The runner slips and stumbles but catches himself before he hits the ground. His breath becomes even worse, and in it is mixed a high-pitched cry. Jacob looks back to see if there is something that the boy is running from. But nothing is there.
They near a stop sign and the boy seems to be trying to speed up. But his own tightness slows him down even more. Jacob moves up beside him. The runner coughs and now there is red-dust-stained mucous hanging from his mouth. He reaches down and holds the left side of his chest. Now he is swinging his left side as he runs. His high pitched grunts are violent and painful but very determined.
The runner reaches the stop sign and falls down on the ground. He rolls over until he is in the grass on the side of the road. His body is now a mixture of red and green. His chest moves up and down and looks as if it could explode. There is something wrong with it, something irregular. The left side doesn’t just rise up and down. It almost seems to pop.
Jacob sees the runner lift up his shoulders. He doubts that he will be able to make it all the way up—at least, not for a while. The runner falls back into the grass and Jacob thinks that he was right—the boy will not get up.
But the boy in the grass begins to roll on his back, first from shoulder to shoulder and then from shoulders to hips. Soon, the runner is able to throw himself into a sitting position.
The runner’s legs quiver under him as he makes his way to his feet. Jacob’s thoughts fly irrationally.
Maybe I should take him back to my car. Maybe I should go find someone to come pick him up.
In a jolting move, the boy moves one leg forward. Then he turns and does the same with the other leg.
“My God! You’re done! You can’t go anymore!”
As if to spite Jacob, the boy leans forward and is moving again. His hands stay below his waistline. He is dragging himself, but he is running.
Jacob follows the runner for a few seconds before he spots the man in white. He is standing off in the distance, straight ahead, in the middle of the road. Jacob runs ahead to meet him.
“Well, if it isn’t my old friend, Jacob Sims.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Oh yes you are. You don’t have a choice in that.”
Jacob looks back and sees that the boy is still coming. “Who is that?”
“Oh. I think it’s a young boy out for a little trot.”
“Fuck you! Why is he dying?”
The man in white laughs. He’s looking past Jacob at the runner. “Oh Jacob. I wouldn’t worry myself too much about that. Just sit back and enjoy the show for now.”
Again, Jacob looks at the boy. He looks as if he could be up to them within the minute.
“Do you remember the chickens, Jacob?”
“What?”
“The chickens. Do you remember when your dad used to butcher the chickens?”
“No!”
“Oh. Come on. I think you do, Jacob.”
Jacob closes his eyes. For a moment, there is black. But then the world seems to form under his eyelids.
“Nice try. But we don’t see with our eyes here.”
Jacob turns around, but the back is as the front.
The man in white laughs again. “Poor Jacob. Why do you try to deprive yourself? You know you want it. And you know you like what you do.”
“Fuck you!”
“No Jacob. Fuck you! I don’t think anyone ever made you watch those poor chickens. You had a choice, didn’t you?”
Jacob does not answer.
“Learn the pleasure of your world, Jacob. Your world is all you have.”
“I don’t want it.”
The man in white still does not look at him. He is focused on the runner. “Oh yes you do.”
The runner takes the last few strides. He grabs his chest. His eyes roll back into his head, and he falls down at their feet. His body twitches as his face turns blue. He curls and uncurls violently several times. Then his body begins to flop around.
The man in white claps his large hands. “Yes, good show! Good show! Just like a chicken, eh Jacob.”
Urine runs down the boy’s leg. It wets the ground and the boy rolls in it. His mouth comes open, and air-deprived screams, barely audible, come out. His movements slow, and his body starts to relax. Finally, lying on his back, his legs start to curl up into him.
“Shows over, Jacob. The rest of this you cannot see. But don’t worry. There is so much more to come.”
Jacob watches as the runner’s legs straighten.
“Why can’t I see the rest? You made me watch that. So why can’t I see the rest?”
The man in white grabs Jacob’s neck. And like that, Jacob can feel pain, and he's struggling to breathe. The man in white lifts Jacob, by his throat, into the air.
“Just because you’re not like other people, does not mean you’re immortal, Jacob. There are some things you can’t see. At least, not yet. Not until you reach my level. Understand?”
Jacob tries to answer. He wants to appease the larger man. He wants to breathe.
“Answer me, Jacob. Do you understand?”
In the corner of his eye, Jacob sees the figure of the boy standing next to them. The man in white’s face turns from mocking anger to surprise. He looks down at the boy. Then he throws Jacob violently to the ground. When Jacob lands, he's alone.
#
Drenched with sweat and shaking with fear, Jacob drove down the road. Images of the man in white’s raging eyes flashed in and out of mind. They made him feel weak. He looked his body over. He tried to think that there was something he would be able to do the next time it happened.
He looked at his wrists and his arms. They had seemed all right before. But now they seemed so small and ineffectual. He felt the tightness in his legs and in his shoulders and thought about how slowly he would move when the occasion arose that the man in white was hurting him again.
“He wants me to think these things,” he whispered. “He wants me to think that I’m weak.”
The whispers felt like blades in his throat. The coughing they caused felt like fire. There were now spots of blood on the steering column.
On the outside of Nescata, just before the last town street, was a small convenience store. Jacob pulled up in the empty parking lot and stopped abruptly. That’s when he felt something new in his throat. It felt as if skin was coming together. He sat there for about a minute. It seemed to heal completely.
“Testing one, two. Testing one, two, three.”
He laughed. His throat no longer hurt, but he was thirsty. He got out. He walked in and caught the grin of a young boy behind the counter. Jacob nodded to him and then walked back to the cooler. He opened the glass door and reached randomly for one of the forty-ounce beer bottles. Then he heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.
It could be him.
The thought was irrational, he knew. Why would the man in white drive a car? Still, Jacob took two steps forward and ducked behind a shelf. Soon, the front door beeped and someone walked in. With his heart racing, Jacob peeked between the shelves. Unable to make out the shape of the person, he ducked down further. He heard the steps coming his way.
On the floor, Jacob tried to slow his breathing so as to go undetected, but could not. He set the bottle of beer behind him, and pressed it against the floor, ready to attack. But it didn’t matter. When Jacob saw the huge white sneaker come around the other side of the shelf, all he could do was close his eyes.
He heard the footsteps and then put his hands over his ears. There was a sudden rise of heat in his head, and then it focalized in his eyes. Then sight came to him. There, from the floor, he looked up and saw the man in white, towering above him with one large arm pulled back.
Jacob removed his hands from his ears and raised them above his head. He waited for contact.
Even though the contact was very tender, there was still a sudden jolt that accompanied it. Jacob jumped up, and when he did, he sent the bottle of beer across the floor w
ith the back of his foot.
“Oh my God, Jacob!” Sonnie’s voice said.
He slowly dropped his arms down the front of his face. Embarrassed, but at the same time relieved, he looked at her. “Sonnie. I thought you were him.”
“Who?” She reached and took his forearms.
“The monster. The man from my visions.”
She shook her head. “Jacob, we have to get you to somebody, and we have to do it now!”
“No! No! We can’t do that. He’ll find me there.”
“Jacob. You’re coming with me. We’re going to call somebody.”
“No! Just wait. I have to gather myself.”
This time she nodded. “All right. Take all the time you need. But I’m not leaving you. We have got to get you—”
“What was his name?”
“What was whose name?”
“The boy?”
She hesitated. “The boy?”
“Yes. There was a boy. He was running out in the country. And he died. What was his name?”
“Jacob! Stop it! You didn’t know him. He didn’t know you. You couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”
“I know. I just want to know his name.”
“He had a heart condition, Jacob.”
“Sonnie.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be running out there.”
“Sonnie.”
“If his mom would have been home she would have stopped him, but that had nothing to do with you.”
“What was his name?”
It wasn’t Sonnie who answered him. The voice came from behind her.
“Larry Confad.”
Jacob looked past Sonnie and saw the counter boy standing at the end of the aisle.
“His name was Larry Confad. He was my best friend.”
The boy was small and frail looking, but with his chest stuck out and the smirk on his face, he looked like he was there to hold his ground.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said.
The boy took two steps toward them and then stopped. “He loved you, you know. Hell, they have your picture up in the gymnasium lobby. There in the trophy case with all of the other Nescata jock straps that ever made all state. But yours. It was the one he always looked at.” The boy pivoted his hips back. “You know, asshole, we all knew he wasn’t supposed to go off and run like that. I tried to tell him, but I couldn’t talk any sense into him. He always said that was the way Jacob Sims used to do it. Jacob Sims used to take long runs in the country. Jacob Sims used feed bags before he got his first weight set. Jacob Sims used to ride his ten speed four miles into town every day before school and then ride it back at night.”
The boy stopped. He brought a finger forward. Then he dropped it as if it were too heavy to hold up. He looked down at the floor. “But you know what I think? I think Jacob Sims is nothing but an overrated fagot with a two-inch prick.”
“Jacob,” Sonnie said. “Holy shit, Jacob. I . . .”
“It’s okay Sonnie.”
Jacob turned his attention back to the boy. “Listen—”
“Jacob!” Sonnie interjected. “Jacob, your neck. What happened to your neck?”
Jacob hadn’t realized that it was just the inside of his throat that had healed.
Sonnie drew closer to him. “My God, Jacob, somebody’s hurting you!”
He pulled her in and led her to the other side of the aisle. On the way out, he turned to the young boy.
“I’m so sorry.”
A few days later, Clay Tandros, the counter boy, whose father owned the store, saw Jacob Sims drive by on the way to a funeral. The next person he saw ended his life.
Chapter 8
They tried to calm down. But after more than an hour, it became clear to them both that it wasn’t going to happen unless they got help. The worst of it was when the large gashes on either side of Jacob’s neck seemed to sink into themselves and heal in a matter of seconds, right before Sonnie’s eyes.
Sonnie had Jacob walk with her downstairs to the bar. Hands shaking, Sonnie got out two shot glasses. She seemed to grab at the whiskey bottles at random, much like Jacob had selected the beer earlier. She spilt Southern Comfort on the bar as she poured the shots.
“How many more people, Sonnie?”
She dumped the shot down her throat like she was taking cold medicine. “Let’s see,” she said in a tired, exasperated voice. “So far there’s Stan, Jeff, Todd, Larry, Shane and Scar.”
“Scar?”
“Yeah. That’s the one who was with Shane.”
“Scar? The old guy? He went by Scar?”
“Yeah. Somehow I doubt that was the name his mother gave him, but that’s what he went by.”
“Scar. I know him somehow.”
“Oh really? And that surprises you?”
Jacob looked at her. Her face was stern and angry, but it quickly changed.
“I’m sorry,” Sonnie said. “It’s just that it’s a lot to deal with all of the sudden.”
“Yeah I know. Believe me. I know.”
Sonnie put a hand on his face.
“Who’s left?” Jacob asked.
She removed her hand and poured them each another shot. “Well, there’s Gary.”
“Gary.” Jacob laughed. “He was our quarterback, probably the best athlete on the team.”
“Quarterback turned addict.”
“What happened to him?”
Sonnie downed another shot. “Nobody’s sure.” She poured herself another. The light in her eyes seemed to drain. “I think they’re fairly certain that it was murder, though.”
“How do they know that?”
“Didn’t your mom tell you?”
“Mom didn’t give too many details.”
Sonnie downed the next shot, and then looked him straight in the eyes. “All they found was a whole lot of blood and his head. That’s all I know. It happened at Canton Lake, so I don’t know any of the cops who investigated it.”
“Oh.”
Sonnie put her head down on the bar. Jacob tried to remember how many there were. He thought that might have been all of them, but he wasn’t sure if the number had been seven or eight. After a futile attempt at jogging his memory, he gave up.
“Is that all?”
Sonnie, who had looked as if she might have passed out, shook her head from where it lay. Then she lifted up. “One more. Tommy Carmichael.”
“Who’s Tommy Carmichael?”
“Tommy Carmichael was about the cutest little boy you’ve ever seen. He was about nine years old, and he lived alone with his mom, who was never there.”
Jacob was amazed by what she knew as a bartender. He thought she must know more about daily dealings in Nescata than anybody. And that was very scary somehow.
“Tommy’s mom worked nights. And then she slept most of the time she was home.
“So Tommy was raising himself.”
“No. Tommy was sort of raised by the town. He was sort of a town vagabond. Even came in here from time to time. There were a lot of people who really liked him. He was such a little charmer, with his giant dimples and raspy voice. Anyway, a lot of people would take him in. They’d feed him. Let him play.”
“How did he die?”
She poured them both another drink. Jacob didn’t want his, so he just watched her down hers.
“The newspapers never really said that much. But Skiles came in one night and got hammered.”
“Skiles. Isn’t he the town cop now?”
“You got it.”
“And he talked?”
“They all do, Jacob. They all talk to Sonnie, the beverage dispenser. I’m the one they come to when they want to get it off their chest. When they want to process something. And I work for tips, the cheapest shrink in the county.”
“Is that what you think he was doing, processing something?”
“Most definitely. When a person sees something like what he saw, they got to talk about it.”
“So how do you de
al with it? I mean all these things you hear must be depressing.”
She laughed and then downed the shot. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just my place, and that makes it more bearable somehow.”
Jacob felt a head rush and thought he might slip away. But he didn’t. He just thought, And we all have our place, don’t we Jacob.
“He was the last one in that night. Like most of my patrons, he made me promise not to tell a soul. And I never do. But I think I’ll make an exception here.” She laughed, nervously. “It was common knowledge that one of Tommy’s favorite places to visit was Pete Stebens’s house, over on Highland Street.”
“I don’t know him.”
“You wouldn’t. He and his mom hadn’t lived in Nescata that long. I’m not even sure where they came from. But I don’t think that matters too much.”
Sonnie took a shot from the bottle. “Pete Stebens was a lot older than Tommy, but he was also a bit mentally retarded. Tommy used to go over there and play video games and stuff like that. I guess Pete’s the only one who knows what happened to Tommy.” Again she laughed, wickedly. “But he isn’t talking.” Sonnie looked off for a couple of seconds, before coming back to the conversation. “Skiles said that Tommy was last seen alive by his mother at 8AM, when he left to go to Pete’s house. Then Pete Stebens’s mother, Stacie Kline, found Tommy when she came home at 1AM Sunday morning. He was hanging from the living room ceiling fan by a wire made up of three steel clothes hangers tied together. I guess she passed out. Then she came to and called the police. She said that Tommy was dead and her son, Pete, was missing. Pete was found later that morning. A state trooper spotted him crouched down beside an old abandoned shack three miles outside of town. That was back in February. To my knowledge, Pete Stebens still hasn’t spoken a word.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“He’s in lockdown at the state hospital.” She laughed again, this time with tears in her eyes. “So many people want to kill that kid, and now I feel kind of bad.”
“Why?”
“Because I was one of them. I wanted to kill the little bastard. But now I don’t even know if he did it.”
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 57
