In the parking lot, Jonah found his car. He wanted away from here, and he wanted away from here quickly. He would just go home and stay there. He could sort out the details of what was going on there.
Jonah was in his car, about a half-mile down the road, when he thought he saw something. But it could have just been his imagination. Maybe he didn’t see a wolf standing at the side of the road.
#
Again, it was the road, the clinic and then being ripped alive. Then Jonah awoke to the sound of scratching. He was shaken from the dream and frightened by what had woken him, but he didn’t bother getting up to check it out. He went back to sleep.
Again, it was the road, the clinic and being ripped alive. This time, when Jonah awoke to the scratching, he thought he could localize it a little better. It wasn’t coming from in the room, or from just outside the room, and that made him feel a little better. He started to go back to sleep again. But the next time he heard the sound, it wasn’t bringing him out of sleep. No, he had not had time to go back to sleep yet. The scratching was coming from the front of the apartment. It lasted a few seconds and then went away.
Jonah hoped it would not come back, and he felt that it was less likely to if he stayed awake. That was what it wanted, wasn’t it? It, whatever the hell it was, just wanted him to stay awake.
Jonah lay there for a little while, and the scratching did not return. Then he began to doze off, and there it was. He got out of bed. He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. It seemed like fair enough of a deal. Stay awake, and I’ll leave you alone.
Next, Jonah went into the kitchen and started coffee brewing. It was 3AM now, and Jonah’s body was protesting, his stomach sour, and his head extra foggy, but Jonah was going to stay awake. Staying awake kept the noise away.
With the coffee brewing, Jonah went to the living room and turned on the television. There was an Adam Sandler movie on HBO. That would do just fine. He’d laugh and forget about the noise. He’d forget about the dreams, about being ripped apart. Maybe whatever made the noise is what’s going to rip you apart.
Jonah’s initial reaction was to push the thought out of his mind, but he knew better than to try such a thing. You didn’t push an unwanted thought away. You let it flow without resistance. Then, it would go away on its own, just pass through. So Jonah tried this. He allowed the thought to be. He allowed his fear to be. Maybe he was destined to drive down some road. Maybe he was going to fuck a few different women in his clinic. Maybe he was going to be ripped apart.
The fear rose in Jonah for a little while. But then, after having these thoughts, not trying to deny them, not trying to deal with them, just having them, the fear naturally began to dwindle, and he became more interested in the movie. He actually laughed a couple of times.
Then there was the scratching, and it was right at the front door.
Fear came back. Jonah was frozen.
Please, just go away.
Again, there was the scratching.
Jonah wondered if what was at the door was here to punish him. He remembered the cats from the night before. Last night, they had been a threat. They had been a warning for him not to do what he went ahead and did anyway, and now he would be punished. Regardless of the dancer’s reaction, Jonah had forced her, and now he was going to be punished.
The scratching sounded again, and Jonah got quietly off the couch. He started to creep back to his bedroom, then heard it again. But this time, another noise followed. A desperate whine.
Jonah froze, standing in the hall. He waited there, confused and afraid, but also curious. What was at the door hadn’t sounded threatening.
The scratching sounded again. Whatever was at his door was persistent. Jonah still just stood in the hallway. He didn’t know what to do. Would it go away if he kept ignoring it? Or would it continue to beckon him all night?
A minute passed without the noise coming back. Jonah continued to wait, but then a couple of more minutes passed. Jonah finally felt safe enough to check it out further. He crept slowly toward the front door. He was halfway there, when he thought he heard something. It wasn’t the scratching sound, though, and it wasn’t the whine. It was the sound of whatever was out there moving away. Jonah gave it plenty of time to clear out.
With baby steps, Jonah moved the rest of the way to the door. He looked through the peephole and made out a part of his small porch, the sidewalk and the parking lot beyond. He could see a couple of the cars in that lot, but nothing else.
Jonah unbolted the door, then he unlocked it. He opened the door just enough to peep outside. That was enough for Jonah to see what had been delivered to him.
Jonah opened the wooden door the rest of the way, then inspected the screen. He had left its storm window up. Whatever had been out there had torn off the wire mesh that had been left. There were several slight scratches on the wooden door. But what interested Jonah the most was the piece of clothing between the screen and wooden doors. He picked it up and looked closer at it. He recognized it immediately as the dancer’s teddy.
#
The morning came, and Jonah still had the dancer’s teddy. It was in his bedroom on his dresser. He had not felt so much like he had fallen asleep after finding the teddy, so much as sleep just came and got him. He had dreamt all night. Over and over, he had been in his office, having sex with some woman. But he could never see her face. He knew by the feel of her body and the feel of being inside her that the woman changed into a different woman each time he had the dream. But each time, when he went to look at the face, it and the surrounding room would blur out. The scene would then seem to be shifting into some new place, and he seemed to be becoming some other person, only to switch back to his office, his body, and some new woman without a face.
When Jonah finally awoke, it was like he was being let out of sleep, released by a captor in his brain.
He questioned the teddy. Why was it here? Who or what had brought it to him? It was stained with blood, so should he call the police? Was it possible that he was a killer? Had he gone mad, and this was just his mind’s crazy representation of his wicked deed? Had he killed her, then set the whole scene up for himself?
Jonah found the answers. At least, he thought he found the answers, when he turned on the television. It was just a news flash, but it was enough.
They would not release the identity of the victim as of yet, but they did show a picture of the club, Mama’s Place. Otherwise, the reporter said a young dancer had been attacked and killed by a wolf as she left the club around 2:30AM that morning.
Jonah turned off the television. He felt a sense of relief, because he now knew he had not killed the woman. Then there was confusion. Jonah had no idea what was going on. Then, finally, after it sat with him for a few minutes, the strangest feeling of all occurred. Jonah liked it.
#
To hell with the dead girl. He was alive, and he would live. He would take.
He’d had slight concerns during the course of Sunday. He’d struggled a little with the guilt of what he knew he had done and the things he hadn’t done but thought he might be otherwise responsible for. But, for the most part, these feelings were overwhelmed by his urge. Take.
It was a little after four when Jonah got back in his car. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. So he just drove around aimlessly for a while. Then he wanted food. It wasn’t so much that he was hungry, though. He just wanted to eat, to destroy the substance of flesh.
Jonah stopped at Northern Steakhouse, there in Stanton. But he didn’t get out of his car, because he knew they would not give it to him like he wanted it.
Jonah drove to the grocery store. Inside were many people. But he didn’t look directly at them. They were all below him, incapable of knowing what he could know, unable to do what he could do. The many faces could offer nothing for him. What he wanted, he would take.
Jonah wasted no time. He went directly to the meat. He grabbed two packages of steak at random. The quality d
idn’t matter. It need only be flesh. He went to checkout.
He had to wait in line, which seemed wrong to him. Why should he, with all he was, have to wait for these insignificant bodies? After about three minutes of waiting, it was finally his turn. Jonah sat his two packages on the conveyer belt.
“How are you today?” a female voice said from behind the counter.
Jonah did not respond.
“Don’t feel like talking, huh,” the girl said as she scanned his items.
Jonah glared at her. She was familiar. He didn’t care. “Must you speak?” he asked in a loud voice.
The girl’s face looked angry at first. But then, in a matter of two seconds of looking into Jonah’s eyes, she was afraid.
“Now, there’s no need to be rude,” a male voice said.
Jonah turned toward that voice and saw the next customer in line, a big, middle-aged male.
“And there’s no need to be stupid, either,” Jonah said. “But that doesn’t seem to stop you.”
The man pivoted his hips back. He looked as if he might strike. But then, staring at Jonah’s face, the man wilted, stepping backward. “I don’t want any trouble,” the man said.
Jonah turned away from him and handed the girl his debit card. Nobody said another word to him inside the store.
Jonah, his steaks in a bag under his arm, walked toward his car. But he did not intend to leave. He wanted to wait for the man to come out. But Jonah got in his car anyway. As much as tearing into the man, making him cry and beg, appealed to Jonah, there was another urge that appealed to him more. He had an idea.
He found the number on his cell phone and hit the send key. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello,” Steph said.
“Hello, Steph. It’s Jonah.”
“Oh. Hi boss. Is everything okay?”
“Things could not be better, my dear.”
Steph laughed, kind of coyly.
“I want you to have dinner with me tonight,” Jonah blurted out. “Can you come to my place?”
After a few seconds, Steph said, “Well, sure. When do you want me to come over?”
“As soon as you can.”
“All right,” Steph said, surprise in her tone, but no apparent hesitancy. “I just need to get cleaned up a bit. I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“Good,” Jonah said, then hung up.
#
Ripping through the meat. Feeling its nearly raw texture, so natural. Tasting the blood. Wishing he had not cooked it at all.
Jonah had timed it so that the steak would be done about the time Steph got there. But then, as soon as it began to sizzle, the brutality of it, the flesh burning, got to him. He liked it. But it only increased the craving. He wanted to taste it raw, to taste the blood, to taste it as close as he could to tasting it while it was still alive, as if he were taking its life himself as he took the flesh in his body.
Jonah was finishing the last of the four rare steaks, when he heard Steph knock on the door. Standing in the kitchen, right above the pan on the stove, where he’d eaten the meat from, a box of pasta mix still sitting off on the counter, Jonah smiled. His hands still sticky, the taste of blood still in his mouth, Jonah went to answer the door.
Steph wore a pair of white shorts and a red T-shirt, as casual as Jonah had ever seen her. She didn’t say anything while she stood in the doorway. She just looked at him with an amused expression. Jonah was a little confused, but mostly indifferent to her amusement. She need only come in the door at this point. No, not even that. He would force her in, if necessary.
Steph brushed her chin with a finger, and Jonah got the hint. He touched his goatee, which was wet with the blood from the steak. Jonah didn’t bother to clean it, though. He moved out of the way, and Steph kind of strolled in, the amused look on her face all the while. Jonah shut the door, then walked right up to where she stood in the middle of the living room.
“It looks like you already had dinner,” Steph said.
Jonah didn’t care about her comment. He took her head between his hands. He pulled her face to his. She offered no resistance. Jonah kissed her hard, their teeth actually gnashing together. Steph moaned. Jonah couldn’t tell whether it was because of the pain or because of her arousal. But, either way, he didn’t care too much, and Steph still offered no resistance.
Jonah reached inside her arms, behind her back, and down her body. He groped the back of her thighs and her ass even harder than he was kissing her. He lifted her about a foot into the air, raising her shorts up her ass, feeling the bare skin underneath, firm but smooth. He sat her back down on the floor, and in one swoop, took down both her shorts and her panties.
She made a soft but high-pitched sound, which Jonah all but ignored. He dropped to his knees, running his fingernails down her thighs as he went. She squealed, this time in obvious pain, but, again, he did not care. On his knees, with his face a few inches from her little bush, Jonah spread her legs out, and Steph stepped the rest of the way out of her shorts and panties. First, Jonah caressed the soft hair as she squirmed a little. Then he placed two fingers between her legs to pull the lips up. Jonah licked those lips and her clit, softly, several times.
“Oh yes!” Steph said out loud, as if she had been anticipating this. She was a whore, and Jonah liked that.
What he tasted was salty, but good, even better than the rare steak, but it was not enough. It was not enough because he knew he could have more. Jonah put his entire head between her legs and stuck his tongue way up inside her. He licked her and sucked her hard, Steph squirming, moaning, and begging him for more the whole time. After less than a minute, she had an orgasm.
Not sick of tasting way up inside her, but anticipating fucking her, Jonah came up. He lifted Steph off the floor again, but this time placed her on the couch.
Jonah began to undress, and Steph removed her shirt and bra. Both of them naked, Jonah standing above her, Steph asked, “Do you have protection?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Jonah said as he got on top of her.
“Jonah, I’m . . .”
Jonah shoved himself into her, and Steph shut up. She didn’t speak again, until Jonah started to move faster. Then she began to yell.
“Yes, Jonah! Fuck me! Oh my God! Fuck me hard! Give it to me!”
When Jonah’s breath picked up, Steph seemed to cue into that he was about to climax. She started to pull away. All of the sudden, Jonah knew he couldn’t let her do that. He held himself in and came way up inside her.
#
Though Jonah had been surprised about how receptive Steph had been to his sexual advances and then to his aggressive sex, he thought he understood it. Steph was his office manager, so she knew how much money he made, and if she were indeed the evolutionarily designed gold digger he suspected, then she would pretty much do whatever he wanted in the early stages of her plan. Of course, by evolutionary theory, Steph’s looseness for him was not necessarily consciously designed. No, her need to secure a powerful male—in modern times, economically proficient male—had been programmed by years of evolution, which was pressed into the unconscious mind. At the surface, she might have just found herself extremely attracted to Jonah.
Either way, conscious or unconscious, and even though Jonah found such motivations hard to respect, he had Steph stay the night. It wasn’t that he wanted anything else from Steph. In fact, after having sex with her once, he didn’t feel any kind of attraction to her. But the wickedness had taken a hiatus. Jonah no longer felt like taking, and the thoughts of possible ramifications stood out in his head. He remembered that the last girl he had sex with was now dead. He doubted they would ever trace the dancer to him. But Steph, of course, was his office manager.
Glad Steph would be there where he could watch her, but remembering the weirdness of the last few nights, Jonah thought of a plan. He got out a fan he’d brought from South Carolina but had had little use for in northern Michigan, where summer nights were generally pretty cool. H
e didn’t point it at he and Steph, but put it close to them, and turned it on full blast. He told her that it was to drown out the noises that some of his neighbors made at night. Steph didn’t question it.
Jonah then shut and locked the bedroom door. Around 10PM, he lay in bed with Steph. She rubbed him up and down his upper torso. Jonah didn’t respond, other then wrapping his arms around her. Eventually, Steph fell asleep on his chest. Then Jonah slept too.
#
How many times has he done this? Why is he doing it again? It’s the same thing, the road, the clinic, eaten alive, every time. He passes the gas station, the houses, and the church. Up ahead is the tower. It’s a water tower. The writing on the tower is scrambled. But then letters disappear until there are only two words. Jonah turns onto the next road. The street sign says Main Street. It blurs out and changes into something else. Jonah wakes up, because something is on him.
#
Jonah felt down his stomach until he touched the bug. It was narrow but maybe three inches long. He found three more similar bugs on him. All were dead.
Would they have gone for Steph? Yes. Whatever had brought the bugs had wanted Jonah awake. If Steph would have woken up screaming, he would have woken up from his dream. In the pitch black room, Jonah could only make out the silhouette of Steph’s body beside him. He remembered she had worn one of his T-shirts and her panties to bed.
With four dead bugs grasped in his left hand, Jonah felt for Steph with his right. She was sleeping with her back turned to him. Luckily, she was above the covers. As carefully as he could, he rubbed his hand over her, using the warmth from her skin to tell that he was very close but not quite touching her. Steph’s breathing changed a few times, and Jonah paused, but otherwise she did not move. As far as he could tell, she had no bugs from the shoulders down. He checked her neck and found the same thing. Then he checked her hair, actually touching it, but very gently. Finally, Jonah reached around to check her face. That’s where he found it. Jonah pulled the four-inch bug from Steph’s cheek.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 12
