Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner (91 page)

“That’s another E. Line. End
Line.”

Her hand moved a little further down
the page. This time she was near the bottom. Jacob could tell she
was beginning to tighten up more. He tried to be quick.

“D.”

She moved on and drew a
circle.

“O.”

The next attempt was a failure. Oletta
eventually gave up and started over. Jacob looked up at the clock
and saw that they had been at this for nearly half an hour.
Finally, Oletta produced yet another N. Then she drew a little line
to the side.

“That’s an N and an apostrophe. Don’t.
If the word is don’t, just go on.”

Oletta moved her hand down right off
the page.

“Just a second, Grandma. Jacob flipped
to the next page. Then he moved her hand back up. It was nearly a
minute later that she started writing again. It was another five
minutes to get the M. Then it took ten more to make the
A.

There was a knock at the door. Jacob
hid the notepad and crayon, then stuck around while a nurse gave
his grandma a cup of pills. The break seemed to do her some good.
She was able to make out the tricky K in less than five
minutes.

“That’s a K. You’re writing make. If
you are, go on to the next word.”

Oletta’s hand went down the page. She
made a few last strokes all over the place and then dropped the
crayon. Jacob looked up and saw that her eyes were
closed.

“Grandma?”

There was another knock at the door.
This time it was Lacy. She was carrying three pans stacked together
and several towels.

“Hi. Here to clean her up.”

“Can it wait?”

“I guess. Why? Is she not asleep
yet?”

“Yeah, she just fell
asleep.”

“Oh. You know she’s going to be that
way for a few hours?”

“Why?”

“Because she just had her pain meds.
She always gets them a little while before her bath. That way she
can sleep through it, and it doesn’t hurt her when I move her
around.”

Jacob looked back at his grandma. He
felt just a little guilty for making her exert herself. But he
still wanted to know what her message meant. “All right, just let
me say goodbye, and she’s all yours.”

“You got it.”

Lacy shut the door. Jacob walked over
to his grandma. He took the crayon and put it back in the drawer.
He took the two notepad pages.

“End line. Don’t make. Don’t make
what?” He shoved the two pages in his pocket. His kissed her
forehead. “Call me when you wake up, grandma.”

He walked out, never to come back
again.

#

Jacob waited the day out at the shale
pit. It wasn’t such a special place to him anymore, now that it was
just a place that he had done his work. But it was a place of
solitude. It was a place to wait. And he stayed there, sweating in
the hot sun with little shade, knowing that it was just a matter of
time before it all came to an end. He expected the ringing to start
at anytime, but he didn’t let it upset him when it didn’t. He
expected the man in white, but he didn’t let that bother him
either. Instead, he just waited. There was nothing else to do. It
wasn’t until after the sun went down and night came that he got
into his car.

Jacob pulled out of the pit, thinking
of only where he would go next to wait. Sonnie’s apartment was out
of the question. At least, not until he was sure that he wouldn’t
hurt her. His parents’ house seemed like a good idea, but he didn’t
want to put them in danger either. He wasn’t sure what he was
capable of. Visions of waking up and finding them slain hit him. He
decided to find a hotel.

The 81 Inn was on the highway just
outside of Nescata. Jacob didn’t think he knew the owners, and he
knew that there was parking in the back. It was a temporary
solution, but by what his grandma had said, and by the way he felt,
temporary seemed like enough. It would have to be. And if it
wasn’t, he would make one last trip to the pit. But this time he
would not pull the gun away. He refused to go on
killing.

Jacob laughed as he turned onto the
blacktop. “Who are you kidding? You’ll do as you’re
told.”

He had drove into town on many nights.
This far out in the country, all he could usually see was whatever
came into his headlights. But on this night there was something in
the distance. Light was coming over the horizon.

Jacob drove the first couple of miles,
only watching the light. It crept in and out of itself, like it was
beckoning him. And then the sounds arose. It was very much like it
was in the cave. There was a man’s voice coming through speakers
and the occasional ruffling sound of people cheering in the
distance. But added to that were the drums, beating a rhythm that
excited him, like a warrior being called into battle.

These things grew all the way up until
Jacob hit the outskirts of Nescata. Then all but the light
disappeared. Jacob stopped outside the gate. He looked over the
vacant parking lot, the well-lit but dormant field, and the empty
bleachers. Then he floated through the roof of his car.

#

Jacob lands in the middle of the
football field where he once played. There are a few moments where
things around him grow and sounds arise out of nowhere. Soon, it
has all changed. It’s still a football field, but not the same one.
The stands are much larger. People are in them, but they are not
nearly filled to capacity. The turf is artificial instead of grass.
Down the field, players from two teams are huddled up. On the
sidelines, there are coaches and more players.

Jacob realizes that he’s on the field
the Oklahoma Sooners play on. That same field plays host to the
high school state championships every year. It’s all reminiscent of
when Jacob played in that game, but it’s different too. It’s not
his team. The Nescata Pride is one of the teams on the field, but
even from the distance, he can easily tell that it’s not his
teammates. And the coaches on the sideline are not his
coaches.

With this recognition, Jacob is taken
up again. He is lifted into the stands, over the people and then
over the empty seats. He is taken all the way up to the press box.
Then, he is taken inside, where he stays.

In front of him are two men with
microphones attached to their heads. They sit in front of small
television monitors. Jacob watches those monitors as he listens to
the two men call the game.

“The pass is complete. First down,
Nescata Pride.”

“Wow! What a pass! The quarterback was
flushed out of the pocket. He looked like he would be sacked for
sure. But he got that pass off somehow.”

“Yeah Dave, what a play! This kid’s
got talent. You know there are number of scouts looking at him
tonight.”

“And what an amazing story, Barry.
This young man lost his father to a heart attack almost a year
ago.”

“An amazing story, indeed. His coach
says he’s the hardest working player on the team.”

“And he credits all that to his late
father, Larry Confad Senior.”

Jacob watches the next play on the
monitor. Larry Confad’s son takes the ball from center and hands it
to the fullback who is tackled after a couple of yards. Jacob talks
out loud to nobody.

“No, you didn’t have a dad. He died of
a heart attack many years before you were thought of. I killed him
before he could make you.”

The players on the field huddle up.
Jacob looks at the men in front of him. He reads the back of one of
their shirts.

“KXWY. They announced our
game.”

Jacob walks forward and looks at the
faces of the radio announcers. One is familiar. It’s the same man
Jacob had talked to after the game, but he’s much older
now.

“All right. Second down and eight.
Working out of the I formation. Confad takes the snap from center.
He fakes to the upback. He’s looking downfield. Got a man open! He
lets it go! And it’s caught at the ten-yard line and taken in for a
touchdown!”

Jacob watches the crowd below. People
are jumping in their seats. The band begins to play the same fight
song they used to play when Jacob was on the team.

“I got to tell you Dave, Stan Wayne
has really turned this Pride team around. Who would have thought
four years ago, when Nescata suffered through its second straight
winless season, that they would be here in the state championship
game four years later?”

Most of the monitors stay on the
field, all showing the same pictures. But there is one that flashes
off. Jacob turns to it, knowing that he’s the only one that sees it
change. When it blinks back on, there is a close up of a person he
knows never made it to the age of twenty-two. But now Stan Wayne is
standing on the sideline. He’s wearing a big blue coat with a huge
“N” on one side and “Head Coach” written on the other. His face is
covered with a mixture of gray and black stubble. Underneath that
stubble is an aged face.

“You’re right Barry, it reminds me of
the Pride team years ago, when Coach Brian Shaw led them to
glory.”

“And you have to give credit where
credit’s due. How about the decision of Superintendent, Gary Mann,
to hire his old teammate for the job?”

Now the monitor that only Jacob can
see goes in for a close up of another older man. Gary stands alone.
On his face is the stern look Jacob remembers from when Gary led
them to the championship. It almost makes Jacob forget the way Gary
looked the last time he saw him, right before Shane Tantenmore
beheaded him.

Jacob listens to the commentators for
just a few seconds longer as it all begins to fade away.

“
Boy, Barry. I never
thought I’d see the day they would be this dominant
again.”

“Yeah, but they’re here.”

“
You’re right. It’s like
the old Nescata all over again.”

#

When Jacob comes to, he has his usual
disorientation. Then he remembers that he traveled into Nescata.
But the sounds of the crickets and the feel of a cool breeze
touching his sweaty skin tell him he’s outside. When he opens his
eyes, he sees the stars and knows that he is flat on his back.
After he looks around and sees the shadows of trees and the dark
hill behind him, he realizes that he has not left the shale
pit.

Jacob feels the excitement rise in
him. Wicked thoughts flash through his mind. Suddenly, he does want
to go home. He does want to kill his family. Then he will go to
town and wait in the apartment for Sonnie.

When she comes up, I’ll be
waiting. Then I’ll . . .

There is a sudden jolt of pain, like
there is something moving inside of him. It’s like a rock that has
formed inside and stretched out to cover his whole body. Jacob
becomes blind.

He tries to scream, but his voice is
gone. The feeling inside him expands. Then it suddenly stops
hurting and begins to draw back into itself. As the feeling
condenses, Jacob begins to sense what it is. It’s the rage, the
thing that made him want to burn Sonnie, the same thing that made
him like watching the blood spill from the helpless girl who fell
from the building. It condenses all the way into the pit of his
stomach, and there it burns. Then it nauseates him.

The burn and nausea disappear into
nothingness. Jacob is left with just a presence. That presence
moves into the air and takes him with it.

Jacob rises into the sky. This time,
he has no fear. He just moves higher and higher, half knowing what
to expect. Soon, he hits the wall and feels himself being separated
from what is with him. Vision comes and Jacob can see the dark
earth below. In that darkness he spots the shadow of his own
figure.

Jacob is turned upside down in the
sky, as the last of the other presence is stripped from him. With
one last painful jolt, it’s gone and he is tumbling through the
air.

Chapter 14

Though he wanted to, Jacob did not
leave the shale pit immediately. Not believing that he felt the way
he felt, he sat and waited to see what would come up in him.
Nothing did. At least, nothing that felt inhuman did. He felt pain
again. And it wasn’t in the background. It was now a part of
him.

There was no anticipation, and there
was no wickedness. Nor was there the tension that he’d had for so
long. After several hours of waiting, Jacob became more confident,
but he still wasn’t sure. He still had one more test. He got in his
car and drove.

By the time he got to town, the bar
was closed. He pulled up into the lot, wondering if he would be
locked out. Sonnie had looked so afraid the last time he saw her.
He wondered how she had made it this far.

But still, Jacob checked the door
downstairs and found it open. Then he checked the door to her
apartment and found the same thing. He found Sonnie in her room,
asleep on the bed.

Jacob crawled in with her as quietly
as he could. Still, she stirred and awoke.

“Jacob? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”