Brighter, a supernatural thriller Read online

  Dawn and Cecelia exchanged a look. They didn't look amused, even though Ramona was grinning from ear to ear.

  "Sure, okay," said Dawn.

  Ramona spread the brochure out. "Look at that girl," she said.

  Dawn gasped, her hand slapping over her open mouth and knocking over Ramona's Icy Chalice in the process. Ice and cold coffee exploded all over the table and over Cecelia's and Ramona's pants.

  Every girl leapt to her feet.

  "Dawn!" said Cecelia.

  "I'm so sorry," said Dawn.

  "It's okay," said Ramona.

  "I'm so sorry," said Dawn.

  "I'll go get some paper towels," said Ramona.

  She ducked back into the ice world that was The Grind and emerged in a few moments with wads of paper towels trailing from her fists. Dawn went to her and took some. Together, they began sopping the coffee up from the table. Cecelia took a few paper towels and tried to dry her pants. It was a lost cause. They were hopelessly stained.

  "I'll buy you another coffee," said Dawn.

  "You don't have to," said Ramona.

  "Don't argue," said Dawn. "I'll be right back." She disappeared into The Grind.

  Ramona tossed the soiled paper towels in the trash can and then settled back down at the table. She also resumed smoking her cigarette, which she'd abandoned in the ashtray during all the confusion. Amazingly, it was still dry. But her brochure... "Hey," said Ramona. "Where'd that brochure go?"

  "Umm..." Cecelia looked around herself on the ground. "Did you throw it out with the paper towels?"

  "No," said Ramona. Come to think of it, it hadn't been on the table when she'd returned with the paper towels.

  "I didn't even see it. What was it a picture of?"

  Dawn emerged with two Icy Chalices in hand. "It looked so good, I thought I'd get my own," she explained. She gave one of the drinks to Ramona.

  "Dawn saw the picture," Ramona said to Cecelia. Ramona had seen Dawn react to the picture, so there was no way Dawn could say—

  "I didn't really. What was it?"

  "You did," said Ramona. "That's what startled you and made you knock over the drink."

  Dawn laughed. "No. I'm just clumsy, I guess. What was the picture?"

  Yeah right. Something was going on here. Dawn and Cecelia had taken her picture because they knew it was proof that they were...whatever they were. And now—

  "Yeah, what was the picture?" said Cecelia.

  Ramona shrugged. "It was a girl from the fifties that looked exactly like Dawn."

  "Really?" said Dawn, sounding excited. "Oh, I wanna see it. Where'd it go?"

  "It disappeared," said Ramona.

  "I think it got thrown away with the paper towels," said Cecelia.

  Ramona glared at her. Fucking Cecelia. Cecelia hated Ramona.

  * * *

  Ramona had met Cecelia her freshman year of college. She'd been walking to the dining hall from her dorm room one spring morning. Sometimes, Ramona cut across the dorm lawn, because it was maybe half a minute faster. But that day, it had been such a nice day, she'd decided to go the long way, around the lawn on the sidewalk. Tall trees on one side flanked the sidewalk, and as Ramona had been walking, she'd noticed a girl up in one of the trees. She was sitting on one of the branches, wearing a t-shirt and a purple knee-length skirt.

  Ramona waved. Sights like that weren't especially odd. College kids did all kinds of strange things. They did even stranger things on this side of campus, because most of the art majors lived in these dorms, and everyone knew art majors were weird.

  The girl waved back. "Hello," she called.

  Ramona stopped underneath her. "Hi," she said. "You climbed a tree in a skirt. You rock!"

  The girl in the tree, of course, was Cecelia, and after that, the girls weren't inseparable, but they did become close friends, coordinating their dining hall schedules and spending time together in the afternoons between classes. Cecelia was a sophomore and a biology major. She said she wasn't really good at science, but she liked it a lot, and that was why she'd decided to major in it. She wanted to learn as much as she could about it. It was her passion, but it was difficult for her, and she spent a lot of time studying.

  After a few months, the dorm lottery for the following year came up. Ramona hated her current roommate, who was a ditzy sorority girl. Cecelia liked her roommate, but mostly because the girl was never in the dorm. She spent almost all her time with her boyfriend, who lived off campus. Still, with a little cajoling, Ramona was able to convince Cecelia that the two of them should room together the following year. So they went to the lottery together and wound up with a room in Ramona's old dorm on the smoking wing.

  The following year, they moved into their room together. Set it up just the way they liked it, with bunks jutting from the wall, dividing the room. They set up one side as a "bedroom," with their dressers and clothes. The other side they made a "living room" with a beanbag chair and their TV. The first few months were great, just like the previous semester. The girls spent time talking. They drank together. Borrowed each other's clothes. Went to the dining hall together.

  Then... Ramona didn't really know what happened. One of the things had to have been Ben. He was leaving town, and she ended up spending more time with him than usual, so Cecelia had probably been alone a lot. The two had never hung out with each other exclusively, but Ramona considered Cecelia her closest friend, and she assumed Cecelia felt the same way. So, with Ramona being at Ben's half of the time, Cecelia probably felt a little abandoned.

  Or maybe it had nothing to do with that at all. Maybe it was just natural growth. People grew apart sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. Anyway, Cecelia started hanging out with the river hippies. Especially Dawn. Suddenly, Dawn and Cecelia were always together. The answering machine in Ramona's room was filled with messages for Cecelia from Dawn. Cecelia stopped going to the dining hall with Ramona. She wasn't in the dorm room much. Ramona almost never saw her anymore.

  She tried not to be jealous. She didn't want to act like a first grader about the whole thing. But she couldn't quite help it. Dawn had stolen her best friend. At least, that was how she felt. She felt hurt and left behind. She felt very, very alone.

  She and Cecelia both went home for winter break. Ramona came back. Cecelia did not. A few weeks went by, and then Cecelia came by to collect her stuff. She told Ramona she was dropping out of college.

  Ramona was floored. She was what? That wasn't like Cecelia. Cecelia loved college. She loved biology. She was always telling Ramona about stuff she'd learned in class about certain plants they saw growing around campus. She loved it. But once Ramona thought about it, she realized that Cecelia had been pretty close-mouthed about all that stuff since she started hanging out with Dawn. Also, she didn't study much anymore, and Cecelia used to study a lot.

  Cecelia explained to her that the work was just too hard. She had failed two classes and would have to make them up. She just wasn't really interested in school anymore. Ramona wanted to know what she was going to do for the future. Cecelia didn't know. She seemed totally unconcerned with that. She'd figure it out later, she said. So Cecelia moved in with Dawn and started working at a restaurant in town as a waitress, and sometimes Ramona saw her at the bar. But that had basically been the end of their friendship.

  Cecelia had changed. Ramona guessed that she had changed too, but Cecelia's change had bothered her. It was like Cecelia was a completely different person. Gone was the girl who climbed trees in skirts. In her place was a party chick who worked just to make money to support her drinking. Ramona didn't know who Cecelia was anymore.

  And then the thing with Tucker happened. One night a few weeks after she had the conversation with Mason in his car, Ramona had been taking a lot of ecstasy, and ecstasy lowered her inhibitions. Okay, hell, ecstasy erased her inhibitions, turned her into a maddened slave to physical pleasure. Tucker had just been there. He'd been on ecstasy too. Sure, she knew that Cecelia was into Tucker.
Tucker knew it too, but he wasn't interested in Cecelia. It didn't matter though, because when she did what she did with Tucker, Cecelia hadn't been her friend anymore. At least that's how Ramona had felt about it.

  And it had only been sex. It had been fucking amazingly awesome sex, sure, but that was mostly because of the ecstasy. At least, that's what Ramona thought, anyway. She'd never been able to work in a repeat performance with Tucker. Tucker had gotten back with his ex-girlfriend a week or two after she'd hooked up with him. They'd broken up again in a month or two, but by then the moment was over. She couldn't just call him out of the blue and say, "Hey Tucker, you wanna fuck?"

  Ramona considered. Actually, that might have worked. Unfortunately, Tucker was entangled with someone new now. Damn. Maybe if he was ever single again... But no, because Ramona was going to move out of Elston. Really. She was. And she wouldn't be around when Tucker broke up with his most recent conquest. Really. Really, really. Maybe if she insisted it over and over to herself, she actually would be able to get the hell out of Elston. Maybe.

  Chapter Seven

  "What do you know about demon possession?" greeted Ramona's voice over the phone.

  Heather was drinking wine on her back porch, watching the sunset. "Nothing," she said. "There are no such things as demons." Heather was starting to get worried about Ramona. She seemed to be...different, lately.

  "How do you know there are no such things as demons?" asked Ramona. "You believe in ghosts, right? Why not demons?"

  What was up with Ramona, anyway? She never wanted to talk to her about this kind of stuff. "Well, for starters, demons are malevolent spirits, and I don’t believe that spirits are ever malevolent. It's just too simple to break everything into black and white. Spirits are like humans. They run the spectrum—why are you asking me this, anyway? Does this have something to do with your seeing Angelica's ghost?"

  Ramona started talking. Well, she started rambling. She was saying things about Cecelia, who used to be her roommate way back in her sophomore year of college. And stuff about a picture of Dawn—Heather thought she knew who Dawn was, but she wasn't sure. It was very hard to follow. Ramona wasn't making any sense, so Heather cut her off. "Hold on a second. You think that Cecelia is possessed by a demon?"

  "She's a completely different person. She totally changed. What other explanation is there?"

  "Um..." Should she even dignify that question with an answer? "Lots of other explanations. She just changed. It's college. People change. You and I used to do lots of drugs, and now I'm married and you're...okay, well, you're kind of the same, but... The point is, people change for all kinds of reasons, but demon possession is not one of them."

  "You don't understand," said Ramona. "It's a pattern. People start hanging out with the river hippies, and then they change. They become different people. It happened to Angelica too."

  "But it doesn't mean anything," said Heather. "People just change. There's nothing supernatural about it. And besides, it seems like this whole thing started because you saw Angelica's ghost."

  "No," said Ramona. "It didn't. It started because..." she trailed off. "I don't know how it started, or when it started. It's been going on for a very long time. Since whenever that picture of Dawn is from at least."

  "Please stop for a second and listen to yourself," said Heather. "If both Angelica and Cecelia and Dawn are possessed by demons, that explains the change in behavior you claim that both Angelica and Cecelia had. But it doesn't explain how you saw Angelica after she was already dead. And it doesn't explain how you could find a picture of Dawn from the forties or whenever it was."

  "It does," said Ramona, "because..." She stopped.

  "It doesn't," said Heather.

  "Maybe it doesn't." Her voice was small. Soft.

  "Exactly." Ramona was coming apart at the seams. She was going crazy. What was Heather going to do about this? "You know, Ramona, maybe you should see somebody."

  "Huh?"

  "You know, like a counselor or something."

  "You think I'm nuts."

  "Kind of."

  "You still don't even believe me about Angelica."

  "Sure I do. I told you I did. I just don't see why you're so obsessed with the whole thing."

  "I'm not. It's just the picture of Dawn that I found, and then the way that she stole it from me—"

  "First of all, the picture of Dawn is not a picture of Dawn. It's just someone who looks a lot like her."

  "If you saw it, you wouldn't say that."

  "I will look at it. Come show it to me."

  "I can't. It's gone. Which I think is awfully convenient."

  "Jesus Christ! Do you have any idea how crazy you sound? Okay, say it is a picture of Dawn. How is that related to seeing Angelica's ghost?"

  "I didn't say it was," said Ramona. "I mean, there's this clone theory, but that's just stupid."

  "Clones?" repeated Heather.

  "Yeah," said Ramona. She explained. Rambled anyway. "It kind of makes sense, doesn't it?"

  "Ramona."

  "No, think about it. I saw a clone of Angelica. And the Dawn in town now isn't really Dawn. She's a clone of that chick in the fifties. And Cecelia started acting different, because now she's a clone."

  "You know, I don't think cloning really works the way you think it does. I think they have to grow the organism from infancy. So, they would have had to clone Cecelia when she was a baby and then replaced her with a clone version now—"

  "Maybe the government has better technology that they just haven't shared with the population yet."

  "No. Maybe you're just clumping together three totally unrelated events and trying to make something out of nothing!"

  "Okay," said Ramona. "Back to demon possession."

  "I think you need to come see me," said Heather. Maybe if she could just get face to face with Ramona, she could shake some sense into her. She had to do something, because she didn't know how to react to Ramona this way. It was ridiculous. It was insane. How could she possibly call Heather and talk to her this way and expect her to take it seriously? A thought occurred to her. "Is this a joke?"

  "What?"

  "Are you joking with me? Are you putting me on? Because I'm really worried about you, and if you're serious—"

  "I'm serious. Sort of. I don't know. After I lost the picture, I was so sure, but now that I'm talking to you about it, it just seems kind of silly."

  Heather breathed a sigh of relief. That sounded more like the Ramona she knew and loved. "Yeah. It does."

  "Why did Dawn and Cecelia steal my picture, though? That's what I can't get past. It seems like they'd only take it if they had something to hide. You know, if there was something they didn't want me to know about."

  "They didn't steal it. It blew away or it got thrown away with the paper towels."

  "Yeah, but they got all defensive about it," said Ramona. "It's suspicious is all."

  "You need to come see me. Maybe if you didn't tell me this stuff over the phone, maybe if we were face to face, we could make better sense of it."

  "I will. I will come to see you."

  "When?"

  "I don't know."

  "This weekend?"

  "Maybe. I'll call you."

  "That's what you said last time I talked to you, and you never called," said Heather. "Even if I wasn't kind of worried about you, I'd still want to see you. I miss you. I never see you anymore."

  "I know," said Ramona.

  "That stuff you were saying about Cecelia could easily apply to you, you know?" said Heather. "We used to be really close, and now we never see each other. You won't come over. You only call when you're upset about something."

  Ramona was quiet on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry. I guess I just get busy. I don't mean to."

  "Cecelia probably didn't mean to either."

  "Right," said Ramona. "She's probably not possessed by a demon."

  "Probably not."

  "Okay," said Ramona. "I do w
ant to come see you. Really. And I'm going to call you. I promise."

  "You'd better," said Heather. "You're freaking me out." Behind her, she heard the screen door to the porch open, and she turned to see Rick coming out. He was just getting home from work. She waved at him and blew a kiss. "I have to go now," she said to Ramona. "Take care of yourself. Don’t go thinking anything too weird, okay?"

  Ramona promised. They hung up.

  "Who was that?" asked Rick, settling down in a chair opposite Heather.

  "Guess," said Heather. "You want a beer?"

  "Ramona?" he asked. "A beer sounds great."

  "Yep," said Heather, reaching into the mini-fridge that sat beside her, and getting out a Sam Adams. She handed it to Rick, who used his lighter to pop off the cap.

  "What's going wrong with her lately?" he asked, taking a long drink.

  Ramona's always having issues was kind of a running joke between the two of them. Heather shook her head. "I think she's losing her mind. She called me about some weird theory she had that the kids who live on the river are turning people into clones or they're demon possessed or something."

  Rick laughed. "How's she figure that?"

  "Oh, she says it's a pattern. People change after they hang out with the river hippies."

  "Huh," said Rick. "That's weird. You remember my friend Mason, right?"

  Heather shook her head. "No. I don't think so."

  "He was at our wedding."

  "Baby, there were a lot of people at our wedding."

  "Well, anyway, that happened to him. He used to be a totally cool guy, and then he started hanging out with those kids on the river. He started dating that Dawn chick. You remember Dawn, don't you?"

  "Um..." Okay, she didn't mean to be superstitious, but that was just fucking weird. Rick wasn't seriously mentioning the same person that Ramona had.

  "Never mind, it's not important. So, anyway, he just got totally different all of the sudden. He was really depressed. And when I talk to him, you know, sometimes, I could just swear he wasn't the same person anymore."

  Heather frowned.

  Rick shrugged. "Maybe he's demon possessed." He grinned.