Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (84 page)

“Stay just like this!”

She didn’t respond, but she didn’t
move either. He knew she would cooperate. He went down to his knees
and moved his hands around her midsection. He undid the front of
her jeans very slowly. Then he moved his hands around the back
rim.

Abruptly, he yanked her jeans and
panties down around her ankles, watching her move awkwardly as he
did.

“I’m going to fuck you like a
whore.”

He pressed his tongue hard against the
back of her thigh and then slid it up. As he did, he thought about
what it was going to be like tearing into her. He would rip her
shirt off and then squeeze as hard as he could. He hoped she would
scream for him.

He moved between her legs. There, he
moved his tongue up her inner thigh. He stopped and stared at her
rump. It was petite but round. He found a small pocket of loose
skin with his hand. He took that skin into his mouth and bit down
slowly. Sonnie tightened up, but she made no effort to move away.
Jacob stopped when the first trickle of blood came.

Backing away, he stared down at the
cut he had made. Sonnie leaned forward more, revealing more to him,
and inviting him in. Jacob removed his pants. His penis looked much
like it felt. It was his, but it was not the same as it had been
before. It had expanded and he could see the veins working,
transporting blood, causing him to throb. The pressure had turned
it white. He couldn’t wait to use it on her, to hurt her with
it.

Jacob moved up to her. He straightened
his penis out in front of him. With the salty taste of blood in his
mouth, he prepared to fuck Sonnie.

His left hand holding his penis down,
Jacob reached with his right hand to the old teakettle that Sonnie
had lifted from the burner moments earlier.

The phone rang and Jacob felt it flow
from him. As quickly as he had been transformed into something
else, he was transformed back to what he was before. He reached for
his pants.

“Sonnie.”

She didn’t move.

“Sonnie. The phone.”

This time she moved her head a little.
Then she slowly rose up. She pulled up her bottoms. She turned but
did not look at him. Jacob watched as her face changed. She went
from amorous to inquisitive.

“Sonnie. Get the phone!”

She looked at him. “Jacob. I felt it.
I was mad at you. I wanted you to leave. But then I just wanted
nothing but to do what you wanted me to. I felt it.”

“I know, Sonnie.”

“Jacob it was so powerful.”

The phone continued to ring in the
background.

“Are you going to get
that?”

“I had no defense.”

“Sonnie. It’s rung several times. It
must be important.”

“Jacob you had control over me. You
can control people.”

“I never wanted to control anybody.
Just get the phone. Please!”

“Jacob.” She stopped and just stared
at him.

“What? Aren’t you going to answer the
freaking phone?”

“Jacob. The phone’s not
ringing.”

The pause seemed very long. Jacob had
time to go through the initial confusion, wondering what Sonnie was
talking about. He had time to remember that a phone that only he
could hear was not so out of place in the world that he was
experiencing lately. And he had time to wonder if it would ring
again. It did.

“You can’t hear that?”

“No. I don’t hear a thing. Is it
coming from down stairs?”

Jacob looked at her face. There was no
disbelief there, only fear.

“No, it’s your phone. The one right
there on the wall, loud and clear. And I know who it
is?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

Sonnie spoke but he could no longer
hear her. He couldn’t hear her because the ringing grew louder. It
continued to grow with each new tone. Sonnie continued to talk, but
none of it got through.

“I can’t hear you,” Jacob said, and
Sonnie seemed to understand.

She mouthed the words slowly, and he
read her lips.

“Are you going to answer
it?”

Jacob shook his head, but he was not
sure. He didn’t want to answer it, but the ringing was starting to
hurt. He resisted for as long as he could, but soon answering it
was all he could do.

Jacob picked up the receiver, and the
ringing was gone. Not even the afterthought of the sound was there.
In fact, there was only a dial tone.

“Who is it?”

“Nobody. It’s just the dial tone.
Wait!”

“What?”

“I thought I heard something.
Shh.”

He waited for a few seconds. The sound
came back.

“There it is again.”

“What?” Sonnie whispered.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s
somebody whispering.”

The next time the noise came back it
did so repeatedly, and it was louder, competing with the sound of
the dial tone.

“Ya. Ya. Ya. Ya.”

“Jacob, who is it?”

The noise faded out.

“Somebody is whispering to me. But I
can’t understand what they’re saying.”

The dial tone went away, and suddenly
there was a loud clear voice on the line.

“No or not enough digits dialed.
Please hang up and try your call again. No or not enough digits
dialed. Please hang up and try your call again. No or not . .
.”

Jacob continued to wait, but this time
the whispering did not return. He hung up the line.

“I have to go.”

“Why?”

He looked at her, astonished. “What do
you mean, why? Sonnie I almost . . .”

He stopped himself. She hadn’t seen
him go for the teakettle. At least, he didn’t think she
had.

Sonnie looked down for a moment. “I
don’t think it matters.”

“How could it not matter?”

She smiled. “You don’t even know how
powerful it is, do you? Jacob, you could have killed me if you
wanted to. You could have killed me slowly, and I would have stood
there content, as long as that was what you wanted.”

“Which is exactly why I think I should
be away from you.”

She shook her head, like she was
trying to explain something to a child. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t
matter. He, or whatever controls this, is not going to let you harm
me. At least, not directly.”

“Why?”

“Why? For the same reason you didn’t
harm the others directly.”

“Why’s that?”

She put her arms around his waist.
“Because that would be traceable. You would be traceable. And that
would make you culpable.”

Jacob looked down at her face for a
moment and then looked away. “So maybe I won’t kill you. But I’ll
still hurt you.”

“No you won’t.”

Jacob wanted to believe her. “How do
you know that?”

“Because. Remember what you told me
about the vision where you saw Todd? How when you went to attack
that man, he took control of you. I think that’s what it just did.
It wanted to show you it could control you. It wanted to show you
how it controls other people through you.”

“And it will make me like that
again.”

“No! It’s done now. Now you
know!”

She pulled him tighter. He wondered if
she believed what she was saying or if she needed to believe what
she was saying. But he didn’t want to disappoint her.

“That’s it, Sonnie. I think you’re
right. That feels right.”

“Good.”

“But I do want to go for a
while.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel kind of
awkward.”

She sighed. “Will you be
back?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She let him go.

Jacob walked out with what she had
said on his mind. It made sense. It made complete sense. But still,
he thought it could be wrong. At least, part of it could be wrong.
Something had stopped him from killing Sonnie. This, he was sure
of. But the things he had done to her, and what he wanted to do to
her. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think there was anything outside
of him that created these things, these urges. He thought they
might have been his.

#

Not knowing where he wanted to go,
Jacob backed out of the lot and headed south until he came to the
end of Main Street. There was just a flash of the memory of first
seeing Todd’s ghost there two days earlier. It seemed like so long
ago.

He turned left and drove up to the
highway. There, he turned right. In the back of his mind, he could
feel the new urges. They were not unlike the urges that had come to
him when he first started having the visions—a few moments after he
pulled the gun from his chin. The only difference was he knew what
he urged for now. He craved death, and not his own
either.

Jacob wondered if that was what he had
wanted all along. Maybe he hadn’t been ready to accept that, so his
mind just held that part from him.

That’s it, Jacob. Your
mind gave you a vague urge because you just couldn’t believe the
truth. You’re a blood thirsty killer.

Jacob laughed, only to hate the
thought of it. He turned on the radio and cranked it as loud as it
would go. He rode that way for a long time, the urges seeming to
ebb and flow, depending on what song was on the radio. After about
sixty miles, he began to think about what he was doing again. He
made up his mind that he would just keep going south. He thought
that, if these urges were in fact going to take him over—and now he
felt like they would—at least he would be away from the few people
whom he might have once remotely cared about.

He was almost to Oklahoma City, when
the four lanes turned into one and the cement into red
dirt.

#

It’s the epitome of a dirt road. There
is no shale buried in or on the outside. Huge pits and groves
remain where larger vehicles have passed on rainier days. The
surrounding fields are lined with brush. Though there is nothing
blocking the view for miles, there are no signs of a distant town
in any direction. Jacob’s car seems to glide over the top of the
road, not reacting to the grooves or pits. Up ahead, he sees a
house. He knows this is where he needs to go, because it is the
only place around.

He stops at the front of the driveway
and gets out of the car. The roof of the house looks flimsy and the
outside is stained with an eternity of dust. The place would seem
unlivable if not for the old man and the big black dog on the front
porch. Jacob approaches them.

“Hello.”

Neither the man nor the dog
responds.

“Just checking.”

Jacob steps on the porch and sits
beside them. The old man sits in a rocking chair. His tan face is
wrinkled, and in those wrinkles is some kind of white powder. When
he rocks back, the splintered porch floor creaks. When he rocks
forward, the chair creaks. In one hand is a half-empty bottle of
Jim Beam. With the other hand he strokes the matted fur of the
sleeping black dog.

The old man’s eyes move toward a
rather large piece of brush near the edge of the front yard. Jacob
follows his stare and sees the fat rattle snake come slithering out
of that brush. It stops and stretches out in the sun.

“Petie!” the old man shouts through a
blocked throat. “Get on out here! Grandpa wants you to see Sam play
with the snake.”

The black dog’s ears prop up, and it
comes to life. The old man spills some of the whiskey as he wraps
his arms around the dog.

“Easy old girl. It won’t get too
far.”

The dog whines as it’s restrained. It
darts out a little, pulling the old man’s rocker forward, causing
him to spill even more whiskey.

“Damn it, Sam. I told you to hold your
horses. I want Petie to see the show.”

The dog obediently kneels down, her
eyes never leaving the green creature a few feet away from
them.

“Now Petie, you hurry yourself on up.
Grandpa can’t hold her much longer.”

There is a shuffling from inside the
old house. Out the front door comes a boy, maybe ten years old,
dressed only in pee-stained underwear and an old pair of sneakers.
Under a thin layer of dirt is the boy’s sunburned skin. He is
chubby and his boobs sag. On his face is the dull expression of a
mentally retarded person.

Jacob realizes immediately who this
boy is. It’s Pete Stebens, the one blamed for stringing his friend
from a ceiling fan.

“Grandpa, when’s my mom coming to get
me?”

“Never mind that right now. Just look
out there in the front yard.”

Pete looks around for a little while.
Then he fixes his stare straight ahead, toward the road.

“No, Petie. Over there.” The old man
holds out his hand with the bottle of whiskey still in it. Pete
slowly moves his gaze around until he finally finds what his
grandpa is pointing at. Then his eyes grow.