Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (25 page)

After finishing his dinner and
drinking a cup of coffee, Sully got Monica a Happy Meal to go.
Walking out to the car, Sully noticed that the day was beginning to
give. That caused a tinge of anxiety. But even that anxiety
dissipated, as he moved down the road and closer to the
night.

It was dark by the time they hit the
final exit. Faith and her husband, Scott, were waiting at the edge
of the Wal-Mart parking lot, behind their car, in the light of a
lamp. Monica spotted her mother and finally showed signs of
excitement.

“Mommy! There she is Daddy! There’s my
mommy!”

Sully parked the car and unlocked the
door. Monica got out on her own and ran excitedly into her mother’s
arms. Sully thought he saw hesitation in the movements of his ex,
as she lifted her daughter off the ground.

Sully got out and walked toward them.
He took Scott’s extended hand as they met behind the
cars.

“Hey, Sully. How was the
trip?”

“Not bad at all.”

He had known Scott before Faith and
Scott got together. Sully had not once felt ill will toward the
man. Overall, Scott seemed trustworthy, and Sully was glad that he
didn’t have to worry about Monica suffering a malevolent
step-dad.

“Thanks,” Faith said to him, already
crying and then took Monica to the car.

Scott stood there for a few awkward
seconds and then said. “Well, Sully, you be careful
now.”

“I will, buddy. You do the
same.”

Sully walked to the backseat of
Scott’s BMW and waived through the window.

Monica said something to her mother
and then the window came down. Monica planted a kiss on his
lips.

“Bye, little girl,” Sully
said.

“Bye, Daddy.”

A little while later, the car backed
out, and they left him standing there. Sully stayed alone in the
parking lot for a few minutes, tokeing on a cigar he had been
saving for when he had made it home. But it felt nice now, having
made it this far.

There were cars and people nearby, but
they faded into the background, as he got into the sweet taste of
the cigar and the thoughts going through his head. He dwelled on
things he hadn’t dwelled on in a while. Coming out of the coma.
Within hours, his mother told him that Faith had left.

Even at that time, just coming from
what he thought was his eternity, he had not felt forsaken. Nor was
he sad or angry. He had only felt relieved.

#

Ten minutes later, Sully was back on
the road. He called home, where he got the answering machine. He
then tried Anna’s cell phone and got her voice mail. He wasn’t
surprised that she hadn’t answered. He pictured her with the laptop
on the dining room table, entranced by her story. She had probably
stopped to listen to his message, then, assured that he was okay,
kept typing. In the year and a half that he had known this young
horror writer, he had come to find that she had two worlds that she
lived in. Two worlds that didn’t overlap.

In one world, she gave herself to him
completely, while in the other world, she wouldn’t be disturbed.
Even when she was in the latter world, Sully savored her presence,
the way her face glowed, her eyes so intense. He liked to look at
her and try to imagine what was going on inside of her incredible
mind, what new place was being created. He wondered how she did it,
conjured people out of nothing and gave them personalities and
lives.

The most amazing thing was that none
of her characters resembled her. How could she get inside their
heads, know what they thought, how they acted, what motivated
them?

How he loved this mysterious woman who
had come out of nowhere and into his life.

Sully felt good now. He felt like he
would be able to drive straight through. That would put him home
about 1:30AM. Anna would most likely be asleep. But she would still
be glad to see him, and she would probably be horny. That made the
idea of driving straight through even more appealing.

#

Sully was forty-five minutes away from
where he had exchanged Monica. I-40 was quiet, but he could make
out the lights of a semi in the distance. He had passed a few
vehicles and a few vehicles had passed him in the last half-hour.
It was a nice little balance that helped him feel all the more
normal.

Now that Monica was no longer with
him, he was able to blare the stereo. He had the latest Pearl Jam
CD in the player. He had bought it last spring but had not gotten
to know it yet. Now, it moved him. This band fascinated him. Like
no other band, they seemed to come up with a different sound with
each new album. Every time, the new sound would grow on him. Every
time, he would swear it was their best album yet.

Sully drove fearlessly down the road,
into the night, trying hard to decipher the lyrics coming through
his speakers. By now he had nearly forgotten that his fear ever
existed. Then the rain started.

At first, it came down in a little
sprinkle. But that was enough to set off a vague sense of
anxiety.

“Just a little rain,” he said out
loud. He made the wipers sweep one time. “There. See. Perfectly
clear.”

He had hoped that would be sufficient.
But the wipers and the self-assuring words were not enough to make
the anxiety go away. He thought it might be
intensifying.

The rain picked up over the next
couple of miles. He turned his wipers on low but
continuous.

“No big deal,” he said. But then he
reflexively reached to turn down the stereo, which was quickly
becoming mere noise to him, a distracter from the road he felt an
increasing need to focus on. A few minutes later, the rain a little
harder, he turned his stereo off.

He didn’t know why the rain would make
him so anxious. There wasn't enough traffic that he would have to
make a sudden movement that might cause him to skid. His vision was
still pretty clear. Logically, there was no significant threat. But
he still slowed down.

A cold sweat came over him. He became
aware of his heart thumping in his chest and the tightness of his
stomach muscles. There was a fiery pain in his spine as the rest of
his body stiffened. His breath picked up. A semi sped past him,
causing disturbed rain to rush his windshield. He gasped, as for an
instant of a second his view of the road was gone. Then, of course,
his vision improved as the wipers extracted what the semi had
thrown his way. The panic did not dissipate so quickly. He
considered stopping, but knew he shouldn’t. Stopping would only
validate his fear, giving it a stronger hold.

Sully didn’t understand how he could
be afraid of something that he couldn’t remember. Most of the night
of the accident was gone. At least, most of that night was
inaccessible to his conscious mind. But evidently, something inside
of him beyond consciousness remembered those events, because he was
still afraid.

Sully forced himself to push down the
accelerator. He went from below sixty to just over seventy. That
was ten miles per hour less than what he had been going before the
rain started, but now he felt like he was speeding out of control.
The steering wheel felt precarious in his hands, and his vision
seemed to blur a little. Still, he pressed on. He got the Taurus up
to seventy-eight and passed the semi that had just passed him, his
heart banging like a snare drum in his chest. He turned his stereo
back on and cranked it. His mind rushed and so did the oncoming
road. His fear was intense. He pressed on.

Sully had researched this before he
decided to try it. Irrational anxiety was supposed to dissipate
when the feared situation was faced without a negative consequence.
When the spider doesn’t bite, the arachnophobic recovers. When you
don’t fall off the mountain, the fear of heights goes away. But
now, in the mist of what he feared, it didn’t seem like fear would
go away, only intensify, forever intensify.

But he pressed on. Time seemed to
stretch out. The other vehicles on the road seemed so close. The
edge of the road seemed so close. The night seemed to get darker.
Even the music coming from the speakers seemed to intensify, louder
and more distorted. But he pressed on.

Then, it was as if the pressure inside
of him became too great. But he didn’t break. Instead, a valve was
opened and his fear began to diffuse away.

He didn’t know how long it took, but
soon Sully’s fear became manageable. He felt sure he would make it
home. And just as his inner turmoil had, so did the rain begin to
dwindle.

“Yes!” Sully shouted. “I did
it!”

He hit
the button on his stereo, skipping past songs until he found the
right one. He wanted to hear
I am
Mine
again. That’s what he was now. He was
conquering his fear. He was owning himself. He found the right
track. The mystical guitar began to play. It was a simple rhythm,
but simple because it needed little accompaniment. He could hear it
progress and know something profound was coming. The singer would
deliver the lyrics that made the significant moment more
significant. A quick series of drum strokes told Sully those words
were about to begin. He would soon be feeling those words as much
as hearing them. But before Ed Vedder began to sing, the music
suddenly stopped.

Sully looked down at his stereo. The
power was on. The counter was counting. But there was no sound
coming from his speakers. That’s when he noticed that there was no
sound at all. He looked up on time to see the ominous lightning
illuminate the sky. Then the light was gone and sound returned with
a thunderous crash.

Sully felt as if his air had left him
and his heart had stopped. He was now afraid almost beyond thought.
He hadn’t really seen what he thought he saw in that flash of
lightning. At least, that was what he tried to tell himself. This
wasn’t really happening.

But the road in front of him begged to
differ. He could no longer see the lights of another vehicle ahead
in the distance. He was alone. There were no longer the wide lanes
of I-40. But that couldn’t be. How could he be on a two-lane
highway?

It was all so clear to him now. He
suddenly remembered that night from three years ago, the night he
was returning from a road football game, Faith and Monica having
stayed home, the night that he would not wake up from for two
months, the night they told him about in the hospital.

He told himself that was all this was,
just a memory. Or maybe he was dreaming. But then lightning struck
again. Once again, he saw the giant black wall. The tornado owned
the sky. It would soon own him too. He let off the gas, but it
didn’t matter now. Too late. He felt the car lift off the ground
like an airplane. The world spun for a couple of seconds. There was
a crash. There was black.

#

The next thing Sully was aware of was
the loud noise. It brought him from his unconscious state, and he
watched the semi that had just blown its horn at him speed by. He
looked back and saw more lights approaching. He had come to a
complete stop on the interstate. Though it was hard, he knew he
must move now. He crept the car down the road, letting vehicles
pass. He got the Taurus up to fifty, the minimum allowable speed on
the road. But with how bad he was shaking, that felt too fast, so
he slowed down to thirty.

The courage he had felt minutes ago
now felt like something from his distant past. Even his desire to
get better was long gone. He had just had his first flashback to
the night that the tornado got him.

How was it now that he remembered? Had
it been buried deep in his subconscious, waiting for the right set
of circumstances to cue the memory?

Whatever the psychology, Sully wanted
no more battle tonight. He saw an advertisement for a hotel five
miles ahead. It was a very long five miles.

#

Sully sat in the hotel parking lot,
trying to calm down enough to deal with getting a room. He felt
relieved to be safe for the time being. But he also felt small and
weak. He felt foolish for approaching this so boldly. But most of
all, he was afraid. He feared that at any second he would be taken
from the familiar safe reality and thrust back into a world of
tornadoes and being carried into the sky.

Was it an accurate representation of
the actual night? Had the tornado really lifted him high into the
air and dropped him? Or had his mind exaggerated?

He had seen pictures of his car. It
was very condensed in size, the roof having caved, both the front
and back ends smashed in. He had wondered how he could have
survived at all. And yes, it did look as if it had been picked up
off the ground and dropped.

After nearly half an hour, he felt
like he could at least fake like he was okay. He shook the whole
time he was in the lobby, but not enough that the clerk paid much
attention to it. She went about her job, just tending to another
stranger from the interstate.

Inside his room, he debated on whether
he should call Anna. He really didn’t want her to know how messed
up he had become and then be worried about him more than she
already was. But she would probably be more worried if he didn’t
call. He would just have to fake it with Anna too.