Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (72 page)

But now Jacob could only think that
Candor did not play good time oldies. He thought for a moment that
Sonnie might have changed the station without him noticing. But
then he looked over at her and saw the way she swayed slowly and
knew that she was not hearing the same song as he.

Jacob turned his attention back to the
road. He leaned forward, as if doing so would make the car go
faster. The road became blurry and started to fade out.

But then there was something,
something that changed in the world that was not a part of the
anticipation. It was like he was dreaming and some perception
outside his sleep had brought him back to reality. The road came
back.

Jacob looked down and saw that Sonnie
had moved her hand outside of his pants. He looked over and saw the
frightened expression on her face. He saw her lips move but could
not hear what she said. He knew then that he was between the two
places, the familiar world and the magic world that he had just
found today.

The thought came that he could pull
out of this, completely, that he could hear her if he wanted to.
But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to resist what was coming.
Sure of this, he turned away from her.

The road
faded out again, then came back. The next thing he saw was a green
road sign that said,
Northwest Expressway
1 mile
. The car moved past it and seemingly
into another blur. This time, focus came back very fast, and when
it did, Sonnie and all the familiar surroundings of his car were
gone.

#

He is now in the backseat of a
different car. He feels lower to the ground, but again, he is
unattached to anything, floating. The cabin is filled with smoke
and the odor of burnt cannabis. The Candor song is still playing,
but it's much louder. Two men, one driving the car and one on the
passenger side directly in front of Jacob, bang their heads to the
rhythm.

Jacob is amazed that this is all
happening again, but he is even more caught up in the sensation of
floating along at such an incredible speed. The driver handles the
car with uncanny precision. The car moves onto and off the exit
ramp without slowing. They enter oncoming traffic and cut in and
out, passing cars that quickly fade off behind them.

In the lights of a semi they pass,
Jacob sees another ghost. This one is the driver of the car. It's
Shane Tantenmore. In the light of another vehicle, Jacob catches a
glimpse of the passenger, a middle-aged man with long hair. Jacob
doesn’t recognize this person, but he thinks he has seen him
somewhere before. And there is an ominous feeling that he
associates with this man.

The passenger opens the glove box in
front of him and a light shines from inside. Jacob looks and sees
that inside that glove box are various items, among them a bag
filled with small capsules of white powder, another filled with
marijuana, a thick money clip, and a black pistol. The passenger
pulls out the money clip and then the gun. He sets the gun on his
lap and flips his finger through the money clip. Shane’s head
shifts toward the gun and back to the road. Shane is still moving
to the song but his movements are tighter. After the song ends, the
passenger reaches over and shuts off the radio.

“A little light on the sales tonight,
weren’t you Shane.” The man’s voice is low and phlegmatic. Jacob
thinks he knows this voice, but he still cannot place the
man.

Shane’s voice is slow but it sounds
like he could explode if provoked enough. “Don’t call me
Shane!”

“Well, maybe if you would have made us
a fucking ton of money like you usually do, I wouldn’t have to call
you Shane.”

“
Don’t fuck with me, man! I
told you I wanted to see the concert tonight and wasn’t going to be
making too many deals.”

“Ohh, forgive me. Candor was at the
Meriod tonight, so Shane doesn’t want to do his work.”

Shane rolls his shoulders, but does
not respond.

“Personally, I think they’re a bunch
of pussies. I mean, I could understand if it were Slayer or Ozzy.
But Candor?”

Shane turns his face toward the
passenger. Jacob cannot see his expression clearly but it isn’t
hard to imagine. Jacob is amazed at the way Shane holds this gaze
and is still able to keep the car from swaying. He begins to sense
a power in Shane, something much stronger than what helped him lead
the stoned Jacob and Ted out of the dark grain elevator years
earlier.

The passenger is looking back at
Shane. For several seconds, it’s a staring battle, and then the man
speaks. “Well, it looks to me like the pupil wants to take a shot
at the teacher. Is that true? Do you want to take a shot at me,
Shane?”

The movement is so quick that Jacob
does not see it occur. He only hears a quick noise and then sees
the end result. The gun that had been sitting in the man’s lap is
now in Shane’s hand, pointing at the man’s head.

“Whoa!” Shane shouts. “What’s my name,
mother-fucker!”

For the first time, the man laughs,
but even that sounds impassive. “I’ve taught you so well.” The man
pauses for a moment, and Shane continues to hold the gun to his
head. Then, after Shane pulls the hammer back, the man says,
“Dealer.”

Shane lowers the gun but continues to
look at the passenger. Finally, they both break off into low
laughter. Shane turns his head back to the road.

“All right, Dealer, you the man. But
you should know by now, concerts are small time. Let the little
guys nickel and dime it there. Wholesale is where you belong.
That’s where the money is.”

Shane shakes his head. “You don’t get
it man. I know there are deals to be made. And you know I’ll take
care of that.”

The man nods his head. “Yeah. I
suppose you will.”

“And had it been another group, we
wouldn’t have even bothered with the concert. But I’ve followed
these guys since I was in the fucking seventh grade, ever since I
swiped their record off an old buddy of mine.”

“Oh really, a good friend of yours,
huh?”

“Nah, not really, just a football
dick. But his dad let us hang out in the garage. He had a pool
table and a wet bar.”

“Sounds like Heaven to me.”

“Well, it made due till I got my
mobility.”

Jacob remembers what Shane is talking
about. He begins to picture Ted, Shane, and he out in that garage.
Shane and Ted would be playing pool, while Jacob looked through the
record collection. Every once in a while, they would go over to the
bar and sample one of the many different kinds of whiskey. Ted and
Jacob both liked the Cherry Vodka. Shane liked the
Everclear.

Jacob’s imagery is disturbed by a
bitter odor. The man in the passenger seat sniffs loudly. “Do you
smell that, Dealer?”

“Smell what?”

“That smell. I think it’s
gas.”

“I don’t smell anything at
all.”

“Well maybe your nose is fucked up
from sucking up too much shit. I smell gas.”

There are four beeps that come from
the dashboard. Jacob looks and sees that there is a radar detector
there and that it has lit up. He looks at Shane’s speedometer and
sees that the needle is past one hundred. He sees Shane begin to
shuffle. He sees the man in the passenger seat move toward
Shane.

“No!” the man shouts. “Don’t hit the .
. .”

The man is too late. Shane steps down
on the brake. The front of the car dips and sparks fly. Flames rise
on the outside, blanketing the car.

The man in the passenger seat is no
longer calm. He is making the most terrified screaming sound Jacob
has ever heard. Shane somehow brings the car to a stop.

Jacob inspects the situation, like he
is inspecting the board of a chess game that he is not playing. He
thinks of what he would do if it were his game, and if the
consequences were his.

All that can be seen outside the car
is orange fire. He feels no heat but knows that it will soon be
like an oven to the other men. That is, if the car doesn’t explode
first. Jacob thinks that there is no way out for them. He looks at
Shane, who also seems to be inspecting the situation. Shane turns
around and looks out the back window. Jacob sees his face and his
eyes, and is amazed at the coolness there, like it is no more
Shane’s game than it is his.

Shane turns back around and starts to
scan the floorboard. He seems indifferent to the other man who
bounces in his seat and continues to scream. He turns around again,
but this time he actually comes over the seat and lands next to
Jacob. After he situates himself, he reaches down for
something.

Jacob watches as Shane comes back up
with a thick jacket. Shane pulls the jacket over his head and holds
it tight. He moves up in his seat and gets his legs under him.
Jacob sees what he is going to do and forgets that he already knows
the outcome. He thinks it might actually work.

“Jump and roll.”

It is the man who called himself
Shane’s teacher who makes the final mistake. Just before Shane is
able to jump, the man opens his door.

There's a swooshing sound. Then there
are flames all around him, and he can no longer see the two men in
the car. But he can hear them scream.

Jacob jumps from the car. He stands on
the outside and watches it burn. Other cars begin to stop, and
people begin to run up. They run past Jacob, some of them shouting.
There is one who moves slowly.

Jacob sees him walking up from the
distance. The tall man in white is not in the light of the flame,
but he glows anyway. As the man approaches, Jacob becomes oblivious
to all else around him. The man comes close enough that Jacob can
see his pale blue eyes. Jacob brings his hands up. The man, who
Jacob thinks must be well over six and a half feet tall, stops and
grins. He looks down at Jacob. He brings a finger to his face and
moves it from side to side.

“I come to take away,” the man
says.

#

Her voice was distant. “Jacob! Jacob!
What’s wrong? Please answer me!”

When he came to, he saw Sonnie’s face
close to his. He pulled her to him. At first, her body was stiff
and resistant. Then she became soft.

“Jacob, what’s wrong?”

He let her go, and she moved back. He
looked down and away from her. “I killed them.”

“What?”

Jacob shook his head, trying to shake
off the effects of what he had just been through, trying to forget
the man in white. He looked around. They were in a parking lot.
“Where are we?”

“I took an exit. You stopped moving
and you wouldn’t say anything. I got so scared. Jacob, what’s going
on?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

Sonnie reached for him, and he took
her. He felt her head shake on his shoulder. “Jacob, I was so
scared. I thought you were dead.”

“No, I was fine.” He held her to him
while he thought. Then he began to talk, like he was thinking out
loud. “We used to all hang out over at Ted’s house. It was Ted,
Shane and me.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Sonnie said. “It
was back before we dated.”

“We went out in the garage. We found
the Candor record in Ted’s dad’s collection. I was the only one who
liked it at first. Then I wrote down the lyrics. I thought I could
make them like it too. I showed them. Ted didn’t care. But Shane
liked them. I think he understood the meaning too. I think that’s
why he liked them so much. That’s why he went to their concert. He
went to their concert because I showed him the lyrics.”

Sonnie pulled her body away, but moved
her hand to his face. “Jacob, no! That was so long ago. So much
happened between those two times.”

Jacob looked at her. “Maybe you’re
right.”

“Yes. They play Candor on the radio
all the time now. He would have heard them anyway. You didn’t cause
him to do anything.”

Jacob nodded. He wanted to believe
her. And he did, just a little. But then he remembered
something.

“Sonnie, did Shane ever come into the
bar?”

“Yeah, he used to, from time to time.
Why do you ask?”

“Did he used to come in with an older
guy?”

“Yeah. He generally did. The guy was
kind of creepy looking and there was something weird about the way
he talked. It was kind of like he didn’t have feelings.”

“Did you hear them talk a
lot?”

“Yeah. I tend bar. I hear a lot of
things.”

Jacob took her hand from his face and
held it tight in his own. “Back at Ted’s house tonight, you were
upset by something Adam said.”

“Yes.”

“It was because he called himself the
dealer, wasn’t it? That’s what the older guy called
Shane.”

Sonnie’s eyes lit up. “How did you
know that? Jacob, please tell me what's going on.”

He started to. He started to tell her
about everything. He wanted to tell her that he had seen both of
the car accidents. But he couldn’t. It felt wrong.

“Sonnie, take me home.”