Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (40 page)

Anna sat up and looked around. First,
she looked at the girl. She held her gaze there for a few seconds,
and then she looked where the wolves held the screaming vampire.
Then she looked up, seemingly able to see, or at least sense, the
invisible presence that Sully now was.

Anna looked back into the room, where
the girl was pointing at Sully’s body. The girl then turned and
pointed to the floor, over by the glass doors. Anna looked down at
the knife she had dropped earlier. For a few seconds, she seemed to
think it over. Then she looked up at him again. She stood up. He
could see the fear in her eyes. He could see her eyes were begging
him. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he would not leave.
But he had no mouth to speak with. She looked away and then
hesitated for a few more seconds. Then she moved to his body.
Slowly, she reached down and took his hand.

Anna began to sob, and Sully realized
why. She was feeling his dead skin. She wept like that for a little
while, before she bent down. She then straightened her legs and
pulled his body a little ways. She repeated the motion until his
body was next to the wolves.

The pitch of the vampire’s screaming
changed. Sully looked and saw that two of the wolves had moved and
now had the vampire’s mouth pried wide open. Anna left his body and
moved across the room, past the girl and to the knife. She picked
it up and moved back to the body.

She took his lifeless wrist in her
hand and lifted it. She took several deep breaths before she slit
that wrist with the knife.

At a motion of the girl’s hands, one
of the wolves cleared a path for Anna. Anna positioned his body’s
wrist over the vampire’s mouth, then began squeezing up and down
his forearm until a small amount of blood came from that wrist. A
string of the liquid dangled from his wrist and then released down
into the vampire’s mouth.

The girl motioned and the wolves that
held the vampire’s mouth released. The vampire lifted its head and
emitted a gurgling sound. Then, after a few seconds, its head
dropped to the floor.

The vampire had fed on death and was
now without life.

The girl motioned at Sully’s presence,
still hovering in the corner of the room, and then he was in
another place. He saw the coma men, thousands of them, maybe more.
One approached. It touched him.

#

When Sully came to again, he was
inside his body. Anna was nestled up to him. He opened his eyes to
the lit room. The carpet was covered with a mixture of blood and
dog hair. The stench was both stale and acrid.

But that was okay, because a few feet
away, the vampire lay motionlessly on the floor. Its white skin was
cracked and frail looking. It seemed to be crumbling into
itself.

Sully lifted the wrist that Anna had
cut in front of his eyes. It had healed completely. He felt his
neck and found that the holes were gone. He snickered at himself.
Of course, the holes wouldn’t be there. All the other nights the
vampire must have fed on him, and he had never had a mark to show
for it.

Anna sat up. She looked at him for a
second and then came down on his chest.

“Welcome back,” she said.

Sully could think of nothing else to
say, so he just said, “Thanks.”

They lay there for a little while
longer, and then Sully asked, “Is she gone?”

“Yes.”

“Could you understand her?”

“Some.”

“Was she. . .”

“Yes, Sully,” Anna said. “She was your
mother.”

More questions arose in Sully’s head.
He doubted that Anna would be able to answer them all.

“Will I ever see her again?” Sully
asked.

Anna took a few seconds and then
replied, “Maybe. But I don’t think she’ll let you approach
her.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t trust
men.”

Sully remembered what his dad had told
him about his birth mother’s past.

“They take, not stay,” he said. “They
take, never stay.”

Chapter Nine

The next morning, Sully awoke in bed.
It was early, and still a little dark out. He heard somebody in the
house. He wasn’t afraid, though. He thought he knew who it would
be.

He found his dad standing outside of
the study, looking in.

The old man didn’t say anything. He
just smiled and nodded. Anna came up behind Sully.

“I made coffee,” his dad said. “You
two have a seat.”

Sully and Anna sat at the dining room
table. His dad joined them, bringing three cups hooked in the
fingers of one hand, and the coffee decanter in the other. He
poured all of them a cup, returned the decanter to the kitchen,
then joined them at the table.

He started in immediately. “Your
mother died giving birth to you. I even attended the funeral.” The
old man stopped to shake his head at a story that, after all of the
years, still obviously astonished him. “It wasn’t a year later that
I saw her again. We were all at the park in town. It was some
distance away, but I knew it was her. She was across the street
hiding by the grain elevators. She saw me and left.”

Sully wondered if his dad had intended
on telling him this the other night, before Sully had been put to
sleep and his dad scared away.

“I saw her again, many times. Once,
early on, I tried to get close to her. But she ran away
screaming.”

Sully looked at Anna. She nodded her
head. His father was a man.

“It was always about this time of year
that I saw her. That’s how I knew what to do when I figured out
what was happening around here. I kept a look out. I watched around
the places I knew you would be. Last week, I caught up with her
just down the road. Saw her out in a field. I think she was hiding
out, just looking in on you.”

His dad stopped and smiled. Then he
said, “All these years I’ve never heard mention of her around town.
I think I was the only one to ever see her, because that’s the way
she wanted it. She wanted me to know she was still around.” He
paused and shook his head. “Anyway, I knew better than to try to
approach her again. So I stood on the road and waved a letter I’d
written above my head. Then I made sure she saw me leave it on the
ground. I just had to go on hope that she’d be able to read it. I
guess she did.”

Sully was astonished, but still a
little angry about the secrets kept from him. He asked, “Why didn’t
you tell me sooner, Dad? Why did you wait?”

Sully felt Anna’s hand on his arm. He
turned to her, but heard his dad’s voice.

“I didn’t want you to turn out like
her.”

Anna, a compassionate look on her
face, nodded. “That was one of the things I think your mother was
trying to tell me, Sully. She got too deep into all of this. She
went places the consciousness she had was not ready to go. And
that’s what made her crazy.”

Mother, Anna had called the woman.
Sully thought about that. The mother he knew was at home right now,
content to think that she lived in a linear world, content to think
her husband was out checking on something, doing whatever lie he
had told her to get out of the house long enough to come
here.

But there were more important things
to focus on than that.

“So if I was to try to learn the
things she did, I would go crazy too?”

Anna shook her head. “Not necessarily.
Not if you took your time and learned them over many, many years,
as your consciousness advances.”

Many years. That was something Sully
had. Many years to learn about what was inside of him. Many years
to learn to, like his mother obviously had, use it to maintain his
youth. Many years.

“And if another one of these things
shows up in the meantime, while I’m still learning, what do we
do?”

Anna nodded. “Well, there are people
out there who can help us. Most people who claim to delve into the
paranormal are not legitimate. A few are.”

“You mean like psychics?” Sully
asked.

“Yes,” Anna replied. “Among others.
And I know some legitimate ones. At least one of them will be able
to tell us how to repel vampires.”

“Maybe you can use garlic cloves,”
Sully’s dad said.

Sully had thought the old man was
joking. But he looked at his face and saw that he was
serious.

“Maybe,” Anna said. “I don’t know.
I’ve not researched it. I’ve heard all the folklore, but at this
point I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Garlic may very well
work.”

The three of them were content to just
sit and sip coffee for a little while. Sully’s mind went to the
ramifications of what he was.

“And Monica?” Sully asked. “Is it in
her too?”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t think
so.”

That made Sully feel even more
protective of her. He would be here for who knows how long, but
Monica’s life was limited. Just like Anna’s life was limited. All
he cared about would perish, and he would still be here.

After he was done with his coffee, his
dad got up and looked in the study again. “I’ll clean up the rest
of that thing.”

Sully got up beside him and looked.
The vampire had collapsed and was now just an outline of dust in
human shape.

“I’ll vacuum up the glass and pellets
in short britches’s room while I’m at it. I got some glass at the
farm I can repair the door with. But if your mom ever asks, you
were cleaning the gun and it went off.”

Sully looked to where the shotgun
still lay on the floor. His father left to his truck outside. His
dad would be here doing repairs today. Meanwhile, he would go to
school and teach, like nothing had ever happened.

What would his life be like now? Would
he be able to tell people about this? Or would he have to leave
here someday, because he couldn’t explain why he continued to live
while all those around him died? Were there other people like him
out there? People like he and his mother?

Anna got up and hugged Sully. “It’s
all of them, Sully. It’s not just all the men who were with your
mother; it’s every potential life. Every last
lifeforce.”

Sully got a picture of thousands of
little sperm swimming inside a birth canal. And that had happened
many times.

“You are, by our life standards, an
immortal, Sully.”

Sully looked at her face. He didn’t
understand how she could smile when she said it. “So what does that
mean?” he asked. “Is there some kind of purpose to all of
this?”

Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll
have to figure that one out. And you’ll have plenty of time to do
it.”

“Yeah,” Sully said. “Many
years.”

Fear and Repulsion

By, Joshua Scribner

Originally published by Riverdale Books
2007

Copyright 2010 Joshua
Scribner

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced
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This ebook is licensed for
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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.

For Brooke and Jenna

Chapter 1

Dr. David Porter loved his job. In
fact, he loved nothing in the world more. Hypnosis was his
existence, and passion shined through in the results.

His workspace, a 13X10-foot room, was
essentially plain. White walls held no adornment. An analog clock
gave an audible tick. Atop beige carpet sat an inclined couch for
his clients, an armless leather chair for him. Plain was the way he
liked his office, for it wasn’t the surroundings that mattered, but
the labors that transpired inside.

Today, Peter Harris, a fifty-year-old
lawyer and seasoned alcoholic, lay on the couch. Patients always
faced Dr. Porter, so he could monitor their reactions to the
trance. By his sunken shoulders and the slack muscles in his
usually rigid face, Peter was way under.

In the soft melodic voice Dr. Porter
reserved for trance situations, he asked, “Am I now speaking
directly to the subconscious?”

The index finger on Peter’s right hand
shot up, indicating, “yes.” Dr. Porter was pleased, because he knew
he was now talking to more of Peter than anybody else would ever be
able to. Through several sessions, Dr. Porter had taught Peter to
enter a state of deep relaxation. Only in this state could the mind
be separated from the body and everything else in the here and now.
Only in this state could a person have complete access to all he or
she had ever thought and felt, a complete history of learning and
memory spread out like an open book.