The Other Ring.

Dread

WEDNESDAY 8:30 A.M.

It took several of Daria's insistent rings of the bell before Jane finally opened the door. Despite the early hour (early for Jane, anyway), there was little of her usual morning dishevelment about her – she was wearing her usual daytime clothes, her hair was combed, and her movements didn't drag with morning fatigue.

However, there were large dark circles under her eyes, and her face was pale, giving her a completely different morning zombie appearance.

Daria knew that she herself couldn't be looking all that good; she had ran all the way from her house, or at least walked very fast, and she was panting heavily and feeling a little sick to her stomach. Of course, the nausea had more than one cause.

As she stepped through the doorway, she wordlessly handed Jane several sheets of paper; it was the computer printout of her latest Melody Powers work, the one she had so meticulously typed into her word processor from her handwritten text of the day before.

Except that when she had woken up this morning and opened the program to do a little more work, she found that that was not what she had written at all. Filling the pages was a simple three-word phrase, repeated over and over again.

Everyone will suffer.

Jane: Writing your manifesto?

With Jane flipped through the pages, each one identical to the last.

Daria: That is what I found this morning in the Melody Powers folder on my computer.

Daria her voice, though the words were still forced out between panted breaths. She hadn't appreciated just how much gym class had kept her in shape, hated though it was; two months without it, and her chest was on fire.

Jane: Could it just be somebody's prank? Jane's voice was choked; her face paled yet another shade, and she bit down on her bottom lip.

Daria I keep my work password-protected.

The shortness of breath receding, though the roiling of her stomach continued strong.

Daria: Hacking it would be way out of Quinn's league, and writing about suffering would rank a bit too high on her 'ew' meter anyway. I don't think that I've pissed off any computer geeks lately.

She started to pace around Jane, who stood still at the center, perusing the papers with rising alarm.

Daria: If this is what was in my story file, it's because I put it there. But either I didn't realize I was doing it, or I don't remember it.

She stood still, facing Jane once again, though she tried not to concentrate on the papers her friend clutched in her hand.

Daria: I wonder when I'm going to start chasing Quinn with an axe. Or a crimping iron.

Jane: Daria, (A tremor in her voice) there's something I think you need to see.

Jane's room was littered with paintings, tossed about the room in careless fashion. But the first thing Daria noticed was the easel. On it was a white canvas, its purity violated by a single image – a black ring, painted over and over again until the paint was visibly piled up, with the paintbrush embedded in the center.

It looked to Daria as though Jane had just run the brush around and around until she had finally run the brush right through the canvas.

Jane: This morning, I tried to go back to my old projects. (Saying it behind Daria.) I couldn't. No matter what I tried to draw or paint, it always came out something from the tape; at first, I didn't even realize I was doing it, and when I did, I couldn't stop. It was like my hands didn't even belong to me anymore. Daria, look at these paintings!

She stepped into Daria's line of sight and waved her arm to take in the entire room and all the images contained therein.

Jane: Do these even look like my work?! How could I have ever thought that I was the one doing this? And that's not even the worst of it!

She pointed to a stack of canvases in one corner of the room. Daria walked over to look, and found that they were all her old works, piled chaotically.

But every face in every picture was painted over, not neatly, but as though a child had taken the brush and scribbled furiously, obliterating all traces of identity.

Jane: I did all that after I finished the new pictures! It was like I just went insane. It didn't wear off until I had defaced every single one.

At the last few words, her voice sank to a husky whisper.

Daria: I'm sorry, Jane," Daria didn't know what else to say to comfort her friend. But Jane's loss was not the only question at issue.

Daria: That tape did something to both of us. Some kind of hypnotic suggestion, or mind control.

Jane: Have you been getting visits from those black helicopters again?

Daria: No, just the usual flying saucers.

Daria paused, wishing they could just trade clever retorts and ignore the unnerving events behind them. But her unerring sense of reality brought her back to face them.

Daria: I know that I sound like Artie on one of his stranger days, but I can't think of anything else that makes sense.

Jane: I don't know, Daria. I don't feel all that 'controlled'.

Jane clamped down suddenly after her last word, and Daria knew she had something more to say.

Daria: Jane, what are you thinking?

Jane: You won't want to hear it.

Daria: Good; I haven't heard anything I didn't want to hear in at least a few minutes.

Jane sighed, and visibly braced herself.

Jane I feel like I'm being haunted, like some thing is looking over my shoulder, guiding my hand. I know, it sounds ridiculous, and you don't believe in things like that. But, when I was really young, my parents had some friends who were into some really weird mystical stuff, like ouija boards and séances and things like that, and I saw things that you would never believe in.

Daria And when I was four. I was convinced that there were monsters waiting in my closet to get me at night; there were even times when I was sure that I saw them. But I outgrew it; kids with active imaginations see a lot of things that aren't there.

Jane shook her head emphatically.

Jane: This wasn't like seeing a few shadows and hanging shirts in your closet at night.

She said, knowing that her friend would never believe her, knowing what she had seen, knowing the sensation of the presence she now felt.

Jane: There was no way these could have been anything but spirits, ghosts, demons. I'm not saying that I'm certain that's what's happening now, but it feels pretty damn familiar.

Daria knew that this kind of discussion could go on for hours, with neither of them making headway against the other's basic worldview; normally, she would have welcomed the game, but there were more important things right now than fun.

Daria: Wind has to know something about this. What the tape means; what it's doing to us. Who he got the tape from, if nothing else. Can you call him and ask?

Jane I already tried, earlier today. I couldn't get a hold of him; he probably didn't pay his cell phone bill. We'll have to go see him in person. His houseboat is usually moored in Baltimore harbor; I've been there a couple of times, so I'm pretty sure I can find it again.

Daria: Good. We'll take my new car, but you drive.