Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (67 page)

In those last few moments, Celeste
realized that she had been tricked. She’d taken in a lifeforce that
was poison to her. Her heart exploded.

She was in the tunnel again. She saw
the light.

***

“Her mother was a prostitute,” Dr.
Porter said.

They were now in a car, though he
didn’t know why. His clients were all dead now. Where else did he
need to go before he died?

“And she must have not been a
prostitute out of necessity. Not because she was supporting a drug
habit, or needed money otherwise. She must have liked it. She liked
to get men to do things for her. She liked to use her sexual
magnetism to take from men.”

The angel did not speak to
this.

Dr. Porter thought of what Celeste’s
father must have been. It seemed clear enough. Her father would
have been the same, only he took from women.

Under most circumstances, these two
people wouldn’t have been attracted to each other. Her father would
like women he could take from, not women who took. Her mother would
be the same way with men. But somehow, as it occasionally did, the
unlikely happened and they got together for a night. And they made
Celeste.

“Both parents found meaning in life
from what they could take from the opposite sex. And Celeste could
take so much more than either of them could.”

At that final conclusion, the angel
nodded.

They drove until morning. They left
the main road and continued into the desert. They were miles away
from anybody, when they left the car. It wasn’t Dr. Porter’s car,
but one they had stolen. Dr. Porter’s car had been abandoned in a
rough area of Phoenix. No doubt, it had been taken by
now.

They walked for miles into the desert,
where the angel left him. His body collapsed. It was no good now.
Now that the angel had altered the energy inside, he would not be
able to control his body again. He realized that, as his car had
been taken by thieves, so would his body be taken by
scavengers.

No one would know what happened to
him. He was only inside his body, painlessly, for a few more
seconds. Then he was in the tunnel. He saw the light.

Nescata

A Novel

Copyright 2011 Joshua
Scribner

Originally published by Double Dragon
2007

Smashwords Edition

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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.

Chapter 1

Summer 1997

Jacob Sims pressed gently on the brake.
He slowed to a stop and turned left on the same Oklahoma dirt road
he’d turned on a thousand times before. Dodging loose shale, he
made what he thought would be his last approach to his parents’
home.

To his left, a level field of dry land
and straw stretched out, eventually giving way to a giant cluster
of weeds and trees. The pasture on the right was tall yellow-green
grass, holding several tractors, most rusted and stripped of their
insides. Ahead, a clearing opened in the grass, and in that
clearing stood a country home. Jacob stopped, then pulled up the
driveway, hearing the rumble of small white rocks shooting from
underneath his tires and crashing into each other. At the top of
the driveway, an old Ford Falcon and a blue service pickup sat
idle. These two vehicles had been there when Jacob left this
morning. He was grateful, knowing this meant that no one was home.
He needed the solitude to complete his plan.

Jacob stopped at the top of the
driveway and sat, trying not to think too much. He only wanted to
think of his breath and what he wanted to do. His familiar sense of
vague tension was there, but for the last couple of hours, he'd
been able to keep it on the perimeter of his mind. He knew his calm
was artificial and that he wouldn’t be able to make it
last.

Jacob got out of the car and walked up
the sidewalk to the house. No door handle or latch on the screen
door, he just grabbed metal and pulled. Several boots and shoes
were scattered about the floor of the interior back porch. Jacob
scanned them until he found an old galosh. He picked it up, took a
key out from under it and used that key to unlock the back door. He
rushed through the house on the way to his parents’ room. He folded
back a closet door. On the rack were his mother’s dresses, slacks
and shirts. Old sweaters, sweatshirts and coats were strewn about
on the shelf above that rack. Jacob reached a hand up on the shelf
and pushed it under the winter clothing until he felt cold steel.
He pulled out a black .22 pistol.

#

Jacob packed the pistol under the
driver’s seat of his Ford Escort, then walked back inside the
house. In his old room, he grabbed a notebook and a pen from his
suitcase. He carried them to the kitchen table, flipped to an open
page and then wrote. The letter lacked the detail he knew should be
there, but he feared that opening himself up would cause the
tension to rush in and take him over again. He left the letter in
the center of the table.

Jacob got in his car and drove further
down the dirt road. After a mile, he glanced at a compost dump that
ran from the side of the road down a hill into Bull Creek. This
sight reminded Jacob of years ago, when he used to fish with his
older friend Todd. But now, trash and chemicals had turned the
water black. And Todd was dead.

Jacob continued down the road for two
miles, turned west, drove another three miles, then went south
again, around a curve and onto a lease road. There was a sign at
the entrance that had never been there before.

NO
TRESPASSING. THIS SHALE PIT IS CHECKED ROUTINELY BY LOCAL
POLICE
.

The sign reminded him of the night his
mother had called him at school and said that two people had died
in a car accident after coming from one of the shale pit parties.
She had said she was reluctant to tell him at all, since he had
already lost three friends this year.

The lease road sloped down into the
pit. Jacob drove around a large pile of red shale. Now the road
wasn't visible. On the other side of his car stood a group of
trees.

“Out of view,” he
whispered.

As Jacob got out of the car, something
stabbed his leg. With his empty hand, he reached into the pocket of
his jean shorts and pulled out a key. He threw the key and watched
it land in the red dirt. A slight feeling of power came with the
certainty. He crawled up on the car’s roof and sat there,
cross-legged, with the gun in his right hand, pressed against the
steel of the car. Several memories of this place fell on him at
once. Two deep breaths and the memories separated and came one by
one.

There was the memory of the first
party, with the visions of the shocked but pleasant faces of people
he had known all his life, but not really spoken to before that
night. Then there was the memory of seeing them in other places and
forgetting how to connect with them again.

More parties and more faces came, but
the results were always the same.

“Why could I only do it here? What’s
wrong with me?”

Jacob pushed thoughts away and
regained calm. Soon, he was busy smacking himself and wiping sweat
from his brow. He laughed. “Oklahoma Summer: the humidity and the
mosquitoes don’t fuck around.”

He took another deep breath. He pulled
the gun up and placed the barrel under his chin. He placed his
finger on the trigger. He felt the certainty right up to the
instant before he pulled it.

#

There’s a ringing in Jacob’s ears, and
on his face is the remnant sensation of the gust from the blast,
where, a few moments ago, the bullet passed inches away. He is now
off the car, pacing back and forth in a straight line. His body
shakes and his eyes are wide open. The air rushes in and out and
fills him with energy. He’s thrown on his back and his body
twitches spasmodically. At first, he’s terrified. But as the
movements become faster and more violent, he feels less connected
to them and his mind becomes calmer. His body is there with him and
he senses it, but somehow, it does not feel like his
own.

The energy seems to slowly take form
and connect every part of him. His body stops shaking and becomes
like one solid muscle, pulsing with charge. Then, even the pulsing
stops and he can only feel energy. And though that energy is with
him, he feels separate from that too. The world fades into red and
then into black. There is the sensation of rising into the sky. It
feels incredible, magical. Without effort, he’s floating. His
consciousness is moving with the energy. It’s not like a dream. His
thoughts are rational, and he is fully aware. Higher and higher he
moves, and he’s moving faster all the while. There is the thought
that he is being taken away. But there is no fear.

This is
what I wanted
, he thinks. The life he had
and all the tension seem far away. He wonders where he will go,
where this energy will take him. The rising slows down, then stops
completely. It’s as if he’s come up against a ceiling in the sky.
He still only senses the energy and his consciousness, but the
energy is pulling away.

A third part comes, some kind of
resistance. This part tries to hold onto the energy. But the energy
builds up against it like water against a dam. Not knowing why, he
fears the resistance will break. But his fear doesn’t seem to
matter. The energy continues to build against the resistance. It
becomes so strong that he knows the resistance will
break.

Starting at his head and proceeding
down, little by little, Jacob becomes aware of his body. There is
light again. It comes back slowly, until he can see the Earth
directly below. He sees himself below. His body is still on top of
his car. It sits there cross-legged, head down. The gun is still in
his hand, held out in front of his face.

There is the sensation of air in his
lungs. He tries to cry out, to wake the person down on the car, but
there is only enough air to produce a slight noise. His new body
begins to tilt back and forth in the sky as his resistance breaks
down against the escaping energy. The air comes back to his lungs,
and he stores it up.

The top of his new body leans forward
and holds there, but he is able to hold his head up. Not sure that
there is enough air yet, but afraid to wait any longer, he pushes
the air out of his lungs. This time there is more sound than
before.

“Jacob! Wake up!”

The person on the car does not react.
The last of the energy trickles away. He somersaults twice in the
air and then sees the red earth rushing at him.

#

Jacob came to in the dark. At first,
he thought he was dead. Then he tasted the air and began to sense
his body. He felt the metal underneath him. He opened his eyes, and
found himself still on the car.

For a moment, he could only sit there
and wonder what was real. But a new feeling soon overtook him, a
feeling that he was completely unfamiliar with. Something had been
lifted, and this new feeling, this new urge, was left. Jacob
searched for an explanation and one stood out.

“Oh no!”

He set the gun down beside him, and
then slowly moved one hand under his chin and one hand to the top
of his head. There was no wound. He sighed in relief. But there was
still no explanation for what had happened.

After climbing off the car, Jacob
inspected the rest of his body. It was drenched with sweat, but not
dirty.

“I was never on the ground. I was not
in the sky.”

His mind felt sharp and clear, wide
open. In it, he searched again for something rational to explain it
all. Nothing came.

The urge within him grew, but it
wasn’t a straining urge, like severe hunger or an uncontrollable
sex drive. It was more of a calm desire, like magical fascination.
He walked around. The sound of a bird drew his attention. The bird
was out of sight, but he continued to look around
anyway.

“It’s this place. There’s something
here. There has always been something here.”

On the other side of the hill of
shale, Jacob continued to look around, inspecting his surroundings.
Wind whistled and leaves of trees rustled. He stepped toward those
trees and the urge ebbed. When he stopped, it started to build up
again. As he waited, it took him over and Jacob thought he
understood it a little more.