Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (9 page)

Jonah got out of his car
and walked to his apartment. He stopped outside the door. This
would have to go by Tate. Even if Jonah didn’t bring it up, Tate
would find it, and, in many ways, Tate was like a second
conscience.

Yeah, Tate’s in your head.
He’s half of that voice that asks why the fuck you do the things
you do.

It would have to go by
Tate, and if Jonah waited until next Friday, or even until
tomorrow, obsessing about it would freeze him up, making him
useless. It couldn’t wait. He went to Tate’s door and knocked. It
took about a minute for Tate to come to the door. He was wearing a
pair of pajama pants and a white undershirt. At first glance, Jonah
thought Tate might have been sleeping. But then, as he focused in
on Tate’s face, he realized that Tate wasn’t even tired. Tate was
just relaxed.

“Come on in,” Tate said, as
if he had been expecting Jonah.

Jonah moved to the couch,
then watched as Tate came over. Tate’s movements were slow but
fluid. The look on his face and his breath were as if he were
savoring something. Tate sat down.

Before he had come inside,
in his mind, Jonah had heard Tate asking what Jonah was doing here
on a Saturday. Tate would have had to have noticed the
inconsistency, nothing getting past him. But Tate didn’t ask.
Instead, he said, “How’d lunch with David go?”

Jonah had been taught in
his psychological training that mental states could be infectious.
In groups, rage could spread fast, quickly becoming a riot. In a
clinical situation, emotional chaos could be soothed by the
therapist’s calm demeanor. But now, Tate’s calm was not infecting
Jonah. It actually made him more anxious. Tate could change mental
states on the drop of a hat, and Jonah expected any time for Tate
to open up on him.

“All right,” Jonah said in
a delayed response to Tate’s question.

For the next two minutes,
neither of them spoke, and, in that time, Jonah’s mind went back to
the dilemma he had been focused on in the car. How could he not
take advantage of the opportunity? Sure, it would make him out on
his own, no boss to help him when things got ugly, no boss to make
decisions for him and to take the blame when things got ugly, but
he could handle it. He was smart, wasn’t he? He was resourceful,
wasn’t he? But the SSI job would be so comfortable. He wouldn’t be
rich, but he’d be better off than most people, and the government
was footing the bill. If the building burnt down, Uncle Sam had it.
If he were sued, it wouldn’t matter, because he would be a part of
city hall, and as the saying went, you couldn’t fight that. It was
comfortable. If something happened to him physically and he could
no longer work, then he would have benefits. Sick pay. Vacations.
Somebody else’s property. No direct client contact. No one to pay.
He’d never be as challenged as he could be. But he’d be
comfortable.

Out of nowhere, Tate said,
“So what if you lose?”

“What?” Jonah asked, flying from his
thoughts.

Calmly, Tate said, “For a
minute, stop thinking about how you could lose if you take
advantage of this opportunity, and ask yourself, ‘What if I
lose?’”

At first, Jonah couldn’t do
it. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the question, but he
couldn’t do it. Then, little by little, it changed.

What if I lose?

What if it didn’t work out?
What if owning his own business overwhelmed him? What if he
couldn’t take care of the odds and ends? Then what?

Jonah opened his eyes.

His hands in a downward
motion, his voice soft, Tate said, “Close your eyes, and stay with
it. What if you lose?”

Jonah
shut his eyes.
What if I lose?
If his private practice, his business, failed,
where did that leave him? It left him without a business, but it
didn’t leave him without a Ph.D. He would still be able to get a
good job somewhere. Maybe he would still be able to get the SSI
job.

Suddenly, Jonah wasn’t so
anxious. He opened his eyes, planning to tell Tate this. But, just
as he had done before, Tate sent Jonah back inside his
head.

What if
I lose?
What if some client sued him and
won? Well, he had insurance. But losing a lawsuit would cost him
more in reputation than anything. There go the SSI clients. There
go any referrals from the area. But if his reputation did go out
the window, was he stuck here? No, he could pack his things and get
the hell out of the Dodge that was Stanton.

Jonah opened his eyes, and
Tate sent him back inside his head, and it went on that way for a
while, until Jonah’s anxiety was gone.

Jonah said, “If I lose, I will survive
anyway.”

Tate’s expression was still
calm, but he was smiling. He said, “You, brother, just made your
mind think what you wanted it to. You controlled it, instead of it
controlling you.”

Jonah nodded. He had never
liked Tate as much as he did in that moment.

“So what did David offer
you?” Tate asked.

Jonah laughed in response
to the question. “I had assumed you knew.”

“I’m not psychic, brother.”

Are you
sure?
Jonah thought. Then he said, “He gave
me the Stanton office.”

Tate didn’t say, “I told
you so,” nor did he inquire into David’s reasoning, both things
Jonah would have predicted he would do. Tate just nodded, then
said, “Don’t let what your mind gives you cause you to fuck
yourself. You know what you have to do. Now get out of my
house.”

Jonah got up, nodding his
goodbye, and walked out. He felt a sense of invigoration as he
stepped outside. Maybe he could use what Tate had just taught him
in other aspects of his life. Maybe, in ways, he could get
better.

Yes, Jonah felt good.

But then something scared the hell out
of him.

The loud noise caused him
to jolt, right there on Tate’s porch. Jonah looked and saw the
orange-stripped cat a few feet in front of him, its back arched and
its teeth bared. It stayed like that for a few seconds, as if any
movement by Jonah and it would attack. Then it slowly backed up a
few steps, before running away.

His heart beating a million
miles a second, the pleasant feeling he’d had a million miles away,
Jonah reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his
cigarettes.

Chapter
Four

The routine of Jonah’s
misery had changed since he took over the Stanton office. SSI had
given him an extra day, so now he was scheduled for about 48 hours
of assessment a week. With no shows and cancellations, that was
usually about forty hours split between four days. So now he spent
Monday through Thursday with SSI clients and Friday through Sunday
obsessing over reports. He was making a ton of money, and he was
utterly miserable. His routine with Tate had changed too. Now they
got stoned on Saturday nights, if, with Jonah’s hectic life, they
got stoned at all, and now, after his last client Thursday night,
he and Tate met at Denny’s for a quick dinner. This was Jonah’s
routine for a while. Then, on a Thursday night in early May, Tate
made the recommendation that would set off a chain of events that
would change Jonah’s routine drastically. Inhumanly.

#

Jonah hated that they
couldn’t just sit in the smoking section. That would have saved him
the trouble of leaving every time he needed to smoke. But Tate
refused to eat in the stench of tobacco and secondhand smoke. So
tonight, Jonah ordered his food and went outside. A few minutes
later, he came back to a smiling Tate. Jonah wasn’t in the mood for
games. Aside from when they got high, he rarely got anywhere close
to that mood anymore. He was engulfed by his work, and that made
him resentful, as though it was everyone else’s fault.

But Tate didn’t seem too
concerned about whether Jonah wanted to play or not. He said,
“Working your ass off, hey bro?”

“Yep,” Jonah said, just
wanting his food to get there so he could eat and go home. There
were reports to call in tomorrow, and maybe if he got started early
and skipped the pot on Saturday, he’d have a little time to veg
Sunday night.

“It’s going to be getting
warmer soon, bro. You ought to try and take a little time off so
you can enjoy it.”

Jonah smirked. “I could
take a vacation, a week, maybe two. Then what? I’ll still have to
come back and be miserable again.”

Tate shrugged.

Jonah continued, venting.
“I’d have SSI cut back the cases they send, if I thought it would
do any good.”

“Nah,” Tate said. “You’d
still do the same thing. Instead of obsessing over forty cases,
you’d spend a little extra time obsessing over the remaining twenty
or thirty.”

“You’re right,” Jonah said,
almost vindictively. “Hell, it wouldn’t be so bad, if I didn’t have
so much time between the time I saw each client and the time I
called the reports in. I call in Monday’s reports on Friday,
Tuesday’s on Saturday, then rush like a mad man to finish up on
Sunday.”

Speaking rapidly, Tate
said, “And having to remember would be hard for anybody, especially
after seeing that caseload. Then, on top of that, the time lag
increases the chances that you could make a mistake, which pulls on
your obsessive nature.”

Jonah hated it when Tate
referred to his obsessive nature. But Tate was right, so Jonah
nodded his agreement.

“So take out the time lag,”
Tate said, as if it were as simple as flipping a switch.

Jonah laughed with
exasperation, but lightly, because he was so tired. “And how do you
propose I do that?”

Again, Tate spoke as if
what he proposed was simple. “Get some of the reports done at work.
David did, didn’t he? So why can’t you?”

Jonah didn’t answer. He
didn’t answer because he and Tate both knew the answer already.
There was usually time between clients, and, with a client fresh on
his mind, Jonah was sure he could read in the report in half the
time it usually took him. But he needed that time between each
client.

“How much you smoking now,
bro?” Tate asked.

Jonah shrugged, pretending
he didn’t know. “A little more than I used to.”

Tate smiled, arrogantly.
“Going through a couple of cartons a week, huh?”

Tate was not far off. Jonah
had pretty much doubled up in about all of his smoking slots. It
was now two after each meal, two after each client, two after
calling in each report. “Forget it, Tate,” Jonah said. “I’m not
quitting.”

Tate shrugged, as if
indifferent. He threw his hands to the side and held them there for
a few seconds. “All right, bro,” he said, then put his hands down.
He was quiet for a little while. Then, in a low but highly
accelerated voice, he said, “I’d just quit myself. That way I could
call in my reports as soon as I finished them, so I’d be able to
have a life outside of work, but what the fuck do I
know.”

“Fuck you,” Jonah said,
which brought up Tate’s intense glare. Jonah just looked away and
again said, “Fuck you.”

About a minute later, Jonah
said, “I think I will cut back, though. On the assessments, I mean.
I won’t make as much money, but it will buy me some free time.
Money’s not everything.”

Jonah wished he could take
the last statement back. So trite. So obvious in its purpose. The
kind of statement that made Tate lick his chops.

In a cloying voice, Tate
said, “Money’s not everything. That’s a very good rationalization.”
He did his wicked, high-pitched laugh. “Smoking, on the other hand,
is everything. You could have them both, the money and the free
time to spend it. But you’re right, bro. Who needs that, when
smoking is such a pleasure?”

Jonah thought Tate was
probably doing two things at once: He was helping his friend, and
he was getting a payoff. He was helping Jonah by trying to convince
him to strive for all he could get, not settle for what his
limitations offered. But Tate wasn’t just coming right out and
saying this. No, he was mocking Jonah. He was messing with Jonah.
He was playing a game, and playing the game was Tate’s
payoff.

“How long have you smoked,
bro?” Tate asked.

Jonah’s mind flashed back
to a night with one of his mother’s men. Clarkson was his name.
Jonah had tried cigarettes before he met Clarkson. But with their
harshness on his virgin throat, they hadn’t taken. But Clarkson had
taught him how to get past that initial harshness. All you had to
do was take a few shots of whiskey to numb your throat. After a few
trials, Jonah hadn’t needed the whiskey anymore. Yeah, thanks to
Clarkson’s assistance, Jonah was slowly killing himself.

“Since I was fourteen,”
Jonah told Tate.

“Wow!” Tate said. “Have you
quit since that time?”

Jonah laughed. “For like a
day, on a few different occasions.”

Tate smiled, pleasantly,
and not fake either. He said, “So think about this, bro. You’ve
smoked over half your life.”

“So?”