Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (23 page)

“I tried to do the same for
the stripper that I did for your secretary. But the wolf got to her
first. Your sperm must not have taken for some reason. That angered
it.”

Tate must have been there
to see him go back with the stripper but not seen what happened in
the booth. Otherwise, he would have known Jonah’s sperm hadn’t
gotten in. Jonah thought of the stripper’s fate and what else that
could mean. He said, “Do you think it will kill Steph?”

“I can’t say for sure,
bro,” Tate said matter-of-factly, almost indifferent. Then Tate got
up and taped Jonah’s mouth. “I’ll bring you water from time to
time. Otherwise, I’m not allowing you anything.”

Tate left.

#

Hunger came. It crept up
slowly. Then it grew fast. But before it became too bad, Jonah was
able to put the hunger outside of him. Tate came with the water for
a while. But then, about the time the daylight on the wall
disappeared, Tate stopped with the water too. He turned off the
lights. Jonah was fasting.

#

Tate had not come back.
There was darkness. There was thirst and tiredness too. Jonah put
the thirst and tiredness outside of him, and he was alone with his
thoughts. Then he placed the thoughts outside of him. On the
exterior, the thoughts were different. They moved around with ease,
took shape without confusion.

It had been the OCD and the
smoking that had kept the demon hidden from him. With the busyness
of his mind, he had not been able to sense it there, and he had not
been able to hear it talking to him, trying to get him to do its
wicked deeds.

And what had put the OCD
there? Was it the outside source Tate had referred to that had made
him check? No, the OCD had been natural. It found a man centuries
ago with OCD. This man was also extremely intelligent, a rarity. It
trapped the demon inside his consciousness. Then it made sure, in
the same way it made sure the demon was passed on through the man’s
DNA, that the OCD and high intelligence predispositions were passed
on.

Jonah had conquered his
obsessions, allowing the demon out too early. It was not supposed
to come out until ten or twenty years down the road, more
developed. The plan of the outside source had been
disrupted.

What was the outside
source? That was relative. Different cultures called it by
different names. Jonah’s culture called it Satan. But the name, and
the religious beliefs concerning its origins, didn’t matter. It was
simply a soul. It was simply evil. It was Take.

#

Nothing but thoughts out in
front of him. Then his thoughts blended into one consciousness, and
in his consciousness, which was all spread in front of him, there
was something that was not him.

Jonah watched that part,
the foreign part, until he could manipulate it. He told it to grow
smaller. He told it to be contained. Then he was the source who
trapped it. He told it to be silent.

#

The foreign part of his
consciousness was there. But it would no longer be a threat. It
would no longer be able to hide, or to be hidden, from him. It
would never be able to make another sound.

There was something else.
It was something coming from the outside into his consciousness.
Jonah didn’t try to bring it into focus. Instead, he merely watched
it, let it form on its own, got out of its way. The vision
came.

#

There is a parade. Soldiers
walking down the street, in time, step for step. There is a band,
but no horns in this band, only drums. On both sides of the street
are throngs of people, cheering on the parade, shouting, praising,
but vacant in a way. They feel, but they don’t realize that their
feelings aren’t totally their own. Their feelings are
manipulated.

At the end of the parade is
the one they worship. He rides a float lined with the colors of
camouflage. Above him is a ceiling made of net. To his sides are
artificial plants. The man is not protected from the crowd. He
doesn’t need to be. He need not fear assassination from his people.
They worship him.

Jonah cannot get a clear
view of the man. He’s moving around too much for Jonah to see his
face. The one constant is that the man’s arms are held above his
head, wrists bent down at an angle, fingers pinched together. To
Jonah, the man’s gesture looks like that of a puppeteer.

Jonah waits for the man’s
face to come into view, and he is not worried, because he knows it
will eventually happen. But then there is something that comes and
takes it all away.

#

When Jonah came to, it was
to the sound of Tate’s elated voice.

“You did it, bro! I can’t
sense it anymore. You silenced the fucker.”

Tate ripped the tape off of
Jonah’s mouth. Then he started untying Jonah.

Yes, he had silenced it. He
could sense it now, and he could control it with ease. Never again
would it be able to whisper to him. Never again would it be able to
whisper to other organisms from him. But there had been something
else, something very important. Jonah had not seen what he needed
to see.

He felt dazed, listening to
Tate shout out his celebrations. Untied, Jonah stood up. Then he
fell. Tate caught him and dragged him to the couch.

“Easy, bro. You haven’t had
anything to eat or drink for almost two days.”

Two days. That was how long
Jonah had been out. That was how long it took for him to find the
demon, isolate it, and own it.

Epilogue

The true test of Jonah’s
control came shortly after he harnessed the demon. He underwent a
nonreversible vasectomy, ending the possibility of passing the
demon on. There was no retaliation. Tate never heard the demon
inside Jonah again.

Jonah bought the building
that housed his office. Tate moved into the office Jonah had been
using for storage. Jonah started doing therapy, and he eventually
stopped doing the evaluations. He and Tate both flourished as
therapists, with methods that focused on the meditative practices
of the East. Eventually, people were being referred from many miles
away.

Steph stuck around for a
while. She and Jonah continued their sexual relationship for a few
months. But, when no romantic feelings developed, it slowly
dwindled away and became merely friendship. A couple of years
later, Steph became engaged to a man she had met. She left shortly
afterward.

Tate and Jonah started
collaborating on writing projects. Their methods were published in
several different journals; then they published a couple of books.
The books received national acclaim. They even did promotional
tours, speaking on talk shows, appearing at book signings. All they
spoke of was their methods, though. They never discussed the
paranormal.

It was fifteen years after
they had met that Tate and Jonah parted. Tate decided to take a
faculty position at the University of Florida. Jonah opted to stay
in Stanton. He hated for Tate to leave but knew it was probably for
the best. The good they could do together was substantially less
than what they could do apart. Besides, Jonah was three years into
a relationship with a woman who had roots in northern Michigan. She
was a lawyer there in town. She had two kids from a previous
relationship and was not interested in having more. Jonah felt they
would grow old well together.

It was five years later
that Jonah got an E-mail from Tate. All that was written was, “What
do we do about this?” But there was an attachment.

The attachment contained an
article about a dark horse candidate for one of the Mississippi
seats in the United States Senate. The man’s name was Abraham
Pendle. There was a picture. Pendle was standing on an outside
stage, behind a microphone. His hands were raised above his head,
wrists bent down at an angle, fingers pinched together, like a
puppeteer.

Though the characteristics
differed in a few ways, the resemblance was undeniable. Pendle was
Jonah’s brother.

The Coma Lights

A Novel

Copyright 2011 Joshua
Scribner

Originally published by Double Dragon
2007

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced
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mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any
information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in
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This ebook is licensed for your
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recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

This novel is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

Chapter One

The coma men are there. They stand in
the distant mist. But that mist is thin, so they must see him lying
on the ground. They have to know that he is suffocating. He wonders
why they won’t help. He longs for air.

Finally, it no longer hurts to
suffocate. A sense of complete tranquility rushes over him. He
feels light, like he can float away. His vision begins to blur, but
he thinks he can see one of the coma men moving his way. Now he is
floating.

Everything goes black.

#

Air. He needed it again, because
something had pulled him back. He was no longer in the mist. The
coveted air rushed in on Sully Jacobson, like a dam breaking.
Disorientated, he sat up in the dark and
hyperventilated.

“It’s okay!” a voice said. “It was
only a dream.”

A sense of familiarity arose. He was
supposed to recognize that voice. Where had he heard it
before?

He felt the fingernails sting his back
and heard her voice again. “You’re okay now, Sully.”

It came to him. Anna was his
girlfriend now. Anna, who was strong. Anna, who was conscientious.
Anna, who at times seemed to know what he needed more than he knew,
who had dug her fingernails into his back, knowing the sharp pain
would hasten his recovery from oblivion and fear.

Anna removed her claws. “Slow down.
Get your breath under control.”

Yes, he could slow down. Air was
abundant and not going away. No need to rush it in. Another minute
and it was under control. “That’s the third time this week,” he
said, though he knew it might have been more, the other dreams
forgotten.

“You’re probably just nervous about
the trip,” Anna said.

Yes. The trip. That was the last piece
of the orientation puzzle, the latest change in his life, the final
part of time catching up with him. His ex-wife, Faith, had moved
further away, out of state, three months ago. When the phone calls
didn't come immediately, Sully thought she was gone for good,
having given up a part of her life, the four-year-old daughter they
had together. Then, about a month ago, she had called. And though
it was within his rights to shut her out completely, he being the
parent with full custody, he would not do that to his daughter. So
for one week, every two months, little Monica would go stay with
her mother.

Next year, when Monica was in
kindergarten, the system would have to change. But that could be
worked out later. Right now, there was tomorrow’s trip to think
of.

“Let me do it for you,” Anna said,
reading his mind.

“No,” Sully replied, though the word
didn’t feel right, wanting to let Anna take care of him. “You can
pick her up, but I have to drop her off. I have to face
this.”

And he did have to face it. For so
long, after returning from his state of near death, he had just
avoided it. He had only to travel one mile to town, where he taught
his classes. Most everything he needed, his family, groceries,
entertainment, was right there in Little Axe, Oklahoma. And he
could handle going a little further, so long as he was home at a
reasonable hour and someone was with him. If what he needed was
even further away and could not be taken care of by phone,
Internet, or mail, then Mom or Anna would always take care of
it.

But he couldn’t do that forever. He
had Monica to think of. Soon, she would be old enough to notice the
things people did, the roles they served in life. He didn’t want
her to think it was okay to be dependent on others for what she
could do herself. He didn’t want her to learn that she was supposed
to let some man become dependent on her.

“You don’t have to be strong in
everything,” Anna said. “Let me do it for you.”

How could she say that? How could a
woman who valued personal autonomy like she did expect her lover to
depend on her? What was worse was that this scared Anna at all. She
thrived on horror. Her livelihood depended upon things that were
scary. Her threshold for fear was much higher than his. So if this
scared her enough that she asked him not to do it, then maybe it
should scare him to the point that it was beyond
consideration.