becoming adults, but they were still kids in a lot of respects. Heather had been naïve. Two weeks into her student teaching assignment she'd realized that teaching was not for her. The students were so rude and she couldn't make them be quiet and listen to her. They threw spit wads at her head when her back was turned. They called her names to her face. They blatantly disregarded everything she said.

  It was enough to give Heather a nervous breakdown. But she was three months from graduating at that point. It didn't seem to make sense to quit. So she stuck out student teaching and graduated with her class. After graduation, she continued working as a waitress. One day, when she saw that Applebee's was hiring managers, it occurred to her that with a college degree, she could get a managerial position. And she had lots of restaurant experience. She'd waited tables all through high school and college. It seemed like a no-brainer. She went for it.

  Working as a manager wasn't bad. She had pretty good pay and benefits. But because she was new and young, she had to work some pretty crappy shifts, and she almost never got a full weekend off anymore. So that was why she was home on a weekday in the afternoon. Ramona's job was a pretty regular nine-to-five one. Sometimes Heather was kind of jealous of that. Of course, Ramona wasn't using her college degree either. Heather sometimes wondered why people even got college degrees when they were so damned impractical.

  She almost hung up the phone, but she knew that her number would show up on Ramona's phone. And then Ramona would want to know why Heather had called but not left a message. So Heather waited for Ramona's voicemail to pick up. Instead, Ramona answered, "Hey, what's up?"

  "Oh," said Heather. "You're home. I thought that you'd be at work."

  "I had to call in," said Ramona. "Why'd you call me if you thought I wasn't going to be able to answer?"

  "I just realized it while dialing," said Heather. "Sorry."

  "No worries," said Ramona. "So what's going on?"

  "Um, nothing really. You sound hoarse. Are you okay? Why'd you call off work?"

  Ramona sighed. "Long story. God. You would not believe what has been happening to me, Heather. I got locked in the fucking basement of the library last night."

  "What?!" Heather demanded. What did Ramona mean, locked in? And Ramona was really claustrophobic. "Are you okay?"

  "I don't know," said Ramona. "I think so. But, Jesus, Heather, it is so weird. Oh my God. How do I even explain this?"

  "Start at the beginning."

  "I got laid," Ramona offered.

  "Does that connect?"

  "Sort of."

  "Who'd you sleep with?"

  "Garrett."

  "The rapist?!"

  "He's not a rapist." Ramona began to explain what had been happening to her over the past couple of days. Apparently, she trusted this Garrett guy, but Heather thought that he was the one who was feeding Ramona so much strange shit. Maybe it was really all his fault that Ramona sounded so crazy. But as Ramona continued, explaining about skinning her knee, Blair patching it up, Blair's comment about Ramona being down there all night, and then Blair's subsequent phone messages, Heather had to admit that Blair sounded a little mentally unglued. She barely knew Blair as a passing acquaintance only. Heather wasn't even sure if Blair would remember her name. So Heather didn't know what kind of person Blair really was. But locking Ramona in a basement? That sounded deeply disturbed. "I don't know," Ramona finished up. "What do you think about her excuse?"

  "That she wanted to hurt you because you were sleeping with the guy that raped her?" Heather asked.

  "Yeah."

  "It sounds sketchy."

  "That's what I think. I don't know, Heather. I know you think I'm nuts with the ghosts/clones/demons thing, but Blair really seems like she's trying to scare me off. Like maybe I'm digging up things that she doesn't want me to know about."

  "Listen," said Heather. "I'm sure there's another explanation."

  "Than ghosts or clones or demons? Yeah. I think so too. I think they might be aliens."

  Heather had meant for Blair's actions, but she guessed Ramona was going to need an explanation for that stuff too. She just wished it wasn't aliens. Inwardly, she groaned, but she guessed she'd bite. "Aliens?"

  "Have you ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers?" Ramona asked.

  Oh God. Ramona could not mean that. "You think Blair is like a pod person?" Heather asked, trying to put as much skepticism as she could manage into her voice.

  "Maybe," said Ramona. "Think about it. It all fits. I saw Angelica after she was dead, because a pod person had already taken over her body. But then they found her dead body, so the pod person had to run off for fear of discovery—"

  "No," said Heather. "I'm not listening to another one of these half-baked theories of yours. Lay off the weed, Ramona. I mean it."

  "God, I knew you would be like that," Ramona said.

  "How do you expect me to be? How do you expect any normal, rational person to react to what it is you're saying?"

  "Okay, I know," said Ramona. "So why do you think Blair locked me in the basement?"

  "She's nuts?"

  "She's nuts? I'm nuts? Garrett's nuts? Or maybe we're all perfectly sane, and something really fucked up is going on in Elston. I think whatever it is might have been going on for a really long time."

  "Maybe she just doesn’t like you."

  "I don't like lots of people. I don't lock them in basements."

  "Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Maybe she really did think you had your phone on you."

  "Heather, you should have heard her voice at the end of the last message. She was so cold and detached, and she was like, 'Stay away from Garrett.' It was really ominous. I think I'm going to have nightmares about it."

  "Do you really think Blair is an alien?"

  "Maybe. Or something supernatural. Something we don't have any names for, right? Some kind of, like, monster."

  "Are you listening to yourself? Do you have any idea what you sound like?"

  "Jesus, Heather, you believe in ghosts. And Tarot cards. And horoscopes. And you have those weird Wiccan friends."

  "It is not the same."

  "Why isn't it?"

&nbs
p; Heather sighed. "Maybe we should talk about something else." She didn't know what to say to Ramona about this stuff. It was getting harder and harder to talk Ramona down. Was her best friend losing it? What should she do?

  "Okay."

  "So you got laid," said Heather with forced cheerfulness. "How was that?"

  "Oh," said Ramona in a very different voice. "It was amazing. Like really, really amazing. Like...sex on Top Gun. Like I felt like Kelly McGillis."

  Heather chuckled. "Sounds awesome." She ruefully reflected that her own sex life recently left a lot to be desired. Apparently, it was true what they said. Marriage was a great way to kill a perfectly good sex life.

  * * *

  Mason sat across the street from The Holy Grind, his head buried in a book. Every once and a while, he stole a glance across the street. He was looking for Ramona. He'd gotten a pretty bad vibe from Blair. He thought maybe Blair had done something. He didn't know what, exactly. But something not good. Blair seemed strange lately. She wasn't being careful. It worried Mason. And he wanted to make sure that Ramona was okay. And that she was still herself. He'd told himself a million times that it was stupid to look out for Ramona the way he did, but he couldn't stop himself. He'd never really cared for a girl the way he cared about Ramona. He wasn't used to having this kind of flood of emotion.

  So far, he hadn't seen her. It worried him, but he didn't let it show on his face. It was early morning, and he wasn't sure exactly when Ramona went to work, but he knew it had to be soon. He also knew that, like most of Elston's younger residents, she stopped at The Holy Grind on her way into work. If he just waited, he would see her. As long as she was okay, anyway.

  Finally, she emerged from the door of her apartment building. She was wearing a flowered sundress, and her hair was down. It floated around her shoulders like a dark cloud. Mason sighed. Ramona was so pretty. And she'd only gotten prettier. He remembered the first time he'd seen her, a skinny freshman with a dramatic short haircut. He'd thought she was beautiful then, too. Mason stared at her. Bored holes into her with his eyes. He waited to see if he sensed anything different. To see if she was...changed. But she was fine. She spotted him across the street and waved cheerily.