Brighter, a supernatural thriller (36 page)

"I think it's like Mason said," Heather said, catching up. She was out of breath. "They can't get us in public."

"What do we do?" asked Ramona. She was out of breath too.

It was after ten on a Friday night. There was really only one place in Elston that was open. The Brass Frog. The girls headed into the bar, trying to catch their breath. They didn't stop at the bar to get a drink. Instead, they walked all the way back into the garden. The bar was busy. It was Friday. There wasn't anywhere to sit, as usual. Ramona and Heather just kept walking. They walked until they got to the fence at the back of the garden. Then they just stood there, their breath coming in gasps, their hearts' beating starting to slow. They didn't really move for quite some time.

Then, they saw that the monsters had come into the bar. All of them. They each were carrying drinks, and they were infiltrating the entire area, laughing loudly, and sitting down at tables with other people they knew. They were acting like nothing was wrong, like it was just another Friday night, and they hadn't been chasing Ramona and Heather just a few minutes before.

"Fuck," muttered Ramona. "What are we going to do?"

Ramona wished more than anything she had somewhere to sit down. She wished that she and Heather could have just driven out of town today. Heather had been right. They were going to die. They were going to die, and she didn't want to die. She just wanted to leave. She just wanted out of Elston. Why was it so hard for her to leave Elston? Why, why, why?

"There's a table," said Heather. She pointed.

They went to the table and sat down. It was better to be sitting down than to be standing, but not much.

"We should just make a break for it," said Ramona. "Get in our cars and drive out of here."

"We can't," said Heather. "We tried that already. What makes you think it would work now?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to be stuck in the fucking bar watching them party down. It's sickening."

"I left my purse in the library basement," said Heather.

"So did I."

"It has everything in it. My driver's license. My credit cards. My checks. Everything."

"Yeah. Mine too."

"Well, we have to go back and get that stuff."

"We're going to die," said Ramona. "I don't think a driver's license is going to matter much when we're stuck in the vortex until the end of time."

"How do you think they knew we were in there?" asked Heather.

"The lights?"

"Or maybe Mason told them."

"Speak of the devil," said a voice.

The girls looked up. Mason was standing over their table. His face was bruised and swollen. His hair was matted to his forehead with what looked like blood. He had a jacket on, but underneath it, his shirt had been cut to tatters. It also looked soaked in blood.

"I'm fine," said Mason, in response to their stares. "I heal. Can I sit down?"

Ramona nodded. He slid in next to her. He touched her hair, her face. "You're okay," he said. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Did you tell them?" Heather asked pointedly.

"I'm sorry," said Mason.

"Can't you see they beat him up?" Ramona asked. She looked at Mason. "It's okay. We're fine."

"We're not fine," said Heather. "We didn't finish the ritual. We barely got out of there without the monsters fucking killing us. And now we're stuck in the goddamned bar. We can't leave town. We’re screwed. We didn't die yet, but we will. Later."

"No," said Mason. "I won't let that happen."

"What are you going to do?" asked Ramona.

But at that moment, Blair came over to their table.

"What?" demanded Ramona.

"I'm here for Mason," she said. "I think you're a bad influence on him."

"Fuck you, Blair," said Mason.

"What do you care?" said Ramona. "You already pummeled him."

"Listen, Ramona," said Blair. "The bar's gonna close at some point. I can wait." To Mason, "Say goodbye to your little friends, and then come back to my table."

She stalked off.

"Damn it, damn it," moaned Heather. "They're waiting us out. They're just gonna sit here and drink until the bar closes, and then you and I are open game."

She was right. Ramona buried her face in her hands. "We're toast," she said. "Mason, it's been really nice knowing you. Whoever gets my body—can you make sure they don't do anything obscene to it, like give me a tongue ring or something?"

"You're not toast," said Mason. "Look, it's almost midnight. You need to go back to the library and restart the ritual. It will go easier at midnight, trust me."

"How are we supposed to get past them?" Heather asked, gesturing at the monsters scattered around the bar.

"I'll distract them," said Mason. "You guys go over the fence." He pointed to the fence they'd been standing at. "See? The gate is low enough to straddle. You can step over that."

"They'll see," said Ramona.

"I promise you, they won't," said Mason.

Heather shrugged. "What have we got to lose? We're going to die anyway, right?"

Ramona nodded. "Okay. We'll try it."

Mason reached behind her head and cupped her face with his hand. He kissed her thoroughly. "Bye, Ramona," he said.

"Bye," she said, too stunned to say anything else.

Mason got up and walked away.

"Well, at least you got a kiss," Heather said.

"Yeah, and now I'm gonna try to kill him," said Ramona. "I could kiss you if you want?"

Heather glared at her.

Mason's voice rang out as he walked toward the front of the bar. "I think it's about time everybody in Elston had an idea of what's been going on around here. It sure as fuck is a weird place to live, isn't it? Anybody in here know anything about falling stars?"

Almost immediately, monsters from every table stood up and started after Mason.

Ramona could hear Craig's voice, calling, "Mason, dude, you have had way too much to drink."

Mason just kept going. They all followed him.

Heather and Ramona stood up and crept back to the back of the bar. They climbed over the gate to the fence. Ramona scraped her leg, but they made it okay. And once they were in the alley, they took off at a run, back a block to the library.

The back door was open, its bottom window smashed open. Ramona and Heather stepped over the broken glass carefully and entered the library once more. There was no light this time, so they stumbled and felt their way into the basement, which was inky black. Heather almost fell down the steps, but she righted herself. At the bottom of the steps, however, Ramona tripped over a candle and went sprawling. She swore, but grabbed the candle and lit it. Now there was a little bit of light.

"Shit, we have to make new smudges," Heather moaned.

She started to do that right away, while Ramona set up the candles and lit them again. The pages in the book they were using were ripped, but they were still readable. In a few minutes, they were set up again. They took their places in the middle of the circle, and Heather began to read the first invocation once again.

* * *

"So, we just kill people and take their bodies," Mason was yelling. Craig had his arms wrapped around Mason from behind, restraining him. Craig was laughing.

"Dude, you need to go to sleep," he said. "Let me walk you home."

But Mason could see a light of uncertainty in many of the faces in the bar. They half-believed him. They too had noticed strange things happen in Elston. They understood that there was something going on in this town, that Elston wasn't a normal little town.

Mason locked eyes with the bartender. "Do I seem drunk to you?" he asked. "I'm not stumbling. I'm not slurring. I'm very lucid for a drunk, don't you think?"

The bartender raised his eyebrows. "Mason," he said, "I've seen a lot of weird things in this town since I got here. I've learned the best thing to do is to just blink and look the other way. Get him out of here, Craig."

But as Mason was being dragged out of the bar, he heard someone yell, "Hey! Where are Ramona and Heather?"

Chapter Twenty-three

Ramona and Heather were right in the thick of the Latin spell, but the smoke hadn't started swirling like last time. Ramona didn't know if there was something wrong, or what. She didn't dare stop to talk to Heather about it, because she knew if they stopped, they would have to start all over again. It sure as heck was easier to do the spell without the violent winds around them, but it was also easier to feel fairly ridiculous. Like whatever they were doing wasn't making any difference. Like it was just empty, silly words. In the distance, Ramona could hear the clock in the center of town striking midnight. If anything, with each strike of the clock, everything got more still. The candles didn't even flicker. And the smoke rose lazily, tendrils of it mixing with the smoke from the smudges.

Voices rang out above them. The monsters had entered the library again. That was okay, Ramona told herself. She wasn't going to let it distract her. She did nothing but concentrate on the spell, on speaking at the same time as Heather. Heather squeezed her hand encouragingly.

It was like before, except this time, the monsters didn't all rush down the steps. Ramona could hear them traipsing down the stairs slowly, languidly. It was as if they had recognized the error of their ways last time, and this time, they were more organized. Fear crawled up Ramona's back, writhing and alive. She stared at the page of the spell book, forced herself to think about nothing except reading the words.

The monsters circled them. Ramona didn't look up, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see that they didn't look like the people she knew anymore. Their faces had stretched, gone long and pale. Then she felt the first set of claws in her skull and she could see that there were long needle sharp icicle fingers on Heather's head as well. She kept reading.

The claws dug into her skin, drawing blood. A long, thin, bone-hard arm wrapped itself around her neck and got tighter. Ramona kept reading.

They were trying to pull her away from Heather, but she grasped Heather's hand as tight as she could. Her knuckles had gone white from the strain of it.

It was getting harder to speak now. The arm around her neck was tightening against her vocal chords, against her windpipe. But even as she felt the last of her air go from her lungs, she mouthed the last few words of the spell.

All around her, the monsters disappeared, bursting into golden dust. And then, each of the candles burned bright and high, the flames climbing up three feet. There was a whoosh, and bright, hot air rushed past Ramona's face. She heard a thousand cries. Cries of freedom, she hoped.

And then all the candles went out, and the smudges stopped burning, and she and Heather were plunged into darkness.

* * *

They had no problem driving out of Elston. Neither of their cars stalled. They drove out to Interstate 81, left West Virginia, and entered Virginia, but even though the speed limit dropped five miles, they kept up their speed. The dark sky looked like warm velvet to Ramona. She felt exhausted but still very alert. She felt, as she drove, like she could really breathe for the first time in years. The air was so sweet, she rolled down all the windows in her car, let the rush of it bathe her in its freshness. The world felt like a wide-open mystery, hers to solve. An adventure, hers to conquer. Ramona cranked the music on her radio, and she felt like she was flying.

They were hungry, so they stopped at a Denny's off I-81 and ordered food. The Denny's was lit with yellow lights that buzzed overhead. The crowd inside was a mix of drunks who'd just left the bar and of early risers. Old and young. Their table had a few crumbs on it and country music blared on the radio. But Ramona and Heather hardly cared. It was just so good to be out of Elston and to be free. To be on their way, the highway stretching in front of them, a ribbon of opportunity. Ramona got nachos, even though she was skeptical about Denny's nachos. They just looked so good, and she'd been eyeing them on Denny's menus for some time. Their waitress brought them coffee.

As Heather emptied pack after pack of sugar into hers, she said, "I guess it worked."

"Yeah," said Ramona, pouring creamer into her coffee.

They stirred their coffees. They looked at each other, both grinning. Then they each took a sip. The coffee tasted good to Ramona. Simple. Not fancy. Not like the overpriced, over-styled drinks at The Holy Grind.

"So," said Heather, "when we get to Richmond, we get to decorate our apartment however we want, and that will be awesome, because Rick and I never had similar decorating tastes."

"Oh my God, I know," said Ramona. "Your house looked like a fifty-year-old lived there or something."

"Yeah. And I want to do something kind of funky. Like with mod greens and maybe some brown or something."

"Oooh, I like that. And we could get chunky vases. You know, like those square ones."

"Yeah, that would be fun."

"And I also want one of those wooden dish drainers in the kitchen. I love the way those look."

"We'll totally need a dish drainer, considering how much we both adore washing dishes."

Both of them laughed.

A shadow fell over their table, but the girls were too engaged in each other to notice. "Maria, who was waiting on you before, had to go home because her kid is sick, so I said I'd take her tables," said a voice above them, one with a deep Texan drawl.

The girls looked up at their new waitress, and the smiles froze on their faces.

"My name's Dawn," said the waitress. "And I'll be serving you for the rest of the evening."

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