Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (21 page)

Jonah stood there for a few
seconds, catching his breath. He felt faint, like the process of
the urges rushing out had drained him of his energy. He sat down in
his chair behind the desk. He passed out.

#

It was nearly midnight when
Jonah woke up. He felt groggy, but no longer faint. He had no
urges, whatsoever. Jonah got his bag. He shut off the office light.
He walked out into the lobby. Standing by the door, he flicked off
the lights in the lobby. He was crossing the threshold of the door
when the memory of the dream came to him. This was very similar to
what he had witnessed his father doing. The door shut. He was too
late.

Jonah didn’t see or hear
it. He just felt it land on his head and sink its claws into the
skin of his face and the back of his neck. Reflexively, Jonah
reached up and grabbed it. Its grip tightened, its claws going
deeper into his skin. Jonah let out a slight squelch. He stumbled
around with the beast attached to him. He tripped and fell back on
his ass. He stood back up, with its claws going even deeper, the
pain intensifying. Jonah realized that it didn’t intend on
releasing him. He squeezed the creature with his hands, feeling its
skin begin to give, but also feeling its grip tightening and its
claws moving up, ripping his skin. Jonah pressed, trying to take
its breath away. Its body made a popping sound as Jonah collapsed
its ribs. It still wouldn’t release its grip.

Jonah got his hands on its
forelegs. He pulled its claws from him. It growled its protest.
Jonah used one hand to hold it upright, as he moved the other down
its body.

“Rowlllllllllll!” the cat
screamed as Jonah pulled its back legs out. Not releasing it, Jonah
slammed the cat down on the concrete, where it cried out again. He
saw it was the orange-stripped cat. It struggled against the
ground, but not like it was trying to escape, so much as it was
trying to get back at him. Jonah cupped his hands around its head,
then slammed that head into the concrete several times, until it
was no longer struggling.

Jonah let go of the
creature, whose head was now a crushed bloody mass. His head
bleeding in several places, he ran to his car, fearing further
attack. He made it to his car without another incident. He started
the engine and backed out of the slot. That was when he saw the St.
Bernard. It stood a few feet to the side of his car. It didn’t try
to rush him, just waited there ominously. Jonah left.

At home, sitting in his
car, Jonah scanned the lot. It was peopleless, this late, on a
Thursday in Stanton. He could see no other animals. This time of
night, it was impossible to get the ideal parking space. Jonah
would have to move about fifty feet to get to his
apartment.

His cheeks stung and so did
the back of his neck, where the cat had gotten him. But he was more
afraid than he was in pain. He just wanted to be inside now. He had
pondered spending the night in the car, but he knew he would be
much safer inside, where he could reinforce the entrances. He got
his key ready.

Jonah opened the door and
darted from his car, shutting the door behind him. He moved a few
steps and tripped over his own feet. He fell forward and caught
himself with his hands, but he dropped his keys. There was a sound
like rustling in the bushes. Jonah was quickly up, grabbing his
keys from the ground. As Jonah walked, he fiddled with the key
chain, trying to find the right one. Jonah’s apartment key was
similar to the key to the front door of his office. It had been
only a minor inconvenience before. But before, he hadn’t felt like
he was running for his life.

By the time Jonah was to
his door, he had the right key ready to go into the slot. Then he
dropped his keys again when the bird hit his head. The blow dazed
Jonah and dropped him to his knees. Then two more birds came from
the dark night and attacked him. They weren’t sparrows either. No,
these were bigger, black, crows maybe. Jonah got his head covered,
but the birds took what he left open. They seemed to take turns
flying up and nipping at him. After a dozen or so of their strikes,
the pain overcame the disorientation. Jonah got up, keeping his
head covered, still being nipped at elsewhere. He opened his door
and stumbled inside, then shut the door behind him.

One of the birds was caught
between the screen and the wooden door, but that was fine. Jonah
was safe now. He’d rest, then reinforce the apartment. Jonah fell
onto the floor and lay on his back. Lying there, coming from the
disorientation a little more, logic began to set in. Jonah thought
of how he had fumbled with the keys to find the right one. Then,
the bird had hit him, and he had dropped them again. He’d not
picked them up. He’d managed to get inside, though. The door had
been unlocked.

Tate came from behind the
chair in the corner.

Before Jonah could get up,
Tate put a foot in his chest. Jonah saw Tate’s wicked eyes look
into his. Tate’s high-pitched laugh filled the room, then he said,
“Got ya, mother fucker!”

Jonah started to move, but
Tate was quickly down on him. He shoved a piece of cloth in Jonah’s
face. Seconds later, everything went black.

Chapter
Nine

There is a fluttering
sound. There is pressure. He can’t move his arms or legs. He can’t
open his mouth. He opens his eyes. He’s in the middle of his living
room, facing the dining area. He can see that one of the
straight-backed chairs has been moved from his table. It’s the
chair he’s tied to. The table has been cleared off. It feels like
tape on his mouth. There’s a rope wrapped around his upper torso
and around the back of the chair. Another rope binds his thighs to
the seat of the chair. His shins are bound to the chair’s
legs.

After a time of more orientation,
Jonah realizes that the bird is still between the doors, making the
fluttering sound.

Where is
Tate?
Jonah thinks. Then he passes out
again.

#

Again, there is a sound,
but this time it is a squawking. The bird is attacking. Panicked,
Jonah opens his eyes. The crow is on the table. It’s looking at him
with beady black peepers. It starts to move, then falls forward.
Jonah sees that its legs are gone. It flaps one wing. The other is
stiff, against its side, broken. A few inches from the crow is a
pistol, squarely shaped, modern looking, with an attached
silencer.

Jonah is afraid, but he is
still very tired. He falls back under.

#

Someone is talking. He
opens his eyes. The bird is still on the table, but it is quiet,
alive, but motionless. The gun is in the same place as before. He
can hear Tate talking in the other room. He can’t make out Tate’s
words, but Tate’s voice is high-pitched, like a man talking to a
baby. Then Tate’s voice changes, yelling, but low-pitched,
authoritative. Jonah had thought the sound being muffled through
the door was what made Tate’s words unintelligible. But now he
realizes Tate is talking gibberish. Tate switches back and forth
between the yelling and the high-pitched voice. Tate is conversing
with himself.

Jonah falls back under.

#

Squawking again. Then there
are footsteps coming toward him. Jonah is coming to, but he dares
not open his eyes. The footsteps go past him, to the table. The
bird squawks louder. Then footsteps go by him again and so do the
squawks. Tate is taking the bird.

Jonah falls under.

#

There is no sound this
time. Jonah comes to on his own. He opens his eyes, then quickly
shuts them. Tate was there. He was sitting on the table. He can’t
let Tate see that he is awake. Because then Tate will do what it is
he wants to do to Jonah.

Jonah waits for about a
minute. Then he opens his eyes slightly. Through his eyelashes, he
can see Tate sitting on the table, his legs crossed. It’s the same
position Tate meditates in. Jonah goes on the assumption that that
is what Tate is doing and opens his eyes the rest of the
way.

Tate’s eyes are closed.
He’s barely breathing. He has a straight-lipped expression. There
is a thin line of blood coming from Tate’s mouth. There is a sudden
jerking motion in Tate’s neck. It happens a few times, each time
more violent. Then Tate opens his mouth. The crow’s head comes out,
and Tate smiles.

Jonah closes his eyes, but
he knows it does not matter. Tate knows he is awake. Jonah opens
his eyes and meets Tate’s stare, and Tate’s eyes are even more
intense than usual, a red tint emanating from them.

Tate speaks, but it is with
the voice of Jonah’s father. “I’m sorry, my son.” Tate laughs his
own wicked laugh. Jonah passes out.

#

Tate’s back in the other
room again, conversing with himself. Now there are three voices:
the high-pitched voice, the yelling, and a dignified intellectual
voice. It’s still all just gibberish.

The gun is still on the
table, but there are also three large plastic syringes, all empty.
Jonah wonders what the syringes are for. He suspects that the gun
would be better.

Tate stomps around in the
other room. The high-pitched voice is begging. The yelling voice is
demanding something. The intellectual voice is conversing with the
yelling voice and is apparently the one doing the stomping,
punishing the high-pitched voice.

Tate is insane. Jonah
passes out.

#

When Jonah awoke, it was
morning. He could tell because there was a narrow band of light
cast against the wall that could only be daylight. Tate sat in a
chair at the side of the table, his eyes closed. In front of him
were the gun and the syringes. One of the syringes was filled with
a dark black substance. The other two were filled with thicker
substances, one cream colored, the other beige. There were round
needles on the tips of the syringes now. Jonah wondered if he was
to be drugged. Or was it poison in those syringes? Whatever was in
them, Jonah was sure it would be maddening, tortuous in some way.
That was Tate’s style. The gun, of course, would be too quick.
Jonah was going to suffer.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t in
pain now. He couldn’t feel the cuts where the cat had clawed him,
or the places where the birds had pecked him.

Tate opened his eyes and
looked at Jonah. “Good morning, bro. It’s about time we got started
with today’s activity.”

Jonah, with the tape on his
mouth, couldn’t respond. He might have nodded or shook his head,
but he was too afraid to move.

Tate looked away from Jonah
and began to speak in a monotonous voice. “I haven’t told you much
about me, brother. At least, I haven’t told you where I came from.
But you have to understand, I was waiting for the right time to
present itself.” Tate looked at Jonah as if expecting some kind of
response. Jonah didn’t give one. Tate reached forward and put a
hand on the gun. He fiddled with it like it was a pencil or
anything else a person might mindlessly move around as he
talked.

“I come from Florida, like
I told you, but I didn’t go there last week. In fact, I’ve been
here all week, watching you.” Tate paused for a few seconds, then
said, “I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in and out of
mental hospitals. My parents thought I was crazy, and so did all
the doctors, but I knew I wasn’t crazy, bro. I knew what I was
hearing was real.”

He stopped, as if pondering
what he was saying for a little while, then he continued, his tone
calm, no bitterness at all. “They pumped me full of so many
different drugs. I saw all kinds of therapists, but nothing worked.
I still heard what I heard, and it was only getting stronger. It
got to the point where not only was I able to hear it, I could
sense it intuitively too. I eventually figured out that it wasn’t
going away, and I figured out that if I didn’t want to live the
rest of my life amongst doctors and crazy people, I had to learn
how to fake it. It took a little while, but I eventually convinced
everyone that I was fine. I even got them to let me off the meds. I
just walked around like it wasn’t there. I was sixteen years
old.

“What I hear is kind of
like a voice, but what’s said is in no particular language, and
it’s electric. And the sense, that’s what you come to know. It
comes from people, not all people, actually not most people, but
more than you would expect. It varies in its power. It varies in
the grip it has on the person it comes from. With what I sense, you
get to know how much evil is around. That’s why I got into the
martial arts. I was afraid that what was inside people would find
out that I could sense it and cause the people to come after me. I
know now that it doesn’t work that way. But the martial arts paid
off anyway. I was in college when one of my martial arts
instructors introduced me to meditation. Up to that point, living
with the sense, I had not done well in school or in the arts. I was
too distracted, dealing with the sense and trying to fake being
normal. But meditation changed all of that. I learned to take the
sense wherever I went. I learned to have the sense without letting
it control my life. I read a ton of books. I even spent a summer in
Tibet, refining my meditation skills. The more I got into
meditation, the better I did.