“Me neither.”
She looked into his eyes sternly. He thought the stare might be accusatory, but he couldn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.
“Sonnie. I’ve got to go.”
“No!”
“I have to.”
“Then take me with you.”
He got up and walked toward the door. “No. You’re drunk. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”
“I can have peace of mind.”
He sighed. “I don’t think it will kill me. It would have done so already.” He checked his watch. “Come on. I’ll walk up with you.”
Upstairs, Sonnie lay on the couch and Jacob waited. After she fell asleep, he left. He thought he had plenty of time to make it back to his parents’ house.
#
The smell of cheese melting and pizza sauce boiling came from the other room. Jacob had lied and said he was feeling ill. His mother asked if there was anything he needed and he said no. He knew it was a brush off that she had come to understand, and he knew that she would now leave him alone.
As he lay on his old bed, he thought of all he had touched. Their lives seemed so pointless to him now. They were born, they met him, and they died. And now he was nothing but a whore—a diseased, killing whore.
For the moment, there was nothing he wanted. He tried to desire for something, if for no other reason, just to feel some kind of connection, to have some kind of meaning. But there was nothing he could long for. The taste of wine, the spacey buzz of a good joint, the scent of a woman. He let all these things pass into his mind, only to watch them fall through without gripping his attention and taking him away. Yet he knew there was something, something distant that he could want.
Eight-o’clock came and went. So did eight-thirty and then nine-o’clock. Dr. Ross still hadn’t called. And though he wanted it to, it didn’t bother him. He knew there was nothing she could do for him now. She could only complicate matters.
At around nine-thirty, it all began again.
#
He stands on top a building and watches two bodies fall from the side to the cement below. Before they hit, Jacob is on the ground waiting for them. The first body hits and explodes open. They second body bounces off the first and lands off to the side, at Jacob’s feet. There she lies, motionlessly, in the most compromising position Jacob has ever seen.
She is face down on the cement. Her skirt is hiked up revealing her pantyless crotch. All this is above legs splayed, like a gymnast doing the splits.
The body of the other girl begins to spurt out blood with every beat of a heart that is somehow still alive. Spots of it land on and cover the woman at Jacob’s feet. At first, it only flies through Jacob. Then he begins to feel it land on him. He looks down and sees where it has stained his shirt. Then he takes in the scent. He is taken away from it all.
#
With the sound of the man in white’s wicked laugh in his head, Jacob came to in his room. The last thing he heard—other than the normal sounds of his parents’ home—was the man in white saying, “Learn the pleasure of your world Jacob. Your world is all you have.”
Jacob wondered for a few moments about who the women were and how they were related to him. That was before he felt it down low.
In disbelief, Jacob began to laugh out loud and cry at the same time. He hoped it would drown out the reality of what had just happened. He hoped it would drown out thought all together. He pulled his wet hand out of his open shorts.
Chapter 9
Jacob sits in the classroom and waits. The doorknob begins to turn, but it does not open until the bell rings. They file in and fill the desks. One by one, people sit down and turn attentively to the front. Some of them he recognizes immediately. Others look familiar, but he can’t place them.
Adam Masters is there. He sits near the front. There is something different about him, though. To Jacob, he seems more mature somehow. Ted Westphal is also among them, but his changes are not so subtle. His scalp is bald now, and the little hair that runs along the side of his head is mostly silver.
A total of twenty-seven people enter the room and sit in the desks. Jacob knows this, not because he counted, but because that was how many people were in his graduating class. He makes twenty-eight.
A few of his classmates are younger than Adam, and there are a few older than Ted. Noticing this, Jacob begins to sense his own body. It’s tighter and stronger. There is more air in his lungs than usual, and the little rings of fat that had formed in the last few years are gone. He thinks that, by far, he is the youngest person in the room.
There is a sense of safety in this place, a sense that Jacob thinks comes from being away from the one who haunts him. He knows that the man in white will not come here. There is too much power, power bigger than he, the man in white or anything Jacob has ever known. It seems to fill the air. He sucks it in. They all suck it in.
While they all sit and wait patiently, Jacob gets the book out again. Again, the only word he can read is printed on the first page—Astrology.
The bell rings again and the door swings back open. Jacob stares intently. They all stare intently. But before anyone else enters, the dream is over. He awakes in his room.
#
Jacob called Sonnie early to tell her he was on his way. He had been up for hours, waiting for light to come. All the while, he could feel a warm spot in the back of his mind. It sat there dormant, but he knew it was there. And he knew it would ooze up again and make him a monster. This, he planned to tell no one about. It was out of his control.
Jacob was surprised to hear vigor in Sonnie’s voice. She told him to hurry and get there. As he left, he heard the sound of bed springs being disturbed, but he wasn’t about to take the time to say goodbye.
Like him, Sonnie had already been up for a while. She was showered and dressed for the day. Her eyes had a tired look, but they moved vigilantly. She wasted no time. “Did you find out anything new?”
Jacob hesitated, then he answered, “There are two more.”
“You mean Gary and Tommy right?”
“No. These were women.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No! All I know is that there was a building and they both fell.”
Sonnie folded her arms in front of her and looked off to the side. She sat that way for a little while. “Jacob, I don’t know of anything like that that happened around here.”
“No. I don’t think it was.”
“Where do you think it happened?”
“I’m not sure. You know how it is when you see something and you know you’ve seen it before but you can’t quite place it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the place they fell off of was like that. It keeps coming to me, and just when I think I’m about to get it, it’s gone.”
“So just look away from it.”
“Look away?”
“Yeah. Just don’t think about it, and it will come to you.”
Jacob nodded, but he didn’t totally agree. He knew it would eventually come to him. But what he did would have nothing to do with that. It would come to him when the man in white or whatever controlled him wanted it to come to him.
“I was up most the night,” Sonnie said. “I crashed for a few hours after you left but then I woke up and tried to make sense of it all.”
“Any luck?”
“Not a bit.”
“Me neither.”
She smiled. He looked away.
“There’s something else, Sonnie.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s this dream I had last night. I was in the old science classroom. And all my classmates came in.”
“Really?”
“I was eighteen, but my classmates were all different ages.”
This set Sonnie to thinking.
“What?” Jacob asked eventually.
“I just thought of something. None of the
people who died were from your class.”
Now Jacob thought without speaking for a little while. “Hmm. You’re right. But there are other Nescata classes that didn’t lose people.”
“Yeah, but do you remember what we were talking about the other night?”
“Which night and what?”
“When we were coming back from Ted’s. I said how cool it must be for you to come home and see all your friends.”
“Yeah. You said we were all successful.”
“Yeah. And you said you hadn’t really thought about it. Do you know how weird that is?”
“Well no. I guess I haven’t really kept up with everybody.”
Again, Sonnie paused to consider something. “You know, Jacob. What’s really strange is that I don’t think you’re the only one not to think of it. I mean, I hear all the time what people from this town are doing. But come to think about it, I’ve never heard anyone else mention it either.”
“You mean how successful my class is?”
“Yeah. People talk about the deaths constantly. And someone might mention one person and how successful he or she is. But nobody has ever said anything to me about the success as a whole. And it’s just as improbable as the deaths. No, I think it’s more improbable that a little hick town in nowhere Oklahoma could produce so much. And what’s even more unlikely is that the bulk of it could come from one year.”
“Sonnie, come on. We’ve got a few college graduates. And a few in graduate school. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“No? Well let’s see. First, there’s you at Yale Law. I dare say they don’t let just anybody in there.”
“Well, no.”
“Then there’s Adam. He’s about to get his Ph.D. And Ted’s doing pretty well.”
“Yeah. Impressive but not unbelievable.”
“You remember your class valedictorian, Irwin Check, and the salutatorian, Matt Seifert?”
“Sure.”
“Well, they’re both attending the medical school at OU, which only takes about five percent of its applicants.”
“Five percent, huh?”
“Yeah, I know that because Irwin’s father never fails to mention it when he comes into the bar on Friday nights.” She laughed. “Oh, and Barney Davis. Like you, he’s a law student. Only, he’s at Stanford.”
“No way.”
“It’s true. Willus Conner told me. You remember Willus. He graduated with you too. He came in a couple of weeks ago. He’s working on his masters in business. He also told me about Yvonne Mclean. Doctorate in sociology for her.”
“Willus told you that?”
“Yeah. But it was kind of funny. That’s all he knew about. He’s like you. He hadn’t kept up with everybody. But you know what’s even more funny?”
“What?”
“I knew about the rest. And I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“No clue. Just didn’t. This conversation I’m having with you, I’ve never had with anyone else. I’ve thought about it many times. Yet I never told anyone. It just never came up.”
“My God. The resident expert on Nescata, America held silent.”
She sunk back against the arm of the couch. “Jacob. This is big. It’s even beyond you.”
“It just may be.”
Sonnie laughed. “And I’m not done. Remember Bryon Bagel?”
“Yeah. He was always trying but could never seem to beat out Irwin in the science fair.”
“Well, I think he still may be trying. He’s in chemistry up in some big school in Massachusetts. Ilene Johnson, Ms. Homecoming Queen herself, is studying clinical psychology.”
“We’re all academics.”
Sonnie shook her head. “Oh no. You remember the two Krises.”
“Yeah. Let’s see. There’s Kris Macabe, and the other’s name was Kris Lee.”
“Kris Macabe’s band is about to cut a record, and Kris Lee is a model in New York.”
“I thought Lee was kind of funny looking!” Jacob exclaimed.
“Well, I guess the people at Calvin Klein didn’t think so.”
“And nobody talks about them?”
“Just like any of the others. A few people tell me or I overhear. But nobody else seems to know about everybody.”
Again, Sonnie seemed to drift off into thought.
“What are you thinking, Sonnie?”
“Have you heard from Tim Lester for a while?”
“No. What’s his scoop?”
“Well, you remember how he hurt himself?”
“Yeah. He missed the state finals because he hurt his knee. Poor bastard. He was probably our best defensive player.”
“Well, he rehabilitated. He’s playing football again. It took him a couple of years, but he walked on at some obscure school up north. He just finished up there last fall. And I guess he’s trying out for the Kansas City Chiefs now.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Well, no news is good news. I think one of his family members would have told me if he’d been cut.”
“Right.”
They were silent for a little while. Jacob counted them in his head. “Is that all?”
“All worth noting.”
“Then that’s thirteen. Thirteen out of twenty-eight. I know there were twenty-eight, because I had to get my class ranking when I applied for college. I was fourteenth.”
Sonnie laughed. “That’s not bad at all in that group.”
“No. I guess not. I can’t wait for the ten-year reunion.”
#
“So do you think it’s all connected?” Sonnie asked.
She had gone to make coffee and was just now returning to the couch.
“I think it has to be. Two unlikely things have occurred here. And they both occurred within the same time frame. They’ve got to be connected somehow.”
“But how is the question.”
Jacob shook his head again. “I think we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. There are still other things we don’t know.”
Sonnie half-smiled. “You mean like why some of these people had to die?”
Suddenly, it was there. It rushed in and spread out like water. The world became a new place for him, and possibilities were endless. There were cravings that needed to be satiated.
“You mean why I killed them!”
She leaned over to him and placed her hands on his legs. “No. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Really? I think you did. I think that you think I’m a killer.”
“No.” Her eyes were compassionate, but he could see what was either anger or fear creeping slowly in.
“Oh. Come on. Say it. You think I’m a killer.”
She leaned away from him. “Jacob. I can’t believe you’re saying this.”
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Please, Sonnie. You’ve been thinking it all along.”
“No I haven’t.”
“Whatever.”
“Jacob. What do I have to tell you to make you believe that’s not true?”
“I don’t want you to say anything of the sort, my dear. I just want you to say it.”
“Say what?” There was more fire in her eyes now.
“Say what you think I am.”
“Jacob, I told you—”
“Tell me I’m a killer. Tell me I’m a liar and a killer.” He closed in on her until he was inches from her face. “Say it!”
“No! Stop it!” She turned her head away. He moved right up to her ear and whispered.
“Come on, baby. Say it for me.”
“Fuck you!”
“Ooh. That’s a little better. But say what you want to say. Say what I want to hear.”
Her eyes met his. “Fine. You’re a killer.” She pushed him away and got up. “You’re not yourself right now, Jacob.”
“Oh no. That’s where you’re wrong. I’m more me than I’ve ever been.”
There was a whistle from the other room. At the same time, both of their heads
turned to the sound. Then, when they turned back, their eyes connected again. Sonnie still looked vigilant at first. But then a change fell over her. She took a deep breath and her eyes looked at him questioningly, but it was like the question wasn’t for him. It was one in her head. The muscles in her face relaxed. Her laugh was nervous but alluring. “That’s your coffee. I don’t have a regular coffeemaker so I had to do it on the stove.”
Jacob looked her over. “Well, why don’t you go get it?”
He stared at her walking away. His mouth began to water, and he felt his penis stiffen. When she walked around the corner, he rolled off the couch, so he could still see her. He watched her move to the stove. He watched her lean over to reach for the kettle, which was fortunately placed on the back burner. She set it aside. By the time she was reaching in the cupboard for a cup, he was in the kitchen with her.
She turned to him. She gasped lightly and looked at him. He walked up and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and twisted her around. He placed both of her hands on the counter and pressed them flat.
“Stay just like this!”
She didn’t respond, but she didn’t move either. He knew she would cooperate. He went down to his knees and moved his hands around her midsection. He undid the front of her jeans very slowly. Then he moved his hands around the back rim.
Abruptly, he yanked her jeans and panties down around her ankles, watching her move awkwardly as he did.
“I’m going to fuck you like a whore.”
He pressed his tongue hard against the back of her thigh and then slid it up. As he did, he thought about what it was going to be like tearing into her. He would rip her shirt off and then squeeze as hard as he could. He hoped she would scream for him.
He moved between her legs. There, he moved his tongue up her inner thigh. He stopped and stared at her rump. It was petite but round. He found a small pocket of loose skin with his hand. He took that skin into his mouth and bit down slowly. Sonnie tightened up, but she made no effort to move away. Jacob stopped when the first trickle of blood came.
Backing away, he stared down at the cut he had made. Sonnie leaned forward more, revealing more to him, and inviting him in. Jacob removed his pants. His penis looked much like it felt. It was his, but it was not the same as it had been before. It had expanded and he could see the veins working, transporting blood, causing him to throb. The pressure had turned it white. He couldn’t wait to use it on her, to hurt her with it.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 58
