“Yeah, but wait until two. I’ll have it closed up by then.”
Jacob smiled. “I’ll be here.”
She kissed him. “You better, if you know what’s good for you.”
She kissed him again and then got out. He watched her walk away and then he backed onto the road.
Driving down Main Street, he inhaled deeply so he could savor the scent of her that was now on his clothing. He smiled with enthusiasm and thought, two o’clock.
He considered how he would make the time pass faster. He thought maybe he would sleep. Maybe he would drive into the bigger Perryton and find something to do. At the end of Main Street, he braked at the stop sign and then saw something that made this all cease to matter.
There was no built up anticipation this time. Nor was there a blur to serve as a transition. There was only the motorcycle that passed in front of him.
#
The world around him has not changed. The fields are still freshly plowed. The summer sun still beats down on them. Jacob follows the motorcycle at a distance.
When it passed earlier, there were two people on that motorcycle. One was a blond-haired woman with her arms wrapped tight around the driver. The driver was another ghost. This one is Todd Blacklund.
Jacob isn't worried when the motorcycle speeds up and leaves him behind. He thinks he knows where it’s going. Todd grew up not far from him. He would have to pass Jacob’s old house to get to his own. And there is no other reason Jacob can think of to explain why Todd is heading out that way.
By the time Jacob makes it to the dirt road, the motorcycle is out of sight. But the remnant dust, still hanging in the air, tells him that he was right. Todd has been there. Jacob makes the turn and hits the gas hard. A glimpse in his rearview mirror and he notices that his car is not kicking up dirt. After seeing this, Jacob realizes that his car is not making a sound either. But it does react to his movements, which is enough.
On past his parents’ home, he continues down the road. He doesn’t notice the motorcycle parked off to the side, until he is already beside it. He drives past it and then stops. He backs up to where the bike sits.
Jacob remembers coming to this place many times. It was the midway point between their houses, where they used to meet before fishing. The top of the hill used to be covered with tall grass and weeds. Todd had taught him how to identify which of the weeds were poison ivy. And he had taught him to always look before he stepped, so as not to land on a bull snake.
But now, instead of grass and weeds, there are pieces of plastic milk cartons, papers and other trash smashed into the ground.
Jacob walks through the door of his car. Then it is gone.
Welcome back to the realm of disappearing cars.
Jacob starts toward the hill, and then he hears something off to the side. He thinks that he knows what it is, but he moves closer to be sure. Over where the trashed ground ends, there is a wire fence. On the other side of that fence are trees. Jacob walks through the fence and into the trees until he finds what he hears.
There are dozens of them, and they’re swarming around a hole in a rather large tree.
The bees.
Jacob goes through the fence and runs down the side of the hill. There, he finds the blond-haired woman sitting. She is watching Todd who is straddled over the creek, one foot on an old washing machine, the other on a rock. Todd is wearing rubber wading pants, and he is taking pictures with the camera strapped to his neck. He snaps several pictures before he takes the camera off.
“Here. Hold this.” He throws the camera to the woman.
“You’re not going in there?”
“Of course I am. You didn’t think I put on these rubber pants just to turn you on, did you?”
“Oh no. Not just for that. That was just the main reason.”
Todd laughs as he shakes his head. He smiles the same broad smile that Jacob always thought exacerbated his already nerdy looks. From the inside of the pants, Todd pulls out a small glass flask. He gets into the water and removes his shirt. His long white skin stands out against the murky black water. He throws his shirt.
“Hold that too.”
The woman whistles. “I wish I had a dollar.”
Todd flexes a scrawny upper body and both the woman and Jacob laugh. Todd dips the flask into the water and then bends his knees.
“Yuck. Couldn’t you have just done that from the shore?”
“Nope. The best stuff is going to be right here in the middle.”
“But you’re getting that mucky stuff all over you.”
“So I’ll take a shower when we get to Mom’s. Besides, some things are worth it, my dear.”
The woman smiles at him, proudly. She doesn’t say a word.
Todd comes back up with the sample. He corks the flask. “That’ll do.”
She claps her hands. “Way to go Dr. Blacklund.”
Todd looks over the contents of the flask. “Yeah. I’ll analyze this and develop those pictures. Then I’ll write up a nice article for the Daily Oklahoman.”
“And public outcry will be so huge, the government will put a stop to this.”
Todd laughs, still looking into the flask. “Well, I doubt that. But I have to try anyway.”
Again, the woman smiles. She gets to her feet. “It’s romantic really. Small town boy becoming big time biochemist. Then he returns home to try to save a creek from his childhood.”
“Hm. Romantic. There’s an added bonus.”
“Added bonus!”
Todd walks out of the water and up in front of her. “Yes, my sweet. As much as I worship you, this one was not done to be romantic. This one was done for an old friend.”
She smiles at him again. Jacob likes her.
You should have had her Todd. And she should have had you.
The woman removes her shirt, revealing her bare breasts. Todd stares at her much like he had been staring at the flask. She steps into him. “There. Now I have the mucky stuff on me.”
Jacob turns away. But he doesn’t do it just because he feels like a voyeur. And he doesn’t do it just because he understands why Todd is down there and can’t handle it. Jacob does feel these things, but they are not what make him turn away. He turns away because he hears someone whistling up above.
He leaves them by the creek. He walks slowly up the hill, not because he wants to, but because he feels he has to. It’s all a part of the vision, and thus, a part of what he has to see. At the top of the hill, he follows the sound to the trees. He stands on one side of the wire fence and stares through. He sees nothing at first, but still hears the whistling. The tune is slow and has an antiquated quality. It grows quieter, but just for a moment. Then it grows louder and louder. But there is no sound of footsteps in the grass, nor the sound of tree branches shifting.
He appears suddenly, walking right through the branches without disturbing them, just as Jacob had done earlier. “Hello Jacob,” the man in white says as he comes through the fence.
Jacob steps back. “Who are you?”
The man smiles, showing his perfectly white teeth. “Why Jacob, you know exactly who I am.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Sure you do.” The man in white thrusts a closed fist forward. “I’m the one who controls the bees.” He opens his fist, revealing the four little creatures. Their bodies shake spasmodically and their wings flutter.
The man in white turns and walks toward Todd’s bike.
“No!” Jacob shouts as he jolts towards the man’s back. But he’s stopped in his tracks when the man turns with an open hand. It’s not a physical force that holds Jacob, though. It’s like the tension he has had, most of the time, for most of his life. But it is magnified. Jacob falls helplessly to his knees.
“You, Jacob, are a bee.” The man in white turns back to the bike. There is a pouch on the side of the seat. He undoes the zipper, drops the bees inside and then closes it again. He turns back to Jacob. Again, he flashes an open hand. The
tension is lifted.
#
The first thing Jacob saw was the lady’s face. She was in an old pick-up. Her look was a little inquisitive but mostly indifferent. After she passed along his side and turned, Jacob looked around, trying to bring some kind of orientation.
It was the familiar stop sign that told him where he was. Its red paint was faded and it was bent toward the house on the right. Jacob realized he was at the end of Main Street, on the southern outskirts of Nescata.
He turned right onto the blacktop and made his way back to his parents’ house.
Chapter 5
Dr. Betzie Ross, clinical psychologist, hit the ground, and the world went away. Everything was plain, like a backdrop. After a time she wasn't sure of, there was pain. It wasn't unmanageable, but it was definitely there. And she was somebody again. It was not quite her usual self, but she was somebody.
Soft kisses brushed her neck. Stubble tickled her back. His arm was around her. One of her breasts was cupped in his hand. His distinct scent was there. She liked who she was.
With a movement so natural that it felt like the only movement she could make, she sank back into him and felt him against her. Pressing hard against him, she moved with his movements and the pain was completely gone. It wasn’t until he turned her around and she saw his dark brown eyes that she was able to step out of herself and see it all clearly.
“It was you.”
With that, he began to change. But he didn’t change completely. The person he changed into resembled him in many ways. The room changed too. It was now her office at the college. And she was sitting across from her client.
“Jacob. I can’t believe that I never noticed this before.”
It all faded away, and the pain came back for a few seconds. The preceding day flashed in front of her. But this time she wasn’t living it. She was merely observing it. And from her observation point—a place that seemed very much like the backdrop—she saw herself standing at the front door of her home, a suitcase in one hand, an envelope containing her itinerary in the other. That had been when Jacob called.
She realized now that had it been any other client, she would have given them a colleague’s number, or maybe the number to a crisis line. She might have gone so far as to slip them a few pacifying words, but no more than that. And she would have chalked it all up in the name of her own personal boundaries—the kind of thing psychologists tell themselves and other people to escape responsibility and responsibility’s guilt.
But it had been Jacob.
His voice. How could I not have known?
Then there had been the call on the other line. And she had to follow through with it. Boundaries or not, you just couldn’t respond to a suicide call with, “I’m sorry, but I’m on vacation.”
She saw the girl, Tiffany Ellenton, on top of one of the residence halls, standing at the edge with a blank stare on her face. She remembered thinking that it was not the season. Suicides at the college usually came about the time of midterms or during final examinations, never during the summer session. But still, Dr. Ross talked her down. She turned young Tiffany towards hope. She helped her see a glimmer of light. Tiffany turned from the edge. That was when things went so terribly wrong.
Dr. Ross had never physically saved anyone. She had always used words. But words could not help Tiffany Ellenton when she slipped backward and began to windmill her arms.
Dr. Ross saw herself move forward, quickly, but clumsily. She saw herself stick out the hand that Tiffany locked onto. Then she watched as both she and Tiffany fell to the ground below. It was over.
And now she could hear the voice shouting.
“Clear!”
She knew time was short.
“Clear!”
She thought one last time of the man she loved—it was you.
“Clear!”
She opened her eyes. There were several blue figures standing around her. They would not come into focus, but she knew who they were.
There was one that was in focus. He was perfectly clear. He towered above those in blue. He was very white. And he was completely bald.
“The process is efficient,” he said. “I come to take away.”
#
Guilt was not the emotion that ate Jacob all afternoon. It touched him in fleeting moments when he entertained thoughts that told him he was a killer. But those thoughts passed quickly, because they didn’t make sense. Jacob had not intended to kill anyone. But, even though that erased the guilt, it caused another feeling that was much worse. He wasn’t responsible. He was a pawn. He was someone’s killing whore. He was not his own. And that made him feel empty.
So the hours passed quickly and meaninglessly into the emptiness, as Jacob sat alone and stared at nothing. He dozed off a few of times, more out of boredom than tiredness. He was in his parents’ room a couple of times, pondering the gun again. But he couldn’t summons the energy.
There was a moment of disgust when, near the end of that afternoon, he felt the anticipation begin to bubble up. It seemed so wrong for him to like this now. But that didn’t matter. He couldn’t resist. Jacob roamed through the house looking for it—whatever it was he was supposed to find this time. He checked every room at least twice. He looked under the beds and on top of every shelf he could find. He didn’t know why he was looking this way. It was instinctive somehow. The anticipation was there and he knew that he was supposed to look.
It felt wrong to leave the house. But he knew of nowhere else to look. So he walked outside. There, he moved aimlessly for a little while, not really looking anymore, somehow knowing that he was leaving behind what he needed. He finally stopped and just waited. Standing in the front yard, it hit him. He had seen something in the house, but it had not registered at the time.
Jacob ran back to the house, hoping he had really seen it, hoping it was still there. The anticipation built as he closed in.
In the dining room, on the kitchen table, were the scattered newspapers, still left from that morning. And now, he knew he was right. Something was different. The mess was slightly more than he had left it. Jacob sorted through the scattered pages, at first finding only the familiar pages he had already looked through. He began to wonder if he had been wrong. Maybe the mess only looked like more now because he hadn’t been paying attention to its size when he first looked through it.
But the anticipation kept him looking anyway. Then, near the center of the table, and near the bottom, he found what he was looking for. It wasn’t much different from the other pages. They were all titled, The Aspach County Daily News and Eagle. But this one had one major difference. This difference told Jacob that he had what he needed. In the upper left hand corner, the date, May 18, 2016 was printed.
Jacob picked it up and read the article just below that futuristic date. It was next to a picture of a huge fire, surrounded by fire fighters and spectators. He read this article because it was the only one he could. The rest blurred when he looked at them, like faces of people on television that are not supposed to be seen.
AT LEAST 5 KILLED AND 27
INJURED IN CHEMICAL EXPLOSION
Police reports from Ike County did not comment as to whether yesterday’s explosion at the two-year-old Oklahoma Panhandle Expansion Chemical Research Company (OPECRC) has been linked to foul play. The plant was built by a Federal Grant to carry out scientific research in several areas. The location was chosen because of its sparse population. Fire Chief, Dan Bracken, stated that he expects the search for survivors to be completed by late tomorrow. There have been five reported fatalities so far. Among them is Aspach County native, Dr. Todd Blacklund. Plant employees say that Dr. Blacklund usually worked in the limited access area where the fire is believed to have started. Blacklund’s body has not yet been recovered, but plant computer records show that he had entered the area moments before the explosion. In a press conference yesterday evening, Governor Lucas called the explosion a terrible tragedy and asked that people pray for the
families of those killed or injured.
Ted Clark
Jacob reread the article and then noticed a second futuristic page next to where the first had been. This one was also from the Aspach County Daily News and Eagle but it was dated June 10, 2016. Again, there was only a small section that did not blur when he looked at it.
Two Aspach County Natives
Linked to Bombing
Donald Childress, leader of the militant activist group, The Gray Society, sent a letter to the Associated Press yesterday. The letter confessed the Gray Society’s involvement in last month’s explosion at the Oklahoma Panhandle Expansion Chemical Research Company (OPECRC). The letter stated that, “The society is out to stop the encroachment of the Federal Government on the rights of man.” It also stated that OPECRC was chosen as a “protest sight” because of the Society’s belief that the Federal Government was performing covert operations there. President Duncan stated that Childress’s comments were frivolous and that severe action would be taken against the Gray Society. Sources revealed that two Nescata natives might be associated with the Gray Society. One is Shane Tantenmore, a self-employed carpenter. Friends of Tantenmore say that he had boasted about being one of The Gray Society’s main “wheelers and dealers” in the Oklahoma chapter. The other alleged member is Jeff Limerod, a 35-year-old Nescata graduate and employee at Dave’s Electronics Barn. Dave Michaels, owner of the store, called Limerod a model employee. “Jeff could fix anything, foreign or domestic,” Michaels stated. Acquaintances of Limerod reported that he was quiet and did very little associating with people outside of work. Tantenmore’s red Corvette was seen on more than one occasion parked outside of the apartment complex where Limerod resided. It is believed that the two of them may have communicated directly with Childress via E-mail. Government officials reported that they do have leads on the location of Childress as well as other Gray Society members and that the members of the activist group involved in the bombing would be brought to justice.
Ted Clark
There was a third page, which was dated one day after the second.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 53
