Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (35 page)

Anna didn’t attend barbecues. She had
grown accustomed to meat being prepared around her. She could sit
in the next room and handle the scents of meat cooking in the
kitchen. But the strong smell of meat over an open flame was too
much. And it seemed too ceremonial to her, gathering in the name of
burning the murdered flesh.

Sully was a little surprised when his
dad invited them over for a cookout. The old man knew how Anna
reacted to them. Sully would have boycotted it, but Anna insisted
that he and Monica go, saying she didn’t think it right that her
system of beliefs interfere with their lives.

So, on a Tuesday night of the last
week in April, Sully sat at a picnic table in his parents’
backyard, while Monica and her grandma fed the animals and his dad
grilled steaks over charcoal.

Sully wished Anna was there to enjoy
the warm April evening. But he didn’t feel sorry for her. It was an
exciting time for Anna. Her book was off to publishers now, and any
day, everyday, she expected to hear back from them. She was writing
more short stories, ever trying to get her penname to a wider
audience.

It was an exciting time for Sully too.
He knew her book would be a success, and he couldn’t wait for it to
be out there, thousands of eyes being awed by the words of the
woman he was closest to. He got to read each and every short story,
as soon as it was finished.

School was better than ever. One
student, Kim Hamaker, who had been the best friend of Caitlin Barr,
had been placed at Yale. Harold Wisk, the best math student in the
group, got MIT. Stephanie Tibers, a cheerleader interested in
psychology, was going to Stanford. Two others were on the alternate
list at Harvard. All twenty-four were going to college somewhere,
most with scholarships.

Yes, his life was exciting. But right
now, Sully was bored. He got up from the table and joined his dad
at the grill. He watched for a little while, as the veteran grill
man flipped the steaks over and over, keeping the flame from
charring them.

It had
been a while since he and his dad were alone. In fact, the last
time had been that strange night at the bar. It was a night he
thought of over and over. He couldn’t bring sense to it. He
couldn’t believe that the long held memory in his head was
false.
Just a nick.
Nor could he accept that he had a special ability to return
from death. But the only other alternative was that his dad was
crazy, and he couldn’t accept that either. He wanted to talk it
over with Anna. She would make sense out of it. But he couldn’t.
The same vague fear that had kept him from telling her about the
rest of the madness prevented him from talking about the story his
father had told. His dad’s voice brought him from his
thoughts.

“So, you taking Monica this weekend?”
his dad asked.

“Yeah,” Sully replied.

His dad nodded his head a few times
and then said, “Going back to the old pattern, huh?”

A little confused, Sully said, “I
don’t know what you mean, Dad.”

His dad left the steaks to get two hot
dogs for Monica. He got the dogs settled in the flame and then
said, “Usually, you take her and Anna picks her up, but last time
you reversed that.”

Sully smirked. Anna had brought up the
same thing. And now, she insisted that she take the Friday trip
every time. She didn’t want him to have to drive at night anymore.
But night was the time Sully really wanted to drive. Last time, he
had made the trip straight through, but during the day. Now he felt
confident that he could take one more trip and handle the night
driving, straight though, no hotel.

Sully’s dad grimaced before he spoke
his next words. He repeated, “The old pattern.”

That was enough to set Sully’s fear to
work again.

#

For the next few days, Sully struggled
with what to do. He knew he couldn’t go. He wanted to talk more to
his dad. He wanted to tell Anna why he didn’t want to go. But he
couldn’t do either of these two things, because the fear would not
let him. Fear still said he couldn’t let anyone in, even if his dad
seemed to have found a way in himself.

So, Friday afternoon, when school let
out, Sully drove home, where he was to pick up Monica. Then, as
well as he could, he feigned illness. He went straight to the
bedroom and lay down, placing an arm over his head.

A little while later, Anna came in and
saw him that way. “Are you okay, Sully?”

“No,” he said. “My head's
spinning.”

Anna came and stood beside the bed.
She put a hand on his head, then, just as he had done, lied. “Oh,
you’re hot, babe. There’s no way you can make this
trip.”

“But,” was all Sully got out before
Anna interrupted.

“No arguments. You’re sick. You can’t
go.”

Sully didn’t think Anna that good of
an actress. She couldn’t hide the satisfaction in her
voice.

“You just lie there, babe. I’ll get
you some aspirin and some water.”

Anna left and was gone for less than a
minute before she returned with the two items. Sully took the
aspirin and drank some water.

“Thanks, babe.”

Anna felt his forehead again. Then she
said, “Do you want me to call your mom and let her know you’re
sick?”

“No,” Sully said, his head in the
pillow. “I’ll be fine if I just sleep for a while.”

Anna leaned over and kissed his cheek.
A little while later, Monica came in and kissed him goodbye. Two
minutes later, they were gone.

#

Sully hung up the phone, not wanting
to hear Anna’s voicemail again. It was eight o’clock, and he had
tried to call her cell phone four times now. Why wouldn’t she
answer? She had her writing place, a place where she would not be
disturbed. But how could she possibly have her writing place while
driving?

Sully stood there in the dining room,
by the little cubbyhole where he kept the portable unit, and tried
to calm himself down. Anna may have simply forgotten to turn her
cell phone on. And she may not have thought about calling him,
because she thought he was sick. She knew as well as he that he
didn’t have a fever. But that didn’t mean she didn’t think he was
sick and possibly sleeping.

Sully decided he would just wait. That
was all he could do.

#

Sully was sitting in front of the
television, mindlessly watching the NBA playoffs, around ten
o’clock, when the phone finally rang.

“Well it’s about time,” he said out
loud, before picking up the portable phone, which he had kept
beside him.

“Anna,” Sully said.

There were a few seconds, and then a
female voice said, “No, Sully. It’s me.”

Disappointed, Sully said, “Oh, hi
Faith. How is everything? Monica get there okay?”

“Yeah, she got here fine. We’re at the
hotel. She said she wanted to talk to you.”

“All right,” Sully said, wondering
what was up with his daughter. She usually didn’t call until they
got to her mother’s house the next day, and that was only because
Sully told her to. “Put her on,” he said.

A couple of seconds later, Monica
said, “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, baby. Are you okay?”

“Just a second,” Monica
said.

Sully listened in as he waited for
Monica. He heard a door shut. Then he heard what he thought must be
the sound of a vent coming on. He realized the four-year-old girl
had gone into the bathroom for privacy.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Anna said she was not going to stay
with us anymore.”

Sully, shocked, refrained from
revealing too much angst in his voice. There had to be some
mistake.

“Are you sure, baby? That doesn’t
sound like Anna.”

“She told me goodbye. And she said she
was moving away.”

It was harder now. The thought of
losing Anna was not something that had occurred to Sully in a long
time, at least, not in this way, her skipping out.

“Daddy,” Monica said. “I don’t want
Anna to leave. I love her.”

“I know,” Sully calmly said, trying
hard to think of his daughter, when on the inside he was worried
about himself. Was he really going to lose her?

Sully couldn’t think of what to tell
Monica right now. A lie seemed okay. He could correct for it later,
if necessary.

“I don’t think Anna’s really going to
leave, baby.”

Sully tried to think of more to say.
But he decided he shouldn’t overdue it. So he left it at that and
hoped this naïve child would, for now, just accept her father’s
words.

“Okay, Daddy,” Monica said, to his
relief.

“All right, sweetheart,” Sully said.
“Now I want you to have fun with your mommy and Scott. And don’t
you worry about a thing.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Monica said, her voice
a little sad. He knew she would be wondering. But he knew nothing
to do about that.

“I love you, little girl.”

“I love you too, Daddy. Bye
bye.”

“Bye bye,” Sully said and then hung up
the phone.

He immediately started to dial Anna’s
cell phone, but then stopped. He had tried that already. He
suspected he would get the same results this time. He thought of
something else he could do. He could investigate. He went into the
bedroom and slid open the closet doors. There, hanging with his,
were most of Anna’s dressier clothes. Up on the shelf, there were
his and her casual things. If Anna were leaving without telling him
first, then she wasn’t going to have much to wear.

Sully rushed to the study. That Anna
would not take her clothes was weird, but believable. But she would
not leave without her writing things. There, on the desk they had
bought together, was Anna’s laptop. Below, in the chair slot, was
the stack of notebooks that Anna kept.

Sully was satisfied. Anna had not
planned to leave him before she took off with Monica earlier. Maybe
she was going to leave. But if so, she was coming home
first.

#

The cavalcade of sounds came from
outside. They shook the place he was in, a vague place, nearly
shapeless. Sully tried to make the sounds go away by blocking them
out, but they remained. All he could do was slip back into
consciousness.

He came to in his bed, not remembering
when he had lain down. The sounds were of dogs barking, like
several had been set off in a chain reaction started by
one.

Sully started to get up, to check it
out, but then he felt his tiredness. It was overpowering. He went
back to sleep.

#

With each hour of the next morning,
Sully waited alone. All the while, intuition told him he was
waiting in vain. She wasn’t coming back.

But that didn’t make sense. Why would
she leave him? They seemed so in love, always, everyday, in love.
And to leave without notice would be so unlike Anna. Anna was no
coward. And her things were still here. Her life was still
here.

But there was the intuitive sense.
Logic, in all of its good sense and glory, spoke to him, but
intuition vetoed its conclusion. She wasn’t coming back.

In the afternoon, there were games to
watch. Hockey and basketball to occupy his mind. The hours
continued to pass without her return. Several times he called her
cell phone. Sometimes he left a beseeching message, asking to
understand; other times he simply hung up. The day turned into
night. Still, there was nothing from Anna.

It was a little after 9PM when he
heard the car pull up. Sully rushed to the door, so he could meet
her outside. But it wasn’t Anna who came up the sidewalk. It was
his father. He was carrying a six pack of beer. Curiously, the old
man didn’t say anything. He just walked right past Sully and
inside, like he was walking into his own house.

Sully followed. His dad sat at the
dining room table, and Sully joined him. His dad took two beers
from the pack and slid one to Sully. The old man’s eyes were
intense, glimmering. He stared off above Sully’s head, with an
expression like he was looking at nothing on the outside, but into
his own head.

Sully knew he would have to wait. He
cracked open his beer. It tasted flat. He didn’t really want to
drink it. He didn’t want to do this at all. By his look, the old
man had something very strange to tell, a little bit more madness
to add to Sully’s upside down world. Sully didn’t want to hear it.
But he would anyway. He would because he knew it all had to be
connected. What his dad had to offer would be another piece in this
terrible puzzle.

His dad drank three beers, very fast,
before he spoke. “I think it’s time you knew where you came from,”
he finally said.

Sully nodded, but he didn’t think the
old man saw it. He was aware that Sully was his audience. Aside
from that, he was barely attending to him.

“As you know, your mother and I
weren’t capable of having a baby on our own. We’d tried for years
before we got checked out. As it happened, your mother’s uterus
wasn’t capable of supporting a baby. She was devastated, of
course.”