Brighter, a supernatural thriller Read online

  It took longer than Heather would have liked to get off the phone with Janice, who was a nice old lady, but nosy as hell. Finally, however, she was able to hang up the phone and tell Ramona the coast was clear. The two each got into their cars—they were taking two to have maximum packing capability—and set off for Rick's house. Heather would have been okay with leaving all of her things there. After all, they were just things. She was safe, and that was what was important. But the more that she and Ramona found out about the library and the troubles they were having leaving Elston, the more she kept wishing for her collection of books on the supernatural, which were all at Rick's house. Odd, how she called it Rick's house now, when it had always been their house. Right now, Heather was homeless.

  Anyway, Heather figured that if she and Ramona were going to go pick up all those books, they might as well pick up some of her clothes and other possessions too. She had boxes of keepsakes from school, some of her old college notes, and all kinds of other things she'd like to have if she could. She'd just wanted to double-check that Rick was at work, because she didn't know if Rick would be doing the same things now that he was one of the monsters. Ramona had thought it might be likely that Rick would move to Elston and quit his job. But apparently, he was still following his normal routine.

  Ramona worked the same schedule as Rick, but she'd taken off work to help Heather. If they did everything right, they'd have the house cleared of all of Heather's stuff within a few hours.

  Pulling into her old neighborhood, Heather was suddenly consumed with a rush of emotions she realized she hadn't actually dealt with. This was her life that had been dismantled. Her husband was gone. Her house wasn't hers. Everything she'd thought she'd had, she'd lost. No. Not lost. Her life had been taken from her, ripped away by things that had no respect for anything except their own existence. Heather was angry.

  The force of her anger made her productive. They filled her car quickly, carting boxes and books out of the house and piling them into her trunk and back seat. She stripped all her clothes out of her closet and took them out too. It only took a few trips. It was strange. The house was almost exactly as she'd left it. It was as if no one had lived there since that night she'd driven away in fear for her life.

  They should have left then. They had everything they'd come for. But they had so much time left. The afternoon stretched out ahead of them, empty and still safe. Heather remembered that her pictures were all in the hall closet, but that they were mixed together with Rick's. Some of the pictures belonged to both of them. Pictures of their wedding. Pictures of their vacations. Heather didn't want to leave all the visual evidence of her marriage to Rick behind. Essentially Rick was dead. She didn't want to forget him. She loved him. She asked Ramona what she thought, and Ramona was definitely in favor of going through the pictures. They sat down on the floor in her old house's hallway, and spread the photos out, making two stacks: ones to take and ones to leave.

  They heard a car pull up, but the neighbors' driveways were so close, it was impossible to distinguish whose driveway it had actually parked in. So they didn't pay any mind to the sound, but continued to work. Then the front door opened.

  Ramona and Heather jumped to their feet, each trying to grab as many of the photos as they could carry. The hall they were in opened into the living room, where the front door was. There was a back door, off the kitchen, but they had to go into the living room to get to the kitchen. Panicking, Heather pulled Ramona into the closet with her and pulled the door closed as softly as she could.

  "I can't be in here," Ramona whispered in a desperate voice.

  But Heather had forgotten Ramona was claustrophobic. And at any rate, she figured being stuck in a closet was better than whatever Rick might do to them.

  She could hear his footsteps as he walked into the hall. "I know you're here, Heather," said Rick's voice. "Janice told me you called. And your car is out front."

  Damn that Janice! She should have known better than to confide in that woman.

  "Where are you?" he called. His voice, which had seemed so close a moment before, had gotten a little more distant. He was going back the hall! Perfect. "Are you in the bedroom?" More distant still. "Under the bed, maybe?"

  Good. He was in the bedroom. Heather flung open the door and stepped out of the closet. She expected Ramona to follow her, but Ramona didn't. She looked back. Ramona was standing stock still in the closet, her eyes wide in fear. She didn't look like she was breathing. Heather snatched Ramona's hand and jerked Ramona out of the closet. Ramona stumbled forward, gasping for breath.

  But Heather knew they didn't have time for Ramona to recover. Rick would be back in just a second. She dragged Ramona after her, rushing to the front door, which she tugged open...

  ...to come face to face with Blair, Garrett, and Mason. Heather screamed. She pivoted and ran for the kitchen, pulling Ramona behind her.

  Garrett grasped Ramona's hair and yanked her away from Heather. Ramona cried out.

  Heather stopped, unsure of what to do. She reached for Ramona's hand again, and Ramona reached out for her. But Garrett pulled Ramona back against his body.

  Tears started to stream down Heather's face. They were caught. What were they going to do? If only she hadn't thought of those pictures. She didn't really need the pictures. Goddammit.

  "We thought," said Blair, "that you two were leaving town."

  Rick emerged from the hallway to join them. "Moving away. That's what we thought."

  "We are moving," said Ramona through clenched teeth. "Heather just wanted her clothes."

  "And her books," said Rick. "All her books are gone."

  "Well, they are hers," said Ramona.

  "Yeah, I bought them," said Heather.

  "First," said Garrett, "we catch you looking up things about vortexes, and then you're coming to get books on ghosts."

  Heather's eyes narrowed. So it had something to do with ghosts, did it? Garrett had just unwittingly given her a clue.

  "It seems to us," said Blair, "that you're being a little hostile towards us."

  "Gee," said Heather, "I wonder why we'd feel that way about you."

  "You killed our men," said Ramona.

  Rick and Garrett exchanged a look.

  "So you're trying to kill us," said Blair. "Well, we can't let you do that."

  "We just came to get Heather's stuff," said Ramona. "You're way paranoid. We don't kill things. You do."

  "Whatever," said Blair. "Let's kill them anyway." She reached out for Heather.

  Mason elbowed Garrett in the head, jarring him hard enough that he let go of Ramona. "Run," Mason yelled at them, then turned and opened his palm. A shaft of white light poured out of it, so bright that Heather couldn't look at it, and it seemed to hurt the others' eyes as well. Heather and Ramona made a break for the door and bolted to their cars.

  * * *

  Heather furiously tried to operate her cell phone and speed down Route 9 back to Elston at the same time. She sure had missed her phone. It was great to finally have it back. Living without a cell phone had been hell.

  Finally, she was able to make it do what she wanted. She cradled it between her shoulder and her ear, and listened to it ring.

  Ramona picked up. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Are they following us?"

  "I don't think so. I don't see them."

  Navigating around the cars that were parked in the driveway had taken some doing. They'd had to drive out through the yard. Heather hoped her car was okay. She'd scraped it on the ditch pulling out.

  "Is it safe to go back to your place?" Heather asked.

  "I don't know. Did you see what Mason did with his hand?"

  "Yeah, what was that?"

  "I don't know, but it was weird. Do you think they can all do stuff like that?"

  "I don't know, but if they could, wouldn't they have come for us already?"

  "They thought we were moving away," said Ramona. "Which we are."

&n
bsp; "We scared them. They are scared of us."

  "I know."

  "Should we go back to your house?"

  "I don't know. I don't know. Is there somewhere else we could go?"

  "Well...who do we know that's not one of them?"

  "I'll call you back in a minute. I'll make some calls."

  The line went dead. Heather dropped the phone into her lap, and tried to concentrate on driving. She shot quick glances in her rearview mirror every few seconds, searching for cars following them. She didn't see anyone...

  God. What if she got pulled over for speeding? Should she slow down? Argh. Heather's heart pounded. She was so freaked out.

  Her phone rang. She picked up. "Hey."

  "Hey," said Ramona. "I just got off the phone with Olivia. She says we can come there. Listen up so I can give you directions."

  In about fifteen minutes, both she and Ramona pulled up to Olivia's house, which was a few miles on the other side of the railroad tracks toward Charles Town. Heather got out of her car, realizing she was shaking. Ramona got out of her car too and ran to Heather. They hugged.

  "Oh God," said Heather. "I'm sorry I made you go back there. I'm so sorry."

  "No, no," said Ramona. "It's okay. We had to go back. He was keeping your stuff hostage."

  Olivia appeared in the doorway to her house. She waved tentatively.

  "What did you tell Olivia?" asked Heather.

  Ramona hadn't told Olivia much, but Olivia was really curious. Once the girls were inside and Olivia had gotten each of them a beer, she began pelting them with questions. Ramona took it upon herself to try to answer them. "This is going to sound crazy," she said and dove in.

  Heather went back to her car while Ramona was explaining things and got one of her books. It was one of her huge hardbacks, full of color illustration. The book was heavy, and she lugged it back into the house and sat down to study it. She remembered there being something in it about body snatching. It was a voodoo practice or something. While Ramona talked, Heather searched. She paged through the book, then remembered the invention called the index and went to the back of the book. It wasn't under body snatching, but she did find an entry on voodoo. She turned to the page in the book, and scanned the words for the passage she remembered.

  There it was. It was just a short paragraph, Heather noted. She'd remembered it being more detailed, longer. But all it said was that stealing an essence or a body took an inordinate amount of power, and the person doing it would almost definitely need an outside source of power to draw from.

  Heather sighed. That wasn't much to go on, really, was it? She went back to index searched for "auxiliary power sources," which was the phrase the book had used. There were two entries. "Acquirement of" and "dismantling of." Heather looked up the "dismantling of." There was another paragraph, but a longer one. She read the entire thing silently.

  "When a power source is tied to a person or living being, the only way to break the tie is to kill that being. When a power source is linked to a place or a powerful area, releasing the power from the place can break the tie. This can be done in one of two ways, depending on how the power is concentrated. One way is to use a modification of the ritual for freeing trapped spirits, substituting proper terminology in the chants and using smudges of chicory and angelica. The other way is for the power to be diverted into another vessel, generally the person performing the ritual, using the acquirement of power rituals. Diversion is often unsuccessful and results in death of the intended vessel."

  Heather squinted at the words. This book was a little weird. She thought that it was a gift from someone, because it was a little too far on the Wicca side for her tastes. She thought it even had spells in it. Heather snickered. Spells. Then she thought about the fact monsters who killed people and took their appearance were chasing her, and she felt a little bad for snickering over spells. Maybe spells would work. She certainly wasn't going to rule anything out at this point.

  Ramona was still laboring to explain the situation to Olivia. Heather had expected Olivia to react with laughter or outright disbelief, but Olivia seemed to be buying it thus far. That was weird.

  "So," Olivia was saying, "what do you think the library is, then? How do you think it's connected to them?"

  Ramona and Heather both shrugged. "We don't know," said Ramona. "But it obviously freaked them out, so it means something."

  "I can't believe you're taking this so well," said Heather. "I thought you'd be calling the authorities to take us crazy people away."

  Olivia shrugged. "I guess it just sounds pretty compelling to me. You guys are obviously in some kind of danger. So, you really have absolutely no idea how the library is linked to Blair and the others?"

  "No," said Ramona.

  "That's good," said Olivia.

  "Why is it good?" asked Ramona.

  "Oh," said Olivia, "I guess it's not. For you. Really."

  "So who is it good for?" asked Heather.

  "Uh..." Olivia looked embarrassed, as if she realized she'd just slipped up. "Oh, what the fuck. Like you aren't gonna figure it out anyway. It's good for us."

  "Us?" said Heather.

  Ramona sighed heavily. She exchanged a look with Heather.

  "Yeah," said Olivia, "because we don't really want you to figure that out. That could be really dangerous for us."

  Ramona shook her head. "I told you to be careful, Olivia, but you wouldn't listen. Damn it."

  "They got you too," said Heather. She stood up. Ramona followed suit.

  Olivia stood up. "Now you girls don't think you're going anywhere do you? Because you're just going to sit tight until the rest of them show up. I called them to tell them you were coming here." She crossed to her front door. "To get out, you'll have to go through me." She smiled brightly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ramona bit her lip. This sucked. It had been her idea to come to Olivia's house in the first place. Now they were stuck here, with Olivia, who was now one of the monsters. What the fuck were they going to do? This was such a mess. She and Heather were in danger. If she'd just never gone to the library that day and looked up that information on the internet, the monsters wouldn't even feel threatened. She wondered if Olivia would blind them with light like Mason had if they tried to rush her. She turned to Heather, who was glowering at Olivia.

  "We are not sticking around here and waiting to die," said Heather. "How stupid do you think we are?"

  "You have to stay," said Olivia. "If you leave, Blair is gonna bitch me out like crazy. That chick is a royal bitch. I was right about that. I mean, Olivia was right about that."

  "Oh fuck if we care that Blair's gonna yell at you," fumed Heather. She shook her head and then ran full force at Olivia, raising the huge book she'd gotten from her car over her head. She slammed the book onto Olivia's head with such force that Ramona heard a resounding crack. And Olivia crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  "Nice," said Ramona.

  "She pissed me off," said Heather. "Let's go."

  Once more, the girls tore out of a house and into their cars. They backed out of the driveway and sped down the road. Ramona led the way, with Heather following. Damn it. Now where were they going to go? They were close to Elston, but Ramona didn't head back into town. Instead she turned onto a back road that she used to drive down for fry rides. The road was windy and had no yellow or white lines on it, but Ramona and Heather were both familiar enough with it that they could drive around the curves at fifty miles an hour. Ramona drove and thought.

  Her cell phone rang. It was Mason. She picked up.

  "Where are you?" he asked.

  "I'm not telling you that," she said. "How do I know I can trust you?"

  "Ramona, I just saved your life and put myself in danger. Trust me."

  "Well, we were at Olivia's house—"

  "No," Mason cut her off forcefully. "Don't go to Olivia's."

  "Yeah, we figured that out. So we left there, and we're just driving around
."

  "God, I can't believe the two of you went back to Heather's house. What were you thinking? I thought you were going to leave town."

  "I'm trying, for God's sake! But I have to get a job first. Jesus!"

  "Listen, just go back to your apartment."

  "Am I safe there? They know where I live."

  "Lock the door," said Mason.

  "Can they break it down? I mean, what was that thing you did with your hand? Can they all do stuff like that?"

  "No, they can't. I can. Blair can. It's not important. Light won't break down your damned door anyway. Just go home."

  "And then what?"

  "And stay there until I come to see you."

  "Well, where are you?"

  "I'm at home. I took off right after you guys did. I think Blair's pretty pissed with me right now."

  "Then why don't we just come to your house?"

  "No, no, no. Don't come here. Blair's going to come here. She's going to be mad. You shouldn't be here. Just go back to your apartment, lock the door, don't go anywhere, and don't let anyone in but me."

  "Mason, why are you helping me?"

  "I'll explain. I'll explain everything."

  "So explain."

  "Not now."

  "Why not?"

  "I just... I just need to know that you're safe at home and then I can deal with whatever it was I just did." He paused. "God. What have you done to me?"

  "Me? I didn't do anything. I'm grateful that you just saved my life, don't get me wrong, but I never asked you to do it. I didn't make you—"

  "No," he said. "No, you didn't make me do anything. But I can't for the life of me understand why I care about you so much. I've never cared like this before. It's you...humans. You get stuck in my head; you infiltrated my mind. I think the way you do now. I'm weak."

  Ramona didn't know what to say to that. "Uh..." she trailed off. "So I should go home?"

  "Yes. Go home."

  "Okay, that's what I'll do, then. Um, are you okay?"

  "No," said Mason. "Not really. Maybe never again." He hung up.