Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (27 page)

#

The sun had just begun to set when
they arrived back at the cemetery. Though it was not dark yet, just
the thought that it would soon be was enough to give the lone
Taurus an ominous appearance to Sully. They were less than a mile
from home, but still, he asked Anna if she would drive.

Anna started the car but didn’t back
out yet. She waited until the Grand Marquis was well out of sight
and then spoke.

“Do you ever feel that way? I mean,
like your mom feels.”

Sully
looked across the field at the large pile of Earth that would be
used to cover Caitlin.
Earth for her, wind
for me.

“No,” he said. “My heart hadn’t beaten
on its own for over six weeks. There was very little brain
activity. In my dad’s position, I think I would have done the same
thing.”

Now Sully looked at Anna, who had a
ponderous expression. She held that look for about thirty seconds.
Finally, she said, “Me too.”

Anna still didn’t put the car in gear.
She waited about a minute and then said, “Do you ever wonder what
your real mom was like?”

Sully laughed lightly. It was a
question he knew people were afraid to ask him. Still, it was easy
to answer. “Yeah. Of course. I’ve thought about it from time to
time. But I never pursued it. My parents, the Jacobsons, have given
me all I got. They raised me. They supported me while I was in
college. I guess I just never wanted to break their hearts trying
to find a woman who gave me up.”

To that, Anna nodded. “Makes sense.”
She put the car in gear.

When they got home, Anna attacked him.
She fucked him harder than he had ever been fucked before. She
moved him all about the house, getting on top of him, bending over
for him. By the time they were through, most of the day seemed to
have melted away.

Afterward, she cuddled up next to him
in bed. Then she said the words that he would never
forget.

Anna said, “Death happens, my dear
Sully. But life goes on.”

Chapter Three

Time came, and time healed. For a
week, Sully didn’t make the seniors in his prep class think about
college and he didn’t make the seniors in his math class think
about math. Instead, he encouraged them to talk about Caitlin. They
were slow to start, but eventually, they came out. And what they
talked about wasn’t the eulogized girl their principle spoke of at
the funeral. They didn’t talk about the honor student who was
destined to spend the next four years of her life at Oklahoma
Christian College. They talked about the girl who would have turned
eighteen in November and, against her parents’ wishes, applied at
several secular colleges in California. They didn’t talk about the
exemplary Christian girl who was a spiritual inspiration to her
peers. They talked about the girl who kept CDs by Pink and Snoop
Dog hidden beneath the front seat of her car.

After the
week of catharsis, his seniors seemed ready to move forward. It was
business as usual.
Death happens. But life
goes on.

By the time November rolled around,
Sully had healed too. He remembered the flashback he had suffered
during the last trip, but it didn’t seem as powerful now. He
refused to let it control him.

Again, Anna offered resistance. But he
denied her. He had to face it.

#

Parts of the I-40 trip induced him
into a trancelike experience. Each mile seemed like the mile
before. Flat fields, cows, oil rigs, the water tower of the next
town off in the distance.

Thoughts grew strange, at times
illogical, like before entering sleep, only he couldn’t sleep,
because the same road that hypnotized him, kept him
awake.

“Daddy?” Monica said from the
backseat, causing Sully to return from his distant
place.

“Yeah, baby,” Sully said, as he looked
at her in the rearview mirror. Her face looked troubled, like it
always did when a question burned in her head.

“I want to kill my kitty.”

Sully was shocked for just a few
seconds, not prepared to hear his little girl talk about something
as permanent as death. Then he laughed, realizing that just because
she knew a word didn’t mean she had a mature conception of
it.

“Why would you want to kill Boots?”
Sully asked. “Did he do something to make you mad?”

“No. I just want to see him come alive
again. Grandpa says kitties live nine times.”

Again, Sully laughed. If there was
ever a time his dad was talkative, it was when his granddaughter
was around. He could picture the two of them sitting on the couch,
watching a cartoon, his dad with a playful excited look on his
face, relaying the folklore that only a child could
believe.

“I think your grandpa was just being
silly, hon. And I really don’t think you should kill
Boots.”

Monica looked even more troubled. “Why
not, Daddy?”

It was a difficult question to answer.
Sully wondered how much should she know about death at this time in
her life? Should she know that it was permanent? Or, for a few more
years at least, should she keep her cartoonish conception of things
returning after falling from a cliff or being hit by a train. Sully
wasn’t sure if there was a right answer to her question. He finally
went with, “Because he might not come back.”

Sully knew Monica loved her cat very
much and would be devastated to lose it. He had hoped that his
statement would end the conversation. It didn’t. But the
conversation did take an unexpected turn.

“Why not, Daddy? You came
back.”

“What?”

Could she really know about that? Did
she know about the coma? He had never said anything.

“Grandpa said you died and came back.
He said he knew you would because you’re like a cat.”

With that, Monica was satisfied. She
picked up a coloring book and some crayons.

Sully was not satisfied, though. How
could his dad say something like that to her? It was so unlike him
to step in and discuss things with her that were better left to
Sully. He was so willing to tell Sully’s mom to butt out of Sully’s
life, so how could he butt in?

The conversation would bother Sully
for some time. He would think about it off and on all the way to
the drop off spot. Then, the events of that night would push
thoughts of it out of his mind.

#

Sully hung up his cell phone. He had
called Anna to let her know that he was on his way home. She had
actually answered this time, but she had rushed to stop talking,
hard at work on her book.

He had been on the road half an hour
since he gave Monica to Faith. His anxiety was slight. But it was
increasing ever so slowly as he approached the point where last
time he had experienced the flashback. Could something about that
location have set off the memory? Or maybe it had been the rain. If
it were the rain, he wanted it to rain again. He suspected that
would be the only way to recover, facing all the cues of that
night.

Sully drove past the hotel he had
stayed at last time, and still nothing had gone wrong. He began to
cling harder to his rain theory. But, after thinking about it a
while longer, he realized that this theory couldn’t be right. He
had driven in the rain around home, even at night, and though that
had triggered anxiety, it had never brought out something as
substantial as a flashback.

Sully gave up on his attempt at
playing amateur psychologist. All he could do was wait and see what
happened.

Then something happened.

It was just a shadow. A large form,
too large to be a deer or even a horse, not to mention way too
fast, had shot across the lanes in front of him. Startled, but
still determined, Sully continued, not even slowing down. He
figured it could have been some trick of the light, the moonlight
doing something unusual in the atmosphere. No big deal.

It happened again, this time much
closer to the front of his car. He felt the physical cues from when
he had experienced the flashback. A cold sweat. Awareness of his
heartbeat. His body stiffening. His breath increasing. Sully cut
his speed down to sixty. He checked the scene around him. He could
still make out a car in the distance in front of him. Behind him, a
car’s lights approached. That made things a little better. In the
flashback, he had been alone on the road.

Sully struggled with what to do. Going
slow was letting the fear win. But, at the same time, easing into
it might not be a bad idea. He had tried to rush in last time, and
ended up going completely out of his mind. Maybe easing into it
would yield the small victory he needed, build his confidence a
little. Then he could try it all out next time. All the way home,
full speed ahead, next time.

It happened again. This time, it was
way up ahead. But this time, it stopped. It stayed there for just a
second or two, then, instead of crossing the road, it went straight
up.

“What the fuck are you?” Sully
whispered.

By now, he doubted that it was just
some trick of the light that was causing this. It had to be
something in his head. Maybe if he calmed down a little, it would
stop.

Sully began breathing deeper. And he
was able to slow his breath. A car caught up and passed on the
left. That made him feel better, less alone, and it gave him an
idea. He turned on the radio, but skipped through music stations,
until he found a talk show. It was just some highly opinionated
man, taking callers, talking about the current administration.
Normally, he would have found such a thing annoying. But tonight,
it was company, and it soothed him a little.

He drove on for another five minutes,
feeling better, his body relaxing, able to pick up a little speed.
Cars were still passing him, but that was fine—more company. He saw
a road sign that announced the next exit. That was about the time
the radio shut off.

The memory came flying in. He
remembered how last time he had been listening to a CD and it had
suddenly cut off, right before the real madness began, like the end
of the music marked the severing of his connection with reality. He
tried to speak, just to hear his own voice. But the fear wouldn’t
let him. He just hung his mouth open without making a sound,
awaiting what terrible thing would happen. He became unaware of his
body and unwillingly focused on the feeling of utter terror. He
wanted so bad to be anywhere but here.

He heard a thump on the roof of his
car, telling him he couldn’t escape, bringing him back to his body.
Then he heard the piercing sound.

Screeeeeeeee. .
.

It had come from on top of the
car.

Screeeeeeeee. .
.

The sound of metal being
scratched.

Screeeeeeeee. .
.

What had been on the road was now on
the roof of his car.

Screeeeeeeee. .
.

And it was trying to cut
through.

Screeeeeeeee. .
.

The ability to think rationally was
gone, and he couldn’t fade off into a sense of numbness and
oblivion. Sully was left with sheer survival instinct. He hit the
brakes hard. He heard the thing scream as it went from his roof,
but he never saw it, because his car spun in a circle. He went with
the direction of the skid. His tires protested as he continued to
spin. But he eventually got the car under control, faced in the
direction he had been going, and pulled off the side of the
road.

He sat in the car, but only for a few
seconds. Somehow, he felt like he would be safer outside. Maybe it
was because both times things went crazy he had been inside his
car. He got out.

The smell of burnt rubber was in the
air. He looked all around, but couldn’t see the thing anywhere. He
tried to tell himself that there wasn’t a thing. It was only his
imagination. Somehow, his fear of traveling had made him go
mad.

Sully turned around and felt on top of
the Taurus’s roof. Nothing there gave an indication that the car
had actually been scratched. Just to be sure, he ran around to the
other side of the car, opened the passenger door, and got out the
small flashlight that he kept inside the glove compartment. He
shined his beam on the roof. Nothing but smooth paint. He put the
flashlight in his pocket. He stood there for a few seconds, trying
to catch his breath. Then it occurred to him. Somebody should have
passed him by now. He looked first in front of the car. There were
no cars there. But it was, at least, still the interstate. He
looked behind him, and to his relief, saw headlights in the
distance.

“Yes.”

Sully leaned on the side of his car.
Why did he do this? Why not just let Anna do it for him? He didn’t
have to recover. Or, at least, he could put off trying to recover
for a while. Summer was a long time away. He wouldn’t be able to
travel that much until then anyway. If nothing else, he could ease
into this. Going crazy in the night, miles from home, was just too
much.

Sully looked up. He noticed that the
car he had seen was not far away and was slowing down.