Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (44 page)

Celeste found herself amazed by this
new person in her life, and though she couldn’t possibly be
attracted to him, she wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was, as
Kendra put it, mega-gorgeous.

How nice it would be to develop a
relationship with him, to see where it would go. But inevitably,
she knew it would fail. He wouldn’t always be willing to work this
hard with a woman who couldn’t give him something physical in
return. Even if he was willing, soon some other beautiful woman
would come along, one that was able to supply the physical, and
hoard all of his empathy and emotional support.

“Yeah,” Celeste finally said to him.
“You’re right.”

***

After he’d brought her up on Friday,
Tabitha, having for the first time been separated from her history
and learning, had been able to discuss where she’d been. She’d
described it like a vague dream, where she was an unthinking,
unfeeling being in a dark place.

That she remembered where she had been
didn’t surprise Dr. Porter. Coming out of the trance, her history
naturally rejoined her current experience, and she was able to use
that history to put words to the experience, like when a dreamer
comes from a dream that lacks the logic of waking life, but is able
to recall that dream upon waking.

Dr. Porter hypnotized his wife several
times on Saturday, getting her used to going to the dark place, the
deepest, most basic level of her subconscious. He also trained her
subconscious to bring some of her history to that deep level, but
only enough that she would be able to maneuver inside, not enough
to contaminate it and make it something else.

What he brought from her history were
things that were common to most people, stripping away any personal
association Tabitha had with these things. That way, he hoped, he
would be able to show her, and through her descriptions, show
himself, her subconscious as it existed without the contamination
of her own life.

Now it was Sunday. Tabitha lay on the
bed and Dr. Porter sat off in a chair. He had her under, in the
dark place, completely bare of her history and learning. Dr. Porter
said, “Now that you are in this place, I would like for your
subconscious to bring from your history enough, and only enough, of
that history to respond to my voice.”

Dr. Porter waited a few seconds and
then asked, “Is the subconscious ready?”

Tabitha’s “yes” finger shot up, as it
was by the previous day’s preparation, adept at meeting this
request.

Dr. Porter said, “To the place
experience is now in, I want you to bring vision and
light.”

Although he boiled with his lust for
knowledge, Dr. Porter controlled himself. He wanted to know what
Tabitha could see right now. He could have that description
immediately, but it would be a lot less choppy if he got it after
she was out of the trance, with her memory and language more
readily at her disposal.

Dr. Porter said, “I would like for
what Tabitha sees right now to be placed at the front of her
subconscious. Let her be able to describe the memory of it with
clarity, immediately after she comes out of her trance.”

Dr. Porter, confidant with the
subconscious’s ability to meet this request, didn’t ask for
affirmation. Instead, he proceeded to bring Tabitha up.

“Now, as I count down from five, I
would like you to come out of your trance. Five . . .”

A short time later, Tabitha came from
her trance with bright, glowing eyes.

“Wow,” she whispered.

Dr. Porter fought his need to know
back for a few more seconds, so what Tabitha was now experiencing,
a vivid memory, could set in.

He finally said, “Tell me what you
saw.”

“It was a tunnel,” Tabitha
responded.

Chapter 3

Although he was 40-years-old and
intelligent enough to know better than to engage in frivolous
attempts at improvement, James Kisner still tried to be better once
a week. So like on every Monday morning, this Monday morning he
left the refuge of his parents’ basement. He found the two retired
professors at the kitchen table, waiting for him. The curtains were
pulled shut and in front of an empty seat were a filled coffee cup
and an empty plate. In the middle of the table were serving plates,
one bacon, one eggs, one toast.

If this had been one of the other six
days of the week, he would have stayed downstairs, where he would
have prepared his own breakfast and gotten his own coffee. When
downstairs, other than having supplies brought to him, his life was
independent. He had his computer and the Internet, as well as many
books and other publications to link him to the outside world. He
even entertained guests from time to time, mostly his parents and a
select few of their closest friends. He had a kitchenette, a
bathroom, as well as makeshift living and sleeping areas.
Downstairs, his life was normal as could be, aside from the fact
that he spent over 99% of his time there.

In the little time he spent upstairs,
he was as dependent as a child. Because of the shakes that came
with being out of his sanctuary, James wasn’t even able to carry
his own coffee.

James took his seat, the level of his
anxiety telling him this wouldn’t be a long visit and that he
wouldn’t be brave in the short time he was here. On some Mondays,
he calmed himself enough that he might request a curtain be opened.
Occasionally, he opened one himself and sat in the light coming
from outside for a few minutes. But today didn’t feel like it would
be one of those days.

“Good morning, dear,” his mother
said.

“Good morning, Mother,” James was able
to whisper with the small amount of wind his body could
spare.

His father, obviously sensing James’s
limits this morning, merely nodded, at which James nodded
back.

James suspected his parents were way
more easygoing about living with his disorder than most people
would be. They both used to teach at Arabuke University, a few
blocks down the street. His mother had taught English and Creative
Writing and hadn’t been too inconvenienced by having a dependent at
home. His father, who had taught Anthropology, had often traveled
for long periods of time. The worst of it, James thought, was that
he, who had moved into the basement at a very young age, had
limited their ability to travel together. But they hadn’t once
complained. They’d made what accommodations they could, and when
he’d gotten older, they’d been less afraid to leave him alone,
although he was sure they weren’t away as long as they would have
been had they not had the burden of their adult son.

James didn’t immediately fill his
plate. Instead, he attended to his breath and to his body, using
one of the many relaxation techniques he had learned over the
years. One of the things he thought ironic was that he could
probably be considered an expert on relaxation techniques, yet if
he was to try and go out to teach these methods, he’d freeze up
with fear before he made it to the car. For now, James was able to
calm himself a little.

The upstairs itself didn’t scare him.
It was just that he was now closer to the outside. And what about
the outside scared him so much? After many years of help from many
professionals exploring that question, James still didn’t know the
answer. All he could come up with was that the outside gave him a
terrible sense of dread, and that it had been that way for as long
as he could remember.

Today, James’s thumping heart and
constricted breath wouldn’t allow him enough calm to open a single
curtain. Nausea barely allowed him to nibble at breakfast, and he
didn’t finish a single cup of coffee. Within minutes, he hurried
downstairs. There, he reclined and listened to music. Speakers
surround his living area, and the music was generally something
classical and complex. He became absorbed in the rhythms and his
fear melted away. He didn’t even want to think about leaving again,
until next Monday.

***

Dr. Porter didn’t act immediately on
his findings. All day Monday, and into the evening, he was with
clients. In his mind, in the moments of his job that were routine
and didn’t require his undivided attention, he considered a
dilemma. He and Tabitha, with their history pushed aside, had seen
the exact same thing within their subconscious minds, and that was
as he had expected it would be. He had suspected before, that aside
from the adornments of personal experience, the subconscious minds
of most people were the same. Just like most people were born with
two hands, one brain and one heart, most were born with a place to
store every instant of their lives gone by. Stripped of those
instants of time, everybody’s storage place was essentially the
same, a tunnel.

But the tunnel was only the same for
most people. For those whom Dr. Porter had not been able to help by
bringing something from their pasts, he suspected there would be
something different. He didn’t know yet how their tunnels were
different from most, and there lay the dilemma.

The place Dr. Porter and his wife had
seen was vast, a cylinder, inside which they floated. The walls of
the tunnel were uniform, black and solid. There was nothing else to
them. Dr. Porter suspected this was the tunnel that many people
surviving near-death experiences or returning from death itself
reported moving through. When these people reported their life
flashing before their eyes, it was actually the stripping of their
histories from their subconscious minds, leaving the tunnel a blank
place. In essence, with himself and with his wife, by stripping the
subconscious of personal history, leaving it in a pure state, Dr.
Porter had done what only death had done up to that point. By doing
this, he had gone against natural experience. A person was not
supposed to see this tunnel before it was brought about by
death.

Dr. Porter wondered if it were wrong
for him to tamper with something so pure and natural. He suspected
it was. The dilemma was whether he would let that stop
him.

He thought about it some more on
Tuesday. Then, Tuesday evening, he made the calls.

***

At about six o’clock, Tuesday evening,
James’s phone rang. It was rare that anyone aside from
tele-marketers called him. His biggest contacts with the outside
world were through discussion forums and games played over the
Internet. In these communications, James maintained an impersonal,
intellectual tone, keeping his life out of it. He saw no need to
tell people, “I’m a 40-year-old agoraphobic who lives in his
parents’ basement. My skin is pale from lack of sunlight, and my
bushy gray hair is unkempt, because let’s face it, it really
doesn’t matter how I look.”

James picked up the line.
“Hello.”

“Hello, James. This is Dr.
Porter.”

Though James hadn’t spoken with Dr.
Porter in eight years, the hypnotist’s voice was still very
familiar. “Oh. How are you, Doctor?”

“I’m doing well. I’ve recently had a
breakthrough in my methods. That is why I’m calling
you.”

“Interesting,” James
commented.

“And if you don’t mind me asking,” Dr.
Porter continued. “Have you had any changes in your condition since
we worked together?”

“No,” James responded without needing
to think about it.

“At the risk of sounding coarse, that
doesn’t surprise me. As I remember, yours was very resistant to any
kind of treatment.”

James laughed lightly. “I don’t find
your honesty the least bit coarse, Doctor.”

“Good, James. Now let me tell you what
I have in mind. I’m in the process of soliciting participation in
small group, where I will be using experimental procedures. The
group will consist of no more than five, probably less, clients
who, through no fault of their own, were unable to benefit from my
regular hypnotic methods. Because of the experimental nature, no
fees will be charged.”

“That sounds good, Doctor. But as you
know, I would never be able to make it to a group
session.”

“I have considered that, James. And
just like before, I would like to work with you in your home. What
I propose is that we bring the group there.”

James thought about it for a few
seconds. If nothing else, it would be intellectually intriguing.
“Yes,” James said. “That would be fine. And I’ll do anything I can
to accommodate you.”

***

Next year, Toby would go off to
college, and that scared him. He was a gifted student. His freshman
year he’d made a B- in Spanish. Otherwise, his transcript was
flawless. He’d taken the SATs during the summer, and he’d scored in
the top two percent. So he wasn’t worried about the more difficult
classes. He’d handle that. What scared him was that he wasn’t used
to being alone, not used to being a freak and being alone, with no
one to fight his battles for him.

His dad’s position provided a constant
intimidation factor for kids who might have otherwise taken their
antagonizing a bit further. Now, his brother had been there to
protect him from the first kid who seemed ready to cross the line
between verbal abuse and physical assault. Friday night, in an
indirect way, Randy had further handled the situation.