Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (70 page)

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“Hey big brother, come out here and
talk to me,” Jacob heard and came to. He had lain down in his old
room when he got back. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep but did
anyway. A dream had come, but he couldn’t remember it completely.
All he could remember was sitting at a desk in his old high
school.

He sat up on the side of the bed. His
head spun with drowsiness as he made his way to the door. Tyla was
waiting at the dining room table. There was a steaming cup of
coffee sitting in front of the chair cattycorner to her.

“Tyla, you’re God-sent.”

She laughed. “No, I just know you’re
not worth a damn until you’ve had caffeine.”

Jacob sat down and took a sip of the
coffee. The spinning began to slip away, like water down a
drain.

“So how long you here for,
Jake?”

“Oh, I imagine I’ll be here until late
next week.”

“Good! I know a lot of people have
been asking about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You called anyone
yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

Tyla smiled. “Same old
Jake.”

Jacob shrugged and went back to the
coffee.

“
Ted Westphal came into the
club the other day. I told him you were going to be in town. He’s
all excited now. He said Adam Masters was going to be around too
and that he’s thinking about putting together a poker
game.”

Jacob tried to look excited, but knew
his look wasn’t convincing.

Tyla laughed and shook her head.
“Anyway, how’s law school coming along?”

“Well, it’s coming. I haven’t flunked
anything yet.”

“Do you like it?”

“As much as it can be liked, I
guess.”

“Well, at least it got you away from
this God-forsaken place.”

She was looking away from him now, and
her gaze was spacey.

“Yeah, I guess Nescata had a rough
year,” Jacob said.

“Rough year is an understatement.
There were so many damn funerals.”

Jacob shook his head. “It seems like
every time Mom called me, she was telling me that somebody else had
died.”

Tyla didn’t respond. She just kept
staring.

“How are you doing?” Jacob
asked.

“Oh. I’m okay. It’s just sad. That’s
all.” Tears came to her eyes.

“Were you close to any of them?” Jacob
asked.

“No. Not especially. None of them were
really my age.”

“I guess not.”

“I knew Todd and Gary through you. And
I partied with Stan.”

Jacob sat up in his chair. “When did
you party with Stan?”

Tyla didn’t seem to notice his
excitement. “Oh, just a few times. It was the year before he
graduated. I guess I would have been a freshman. He was such a nice
guy.” The tears had started down her face by now, but she smiled
anyway. “Boy did he ever like to talk about you. You would have
thought you were his idol or something.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. You know how people are always
telling you the same story over and over when they’re
drunk.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we would all be out at the
shale pit. He would always come over and talk to me. He would tell
me about how when you were a senior you brought him and a bunch of
other younger kids out there.”

Jacob almost spilled his coffee when
the memory hit.

“He said you were the only one of the
older kids to ever do anything like that.”

Jacob got up and moved away from the
table. “No way,” he said under his breath.

“What?”

He looked back at Tyla, who now looked
confused as well as sad.

“Tyla, I don’t think I was that nice
to those kids. I only took them out there once.”

Tyla shrugged.

“I mean. I just don’t want to take too
much credit, that’s all. I was just as much of a bastard as any of
the other older kids.”

“Okay.” Now she looked
away.

Jacob was glad when the phone
rang.

Chapter 3

It was dark by the time Jacob arrived
at his old friend’s apartment that Friday night. He was the first
one there.

“Hey Jake, come on in,” Ted said as he
moved to the side.

Jacob walked by Ted and straight to
the living room. He stood there for a moment, checking out the
place.

“Have a seat, bud. We need to catch up
a bit.”

Jacob sat down at the front of a
recliner. Ted sat back on an adjacent couch.

“I see you found the place
okay.”

Jacob nodded and glimpsed over at Ted.
“It wasn’t too hard.”

“Yeah. You really just got to look for
the planes when you get close to the city.”

Right after Ted said that, there was
the sound of a plane overhead.

“I bet that bothers you when you’re
trying to sleep.”

“No, not really. I’ve been around
planes for so long now, I don’t think I could sleep unless I heard
them.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

They were silent for almost a minute.
Jacob pretended to be interested in a Seinfeld rerun on the
television.

“I don’t know who all’s going to be
here,” Ted finally said. “Everyone I invited either lives in or is
home visiting Nescata. And that’s about a hour and a half
away.”

“Adam will be here, I’m
sure.”

“I hope so. He was always good to keep
things lively.”

Jacob nodded and continued his feigned
interest in the show.

A few minutes later, Ted asked, “So
how’s law school?”

“Oh, I guess it’s all
right.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Well yeah. Why?”

Ted laughed. “You need beer in
you.”

He left, and when he returned he was
carrying two open Coronas. He sat one down beside Jacob. “There are
plenty more in the fridge. And there’s some Bloody Mary mix and
Vodka too. Help yourself.”

Ted left him alone for a little while.
It only took Jacob a few minutes to down the first beer. Then he
was shocked by how much he could feel it and how good it felt
already. He got up immediately and made his way to the kitchen. He
took a plastic cup from the cupboard, and then got the Vodka.
Standing there, he took two quick shots. Then he mixed himself a
strong Bloody Mary.

He went back into the living room and
sat down. Ted looked over at him and smiled but didn’t say
anything. A few minutes later, Jacob was halfway through the drink.
He laughed.

“Wow! We’re sitting in your living
room drinking Coronas and Bloody Marys. Doesn’t seem like so long
ago we were sneaking around to get beer. And we didn’t even know
what a Bloody Mary was.”

Ted laughed. “Yeah. Those were the
days.”

Jacob turned in the chair. “You
remember the times we had with Shane Tantenmore?”

Ted looked at Jacob and smiled. He
quickly downed what was in his bottle. He got up and went for the
kitchen, talking as he moved. “Yeah. Those times were
nuts.”

Ted returned with two more open beers.
He gave one to Jacob and took the other back to the
couch.

Jacob turned back toward Ted. “There
was that one time. We had just got back from that track meet and
met up with him.”

“I remember that well. Shane had
stolen those two joints from his dad. We all went up in the old
grain elevator to smoke them.”

“Damn, Ted. I don’t think I’ve ever
been as stoned as I was on that day.”

Jacob remembered the sensation of
being pulled forward, and he remembered how afraid he had been. It
was nothing like the buzz forming inside him now—warm and
loose.

“Me neither. I still think they were
laced.”

“Might have been, knowing
Shane.”

“Yeah, he was a fuck-up. But you got
to give him one thing, Jacob. If it hadn’t been for him guiding us,
I don’t know how we would have gotten out of that damn elevator.
We’d probably walked around in the dark until one or both of us
found a hole in the floor to fall through.”

“I know what you mean, Ted. Shane was
always like that. He wasn’t worth a damn when we were all straight.
But when we were stoned, he was our fearless leader.”

“Exactly.” Ted twisted his lips into a
half smile and sighed a little.

“It’s too bad what happened to Shane,”
Jacob said. “You two were still kind of friends weren’t
you?”

“Not really. He stopped over here a
few times, but we never went out.”

“Did it bother you when it
happened?”

“Ahh, no. He probably would have died
soon anyway, the way he was living.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, he was getting into some pretty
heavy shit.”

Jacob wanted to find out more about
that, but there was a knock on the door and Ted was up.

“Adam Masters, how the heck are
you?”

Adam ducked down and picked up the
taller Ted. He carried him a few steps and then put him down. “Form
tackle baby! Just like we used to do it!”

Adam extended his hand and Ted took
it.

“Why do you want to tackle me? I’m on
the same team.”

“I’m not sure. I’d have to see the
ring.”

Ted stuck out his left hand. “Right
there where it should be.”

Adam stuck out his hand so that the
two rings were side by side. They both smiled contently. Adam
turned to Jacob.

“And is this linebacker of the state
champion Nescata Pride, Jacob Sims?”

Jacob stood up. “How’s it going,
Adam?”

Adam moved over and picked him up.
“Jacob! Long time no see, baby.” He put Jacob back on his feet and
then extended his left hand. “What? No ring?”

Jacob smiled and then lied. “Hey, I
don’t want to get it scratched up.” As he said this, he remembered
standing on a bridge in Connecticut and throwing it into the
water.

“And to think, Jacob, I brought
somebody for you to see.”

Jacob turned his head to the door
right on time to see her walk in. They made eye contact. She
smiled, and he looked away.

“Well, if it ain’t Sonnie Ledbetter,”
Ted said.

“Hi, Teddie.”

Jacob looked at her as her attention
went to Ted. He thought she hadn’t changed much since high school.
She had filled out a little more, but she was still petite, and she
still had the same straight blonde hair.

“I found her at the bar,” Adam
said.

Sonnie laughed and looked toward Jacob
again. This time he was able to look back at her but only for a
moment. Then he reached down for his beer.

“So you’re in the family business
now,” Ted said to Sonnie.

“Yeah. Dad’s been sick a lot lately.
So I’ve been doing a lot of the bartending.”

“Sounds good,” Ted said. “But I’ll be
tending the bar tonight. We got beer and Bloody Marys. What will it
be?”

“Beer,” Adam said.

“Me too,” Sonnie said.

Adam looked around. “Nice place you
got here. They must pay air traffic controllers well.” Adam walked
into the dining area and sat down at the card table. “Ahh. The
battle ground.”

Jacob followed him and Sonnie followed
Jacob. Jacob sat diagonally from Adam and Sonnie diagonally from
Jacob.

“I hear you’re in law school now,
Jacob,” Sonnie said.

“Yeah. I started last
fall.”

“Oh.”

Ted came back from the kitchen and
placed three open beers in front of his three guests. Jacob noticed
that the beer he already had was near gone and tried to remember
how much he had drank already. He wondered if he would end up in
the bathroom soon.

Ted sat down and asked, “So how much
longer before you’re out of school, Adam?”

“I put my papers in last
week.”

“For your masters.”

“No.”

Ted looked shocked. “Not for your
Ph.D. We’ve only been out six years. And that should take at least
eight.”

“I’m in a hurry. But that’s enough on
school for tonight. Right, Jacob.”

“Yeah.”

Adam took the stack of cards from the
center of the table. He shuffled them several times. “I hope
everyone brought a lot of money.”

Both Sonnie and Jacob pulled handfuls
of coins from their pockets. Ted got up again and walked into the
kitchen. He brought back a jar full of change. Adam laughed and
brought out his own. Everyone pushed a nickel to the center of the
table.

“All right,” Adam said. “Playing for
chump change. The game is four-card draw, Jacks are wild.” He dealt
everyone five cards.