Brighter, a supernatural thriller (12 page)

Ramona tried the doorknob. It wouldn't turn! She hadn't checked to see if the knob on the closet had been locked when she went inside. Her mother was always saying it was stupid to have a lock on the outside of a closet door. And her father always locked it on his way through the hall, because he knew it annoyed her mother to unlock it. It was a way that he teased her.

"Every time you do that, you waste fifteen perfectly good seconds of my life," her mother would say.

"Yes, but in those fifteen seconds, you're thinking of me," he'd laugh back at her.

"Yeah," she'd say. "I'm cursing your name."

Now, because her father was a joker, she had locked herself in the closet. Ramona began to panic. She started to pound on the door and to yell. No one came. They were probably both watching TV, and they couldn't hear her. She pounded and pounded and pounded, until she was sweaty and out-of-breath from effort. And as her breath came in gasps, she began to have a harder and harder time catching her breath. She felt like her throat was closing up.

When her parents finally did miss her and discover her in the closet, she tumbled out wide-eyed and frightened, her hair and clothes plastered to her skin with sweat. She'd had nightmares about being in the closet for weeks and ever since then, when she got in tight, closed-in spaces...

Ramona's knuckles were bleeding. But she realized that she was breathing. She was gasping and gulping air because she'd worked herself into a frenzy pounding on the door. But she was breathing. She stopped moving and collapsed against the door, resting her cheek against it and glorying in the fact that she was breathing. BREATHING. Waves of relief racked her body.

But no one had heard her pummeling the door. No one was out there. What time was it? She'd come to the library directly after work, and Garrett usually closed the library about a half hour after the admissions office closed. Where had Garrett been anyway? Had he gone out for a smoke behind the library or something? Was it possible that he'd come back in while she was at the bottom of the steps, trying to make a noise or call for help or do something and closed the library?

Oh God, it must be that. Because if Garrett was out there, he would have opened the door and let her out of the basement. No one was in the library. Blair had locked her in, and she was going to have to stay here for the entire night!

Shit. That was what Blair had said. She'd said she wanted to bandage up Ramona's knee so that Ramona wouldn't have to go all night without getting it cleaned up. What a bitch. How could Blair have done that to her?

Well, that didn't really matter, did it? She had to get herself out of the basement, and now that she was breathing again, maybe she could do that. The latch on the door was a sliding kind. It fit into a groove on the doorframe. So maybe, if Ramona could slide something through the door, she could ease the latch open. She spent as much time as she could stand it searching through the dark of the basement for something like that. But even though her eyes had adjusted a little, she couldn't really make out anything in the darkness.

There didn't seem to be anything in the basement. At all. The mustiness and smallness of the room made it hard for Ramona to be there. Several times, her throat almost closed up on her again. Finally, she gave up. She wasn't getting out tonight. But tomorrow, Garrett would open up the library, and she would be free. She just had to hold on all night.

To pass the time, Ramona played the Kevin Bacon game. She connected Kevin to every actor or actress she could think of. She could almost never do it in six moves or less, though. Finally, after the last tiny bit of light disappeared from the cracks around the door, Ramona fell asleep, her head pillowed on her arm, leaning half supine on the steps. But Ramona didn't realize she was asleep. In her dream, her latest quest to connect Kevin Bacon to another actor continued.

"Drew Barrymore," she murmured to herself, "was in
E.T.
with Henry Thomas who was in
Legends of the Fall
with Brad Pitt who was in
Sleepers
with Kev—"

"Ramona," said a voice.

Ramona lifted her head, looking around her. In front of her on the steps, sat Angelica. Angelica was glowing.

"Angelica," said Ramona. "I saw you on my porch the night you died."

"No, you didn't," said Angelica. "You saw one of the monsters."

"The monsters?" said Ramona.

Angelica nodded. "They keep us here in the vortex," she said. "We keep them alive."

"We?"

Angelica pointed behind Ramona's head, and Ramona twisted around to look down the steps. The basement of the library was crowded with glowing bodies. The people were crammed against each other. Some of them were trying to move and stepping on each other. They wore clothing from all different eras of history. And to her horror, she realized she recognized some of the faces. Mason. Blair. Owen. Dawn. Cecelia.

Suddenly, Ramona realized that the glowing bodies were all around her, jammed five and six people to a step. They were crushing her, and she pushed at them. They just pushed closer. They were all trying to touch her. Putting their fingers on her face. Some of them had started to scream, a high-pitched sorrowful keening. Some of them were whispering her name over and over. Over all of them, she heard Angelica's voice. "Save us, Ramona. Save us. Let us out."

Ramona struggled against the throng of pressing, brilliant bodies. "Save you how? Save you from what?" she cried. "I'll do anything you want, just stop touching me!"

Their fingers were all over her face, and they were pushing them into her orifices. Her mouth. Her nostrils. Her ears. And then they thrust their fingers into her eyes. She shrieked. The world went white.

"Save us from them," said Angelica.

Ramona was lost in a whirlwind of whiteness. Hot light surrounded her and then—she could see again. But she wished she couldn't. There were floating people-like things. Wearing long robes that faded into nothingness at the ends. Their fingers were long and pointed, tinged in blood. But the worst was their faces. Their long, long faces, with deep hollow eyes, gaping at her, utter emptiness and dementia in their depths. And their teeth. Fangs like icicles, cold and bright. Teeth like pine needles. Like open cobra mouths. They reached for her, their claws open, their eyes gaping, their mouths stretched impossibly open, so wide, and so deep, infinitely and unendingly bright, their teeth glistening, and Ramona screamed and screamed and screamed and—

Chapter Ten

Garrett had called Ramona last night, but she hadn't picked up, and she hadn't called him back. It was probably just as well. He had known that it was a bad idea to call her, but he wanted to tell her about his weird encounter with Blair that afternoon. He knew something that Blair didn’t want him to know. That was clear. And Ramona knew something too, because she'd seen the ghost of Angelica. Blair didn't seem to want the two of them to compare notes. Part of Garrett wanted to hang out with Ramona all the more, just to piss Blair off. But the two of them having sex probably hadn't been the best of ideas. He'd just been so drunk. And he really did like Ramona. Really.

As he opened the library that morning, he considered if it meant anything that she hadn't called him back. Probably not. Maybe she'd been busy or something. He let himself in through the back door and went into the workroom to make some coffee. He stopped short. That was weird. There was a purse sitting on one of the chairs in the workroom. Was there someone in here? Blair? Would she never leave him alone?

"Hello?" he called.

In response, someone banged on the basement door, from the inside. "Garrett?" said a small voice from within.

Jesus! He ran to the door and yanked it open. Ramona was inside. She looked awful. The backs of her hands were ragged and scabbed over. Her face and hair were streaked with blood. She stumbled out of the basement, and he reached out to support her.

"How did you get in there?" he asked. The basement of the library always gave him a little bit of the creeps. He didn't like the fact that no matter how often he closed the door, it always seemed to open back up again. When he was in a rational mood, he attributed it to kids in the library opening the door. In an irrational mood, he thought...

"Blair locked me in," said Ramona. Her voice was hoarse. Dear God, she'd probably been screaming for half the night to be let out.

Garrett guided Ramona to a chair. She sat down heavily. "I'm claustrophobic," she said softly.

Garrett tightened his jaw. "I'm going to kill her."

Ramona shook her head. "No."

"I'm serious. Dead. She's going to be dead. She can't come in here and fuck with my head and then lock you in the basement and—God, what happened to you?"

Ramona rubbed her face with her hands. "I freaked out is all. It's so dark in there. I had these dreams..." She shuddered.

"We're doing something that she doesn't like," Garrett says. "We know something."

"What do we know?"

"I don't know what we know."

"Great."

"Anyway, she can't push us around like this. It's not like I don't know where she lives."

"Garrett, you're not really going to like...physically hurt Blair, right?"

"Look what she did to you," Garrett said. He didn't know exactly what he was going to do, but right then he was so angry, he felt like the world was colored red. So maybe Ramona was just his friend. Maybe she was more than that. He didn't know. But he did know that the sight of her like this stirred things within him. Mostly, he was angry with himself for letting this happen to her. He should have known she was in the basement. Christ, he must have closed up the library while she was already in there. He should have realized. Seen her purse. Something.

But he couldn't change the past. So he had to do something to atone for his guilt. He had to go find Blair and wring her neck. For a second, he could almost feel her neck in his hands, and it wasn't a bad feeling at all. It was actually very, very good.

"You aren't serious," said Ramona tiredly. "You can't go after her."

"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."