Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (59 page)

The cold bit his skin. Total darkness
surrounded him. He felt dizzy. Having awoken, James realized that
the spirit had left. Feeling helpless, he tried to fall back to
sleep. Tomorrow, he could face the fact that he was alone. He could
think of that in the light. But James couldn’t sleep. He was simply
too miserable. Without the spirit in him, the cold proved
overwhelming. The hardness of the cavern floor, which the mere
sleeping bag provided little comfort against, was unbearable. He
yearned to be home in the warmth of his basement, in the softness
of his bed, behind a locked door, away from the wild. But most of
all, he yearned for the spirit.

It wasn’t long. In fact, it couldn’t
have been five minutes of lying awake, before he felt the spirit
reenter him. It sensed immediately that he was awake.

“I’m sorry,” it said. “I had hoped you
would remain asleep as I scouted.”

James felt his fear melt away. As the
fear left, so did his hate of the cold and the hardness of the
floor. More questions arose. “What did you find?” James asked,
having already forgiven the spirit for leaving him so
helpless.

“I do not know where the hunter came
from. But there is no stir in the surrounding area. I don’t think
anyone is looking for him.”

James felt a little ashamed for having
doubted the spirit. While he was sleeping, the spirit had been
acting as an early detection system, protecting him. But James
didn’t feel too much shame, for with the spirit, such negative
feelings did not last.

“How does it work?” James
asked.

The spirit must have been prepared for
this question, because it responded immediately. “There are many
spirits that stay here after the body dies. But they find
themselves trapped by their memories. That is because they have no
other way of sensing this world. The energy they now are cannot
affect it very well and is not strongly affected by it. Therefore,
they do not sense the world, and it does not sense them. Most do
not stay long. The exceptions are those who have a strong reason to
stay, like the vengeance we discussed earlier.”

In his mind’s eye, James saw a picture
of a microprocessor, which was essentially thousands of on off
switches that controlled the voltage of a computer. He thought of
how a spirit must be like a microprocessor but whose switches had
no impact on the voltage it tried to turn on or off.

“Do the spirits sense each other?”
James asked.

“Yes, they do from the start. But in
the same way a baby senses those around it when it is born. They
sense the presence of another, but they don’t know what it is. It
takes many years, lifetimes in human terms, to understand the other
presences for what they are.”

Again, question arose of how old this
spirit was. For how many lifetimes had it roamed the Earth? But
James still would not ask that question.

“Are there others like me?” James
asked.

“No and yes. In time, many lifetimes,
I have seen and possessed others like you. But it is doubtful that
there exists another on the earth right now as receptive as you.
Some may be influenced by spirits, but none will know the spirit
and maintain a dialogue as you do. One like you exists on this
Earth once every two or three centuries.”

That didn’t make sense to James’s
logic. “But as the population increased, wouldn’t that increase the
odds of others like me.”

“Very much,” the spirit responded, to
his surprise. “And as time goes on, the energy that provides the
connection is inside a higher proportion of people. But as time
goes on, the barriers inside people grow.”

James had actually forgotten about the
barrier. He had forgotten that, for forty years, he had been
controlled by it.

“I have watched you for all of your
life, James. Not continuously, because I am still limited by space
and cannot be two places at once. But I have checked on you
frequently. I am not like the other spirits. I can see inside
places that I have never been. It is a power I’ve developed over
many centuries as a spirit. You have always had the energy I need
inside you. But if I would have come through those walls into your
small abode, your fear would have rebuked me. Fear was your
barrier. But your Dr. Porter helped you remove that.”

For a little while, James only
thought. For years he had feared the outside. But that was just a
representation of his limited conscious mind. What he had really
feared, all along, deep inside, was the spirits.

“Now rest,” the spirit said. “It will
be good for your body, and I also enjoy it. Tiredness is a physical
want I am usually deprived of. Satisfying such a want, after not
having it for many years, is always a novel and satisfying
sensation.”

James, his mind still loaded with
questions, would not deprive the spirit. Very warm and comfortable,
he fell asleep after a few seconds.

***

Unthinkable events transpired Friday
night. The Pious Eagles had entered the postseason undefeated.
Their first game of the playoffs was at home against the Brenart
Chiefs, who barely made the playoffs with their seven and three
record. Intra-conference rivals, the two teams had met earlier this
year, with the Eagles prevailing 34-14. The Chiefs had lost their
starting tailback to an ankle sprain during their last regular
season game. It was a no-brainer. The Eagles were predicted to win
the second game by three touchdowns. But they played the game
anyway, just to be sure.

Nothing went like it was supposed to,
starting with the opening kickoff, which the Eagles fumbled. As
things turned out, the second string tailback for the Chiefs, whose
grades had kept him ineligible for most of the season, was twice
the back as his injured forerunner. He was fast and broke tackles
left and right, rushing for over two-hundred yards.

That would have been fine, had the
Eagles offence, which had seemed unstoppable the week before and in
the preceding nine weeks, showed up. But quarterback Randy Pollard
looked like a completely different player. For the first time, he
looked like a freshman quarterback was supposed to look. The Chiefs
blitzed every play, a strategy Randy had been able to pick apart
during the regular season. But on this night, Randy was tight. He
reacted to the pressure, not by hitting the wide-open receivers,
but by stumbling, fumbling, and many times seeming to throw the
ball up for grabs. He was intercepted four times and the Eagles
went down 28-0.

After the game, the team was in shock.
Nobody, including Randy or Coach Tibbs, seemed to know what to say.
In all the possible scenarios of how the postseason would play out,
nobody had planned for this one. In the locker room, faces were
dazed, especially those of the seniors, who had planned to go out
with a bang. It was as if they expected to wake up at any minute
and this not be real. They would awake and play the real game
tomorrow, where they would deliver the ass whuppin they were
supposed to deliver, instead of taking an ass whuppin from a team
that was just a game away from not making it to the playoffs in the
first place.

Toby wasn’t sure why he was hanging
around the locker room afterward. He usually shied away from places
like this, where there was potential for an emotional explosion at
any moment. Maybe it was that he was the one person in that locker
room with high spirits. He was still winning; his season was still
on.

The coaches were upstairs, almost as
if they were avoiding the players. The players were not taking off
their uniforms, as if by leaving on their gear they could keep
their incredible season from ending. One of the seniors finally
came out of the haze of denial. It was Matt Craven, the one who had
lost his heralded position to Randy at the beginning of the season,
the kid who had been a threat to Toby before the season. Matt
exploded. He yelled, “Noooooo!” Then he began shaking his head like
he couldn’t stop. But he did stop, and when he did, his incensed
gaze landed on Randy, who sat nearly motionlessly on a bench, with
his head hung in shame.

Randy didn’t even seem to notice that
Matt was looking at him, until Matt rushed up and grabbed him by
the jersey.

“What were you seeing out there?” Matt
yelled. “We were wide the fuck open! Who were you throwing it
to?”

Randy looked up, but his expression
was blank, nobody home, and when Matt shook him, he moved like a
rag doll. Maybe it was that look, that far-away,
you-can’t-hurt-me-anymore-than-I-already-hurt look, that caused
Matt to let Randy go.

Matt scanned around, seeming to check
every face in the room, maybe looking for someone who dared to show
a sign of life, any emotion at all, anyone who dared to feel right
now. But there were mostly hung heads. Where there weren’t hung
heads, there were more blank expressions. Then Matt found
Toby.

Toby stood near the door. By that, and
by the way Matt glared at him, Toby’s logic told him he should
escape. Yes, he was stronger now. Yes, he had vigor like never
before. But his one-hundred pounds of bench pressing power, and his
still narrow frame, would be no match for the raging senior, and
Randy was in no condition to help out. Despite all this, Toby held
his own glare on Matt. He didn’t know why. He just seemed to have
some strange instinct now. He felt like a small dog who would
engage a much bigger animal, just because that was his
nature.

“And you!” Matt said, as he pointed at
the one person in the room who would challenge him right
now.

The look in Matt’s eyes did something
to Toby. There was something about the fire there that caused Toby
to feel a certain connection with Matt. It was a connection that
would have to be consummated. It could only be consummated in a
battle. Somehow, despite all logic, Toby thought he could win this
battle. He took two steps in Matt’s direction.

When he lay in bed that night and
thought about it, Toby was able to reason again. He would have
surely lost the fight, had not the couches showed up before he and
Matt could come together. But even looking back on it, he loved
that moment. Never before had life felt so real, so alive. Dr.
Porter had opened up more than an appetite for food in him.
Tomorrow, they would open up more.

Chapter 13

Only one client showed today, and that
client was misleading him. Toby said that he was now eating more
meat, but that he thought he should still go further, because the
meat still grossed him out a little. He was choppy in the way he
described all of this. Dr. Porter had to drag it all out of him.
The look on Toby’s face begged the question: Do you know I’m lying
to you?

So now three clients had something to
keep from him. But Dr. Porter didn’t let on that he knew about
that. He had to stay focused on the barrier for now. He would find
a way to view his results later, if there was a way. He would try
to know what his new methods had caused, but later. First, he had
to finish. Dr. Porter hypnotized Toby.

When Toby didn’t signal quickly that
he was finished breaking away at the barrier, Dr. Porter knew the
final barrier was coming down. Near the end of the hour, Toby
signaled that he was done.

“Very good,” Dr. Porter said. “Now I
want the subconscious to reveal what secrets Toby is keeping from
me.” After several minutes, there was no response. Dr. Porter
asked, “Will the subconscious reveal the secrets Toby is keeping
from me?”

Dr. Porter gave his clients a “no”
finger. Toby didn’t signal with a finger, though. He shook his
head.

Dr. Porter gulped, and he could
suddenly sense his heartbeat picking up. Toby’s subconscious was
flat out denying a simple request, and it was doing it in a manner
different than ever requested. But that couldn’t be.

He inspected the boy. Was it possible
that he had come up? No. Toby’s expression and body were too
relaxed. Besides, this kid didn’t have the faculties to pull off
such a stunt. No one Dr. Porter had ever hypnotized could have
pulled off such a stunt.

Dr. Porter gave the instruction for
Toby to come up. He came out in a mild euphoria and announced that
the barrier had fallen. Dr. Porter smiled and congratulated Toby,
all the while wondering what he had awakened.

***

Three hunters moved in the valley
below. James and the spirit came down from the tree.

The three men had been spaced out from
each other. Each wore the appropriate orange vest, which had made
them stand out more than the hunter from earlier this week. Each
had a rifle.

James and the spirit took a curling
path coming down the mountain, moving swiftly away and then toward
the hunters from behind. They were not making an effort to slow
down this time, and James felt an incredible rush of adrenaline,
knowing they were not closing in under the guise of silence, the
safer route they had used on the lone hunter. He heard the closest
target, who now trekked in their direction, having obviously sensed
them. It almost seemed like suicide. They hadn’t brought the gun or
knife from the cavern today. Now they were coming upon a man who
was armed with a gun and no doubt thought that they, as swiftly as
they moved, had to be a deer or some other animal.