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Ramona came home from work to find Heather making dinner in the kitchen. She grinned, tossing her stuff onto the couch. "Honey, I'm home," she said.
"I had a dream last night," said Heather.
"Yeah?" said Ramona. "I had a dream too."
"I had a bad dream last night."
"So did I," said Ramona. "I don't think it's too odd that neither of us is sleeping real well. Everything's kind of a mess right now. I mean, we're under a lot of stress." She came around the bar into the kitchen area and peered over Heather's shoulder at a pot of boiling water on the stove. "Whatcha making?"
"Spaghetti," said Heather.
"It's awesome that you're making dinner. Thank you so much."
Heather smiled. "This is why best friends are so much better than men. I can't count the times I wanted that response to my cooking from Rick."
"Did you dream about Rick again?" asked Ramona, moving out of the kitchen area, so as to be out of Heather's way. She perched on one of her bar stools.
Heather dumped an entire box of spaghetti into the boiling water. "No," she said.
"That's a lot of spaghetti. Feeling really hungry?"
"You can take leftovers for lunch."
"We do sound domestic, don't we?" Ramona sat up straighter on her stool. "So, are you the wife, and I'm the husband?"
"Absolutely not. You can cook dinner tomorrow night."
Ramona laughed. "Okay. I will cook tomorrow." She slumped on the stool again. "What did you dream about?"
Heather began to stir the spaghetti violently. "I dreamed about you."
"That's funny. You were in my dream too."
"I dreamed that you woke me up in the middle of the night and dragged me to the library."
Ramona got up off the stool. "That's really weird. Because that's what I dreamed."
"Why did you take me there?"
"I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, it was just a dream."
"Was it?" asked Heather. "When we got to the library, it was all...lit up. And when we went inside, I became, like, bodiless."
"And then everybody started screaming."
"Right. But first, this voice said--"
"--Stay."
"Yeah."
"So we had the same dream?" Ramona asked. She began to pace in front of the bar. "Is that even possible?"
"Apparently, it is."
"Weird. We are close friends."
"I don't think it was just a dream," said Heather. "I think it meant something."
"Like what? What do you think it meant?"
"Well, you notice how we've been having all these problems trying to leave Elston? The internet and your references and that freak rainstorm on Saturday? And you remember how Blair said we had to stay strong if we were going to try to leave?"
"Yeah, I remember that."
"I think that something is trying to keep us from leaving."
"But Blair wanted us to leave. She was really happy about it."
"I don't think it's Blair and her people. I think it's something else."
"The body-snatching monsters aren't enough? You want things to get weirder?"
"I don't want anything to be any harder than it is," said Heather. "But I don't know. The voice said, 'Stay. You have to stay.' And it's been like fighting an uphill battle just to leave."
"So what do you think is trying to make us stay?" asked Ramona.
"I don't know."
Ramona remembered the article she'd read about Ben Helzey the other day and the thoughts she'd had. "You ever hear about the vortex in Elston?"
"The what?"
"The vortex. It's like a joke among people who live here that there's a vortex under the library, and it keeps people from leaving."
"Really?" said Heather.
"Well, people are always complaining about how hard it is to leave Elston. Everybody wants to leave, but nobody can. So people started joking that there was some supernatural force keeping people here. Do you think maybe it's real?"
"A supernatural force, a spirit, for instance, could mess with the internet signals."
"Could it make it rain?"
"Maybe. If it were strong enough."
"So what are you saying? It's a lost cause? We can't get out of Elston?"
"No, that can't be true. Because people leave here all the time."
"Like Owen?" asked Ramona pointedly. "Because he didn't really leave, you know." Even though she'd talked herself out of this very argument with herself, she couldn't seem to stop herself from pointing it out.
Heather stirred the spaghetti. "That's true. I guess we don't know how many of the people who moved away weren't really people. How many of them weren't already dead."
Ramona nodded. "You know," she said. "This isn't the first time I've dreamed about the library. And the vortex is supposed to be under the library. And, I found an article at work about the library." She explained about Ben Helzey's miraculous turn-about, deciding not to tear the library down after all.
"So," said Heather. "You're pretty sure the monsters killed him to keep him from tearing down the library."
"Don't you think so? I mean, isn't that what it sounds like?"
Heather stirred again, furiously this time. "I don't understand. If the vortex exists independently of the monsters, why did they try to protect it?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe they don't want people to leave because then they wouldn't have anybody to kill or whatever. We aren't even sure why it is they steal bodies. We don't know anything about them for sure."
"There's a connection, though. And it has something to do with the library. Something's going on."
"Do we care? I mean, we're moving away as soon as we can. Do we even want to bother?"
"What if it won't let us leave?" asked Heather. She gazed at the spaghetti, looking very worried. "We have to look into this. We have to at least make sure we can get out. Don't we?"
"I'm game," said Ramona. She kind of hoped they'd find out something that could hurt the monsters. Part of her wanted revenge. "It'll give me something to do while I'm waiting in breathless anticipation for responses to my applications, anyway."
Instead of looking for research on Elston for the brochure, Ramona was searching almost exclusively for information on the library now. Apparently, Ben Helzey hadn't been the only person who'd wanted to tear down the library. There had been a huge lobby to have it torn down, comprised of more than half of the population of Elston. Even when Helzey had turned the library over to the historical society and the building had become protected, the people of Elston hadn't given up for some time. A lot of people had seriously hated that library for some reason.
Ramona found a local ghost story about the library, in which someone claimed to see the ghosts of Civil War soldiers inside the library at night, moving in front of the windows.
One night in the eighties, there had been reports that the library was brightly lit up late at night. The incident had been chalked up to some kind of fraternity prank or something. The culprits had never been found, but everyone was certain it was college students who had gotten into the library.
She googled "vortex" and found that there were clubs in Michigan, Reno, and London called "The Vortex." She also discovered that a vortex was swirling air or water that sucked things in. But she couldn't find anything about supernatural vortexes. She didn't even really know what she was looking for. Idly, Ramona decided to go the library. She hadn't been there in quite some time. She thought that maybe if she was in the building, she might be able to gain some insight as to what was going on.
So, she told Maxine she was doing brochure research and wandered over to the library. When she walked in, no one was manning the desk. She wound through the bookcases for a while, not entirely sure what she was looking for. Then, noticing the public computer in the library, she thought she would maybe try to surf the internet in the library. Maybe the search results would be different. She sat down at the computer and pulled up its web browser. She navigated back to Google, and searched for information about the library. The same search results popped up that she had seen before. So much for being in the library. She hit her back button, and prepared to stand up and leave, but the page didn't go back to the page she'd been on before, the Google homepage. Instead, it went back to another page of results, for a search query she hadn't put in.
Ramona scrolled through the page. It was a list of missing people, all over the United States. Some of the names she recognized, but many she did not. What the heck was this? Was this like the missing Dawn Trimbley in Texas? What was the point of this? She hit her back button again, determined to get back to the home page. Instead, another list of results filled the screen.
Ramona read some of the titles: "Freeing a trapped spirit," "Breaking through the other side," "Diverting vortex energy." She clicked on the latter search result and started to read. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, that another person was coming up behind her, but whatever. This was a public computer for goodness sake. Whoever it was would have to wait until she was done.
Someone tapped on her shoulder. She turned around, ready to tell the person that she'd just be a few more minutes.
It was Garrett. Ramona wondered, for the first time, if it was especially safe for her to be in the library, all alone, with Garrett. She decided to just play dumb. "Hi Garrett," she said brightly.
"What are you doing?" asked Garrett.
"Using the computer in the library."
"For what?"
"Research."
"Research on what? Why do you care about diverting energy from vortexes?"
"I don't know if I do. That's why I'd reading about it."
"Can't you use your own computer?"
"I have problems connecting to wireless networks in my apartment. I understand wireless networks don't work here in the library."
"So?"
"So, nothing. Someone just told me that was true. This library is kind of a weird place, isn't it?"
"I thought you were moving away," said Garrett.
"I am," said Ramona. "And may I just say that it kind of hurts that you seem so eager for me to move away. I thought that we could at least be friends, Garrett. After everything we shared together."
"Drop it," Garrett muttered. "You don't have to act like you don't know what's going on."
"Like what's going on?" Ramona said innocently.
"I mean it. You're supposed to be moving away. It's going to make everything easier if you move away."
"I told you. I am moving away."
"Then why are you in here reading about vortexes?"
"Why do you care?"
Garrett took a deep breath, stood up, walked away from Ramona and then walked back. "Look," he said. "You just probably shouldn't come back in here."
"Why not? It's a public place, isn't it? You can't keep me out of a public place."
"It's just, if you're moving away, you don't need to concern yourself with this place. You don't need to worry about anything. You just need to concentrate on leaving, because trust me, that will be hard enough."
"It is kind of hard to move. You're right. Why do you think that is, Garrett? People are always joking about the vortex under this building, but that's just a joke, isn't it? I mean, something like that couldn't possibly be real, could it?"
"No," said Garrett sullenly.
"So, then why are you getting so bent out of shape when I'm reading about vortexes? And what do you guys care anyway? What does the library have to do with you?"
"Nothing," said Garrett. "Just get out, okay? Get out."
Ramona started to make an idle quip back, but something in Garrett's eyes went dark and hollow. She stood up, knocking over the chair she'd been sitting on in the process.
"Out," Garrett growled.
Ramona got out.
"Hi, it's Heather," said Heather into the receiver of the phone.
"Heather," said Janice, the receptionist at the place Rick worked, "we haven't heard from you in a while."
"Um, yeah," said Heather. "Didn't Rick tell you? We separated."
"No, honey. He hasn't breathed a word about that to me. But he sure has seemed different lately. Maybe that's got something to do with it. I sure am sorry. I hope you two can work it out."
"Well..." Heather decided there was no point going into that. "Anyway, I'm just calling because I'm trying to find out where he is. I left some of my things at the house, and I want to come get them, but I don't want to see him. Is he at work now?"
"Yes. He's here. What happened, honey? Why are you two having problems?"
Heather didn't want Janice to be suspicious, but she didn't want to have a long conversation. "I don't want to go into it," she said. "But it's like you said. He's different. A lot different. He got...violent, and, anyway, I don't want to talk about it."
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 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 if 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, 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 do 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 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."
"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.
Copyright (c) 2010 Valerie Chambers