Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (50 page)

Dr. Porter nodded with satisfaction
and then said, “The others are back in the therapy room. Let’s get
started.”

***

All three clients talked of success
during the week. All noted that there was discomfort within their
success, but none were pessimistic in the least. Dr. Porter was
fully aware that this was the first session where they would all
three start with an open barrier. That, for him, made this the most
exciting session yet. He put them under.

Celeste and Toby both signaled that
their progress had halted within ten minutes. But Dr. Porter kept
them under for another thirty minutes, because that was how long it
took James to signal.

He was interested to hear from them
all, as soon as he brought them up. But his interest in the other
two paled compared to his curiosity about James. Why had he been
under so much longer this time? By the exhilarated look on James’s
face, the news had to be good.

“What happened?” Dr. Porter looked
directly at James and asked.

James opened his mouth, but nothing
came out. Dr. Porter realized that James was too excited for speech
right now. He turned to the other two, who were obviously also
fascinated with James’s reaction.

“Toby,” Dr. Porter said, taking the
young man’s stare off of James and bringing it to him. “How did it
go?”

“Good,” Toby said. “The gap is
bigger.”

“Me too,” Celeste said.

Then all attention went back to James.
They gave him a couple of minutes, and then he said, “It was
incredible. When I showed up, the gap was as I had left it. But
beyond that, further along the tunnel, were these hairline
fractures.”

Dr. Porter was astonished, but not
shocked. The work James did during the week must have compromised
the barrier’s structure.

“Then, as I started to chip, making
the gap bigger, I could feel how flimsy it was. Then, all of the
sudden, a big chunk of it just fell down. But it didn’t crash. It
just sort of disintegrated as soon as it broke off. I went back to
work on the rest, top, bottom and side, and everywhere I chipped,
big pieces broke. And the size of what broke off grew and grew,
until . . .”

“Until what?” Dr. Porter
implored.

“Yeah,” Celeste jumped in. “Until
what?”

James laughed loudly. “Until it all,
what was left, just sort of vanished. My God! I think it’s
gone!”

This surprised Dr. Porter. It was
faster than expected. “What happened next?”

“Well, the heat did something it had
not done before. It had been like that heat didn’t obey the laws of
physics. It didn’t distribute itself evenly once the gap was
made.”

Dr. Porter had thought of that. The
heat they talked about wasn’t actual heat. It was experiential
heat, heat in their minds, so it didn’t have to obey the laws of
physics.

“What did it do?” Dr. Porter asked,
thinking he knew the answer.

“It kind of dissipated. I think it
spread out evenly, throughout the tunnel.”

“Yes,” Dr. Porter said. “It’s now a
part of you. That’s what the heat has been all along, a part of
yourself that you’ve been deprived of. And now you have complete
access to that part.”

“Wow!” James said in a manner very
uncharacteristic of an intelligent man his age. “Does that mean . .
.”

Dr. Porter smiled. “Yes, James. I do
believe that means you are healed. But you have to remember that
you are now the first client I have ever done this with, and I
think I’m the first person to develop these methods. So we have to
proceed with caution. Go about your life as it feels right. But
notify me immediately of anything strange. And I want you to
continue coming in, at least for a couple more
sessions.”

James nodded as enthusiastically as
any child Dr. Porter had ever seen.

“As for the two of you,” Dr. Porter
said, addressing Toby and Celeste, whose glowing faces seemed to
mark a contagious reaction to James’s excitement. “Continue as you
did last week. Make small improvements, but don’t overdue
it.”

The session was over. One was
healed.

***

On Sunday, James decided to test out
the alleged cure. He went with his parents. They drove clear to
Columbia, where they had lunch at Applebee’s. James was anxiety
free during both the trip and during lunch. But he was not totally
free. Today, he felt a sort of inner excitement, something
beckoning him. He still enjoyed the ride and he enjoyed the meal,
right there in a public place.

James noticed that people tended to
react to his presence in one of two ways. Some stared at him.
Others glanced at him, only to look away quickly. Those who stared
were usually the really old or the really young, groups James
suspected were the most likely not to care as much about social
etiquette. James liked the people who stared. They were honest.
Besides, there was no denying that he was a spectacle, with his
bushy hair and pale face.

These observations about people and
their reactions to him didn’t excite him that much. Something was
missing.

After lunch, they went to the mall,
where James got a haircut. He could do nothing about his pale
complexion, for now. But he really didn’t care too much about his
appearance anyway. Like lunch and the ride, James enjoyed the
haircut. But there was still something missing.

Afterward, they went to see a play.
During the course of it, his mother asked if he was
anxious.

“No,” James whispered back. “I’m
fine.” But he wasn’t exactly fine. He wanted to know what this
longing inside him was. As he sat there, he ignored the play and
focused inward. He was enjoying today, but not enough. His first
time being out in the public without intense anxiety should have
been different. He should have been more interested in what was to
him a novel experience. He should have wanted to study the people
more, up to that point most of his interactions not being in
person. Seeing the way people were in public should have invoked
his intellectual curiosity more. More than that, he should have
been caught up in what was the biggest success of his life. This
should have been a day of elation for him.

But coming outside made him feel like
there was something for him to do. He had a void that needed to be
filled. He wondered if this was what it was like for normal people
all the time. He doubted it.

James didn’t think he’d be able to
figure out what was going on today. He was with his parents, who
had ideas about what they wanted to expose him to. He figured he
could think about it better when he was on his own, without them
accompanying his every move. Tomorrow, he’d go off
alone.

***

During breakfast Monday morning, James
announced that he wanted to walk around town for a while, alone.
Neither of his parents protested, but his mom asked that he take a
cell phone with him, in case he was overwhelmed. James agreed to
take the cell phone and to check in occasionally. After breakfast,
he sat out on foot.

The urgency had been there during
breakfast, and it stayed with him as he walked out the front door.
But that urgency rapidly changed to enthusiasm, like he was coming
closer to what he was seeking, although he didn’t know exactly what
he was looking for.

He walked down the block and onto the
next. A little while later, he walked onto the grounds of Arabuke
University. He strolled right into the heart of things, in the
middle of several buildings. He roamed around, seeing many people,
mostly young kids with backpacks, heading to class. He didn’t feel
like he stood out here, so many people around, some from different
cultures, some as eccentric looking as he. He kind of liked it. He
pondered the idea of going to college. Maybe he could get an
advanced degree and teach.

But, as much as he liked it here, he
knew he wasn’t in the right place now. He stopped for a little
while and looked around. He thought he could sense what wasn’t
quite right. It was the buildings. It was the many trees on campus.
It was that there were so many people. It was open here, but not
open enough.

James realized what had been wrong
yesterday. Though he’d left the house, he’d been inside at one
place or another, or inside the car, most of the day. He needed
open. He needed to get to as open of a place as he
could.

James walked right off the campus, to
the south, where he found himself in a field. He stood in the
middle of that field and felt like he was doing right. He could
feel the excitement, a heat inside him, rising. The sense of
beckoning was there, but not as strong. Still, James wanted to
move. He thought he felt a slight tug in the southern direction. He
strolled across the field and across several others. He doubted he
was legally supposed to be in some of these fields, and he saw a
few houses, here and there, but no one protested to him.

All and all, he walked for about half
an hour, and then he saw something that intrigued him. It was just
a hill, an elevation over the surrounding area. It was where he
wanted to go.

James had to walk another fifteen
minutes to get to the hill. Then he worked his way up the side. The
grass on the hill was high and so were the trees. James was shocked
that he could do this. He was in terrible physical condition and
should have not even made it to the slope. But the heat inside him
was incredible. It gave him the energy he needed.

Then there was the thought. Was this
crazy? People didn’t get heat inside them that let them engage in
prolonged physical activity that they were not capable of.
Adrenaline could give someone an extra boost, but James didn’t
think an adrenaline rush would be enough to sustain him this long.
Still, going around trees, and up a terrain that was increasingly
rougher, James never felt tired.

James made it to the top and became
even more excited. The apex leveled off somewhat and was as rocky
as the hill got. There were no trees at the top. It was somehow
perfect.

James went and sat upon the largest
rock he could find, which was also the highest elevation. He
realized that he was in a position to take in nature like he’d
never taken it in before. But all he really wanted to take in was
the sky. He sat down, cross-legged, and waited. For what, he did
not know.

***

The thoughts teased her constantly,
and she had started touching herself at night. The repulsion was
still there, but it had dwindled since the last session. The
novelty of the feelings was beginning to overwhelm the repulsion.
She was thinking less and less of companionship and more of the
simple contact itself. By Wednesday evening, Celeste knew she had
to do something.

Wednesday, hump day, was a little
busier than the other weeknights, so no one went home early. After
the pub was closed, Celeste saw Paul go outside to smoke in the
open air. She knew that she was just a little crazy right now and
that she should give more thought to her urges, but she didn’t want
to; she wanted to give in.

Paul just happened to be who was
available. Celeste quietly walked out to the side of the pub, where
Paul leaned against the wall, having his smoke.

“Hey hey,” Paul said.

“Hey,” Celeste responded.

Paul flicked his cigarette, and
Celeste walked up and stood right in front of him, her arms folded
in front of her.

“How’d you do tonight?” the
unsuspicious Paul asked.

“I’m sure I did okay,” Celeste
responded, knowing Paul wanted more like a number. But Celeste
couldn’t think of numbers right now. She was thinking of how to do
this, or that maybe she should do nothing at all.

The next time Paul brought the
cigarette down, Celeste was able to see, in the lights of that
parking lot, that a little ash had landed on his shirt. Using it as
an opening, she reached forward and dusted off that ash, but left
her hand on his chest.

Paul looked at her, astonished. He
didn’t know that he was one of the guys she had been fantasizing
about, that she had frequently, in her imagination, added to that
night in the theater. He didn’t know that she needed him because
her imagination would only take her so far. Though she knew what
the acts of sex were, she couldn’t begin to imagine what they’d be
like in person.

Celeste thought she might have seen
Paul’s look go from totally confused to mostly confused with a
tinge of want. She couldn’t resist. She acted on
instinct.

“Let go of the cigarette,” she said,
and Paul dropped it to the ground. Celeste pressed her body into
his and then pressed her lips against his mouth.

Paul opened his mouth, and then they
were kissing. Paul touched her but only on her back, and then he
reached to her shoulders and gently pushed her away.

“What is this?” he said in a slightly
frightened tone.

Celeste didn’t care to discuss that
right now, though. She hadn’t much liked the kissing, Paul’s breath
like cigarettes. But there was a heat when he touched her,
something inside, and she liked it very much. She didn’t want for
it to stop.