Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (88 page)

“Come on.”

Jacob walked into the bathroom with
her.

“You’re filthy.”

Jacob lifted his shirt off and saw
that the wound on his side had healed completely. So had all the
other wounds on his body. His skin itched, but it was in the
background. He stripped the rest of the way down and stepped into
the shower.

“Where have you been, Jacob? You left
your car parked right outside.”

Jacob laughed. He talked loud, over
the shower. “What time is it?”

“Around 2:30.”

“Wow! I’ve already had a full night’s
sleep.”

“
You’ve been
sleeping?”

“Yeah. I walked out of town, out by
the Quiggly farm. I’ve been asleep in the trees out
there.”

“Why?”

Jacob laughed again. “Because they
were there.”

Sonnie was silent now. Jacob was
satisfied for a while just to shampoo his hair and take in the
sweet, clean scent. Then he began to let her in on it
all.

“I know what happened to Gary
Mann.”

“What?”

“Shane Tantenmore killed
him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. He and the Scar guy took
him out to Canton Lake and killed him.”

Sonnie was quiet for a few seconds. “I
guess that makes sense. Gary was getting into some stuff he
probably shouldn’t have been involved with.” She paused. Jacob knew
what was coming. “And do you think you were involved?”

“Yes, I was. I took Gary over in my
own car the first time he met Scar.”

“Oh.”

Jacob gave only a moment of pause.
“Sonnie, do you remember the dream I told you about?”

“The one with all your
classmates?”

“Yeah.”

“You had it again, when you were
sleeping out there?”

“Yeah, but there was more to it. All
my classmates were the same age as me. We were all back in high
school again. Then this other group of kids came in and stood at
the front of the room. One of them was asking the class
questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, he wanted to know about the
perfect process.”

“What’s the perfect
process?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I know a
few of its characteristics now. I mean, from the dream.”

“Okay, what were they?”

Jacob thought. It was hard to bring
the details to mind, but, little by little, he was able to. He
thought about what Adam said. “Well, the first one had to do with
products.”

“Products?”

“Yeah, products. I don’t exactly get
it, but I think it’s important.”

“Yeah, I think so too, go
on.”

Jacob poked his head outside the
shower curtain. “Are you on to something, Sonnie?”

She was leaning against the bathroom
sink, with her index finger poised against her lips. Then the
seriousness of her look left when she looked at Jacob. “You look
like a drowned rat. And you’re dripping on my floor.”

“Sorry.”

Jacob went back in the shower. Sonnie
laughed louder than he had heard her laugh for a few
days.

“I think I might be on to something.
But go on anyway. What else did you learn about this perfect
process?”

Jacob thought out loud.

“Let me see. Who was it that spoke up
next?” Jacob bought the picture to mind. “It was somebody really
smart.”

“Irwin Check, maybe?”

“Bingo! Now what did he say? He said
something about the process destroying its byproducts. No, his
exact words were that the process has a built in mechanism to
cancel out its own unwanted byproducts.”

“That makes total sense.”

Jacob poked his head out again. This
time Sonnie only smiled when she looked at him.

“Well, think about it Jacob. Think
about industry.”

“Okay.”

“Why do we have industry?”

“To make products.”

“And what do you get when you make a
product?”

Jacob thought for a second.

“I don’t know.”

“You get the product and byproducts.
If you make widgets, you get widgets, but you also get the
industrial waste that goes with making that product. Water
pollution, landfills, a big hole in the O-zone layer. You know,
byproducts.”

“Got you so far.”

“But a perfect process does not have
byproducts, because it eliminates them.”

“And what does that have to do with
me?”

Sonnie’s index finger went back to her
lips. She was silent for a minute and then answered. “Jacob, you’re
the built in mechanism that cancels out unwanted
byproducts.”

“I’m what?”

“You’re part of this perfect process.
The perfect process is Nescata. Or, at least, Nescata is where the
perfect process happened.”

“Okay.”

“The products are your
classmates.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how, but I do know that
there’s no way Hickville, Oklahoma could produce so much without
there being something to guide it. And what guides it is the
process.”

“Okay.” Jacob went back in the
shower.

“Now there are several years of people
around your class. They must have been touched by this process too,
but they were not meant to be like your classmates.”

“You mean they were like
byproducts?”

“Exactly. The process was strong
enough to make your successful class, but it was also so strong
that it made people like Shane, Todd, and Jeff: people who could
destroy the world. They were Nescata’s byproducts.”

It all hit Jacob. “And that’s where I
come in.”

“Yes, you did things that caused them
to die. You led them to their deaths.”

“I took out the chaff.”

“Yes. You caused them to die, so they
would not kill off everyone else in the future.”

“Sonnie, it’s really fucking crazy,
but I think you’re right.” Jacob turned off the water.

Sonnie left the room for a moment.
When she came back, she whipped open the shower curtain. “Glad to
be of service.” She handed him a towel.

Jacob took the towel and stepped out
into the puddle of water he had made on the floor. “Sorry about
that.”

“Don’t sweat it.” She grabbed hold of
him.

“There’s still a lot to be explained.
More people have died, and we don’t know why.”

“Yeah, and we don’t know what the
third characteristic means.”

“The third characteristic?”

“Yeah. The third characteristic is
that the process regenerates itself. Any ideas on that?”

Sonnie thought for a little while.
“Not a clue. Is that all of them?”

“No, I think there’s one
more.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know that, but I think it’s
something I have to find out.”

“Oh! That reminds me. Do you remember
that picture you gave me, the one with your grandma and the
boy?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well I asked around and found out who
the boy is.”

“Who?”

“Dean Carrier.”

“Dean Carrier! That crazy old man that
lived down on Maple?”

“
You mean that crazy old
man who still lives down on Maple.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Alive and as crazy as
ever.”

“My God!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you think it would do us any good
to go see him?”

“I don’t know, but I think we should
try.”

Jacob hesitated. He realized that he
had just invited her along. “All right then, Sonnie. We’ll go
tomorrow.”

Sonnie hugged him. “Let’s go to
bed.”

Jacob lay with Sonnie until she fell
asleep. Then he got out of bed and moved into the living room. He
waited out the night on the coach. The guilt was too much. She had
helped him. Yet, he knew he couldn’t save her.

#

The unkempt lawn of Dean Carrier
reminded Jacob of the grass he had seen the snake crawl out of when
he visited Pete Stebens and his grandfather. For just a few
seconds, Jacob’s mind was taken away from the fact that he was with
Sonnie and they were approaching the mad man’s house. Instead, he
thought of how if he and Sonnie were right, then Tommy Carmichael
was the one death he still had to experience.

The yelling of the mad man brought
Jacob back. He and Sonnie stopped halfway through the
yard.

“What’s he saying?” Jacob
asked.

“I don’t know. It sounds like
gibberish.”

“Do you think we should come back
later?”

“Why? I doubt that he’ll be any less
crazy.”

Sonnie took Jacob’s arm and pulled him
along. Jacob didn’t resist. He had never known her to be as strong
as she was in the last few days. But he was glad. And he, somehow,
trusted her judgment better than his own.

Sonnie knocked on the front door, and
the yelling went on, indifferent and seemingly unaffected by the
knocking. Sonnie knocked again, much harder this time, only to get
the same response, no response.

“Come on!” Sonnie said.

“Sonnie, I don’t . . .”

She was already through the door
before Jacob could protest. He followed her in.

Dean Carrier stopped yelling
immediately as they came into the dusty, sloppy living room where
he sat. He turned his face toward them, displaying the puss
encrusted eyelids where there used to be eyes. “You boys going to
school?”

Sonnie and Jacob only looked at each
other.

“I don’t go anywhere anymore, because
I can’t see.” Dean Carrier turned toward the empty space on the
couch where he sat. Then he started to talk gibberish
again.

Sonnie looked at Jacob, and then she
left his side. She walked up to the old man and knelt down in front
of him. “Mr. Carrier? Dean?”

The old man didn’t leave his
conversation with the empty space. Even when Sonnie placed her hand
on his, he didn’t respond.

“Dean!” she yelled. He jolted just a
little, but still ignored her for the most part.

“Sonnie, I don’t think this is going
to do us any good.”

Sonnie sighed. Then she yelled again.
“Dean Carrier!”

This time Dean didn’t even
move.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right Jacob.
Let’s go.”

“Thank you. The funk in here is really
starting to get to me.”

Sonnie was up. She walked past Jacob
to the door. Jacob got up. He took one last look at the old man and
started for the front porch where Sonnie stood with her back turned
away. When Jacob reached the front door, Dean’s gibberish stopped
and he began to make sense.

“Is that your grandson?”

Sonnie turned around fast, and looked
at Jacob with massive eyes. They both rushed back into Dean’s
living room.

Dean’s head was turned toward them.
Had it not been for his swollen-shut eyes, he would have looked as
if he were staring right at them. He was silent for a little while,
and so were they. Finally, he spoke again.

“I can’t see you Jacob Sims, but I
know you’re there.”

Sonnie’s mouth fell open.

“I know why you come too. You don’t.
But I do.”

Jacob moved closer this time. He sat
down right in front of Dean.

“There are some things I’m supposed to
tell you. I reckon your grandma would tell you these things herself
if she could talk a little better.”

“How do you know?”

“I never told these things to anybody.
I never did because I didn’t want to die. A lot of people died back
then.”

“What?”

“Jacob, he can’t hear you. Just let
him go.”

“Back before your grandma married your
grandpa, she was mine. She was mine in school and then she was mine
for a little while after she was out of school. That was when I
worked at the bar.”

Jacob and Sonnie looked at each
other.

“She left me, though. I think it was
because she thought I would die for knowing her. A lot of people
died back then.”

Dean Carrier choked and then he gasped
for air. Then he came back. “I don’t think I would have died,
though. And I think she knows that now too. At least, that’s what
she says when she calls me on the phone.”

Jacob looked at the old man, as he
felt Sonnie’s stare bearing down on him. He felt her come close to
him and that felt good now.

“Jacob, I really don’t think there’s a
working phone in this place,” Sonnie said.

“Yeah, I know.”