Brighter, a supernatural thriller Read online

  "We're in public," said Ramona. "We should be safe."

  Still, Ramona's pulse began to race. Just being close to Blair made her nervous. But she wasn't going to let anyone chase her out of places like The Holy Grind. For now, anyway, she was still living in Elston. And she was living in enough fear without having to worry about holing up in her house and not going anywhere like a hermit. No, she wasn't going to run screaming every time Blair showed up.

  "It makes me nervous to be this close to her," said Heather.

  "Me too," said Ramona. "But we're gonna move soon, so we won't have to see her anymore."

  "Which reminds me, how is your job hunting going?" asked Heather.

  "Well, how is yours?"

  "I can get a job at a restaurant easily. There are restaurants everywhere. So you need to find a job first. Then, once I know where we're going, I'll find a job."

  "I keep trying to look, but things keep coming up at work," said Ramona.

  "So you're nowhere? You haven't found anything?" Heather didn't sound happy.

  "I found a few things, but they're too far away."

  "Where?"

  "California."

  "You said a few."

  "Okay, so I only found one."

  "Are you saying that there aren't admissions openings besides that one, or that you just haven't been looking hard enough?"

  "I just...it's like, I want to search for jobs, but whenever I start to do it, I just...really don't want to," said Ramona. Which sounded stupid.

  "Get over it," said Heather. "You need a job, because we need to move."

  Blair came back out of the coffee shop. Ramona and Heather both looked at her. Blair smiled. Ramona heaved a sigh and then turned back to Heather. Blair wasn't going to stop her conversations either. "Maybe," said Ramona. "We should do some looking together. Because it's not just me that's going to move, you know. So, I want your input."

  Heather nodded. "We can do that. After coffee, we can do that."

  "Good," said Ramona.

  Blair pulled a chair up to the table that Heather and Ramona were sitting in and sat down.

  "Um," said Ramona, "I don't think either of us asked you to sit down with us."

  "I know," said Blair. "But you guys don't mind. There's just no one else here for me to talk to."

  "You want to talk to us?" asked Heather. "Whatever for?"

  "I couldn’t help but overhear that you two are planning on moving?" said Blair. "Is that true?"

  "Yeah," said Ramona. "Elston sucks."

  Blair nodded. "Well, I think there comes a time for everyone when they need to move on. I think that's cool that you're moving, Ramona. When are you going?"

  "Is this really your business?" asked Heather.

  "You guys are really hostile this morning," said Blair. "Better drink up that coffee. It might put you in a better mood."

  "Is that what Owen did?" asked Ramona. "Did he move on?"

  Blair smiled. "Yes, actually. He moved away."

  "Without notifying his job?" asked Ramona. "Griff was pissed off."

  "It was a sudden decision," said Blair. "An opportunity presented itself that he couldn't pass up." She paused. "Look, Ramona, Heather, I wish you the best. I really do. And I think moving away is an excellent idea. But sometimes...it can be harder than you might think to leave a place like Elston. I just want to tell you to be strong and fight the feeling that you'll be leaving behind so many memories. You can leave. You can. Just keep telling yourselves that."

  * * *

  Heather and Ramona huddled over Ramona's laptop. Heather had practically had to force Ramona to leave the coffee shop and come up here to search for jobs. She didn't know why Ramona was being so resistant. It had been Ramona's idea to move away anyhow. But Ramona really procrastinated. She always had, since Heather had met her. Heather couldn't count the number of times she'd seen Ramona stay up late to finish papers that were due the following morning. What amazed Heather was that even though Ramona always waited until the last minute, she always seemed to make good grades anyway. If Heather put things off, whatever she came up with at the last minute was always crap. In some ways, she envied Ramona for that. But Ramona couldn't seem to get motivated if there wasn't a looming deadline. That was why she hadn't ever applied to grad schools. Heather knew she was going to have to force Ramona to look for jobs. It might put a strain on their friendship, but Ramona wasn't going to do it on her own.

  Currently, Ramona was being difficult because of what Blair had said to them. "It just bugs me that Blair is so keen on us leaving," said Ramona. "Should we do it if she wants us to so bad?"

  "God, Ramona, of course she wants us to leave. She's been trying to kill us. Dead, out of town, it's all the same to her. Isn't that why we're leaving, anyway? Because we're in danger?"

  "But she seems to think we're a threat to her," said Ramona. "Maybe there's something we can do to stop them from doing what they're doing. Should we try it if we can? Don't they deserve to pay for what they've done?"

  "No. Even if there is something we could do, and I'm not sure there is, if we try to do it, they'll just kill us. We have to get out of town, Ramona. Now, would you pull up Google and start searching?"

  "Fine," Ramona muttered, clicking on the Internet Explorer icon. "Okay, so, where do we want to move?"

  "Somewhere far away," said Heather. "But not too far away."

  "D.C.?" asked Ramona. "There are a bunch of colleges in D.C. American University, Catholic University—"

  "No. That's too close. And I don't want to live in a big city." Heather liked the comforts of an area with a little more population than Elston, but she didn't want to live somewhere clogged with tons of people. "Besides, rent will be astronomical in D.C."

  "Okay," said Ramona. "Then, what did you have in mind?"

  "Well, where do you want to go? Do you want to go to D.C.?"

  "No, not really. Do you want to go somewhere in Maryland?"

  "I don't know. What about south? Let's go south."

  "All right. Like far south? Like Georgia?"

  "Virginia?"

  "Virginia. Okay." Ramona typed in Virginia colleges into the Google search bar. She looked at the search results and clicked on a site that listed Virginia colleges. "Um...what do you think about Charlottesville? There's a college there. UVA."

  "I've never been there."

  "Me either. Or, what about Richmond? There are a couple colleges in that area. VCU, William and Mary..."

  "Richmond could be cool. Check that out."

  Ramona went back to the search page and typed in VCU. She clicked on the college's official site, and then navigated to the Employment tab. The page wouldn't load. "Fuck," said Ramona. She went back and clicked refresh on the home page for VCU. The page wouldn’t load. "Damn it," said Ramona. She opened a new window. The page wouldn't load.

  "I think something's wrong with the internet," said Heather.

  "Yeah," said Ramona, clicking open her wireless networks window. "It says I'm connected. But look." She pointed. "There's no information being sent over the network. Damn it."

  "Can you call your internet provider?"

  "Well, that's the thing. I steal internet from the wireless connection in The Holy Grind."

  "Oh," said Heather.

  "I can call The Grind. Olivia's working there. She might be able to tell me if it's working down there. And she wouldn't rat me out for stealing it."

  Ramona did. Heather listened to the other side of the conversation. Finally, Ramona hung up. "Weird," she said. "It's working fine down there. I'm going to restart the computer and see if that works."

  But even after the computer was restarted, Ramona couldn't connect to the internet. The girls tried to make it work for a little over a half hour before giving up.

  "I have no idea why this is happening," said Ramona. "But I guess if I want reliable internet, I should really pay for it myself."

  "Yeah," said Heather. "I guess so. Well, that's okay, any
way, because you can look at work on Monday. Or we could go to the library on campus and use the computers there."

  "Right now?" asked Ramona.

  Heather checked her watch. "I have to get ready to go to work, but you could go."

  "Yeah," said Ramona. "Maybe I will."

  Heather took a shower and put on her Applebee's uniform. When she was done, Ramona was at her computer, still trying to make it work. She wasn't having any luck. "What if my computer is broken?" asked Ramona. "This computer is not that old. I do not want to deal with it breaking."

  Heather nodded. "That would suck, especially with the expense of moving and everything."

  "Yeah," said Ramona. "Damn it. This sucks." She bit her lip. "I wonder if we should move."

  Heather shook her head. She was not going to have this argument again. "I'm going to work," she said. "If you really want to stay in Elston, that's fine with me. But I'm moving. Just let me know if you change your mind." And she left.

  * * *

  The internet had started working again late Sunday night. Ramona had found that there was an open admissions position at VCU, so she'd printed out the application. It was pages long. She'd fully intended to sit down and try to fill it out, but the thing had just seemed so daunting that she'd set it aside. She'd brought it with her to work the next morning, but Maxine was watching her like a hawk, trying to find out her status on the brochure copy. So instead of working on her application, Ramona was knee deep in Elston history research. She wasn't finding anything out. She'd read as much as she possibly could about Rumsey and his steam engine. Apparently, he hadn't been the first person to come up with a steam engine, so that was why he never got credit for it outside of Elston. But he'd been one of the first, and that had gotten him a monument in town.

  The library had been a hospital during the Civil War, so Ramona was trying that angle. She was hoping to get more information than, "During the Civil War, the Elston library was the site of a hospital for wounded soldiers," which was currently all she could find. She was wading through search results on the query "Elston library hospital Civil War." She was getting the feeling that all of these websites plagiarized from each other, because they all had the exact same wording. And all of them had just a sentence or two about the library and the Civil War.

  Ramona was about to give up and try a new tactic, when she saw a result titled, "Elston Public Library protected by the Elston Historical Society." Ramona clicked on it. The Elston Chronicle website filled her screen. "Archives," said the heading at the top of the page. It went on to explain that The Elston Chronicle was attempting to upload to the internet all of its issues since its establishment. Ramona was currently looking at an issue from a week in May, 1960.

  Ramona scrolled down the page, looking for the article on the library. She found it and began to read. "In an unforeseen turn of events, local businessman Ben Helzey has changed his plans to tear down the Elston Public Library."

  Ben Helzey. That was Ben's name. Her Ben. Who'd left her. Who she hadn't talked to in years. Ramona had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She kept reading.

  "Helzey has instead submitted the building, which was built in 1800 and functioned as a hospital for wounded soldiers in the Civil War, to the Elston Historical Society for preservation."

  Ramona wished there was a picture of some kind, but the Archives only restored text from the old issues, not the layout of the paper or any photos. She read on.

  "This decision is an about-face for Helzey, who purchased the building earlier this year for the express purpose of tearing it down. Helzey had donated funds to build a larger, state-of-the-art library just outside of town, a few blocks from the stoplight."

  Stoplight? When had there been a stoplight in Elston? Jesus, that was ridiculous. It was one thing to be a historic town and never progress, it was another thing altogether to reverse progress. Elston was a fucked up place.

  "He planned to tear down the library and build a multi-story parking garage in its place, in order to help defray ever pressing parking concerns. In interviews, Helzey had expressed what appeared to be a deep-seeded hatred of the current library, coupled with what some called paranoia about its existence. Sources close to Helzey claimed that Helzey even thought the old library to be haunted. His decision to make the library a protected historical building is quite a change from his previous views."

  Ramona wasn't certain what this article meant, but she had a very good idea about it. Ben Helzey had been a real guy in the 1960s, probably much like the girl that looked like Dawn Trimbley on the brochure she'd seen. He'd wanted to tear down the library for some reason or other. And the monsters had taken him over. Killed him and put someone in his place who looked and acted just like him. That monster had kept the Ben Helzey personality in his repertoire, bringing him back in time to be her Ben Helzey. Her Ben had been a monster. The only man she'd ever loved. The first man she'd ever loved. The first man to bring her to orgasm. That guy hadn't even been human. Ramona wanted to cry.

  Ramona took some time to let the information wash through her, into her bones and into her head. She tried to come to terms with it. And when she realized she couldn't, and that she might never be able to do so, she plowed on through her thought process. The monsters had protected the library. For some reason. Why did they care about it? She remembered the joke that people made, saying that there was a vortex underneath the library. The vortex kept people from leaving. Called them back if they did leave. But that was just a joke. And that didn't have anything to do with what the monsters did anyway. They didn't keep people in town. People left town all the time.

  Like Owen? Because he hadn't left. He was still here. He was just Garrett.

  Ramona furrowed her brow. Did anyone really leave? Ever?

  She shook the thought off. Of course people left. There weren't enough of the monsters to take over everyone in town. Granted, she didn't know how many there were. But she knew that people left town, because sometimes they came back to visit. And it was ludicrous really, believing in the vortex. The vortex was a joke. She wasn't gonna have any problem moving away. None.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ramona's internet was in and out like a bad connection to a radio station. She had taken to bringing her computer downstairs and sitting outside The Grind, because the connection was usually always good there. Once, however, she'd had problems connecting to the internet right next to someone else who was surfing away right next to her. Frustrated, Ramona had asked her friend Nick to look at it. Nick was a computer whiz and was taking IT classes, so he knew all about networks and internet connections and all kinds of other things that were foreign to Ramona. She was worried that her computer was broken. But Nick had spent about an hour with it, and witnessed all the things that were frustrating Ramona. He declared it a problem with the network. "There's a problem with wireless in town," he said. "I run into it all the time. It's the same kind of thing that makes it hard to get the campus radio station on the other side of campus." That was true. Ramona knew that things like radio waves behaved strangely in Elston. "I'm not really sure why it happens," Nick admitted, "but sometimes you just wander into a blind spot. Sometimes the blind spot moves too. Sorry."

  But there was nothing wrong with her computer, right? Nick assured her that computer was functioning just fine. It was just Elston. He even relayed to her what he thought was an amusing anecdote about trying to set up a wireless network for the public library. They had contacted his class, because they knew the college kids would work for cheaper than a real IT company. But they'd had absolutely no luck, apparently. Nothing worked in or around the library. No wireless. It might actually have been an amusing anecdote, if it weren't for the fact that Nick peppered his narrative with huge technological words that Ramona couldn't understand. Also, all she could think was, "The library again. The vortex."

  Anyway, Ramona persevered. She moved her laptop around. She used the computers at work whenever possible. She managed to fi
nd several jobs available in Virginia, all at various colleges. That was about the only thing that went easily, however, other than the fact that Heather had found an apartment complex in Richmond that was reasonable and was looking for people to move in ASAP. She and Heather had been able to get rental applications sent off pretty easily. So the apartment front looked bright. But the job front... The job front was frustratingly difficult. She tried to submit applications online, but her computer either lost internet connection or crashed or navigated to the wrong page. Hosts of problems kept happening. Nor was the internet the only problem.

  Ramona's printer ran out of ink. The closest place to buy printer ink was in Freeburg. Since Heather was going there five days a week to work at Applebee's, Ramona was able to give Heather money to buy another ink cartridge. But, of course, despite Ramona's very detailed instructions, written down no less, Heather bought the wrong kind of ink cartridge the first time out. By the time she finally got the right kind, Ramona had broken down and printed out the applications at work.

  One evening, as Ramona was attempting to fill out applications, all the pens in her apartment seemingly disappeared. She searched high and low for a writing instrument and couldn’t find one. Ramona couldn't believe it. Where had all the pens gone? She finally had been forced to go to Rite Aid to buy one. When she got the pen home, however, it hadn't worked. They'd sold her a pen with no ink. Ramona drove back to Rite Aid and exchanged it for another pen, which she made sure to test before she left the store. Of course, once she got home, she found about five workable pens, all in places she could have sworn she had searched several times.

  And then, of course, there was the search for references. One of the jobs wanted two letters of reference. Ramona's first inclination was to ask Maxine for one of them, but that meant, of course, that she had to tell Maxine that she was looking for another job. Ramona was terrified this would make Maxine angry, considering it would mean she'd have to fill Ramona's position. So Ramona put off telling Maxine and tried to get someone else to write her a letter of reference. She called all of her old college professors, one by one, and none of them answered their phones. The spring semester was over by then, so she guessed it would be hard to get them on the phone. She tried email. She left multiple messages. She tried calling the main office of the college and begging them to give her home phone numbers. Of course, they wouldn't do that. Ramona didn't blame them. She knew the professors wanted their privacy. Finally, by chance, she happened to see one of her professors walking down Main Street in Elston, while she was struggling with the internet connection outside The Grind. Ramona put down her computer and ran after him.