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Ramona was crushed under about seven bodies. It hurt. She hated it. Most of all, it was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. With a cry of rage, Ramona drove the smudge she was holding into the face of the person who was on her. The monster screamed and pushed up, off of her, knocking the rest of the bodies off onto the ground. There were howls of pain, of anger. Heather had a candle in her hand and was bashing it against the monster on top of her. She yelled to Ramona, "Run!"
Ramona hesitated, because she wasn't about to leave her best friend alone here, but then thought that maybe she could bring back help of some kind and started up the stairs.
"After her!" yelled Blair, and all the monsters went after Ramona, even the ones on Heather. Heather stood up and started running too, weaving as best she could between the running monsters.
"No!" Blair was screaming. "Don't let her go!"
Ramona tore up the stairs and out the front door of the library. Once she hit the street, she kept running, but the throng of monsters stopped once they were out in the open. Heather shot through them and ran after Ramona, calling after her to stop.
Ramona did. She turned. She saw Heather running to catch up and a crowd of monsters milling around in front of the library.
"I think it's like Mason said," Heather said, catching up. She was out of breath. "They can't get us in public."
"What do we do?" asked Ramona. She was out of breath too.
It was after ten on a Friday night. There was really only one place in Elston that was open. The Brass Frog. The girls headed into the bar, trying to catch their breath. They didn't stop at the bar to get a drink. Instead, they walked all the way back into the garden. The bar was busy. It was Friday. There wasn't anywhere to sit, as usual. Ramona and Heather just kept walking. They walked until they got to the fence at the back of the garden. Then they just stood there, their breath coming in gasps, their hearts' beating starting to slow. They didn't really move for quite some time.
Then, they saw that the monsters had come into the bar. All of them. They each were carrying drinks and they were infiltrating the entire area, laughing loudly, and sitting down at tables with other people they knew. They were acting like nothing was wrong, like it was just another Friday night, and they hadn't been chasing Ramona and Heather just a few minutes before.
"Fuck," muttered Ramona. "What are we going to do?"
Ramona wished more than anything she had somewhere to sit down. She wished that she and Heather could have just driven out of town today. Heather had been right. They were going to die. They were going to die, and she didn't want to die. She just wanted to leave. She just wanted out of Elston. Why was it so hard for her to leave Elston? Why, why, why?
"There's a table," said Heather. She pointed.
They went to the table and sat down. It was better to be sitting down than to be standing, but not much.
"We should just make a break for it," said Ramona. "Get in our cars and drive out of here."
"We can't," said Heather. "We tried that already. What makes you think it would work now?"
"I don't know. I just don't want to be stuck in the fucking bar watching them party down. It's sickening."
"I left my purse in the library basement," said Heather.
"So did I."
"It has everything in it. My driver's license. My credit cards. My checks. Everything."
"Yeah. Mine too."
"Well, we have to go back and get that stuff."
"We're going to die," said Ramona. "I don't think a driver's license is going to matter much when we're stuck in the vortex until the end of time."
"How do you think they knew we were in there?" asked Heather.
"The lights?"
"Or maybe Mason told them."
"Speak of the devil," said a voice.
The girls looked up. Mason was standing over their table. His face was bruised and swollen. His hair was matted to his forehead with what looked like blood. He had a jacket on, but underneath it, his shirt had been cut to tatters. It also looked soaked in blood.
"I'm fine," said Mason, in response to their stares. "I heal. Can I sit down?"
Ramona nodded. He slid in next to her. He touched her hair, her face. "You're okay," he said. "I'm glad you're okay."
"Did you tell them?" Heather asked pointedly.
"I'm sorry," said Mason.
"Can't you see they beat him up?" Ramona asked. She looked at Mason. "It's okay. We're fine."
"We're not fine," said Heather. "We didn't finish the ritual. We barely got out of there without the monsters fucking killing us. And now we're stuck in the goddamned bar. We can't leave town. We are screwed. We didn't die yet, but we will. Later."
"No," said Mason. "I won't let that happen."
"What are you going to do?" asked Ramona.
But at that moment, Blair came over to their table.
"What?" demanded Ramona.
"I'm here for Mason," she said. "I think you're a bad influence on him."
"Fuck you, Blair," said Mason.
"What do you care?" said Ramona. "You already pummeled him."
"Listen, Ramona," said Blair. "The bar's gonna close at some point. I can wait." To Mason, "Say goodbye to your little friends, and then come back to my table."
She stalked off.
"Damn it, damn it," moaned Heather. "They're waiting us out. They're just gonna sit here and drink until the bar closes, and then you and I are open game."
She was right. Ramona buried her face in her hands. "We're toast," she said. "Mason, it's been really nice knowing you. Whoever gets my body--can you make sure they don't do any obscene to it, like give me a tongue ring or something?"
"You're not toast," said Mason. "Look, it's almost midnight. You need to go back to the library and restart the ritual. It will go easier at midnight, trust me."
"How are we supposed to get past them?" Heather asked, gesturing at the monsters scattered around the bar.
"I'll distract them," said Mason. "You guys go over the fence." He pointed to the fence they'd been standing at. "See? The gate is low enough to straddle. You can step over that."
"They'll see," said Ramona.
"I promise you, they won't," said Mason.
Heather shrugged. "What have we got to lose? We're going to die anyway, right?"
Ramona nodded. "Okay. We'll try it."
Mason reached behind her head and cupped her face with his hand. He kissed her thoroughly. "Bye Ramona," he said.
"Bye," she said, too stunned to say anything else.
Mason got up and walked away.
"Well, at least you got a kiss," Heather said.
"Yeah, and now I'm gonna try to kill him," said Ramona. "I could kiss you if you want?"
Heather glared at her.
Mason's voice rang out as he walked toward the front of the bar. "I think it's about time everybody in Elston had an idea of what's been going on around here. It sure as fuck is a weird place to live, isn't it? Anybody in here know anything about falling stars?"
Almost immediately, monsters from every table stood up and started after Mason.
Ramona could hear Craig's voice, calling, "Mason, dude, you have had way too much to drink."
Mason just kept going walking into the bar. They all followed him.
Heather and Ramona stood up and crept back to the back of the bar. They climbed over the gate to the fence. Ramona scraped her leg, but they made it okay. And once they were in the alley, they took off at a run, back a block to the library.
The back door was open, its bottom window smashed open. Ramona and Heather stepped over the broken glass carefully and entered the library once more. There was no light this time, so they stumbled and felt their way into the basement, which was inky black. Heather almost fell down the steps, but she righted herself. At the bottom of the steps, however, Ramona tripped over a candle and went sprawling. She swore, but grabbed the candle and lit it. Now there was a little bit of light.
"Shit, we have to make new smudges," Heather moaned.
She started to do that right away, while Ramona set up the candles and lit them again. The pages in the book they were using were ripped, but they were still readable. In a few minutes, they were set up again. They took their places in the middle of the circle, and Heather began to read the first invocation once again.
"So, we just kill people and take their bodies," Mason was yelling. Craig had his arms wrapped around Mason from behind, restraining him. Craig was laughing.
"Dude, you need to go to sleep," he said. "Let me walk you home."
But Mason could see a light of uncertainty in many of the faces in the bar. They half-believed him. They too had noticed strange things happen in Elston. They understood that there was something going on in this town, that Elston wasn't a normal little town.
Mason locked eyes with the bartender. "Do I seem drunk to you?" he asked. "I'm not stumbling. I'm not slurring. I'm very lucid for a drunk, don't you think?"
The bartender raised his eyebrows. "Mason," he said, "I've seen a lot of weird things in this town since I got here. I've learned the best thing to do is to just blink and look the other way. Get him out of here, Craig."
But as Mason was being dragged out of the bar, he heard someone yell, "Hey! Where are Ramona and Heather?"
Copyright (c) 2010 Valerie Chambers