Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (82 page)

“His name was Larry Confad. He was my
best friend.”

The boy was small and frail looking,
but with his chest stuck out and the smirk on his face, he looked
like he was there to hold his ground.

“I’m sorry,” Jacob said.

The boy took two steps toward them and
then stopped. “He loved you, you know. Hell, they have your picture
up in the gymnasium lobby. There in the trophy case with all of the
other Nescata jock straps that ever made all state. But yours. It
was the one he always looked at.” The boy pivoted his hips back.
“You know, asshole, we all knew he wasn’t supposed to go off and
run like that. I tried to tell him, but I couldn’t talk any sense
into him. He always said that was the way Jacob Sims used to do it.
Jacob Sims used to take long runs in the country. Jacob Sims used
feed bags before he got his first weight set. Jacob Sims used to
ride his ten speed four miles into town every day before school and
then ride it back at night.”

The boy stopped. He brought a finger
forward. Then he dropped it as if it were too heavy to hold up. He
looked down at the floor. “But you know what I think? I think Jacob
Sims is nothing but an overrated fagot with a two-inch
prick.”

“Jacob,” Sonnie said. “Holy shit,
Jacob. I . . .”

“It’s okay Sonnie.”

Jacob turned his attention back to the
boy. “Listen—”

“Jacob!” Sonnie interjected. “Jacob,
your neck. What happened to your neck?”

Jacob hadn’t realized that it was just
the inside of his throat that had healed.

Sonnie drew closer to him. “My God,
Jacob, somebody’s hurting you!”

He pulled her in and led her to the
other side of the aisle. On the way out, he turned to the young
boy.

“I’m so sorry.”

A few days later, Clay Tandros, the
counter boy, whose father owned the store, saw Jacob Sims drive by
on the way to a funeral. The next person he saw ended his
life.

Chapter 8

They tried to calm down. But after more
than an hour, it became clear to them both that it wasn’t going to
happen unless they got help. The worst of it was when the large
gashes on either side of Jacob’s neck seemed to sink into
themselves and heal in a matter of seconds, right before Sonnie’s
eyes.

Sonnie had Jacob walk with her
downstairs to the bar. Hands shaking, Sonnie got out two shot
glasses. She seemed to grab at the whiskey bottles at random, much
like Jacob had selected the beer earlier. She spilt Southern
Comfort on the bar as she poured the shots.

“How many more people,
Sonnie?”

She dumped the shot down her throat
like she was taking cold medicine. “Let’s see,” she said in a
tired, exasperated voice. “So far there’s Stan, Jeff, Todd, Larry,
Shane and Scar.”

“Scar?”

“Yeah. That’s the one who was with
Shane.”

“Scar? The old guy? He went by
Scar?”

“Yeah. Somehow I doubt that was the
name his mother gave him, but that’s what he went by.”

“Scar. I know him somehow.”

“Oh really? And that surprises
you?”

Jacob looked at her. Her face was
stern and angry, but it quickly changed.

“I’m sorry,” Sonnie said. “It’s just
that it’s a lot to deal with all of the sudden.”

“Yeah I know. Believe me. I
know.”

Sonnie put a hand on his
face.

“Who’s left?” Jacob asked.

She removed her hand and poured them
each another shot. “Well, there’s Gary.”

“Gary.” Jacob laughed. “He was our
quarterback, probably the best athlete on the team.”

“Quarterback turned
addict.”

“What happened to him?”

Sonnie downed another shot. “Nobody’s
sure.” She poured herself another. The light in her eyes seemed to
drain. “I think they’re fairly certain that it was murder,
though.”

“How do they know that?”

“Didn’t your mom tell you?”

“Mom didn’t give too many
details.”

Sonnie downed the next shot, and then
looked him straight in the eyes. “All they found was a whole lot of
blood and his head. That’s all I know. It happened at Canton Lake,
so I don’t know any of the cops who investigated it.”

“Oh.”

Sonnie put her head down on the bar.
Jacob tried to remember how many there were. He thought that might
have been all of them, but he wasn’t sure if the number had been
seven or eight. After a futile attempt at jogging his memory, he
gave up.

“Is that all?”

Sonnie, who had looked as if she might
have passed out, shook her head from where it lay. Then she lifted
up. “One more. Tommy Carmichael.”

“Who’s Tommy Carmichael?”

“Tommy Carmichael was about the cutest
little boy you’ve ever seen. He was about nine years old, and he
lived alone with his mom, who was never there.”

Jacob was amazed by what she knew as a
bartender. He thought she must know more about daily dealings in
Nescata than anybody. And that was very scary somehow.

“Tommy’s mom worked nights. And then
she slept most of the time she was home.

“So Tommy was raising
himself.”

“No. Tommy was sort of raised by the
town. He was sort of a town vagabond. Even came in here from time
to time. There were a lot of people who really liked him. He was
such a little charmer, with his giant dimples and raspy voice.
Anyway, a lot of people would take him in. They’d feed him. Let him
play.”

“How did he die?”

She poured them both another drink.
Jacob didn’t want his, so he just watched her down hers.

“The newspapers never really said that
much. But Skiles came in one night and got hammered.”

“Skiles. Isn’t he the town cop
now?”

“You got it.”

“And he talked?”

“They all do, Jacob. They all talk to
Sonnie, the beverage dispenser. I’m the one they come to when they
want to get it off their chest. When they want to process
something. And I work for tips, the cheapest shrink in the
county.”

“Is that what you think he was doing,
processing something?”

“Most definitely. When a person sees
something like what he saw, they got to talk about it.”

“So how do you deal with it? I mean
all these things you hear must be depressing.”

She laughed and then downed the shot.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s just my place, and that makes it more
bearable somehow.”

Jacob
felt a head rush and thought he might slip away. But he didn’t. He
just thought,
And we all have our place,
don’t we Jacob.

“He was the last one in that night.
Like most of my patrons, he made me promise not to tell a soul. And
I never do. But I think I’ll make an exception here.” She laughed,
nervously. “It was common knowledge that one of Tommy’s favorite
places to visit was Pete Stebens’s house, over on Highland
Street.”

“I don’t know him.”

“
You wouldn’t. He and his
mom hadn’t lived in Nescata that long. I’m not even sure where they
came from. But I don’t think that matters too much.”

Sonnie took a shot from the bottle.
“Pete Stebens was a lot older than Tommy, but he was also a bit
mentally retarded. Tommy used to go over there and play video games
and stuff like that. I guess Pete’s the only one who knows what
happened to Tommy.” Again she laughed, wickedly. “But he isn’t
talking.” Sonnie looked off for a couple of seconds, before coming
back to the conversation. “Skiles said that Tommy was last seen
alive by his mother at 8AM, when he left to go to Pete’s house.
Then Pete Stebens’s mother, Stacie Kline, found Tommy when she came
home at 1AM Sunday morning. He was hanging from the living room
ceiling fan by a wire made up of three steel clothes hangers tied
together. I guess she passed out. Then she came to and called the
police. She said that Tommy was dead and her son, Pete, was
missing. Pete was found later that morning. A state trooper spotted
him crouched down beside an old abandoned shack three miles outside
of town. That was back in February. To my knowledge, Pete Stebens
still hasn’t spoken a word.”

“Do you know what happened to
him?”

“He’s in lockdown at the state
hospital.” She laughed again, this time with tears in her eyes. “So
many people want to kill that kid, and now I feel kind of
bad.”

“Why?”

“Because I was one of them. I wanted
to kill the little bastard. But now I don’t even know if he did
it.”

“Me neither.”

She looked into his eyes sternly. He
thought the stare might be accusatory, but he couldn’t ask. He
didn’t want to know.

“Sonnie. I’ve got to go.”

“No!”

“I have to.”

“Then take me with you.”

He got up and walked toward the door.
“No. You’re drunk. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

“I can have peace of mind.”

He sighed. “I don’t think it will kill
me. It would have done so already.” He checked his watch. “Come on.
I’ll walk up with you.”

Upstairs, Sonnie lay on the couch and
Jacob waited. After she fell asleep, he left. He thought he had
plenty of time to make it back to his parents’ house.

#

The smell of cheese melting and pizza
sauce boiling came from the other room. Jacob had lied and said he
was feeling ill. His mother asked if there was anything he needed
and he said no. He knew it was a brush off that she had come to
understand, and he knew that she would now leave him
alone.

As he lay on his old bed, he thought
of all he had touched. Their lives seemed so pointless to him now.
They were born, they met him, and they died. And now he was nothing
but a whore—a diseased, killing whore.

For the moment, there was nothing he
wanted. He tried to desire for something, if for no other reason,
just to feel some kind of connection, to have some kind of meaning.
But there was nothing he could long for. The taste of wine, the
spacey buzz of a good joint, the scent of a woman. He let all these
things pass into his mind, only to watch them fall through without
gripping his attention and taking him away. Yet he knew there was
something, something distant that he could want.

Eight-o’clock came and went. So did
eight-thirty and then nine-o’clock. Dr. Ross still hadn’t called.
And though he wanted it to, it didn’t bother him. He knew there was
nothing she could do for him now. She could only complicate
matters.

At around nine-thirty, it all began
again.

#

He stands on top a building and
watches two bodies fall from the side to the cement below. Before
they hit, Jacob is on the ground waiting for them. The first body
hits and explodes open. They second body bounces off the first and
lands off to the side, at Jacob’s feet. There she lies,
motionlessly, in the most compromising position Jacob has ever
seen.

She is face down on the cement. Her
skirt is hiked up revealing her pantyless crotch. All this is above
legs splayed, like a gymnast doing the splits.

The body of the other girl begins to
spurt out blood with every beat of a heart that is somehow still
alive. Spots of it land on and cover the woman at Jacob’s feet. At
first, it only flies through Jacob. Then he begins to feel it land
on him. He looks down and sees where it has stained his shirt. Then
he takes in the scent. He is taken away from it all.

#

With the sound of the man in white’s
wicked laugh in his head, Jacob came to in his room. The last thing
he heard—other than the normal sounds of his parents’ home—was the
man in white saying, “Learn the pleasure of your world Jacob. Your
world is all you have.”

Jacob wondered for a few moments about
who the women were and how they were related to him. That was
before he felt it down low.

In disbelief, Jacob began to laugh out
loud and cry at the same time. He hoped it would drown out the
reality of what had just happened. He hoped it would drown out
thought all together. He pulled his wet hand out of his open
shorts.

Chapter 9

Jacob sits in the classroom and waits.
The doorknob begins to turn, but it does not open until the bell
rings. They file in and fill the desks. One by one, people sit down
and turn attentively to the front. Some of them he recognizes
immediately. Others look familiar, but he can’t place
them.

Adam Masters is there. He sits near the
front. There is something different about him, though. To Jacob, he
seems more mature somehow. Ted Westphal is also among them, but his
changes are not so subtle. His scalp is bald now, and the little
hair that runs along the side of his head is mostly
silver.

A total of twenty-seven people enter
the room and sit in the desks. Jacob knows this, not because he
counted, but because that was how many people were in his
graduating class. He makes twenty-eight.