Read Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Online
Authors: Joshua Scribner
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Jacob steps back. “Who are
you?”
The man smiles, showing his perfectly
white teeth. “Why Jacob, you know exactly who I am.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Sure you do.” The man in white
thrusts a closed fist forward. “I’m the one who controls the bees.”
He opens his fist, revealing the four little creatures. Their
bodies shake spasmodically and their wings flutter.
The man in white turns and walks
toward Todd’s bike.
“No!” Jacob shouts as he jolts towards
the man’s back. But he’s stopped in his tracks when the man turns
with an open hand. It’s not a physical force that holds Jacob,
though. It’s like the tension he has had, most of the time, for
most of his life. But it is magnified. Jacob falls helplessly to
his knees.
“You, Jacob, are a bee.” The man in
white turns back to the bike. There is a pouch on the side of the
seat. He undoes the zipper, drops the bees inside and then closes
it again. He turns back to Jacob. Again, he flashes an open hand.
The tension is lifted.
#
The first thing Jacob saw was the
lady’s face. She was in an old pick-up. Her look was a little
inquisitive but mostly indifferent. After she passed along his side
and turned, Jacob looked around, trying to bring some kind of
orientation.
It was the familiar stop sign that
told him where he was. Its red paint was faded and it was bent
toward the house on the right. Jacob realized he was at the end of
Main Street, on the southern outskirts of Nescata.
He turned right onto the blacktop and
made his way back to his parents’ house.
Chapter 5
Dr. Betzie Ross, clinical psychologist,
hit the ground, and the world went away. Everything was plain, like
a backdrop. After a time she wasn't sure of, there was pain. It
wasn't unmanageable, but it was definitely there. And she was
somebody again. It was not quite her usual self, but she was
somebody.
Soft kisses brushed her neck. Stubble
tickled her back. His arm was around her. One of her breasts was
cupped in his hand. His distinct scent was there. She liked who she
was.
With a movement so natural that it
felt like the only movement she could make, she sank back into him
and felt him against her. Pressing hard against him, she moved with
his movements and the pain was completely gone. It wasn’t until he
turned her around and she saw his dark brown eyes that she was able
to step out of herself and see it all clearly.
“It was you.”
With that, he began to change. But he
didn’t change completely. The person he changed into resembled him
in many ways. The room changed too. It was now her office at the
college. And she was sitting across from her client.
“Jacob. I can’t believe that I never
noticed this before.”
It all faded away, and the pain came
back for a few seconds. The preceding day flashed in front of her.
But this time she wasn’t living it. She was merely observing it.
And from her observation point—a place that seemed very much like
the backdrop—she saw herself standing at the front door of her
home, a suitcase in one hand, an envelope containing her itinerary
in the other. That had been when Jacob called.
She realized now that had it been any
other client, she would have given them a colleague’s number, or
maybe the number to a crisis line. She might have gone so far as to
slip them a few pacifying words, but no more than that. And she
would have chalked it all up in the name of her own personal
boundaries—the kind of thing psychologists tell themselves and
other people to escape responsibility and responsibility’s
guilt.
But it had been Jacob.
His voice. How could I not
have known?
Then there had been the call on the
other line. And she had to follow through with it. Boundaries or
not, you just couldn’t respond to a suicide call with, “I’m sorry,
but I’m on vacation.”
She saw the girl, Tiffany Ellenton, on
top of one of the residence halls, standing at the edge with a
blank stare on her face. She remembered thinking that it was not
the season. Suicides at the college usually came about the time of
midterms or during final examinations, never during the summer
session. But still, Dr. Ross talked her down. She turned young
Tiffany towards hope. She helped her see a glimmer of light.
Tiffany turned from the edge. That was when things went so terribly
wrong.
Dr. Ross had never physically saved
anyone. She had always used words. But words could not help Tiffany
Ellenton when she slipped backward and began to windmill her
arms.
Dr. Ross saw herself move forward,
quickly, but clumsily. She saw herself stick out the hand that
Tiffany locked onto. Then she watched as both she and Tiffany fell
to the ground below. It was over.
And now she could hear the voice
shouting.
“Clear!”
She knew time was short.
“Clear!”
She
thought one last time of the man she loved—
it was you
.
“Clear!”
She opened her eyes. There were
several blue figures standing around her. They would not come into
focus, but she knew who they were.
There was one that was in focus. He
was perfectly clear. He towered above those in blue. He was very
white. And he was completely bald.
“The process is efficient,” he said.
“I come to take away.”
#
Guilt was not the emotion that ate
Jacob all afternoon. It touched him in fleeting moments when he
entertained thoughts that told him he was a killer. But those
thoughts passed quickly, because they didn’t make sense. Jacob had
not intended to kill anyone. But, even though that erased the
guilt, it caused another feeling that was much worse. He wasn’t
responsible. He was a pawn. He was someone’s killing whore. He was
not his own. And that made him feel empty.
So the hours passed quickly and
meaninglessly into the emptiness, as Jacob sat alone and stared at
nothing. He dozed off a few of times, more out of boredom than
tiredness. He was in his parents’ room a couple of times, pondering
the gun again. But he couldn’t summons the energy.
There was a moment of disgust when,
near the end of that afternoon, he felt the anticipation begin to
bubble up. It seemed so wrong for him to like this now. But that
didn’t matter. He couldn’t resist. Jacob roamed through the house
looking for it—whatever it was he was supposed to find this time.
He checked every room at least twice. He looked under the beds and
on top of every shelf he could find. He didn’t know why he was
looking this way. It was instinctive somehow. The anticipation was
there and he knew that he was supposed to look.
It felt wrong to leave the house. But
he knew of nowhere else to look. So he walked outside. There, he
moved aimlessly for a little while, not really looking anymore,
somehow knowing that he was leaving behind what he needed. He
finally stopped and just waited. Standing in the front yard, it hit
him. He had seen something in the house, but it had not registered
at the time.
Jacob ran back to the house, hoping he
had really seen it, hoping it was still there. The anticipation
built as he closed in.
In the dining room, on the kitchen
table, were the scattered newspapers, still left from that morning.
And now, he knew he was right. Something was different. The mess
was slightly more than he had left it. Jacob sorted through the
scattered pages, at first finding only the familiar pages he had
already looked through. He began to wonder if he had been wrong.
Maybe the mess only looked like more now because he hadn’t been
paying attention to its size when he first looked through
it.
But the
anticipation kept him looking anyway. Then, near the center of the
table, and near the bottom, he found what he was looking for. It
wasn’t much different from the other pages. They were all
titled,
The Aspach County Daily News and
Eagle
. But this one had one major
difference. This difference told Jacob that he had what he needed.
In the upper left hand corner, the date, May 18, 2016 was
printed.
Jacob picked it up and read the
article just below that futuristic date. It was next to a picture
of a huge fire, surrounded by fire fighters and spectators. He read
this article because it was the only one he could. The rest blurred
when he looked at them, like faces of people on television that are
not supposed to be seen.
AT LEAST 5 KILLED AND
27
INJURED IN CHEMICAL
EXPLOSION
Police
reports from Ike County did not comment as to whether yesterday’s
explosion at the two-year-old Oklahoma Panhandle Expansion Chemical
Research Company (OPECRC) has been linked to foul play. The plant
was built by a Federal Grant to carry out scientific research in
several areas. The location was chosen because of its sparse
population. Fire Chief, Dan Bracken, stated that he expects the
search for survivors to be completed by late tomorrow. There have
been five reported fatalities so far. Among them is Aspach County
native, Dr. Todd Blacklund. Plant employees say that Dr. Blacklund
usually worked in the limited access area where the fire is
believed to have started. Blacklund’s body has not yet been
recovered, but plant computer records show that he had entered the
area moments before the explosion. In a press conference yesterday
evening, Governor Lucas called the explosion a terrible tragedy and
asked that people pray for the families of those killed or
injured.
Ted Clark
Jacob
reread the article and then noticed a second futuristic page next
to where the first had been. This one was also from the
Aspach County Daily News and Eagle
but it was dated June 10, 2016. Again, there was
only a small section that did not blur when he looked at
it.
Two Aspach County
Natives
Linked to
Bombing
Donald Childress, leader
of the militant activist group, The Gray Society, sent a letter to
the Associated Press yesterday. The letter confessed the Gray
Society’s involvement in last month’s explosion at the Oklahoma
Panhandle Expansion Chemical Research Company (OPECRC). The letter
stated that, “The society is out to stop the encroachment of the
Federal Government on the rights of man.” It also stated that
OPECRC was chosen as a “protest sight” because of the Society’s
belief that the Federal Government was performing covert operations
there. President Duncan stated that Childress’s comments were
frivolous and that severe action would be taken against the Gray
Society. Sources revealed that two Nescata natives might be
associated with the Gray Society. One is Shane Tantenmore, a
self-employed carpenter. Friends of Tantenmore say that he had
boasted about being one of The Gray Society’s main “wheelers and
dealers” in the Oklahoma chapter. The other alleged member is Jeff
Limerod, a 35-year-old Nescata graduate and employee at Dave’s
Electronics Barn. Dave Michaels, owner of the store, called Limerod
a model employee. “Jeff could fix anything, foreign or domestic,”
Michaels stated. Acquaintances of Limerod reported that he was
quiet and did very little associating with people outside of work.
Tantenmore’s red Corvette was seen on more than one occasion parked
outside of the apartment complex where Limerod resided. It is
believed that the two of them may have communicated directly with
Childress via E-mail. Government officials reported that they do
have leads on the location of Childress as well as other Gray
Society members and that the members of the activist group involved
in the bombing would be brought to justice.
Ted Clark
There was a third page, which was
dated one day after the second.
Doctor Says that Flu is
not Serious
A Summer flu appears to be
sweeping across the state. Doctor Lyle Tate, local practitioner,
stated that people who notice small red-spots on their skin and
feel feverish should report to their doctor’s office immediately.
Dr. Tate noted that he doubts that the flu could have any serious
repercussions if it is detected and treated quickly.
Laurie Havlacheck, B. S.
N.
The moment he was done with this
article, the newspaper page disappeared, and Jacob was left staring
through the space between his two clinched fists. From there he
could see that the other two pages were also gone. After a few
seconds of astonishment, Jacob heard the sound of the lock
clicking. He looked over and saw the back door swing
open.
He dropped his fists to his side and
waited to see who was home. But a few more seconds passed and no
one entered. The anticipation began to rise again.
“I should have known.”
Slowly, Jacob moved toward the door.
From the first threshold, he saw nothing out of place. It was just
the interior back porch, no different then it had ever been. But
Jacob was struck by the sudden lack of odor. The dusty smell of the
back porch and the usual country smells blowing in from outside
were gone.
It was when Jacob moved outside, that
more than the odor changed.