#
Around 3:50 PM, Jonah sat behind his desk in his office. He was disappointed and confused, but still intrigued. His three o’clock had been a cancellation, leaving him with time to research. He had used the computer in Steph’s office to search the Internet.
Perryton was a town of about 24,000 in western Oklahoma. He had searched the white pages and found one listing for Singer. An old woman had answered the phone and denied that she even knew Martha Singer, Jonah’s mother. By the bluntness of her voice, Jonah suspected she was lying. The old woman wouldn’t give him the names of other Singers, and, as his mother had done, the lady hung up on him.
Jonah’s mind had been calm, too calm. It didn’t seem likely that the urges would have given up completely. Not yet.
Jonah heard the front door open a few minutes before four. He went to meet his client. It was a young man out in the lobby, probably early twenties. His clothes were rugged and his face stubbled. His hair was overgrown and messy, but he had an intense look on his face that probably made up for his lack of luster in other areas.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Singer,” Jonah said.
The kid nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, if you’d like to come on back, we can get started,” Jonah said, almost robotically, more into what was happening elsewhere in his life than into this young man. Jonah walked back to his office, and the kid followed. They both sat down. Jonah pushed a form across the desk. That was when the kid started laughing frantically.
Jonah looked up at the kid, who was leaning way back in his chair, the look on his face a mixture of astonishment and fear.
“There’s something in there with it, man!” the kid shouted.
“What?” Jonah asked.
“Shit! There’s something with it! I’ve never heard that before!”
Jonah realized this kid might be like the two clients he’d seen before, the one that had left and the one that had attacked him. Before Jonah could say anything, the kid said, “It don’t like the other thing with it. This other thing’s trying to tell you something.” The kid got up.
“Wait!” Jonah said. “Don’t leave! I want—”
“It’s welling up. I’m getting out of here.”
Jonah got up, as the kid moved toward the office door. “Wait!” Jonah shouted.
But the kid didn’t stop. Jonah heard him shout one last thing from the lobby.
“It’s gonna kill you, man!”
Jonah ran out of his office and out the front door. He went to the parking lot, but the kid was nowhere to be seen.
#
There were no urges the rest of that night. In fact, his mind seemed to be as he wanted it. Jonah was fast, the fastest he’d been yet. But there was the puzzle. He felt nothing wicked, not even a tinge. It was as if what had made him wicked before was no more. But the client had said it was welling up. He had said it would kill Jonah. What was it?
Jonah searched the kid’s chart, hoping something in there would give him some kind of clue, at least point him in a direction to search further. All the chart contained was a previous SSI report done by another psychologist. The psychologist had diagnosed him with Bipolar Disorder. That made sense. The previous two clients that seemed somehow connected to all this had similar diagnoses, diagnoses involving psychosis, delusional type thinking, possible hallucinations. But what did this connection mean? What did it give him to go with? Jonah had no idea.
Logically, Jonah thought he should be careful going home. The St. Bernard could be back. So could the other animals that seemed to stalk him. And according to the client, there was something that wanted to kill him.
But there was something beyond logic that Jonah could sense now. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something there, something different, and it was telling him that nothing was waiting for him. It was right. Jonah made it to his car, to his apartment, and inside, without an event. Inside, he quickly prepared for bed. He taped the room as he had done the night before. He turned on the fan.
Lying in bed, Jonah said out loud, “Help me understand.” He didn’t know what he made the request to or if he made it to anything at all, anything that would listen, but he went to sleep, hoping an answer would come.
#
He’s in the office, the examination table in the center of the room. In the corner of the room, his mother, no, the mother of his child, is getting dressed.
The scene fades out.
The scene returns, but now he’s alone in the office. He feels guilt, but even more, he feels fear, overwhelming fear. It’s as if it has just come home, just set in. There will be ramifications for what he has done.
He will do no more evil. He knows this, because whatever it was that made him do his deeds has finally exited him completely. He must leave. He can’t make it right, but maybe he can do something to stop it from happening again. His life as he has planned it is over. But he is still alive. Maybe he can still do good.
He walks out into an empty lobby. Office hours are over. Everyone has gone home but him. He goes to the door. The scene fades.
He is now out in the parking lot, looking at the door. Only he is not flesh. He is just a presence, observing, and he is Jonah now, only Jonah, not the mixture of two people.
In the light of the closed door, there is a man. At first, Jonah thinks the man is him. But then he notes the differences. The man is a little smaller. His hair is lighter. He’s wearing a physician’s white coat. The man resembles Jonah, but is not Jonah. The man is Jonah’s father.
Outside the door, flanking it on both sides, are several dogs. Some are domestic. Some are coyotes. There are seven of them in all. The man does not see the dogs. Jonah wants to warn him, but he has no body to move with and no voice to speak with.
Jonah’s father shuts off the inside lights. A few seconds later, he steps outside. The first dog to get him is a pit bull. It bites his thigh and grips on. His father shouts in pain as he turns. A coyote rips into his back. His father moves forward, the pit bull still gripping his thigh. Suddenly, a shadow of a bird flies into his father’s head, then falls to the cement. His momentum stops, as if stunned by the collision with the flyer. He is overwhelmed by the dogs and taken to the ground. For a few seconds, Jonah hears his father’s screams and watches as several dogs rip into his flesh. Then the scene is gone.
#
Jonah came to in his bed, hearing his own screams. He lay there for about a minute, trying to calm himself, trying to get to the point where he could place this all in perspective.
Then something in his bed sat up beside him. Its face was like his, except half gone. On one side, a little flesh hung on bone, the eye missing.
Jonah could not find the air to yell out, and he could not move.
It placed a hand on his chest. It said, “I’m sorry, my son.”
Jonah woke up again. This time he was alone.
The clock said 4:12AM. Jonah got out of bed. He turned on all of the lights. He checked outside but saw no animals. He did not sleep again that night.
Chapter Eight
Steph showed up for work on Wednesday. She came into his office before the first client arrived. “Hey,” she said as she knelt down over the arm of his chair. “I’m all better now.” She kissed him twice on his cock. “What are you going to do about that?”
Jonah didn’t know what to tell her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want more sex. But Steph didn’t want it the way he wanted to give it to her. She wanted to be ravaged, abused, made to feel like a whore, like before, and Jonah wasn’t sure he could do it that way now. He was afraid it might trigger the old urges, just as having one drag from a cigarette might lead to a whole cigarette, then a whole pack, and so forth. Luckily, Jonah didn’t have to say anything. The front door opened, and Steph went out to greet the client.
With his lack of sleep, Jonah felt the tiredness. But now, his mind constantly meditative, not even tiredness could slow him down. It was just there, in the background. Jonah was in control, in t
he front. He met his day’s work with maximum efficiency, and in the time that bought him, he thought. He thought of his father. What all had his father done? Had what Jonah witnessed, and to an extent, experienced, in his dreams, really happen? Was the man really his father? Or was what he dreamt bogus, just a side effect of all else that was happening, otherwise meaningless? What all had his father done? What lay ahead? Were the urges gone for good? Because that was how it felt. Or was this just a temporary hiatus for the urges.
Shortly before the end of the day, Jonah made a decision about Steph. Sex was definitely a part of his life he’d want to pick up again, but not tonight. So he told Steph, “Maybe tomorrow.” She assented. Jonah walked her to her car and kissed her goodbye.
As he drove home, Jonah thought of how there was just one more day of work to do. Then he would have more time. Tate was to be home sometime this weekend, and oh how he looked forward to that. He would tell Tate everything, and Tate would steer him right. Jonah took some contentment in that thought. He was beginning to have more faith in himself all the time, but he had even more faith in Tate. Tate was untouchable.
Jonah walked from his car to his apartment, at ease. Then he stuck his key in the door and twisted it. Instead of clicking, the lock jammed. Jonah wiggled the key and tried it again. It jammed. It took Jonah a few seconds to realize what was going on. He said out loud, “The door is already unlocked.”
Jonah felt a second’s fear, but then he laughed lightly. He didn’t check locks anymore. It was quite possible that he’d left it unlocked. But, just in case, Jonah went to the trunk of his car and got his tire iron. He entered his apartment with the iron pulled back. With calmness, but a vigilance to attack, Jonah scanned his house. He checked all the rooms and all the closets. He found nobody. But in his room, he saw that the answering machine was blinking. He hit the play button and heard his mother’s voice.
“I’m going to tell you this, then I never want you to contact me again.” A sob came to her voice and she said, “I didn’t know he had killed those people, and I didn’t know he’d been with those other women.”
His mother began to cry, hard, then she hung up. But she’d said enough.
#
Awake, and Jonah had not been dreaming. At least, there were no dreams that he could remember. And he was wide-awake. He wondered why. Then he felt the icy stare. He looked and saw the shadow standing near the door.
There was a rush of fear. But then Jonah felt that, unlike the night before, he could move. The fear diminished somewhat, but remained present.
“My son,” the shadow said. Then it motioned for him to come and left the room.
It was hard to get out of bed, but it was even harder to lie there. At least on his feet, moving, Jonah wouldn’t feel defenseless. He got up and moved slowly through the dark, to the front of the house. As he came into the living room, he caught a glimpse of the shadow sitting on the other side of the room, in his swivel rocker, in the corner. Jonah switched on the lamp that flanked his couch. The shadow was gone.
Maybe it wanted to show him something outside. Jonah went out the front door. Outside were the parking lot and its cars. Jonah thought of where to go next. But without some kind of hint, he couldn’t possibly find anything in the expanse. He wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to be looking. Jonah went back inside, locking the door behind him. Nothing else to do, he shut off the lamp and started to bed. He was just inside his room when the memory hit him, and it was more than a memory; it was a premonition.
Jonah walked into the hall and into the bathroom, where he turned on the light. He looked in the mirror, where he saw his father. It was like looking at himself like he’d never seen himself before. There was power in his father’s stare, intensity. His father laughed, and that laugh was very familiar. But it wasn’t like Jonah’s laugh, and he was sure it wasn’t like his actual father’s laugh either. The high-pitched laugh was indistinguishably the laugh of Tate.
“There’s something in you, bro,” Tate’s voice said. He laughed again, then, just like that, Jonah was looking at his own reflection.
Had it been Tate all along? After all, Tate’s talents seemed unlikely. Had he tricked Jonah? Jonah’s mind flashed back. All of the times Tate had known what he was thinking, all the times Tate seemed to be inside his head. All the times they’d been high and Tate had fucked with him.
“Oh my God, Tate,” Jonah said out loud. “What are you?”
#
Thursday was similar to Wednesday in a lot of ways. Jonah’s efficiency was incredible, and that bought him the time he needed to think. Tate had said he would be back from Florida this weekend. But that was vague. Neither of them saw clients on Friday. So, at times, when they spoke of the weekend, they meant anytime from Thursday night onward.
Jonah didn’t know what he would do or say next time he saw Tate. He still didn’t know what part Tate played in all this madness. That Tate had put things in his head seemed very possible. Tate had always seemed able to predict Jonah. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Jonah wondered if the reason Tate had been able to predict him so well was because some of the things that came from Jonah had originated with Tate. Had Tate been so crafty in his manipulation that he’d been able to use Jonah’s own subconscious against him, employing subliminal means to place in Jonah’s mind certain reactions, only to pretend that he was reading Jonah? It wasn’t an unbelievable hypothesis. The field of hypnosis was full of research supporting that such tactics were effective.
Still, even if Tate could have had that level of control over Jonah, there were extraneous factors that Tate couldn’t be associated with. Tate didn’t know Jonah’s parents, and Tate couldn’t have known the three clients. So, overall, it didn’t seem possible that Tate could have pulled it off. But Jonah was withholding final judgment. After all, this was Tate.
Then there was the other reason Jonah didn’t know how he would react when he next saw Tate. Tate had seemingly taught Jonah to master his mind, and that Tate had taught Jonah made Tate way more advanced in a lot of ways. And, if Tate was so advanced that he’d actually pulled this off, installing the urges in Jonah’s head, connecting the urges to the rest of Jonah’s life, then what would Jonah be able to do about it anyway?
The final client of the day and the end of the workweek came in at 9PM. It was a clear-cut case, and Jonah had the woman out in half an hour. He took ten minutes to call the report in, and he was done. Less than a minute after he hung up the phone, the urge to take washed over him. For a few seconds, he was able to think about what had happened. As the client had said it would, it had welled up. The urge rose fast and was quickly the strongest urge Jonah had felt in his life. Steph walked in.
“Lock the fucking doors!” Jonah said as he stood up from his chair. “Your cunt! Mine! I want to rip it apart!”
Steph’s face grew afraid, but, at the same time, enticed and obedient. She went to do as he said.
Nearly out of his mind, his body feeling like it was swelling with excitement, wanting only to take, Jonah removed his clothes and waited. A few seconds later, Steph came back in the office. Today she had worn a one-piece skirt outfit. With her two steps in the door, Jonah grabbed the bottom of that and pulled it roughly over her head. Then he whipped her panties down. He didn’t bother with her bra.
“Ouch!” Steph said, the look on her face telling him that she was serious.
“Shut up, cunt!” Jonah yelled as he put a hand on her throat.
By her throat, Jonah led Steph to the desk. He let go of her throat, then Steph said, “Jonah, you’re taking—”
Not letting her finish her sentence, Jonah said, “That’s right, bitch! I’m taking!”
Jonah turned her around and pushed her on the desk. He used two fingers and a thumb from his right hand to spread open her cunt, as, with his left hand, he straightened his stiffened cock.
It owns me.
Suddenly, Jonah remembered the snake. He remembered the office in his dreams. Th
is was what it wanted him to do. This was what he was supposed to do. Though with his entire body he still wanted inside the woman bent in front of him, like a starving man wants meat, Jonah pulled back. He gathered his clothes from the floor.
Steph turned around. She stared at him in confusion as Jonah got dressed. Then, without saying a word, she began to dress. When they both were completely clothed, Jonah forced himself to talk. It was extremely difficult with his mind still screaming at him.
“Steph. You need go.”
“What?” Steph asked.
Jonah took two deep breaths, but it did nothing for him. Then he said, “I need to take things care of. No can’t be with you, until I take care of bad things in my head.”
Steph’s look turned to fear and concern. “Okay, boss,” she said, nearly crying. She walked out.
Jonah wanted to walk Steph to her car, but he was afraid to be too close to her, knowing he might be overwhelmed again. So he just watched her from several yards back. Standing just outside the door, Jonah observed Steph get in her car and leave. Jonah went back inside to gather his things and turn off the lights. He was back in his office, his bag in his hand, when the urges flowed out of him.
Jonah stood there for a few seconds, catching his breath. He felt faint, like the process of the urges rushing out had drained him of his energy. He sat down in his chair behind the desk. He passed out.
#
It was nearly midnight when Jonah woke up. He felt groggy, but no longer faint. He had no urges, whatsoever. Jonah got his bag. He shut off the office light. He walked out into the lobby. Standing by the door, he flicked off the lights in the lobby. He was crossing the threshold of the door when the memory of the dream came to him. This was very similar to what he had witnessed his father doing. The door shut. He was too late.
Jonah didn’t see or hear it. He just felt it land on his head and sink its claws into the skin of his face and the back of his neck. Reflexively, Jonah reached up and grabbed it. Its grip tightened, its claws going deeper into his skin. Jonah let out a slight squelch. He stumbled around with the beast attached to him. He tripped and fell back on his ass. He stood back up, with its claws going even deeper, the pain intensifying. Jonah realized that it didn’t intend on releasing him. He squeezed the creature with his hands, feeling its skin begin to give, but also feeling its grip tightening and its claws moving up, ripping his skin. Jonah pressed, trying to take its breath away. Its body made a popping sound as Jonah collapsed its ribs. It still wouldn’t release its grip.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 14
