His mom lit up again. “Did you do that?”
Toby looked down to fake shame.
“Well, that’s all right, hon. It’s okay for you to get up in the night to eat.”
“Okay,” Toby said and then shook his head. “I want to eat. In fact, I want to eat more than I did last week, but for some reason I don’t understand, I get grossed out if I eat in front of other people. Maybe it’s just that it grosses me out that they’re eating. I don’t know.”
“Don’t be down on yourself, baby. You’ve made so much progress in the last few weeks. And at least you still have your appetite.” She walked over and kissed him on top of his head. “From the sound of it, your appetite is increasing.”
“Yeah,” Toby said, as if he felt a little better. “And I can talk to Dr. Porter about the other-people thing on Saturday.”
From there, they set it up. Mom discussed it with Dad, who arranged it so Toby could leave ten minutes early for lunch to get a head start on the other kids. Mom gave him some money. Toby left Monday morning with a plastic storage bag inside his book bag. In that plastic bag was a small piece of roast, as well as the eggs and bacon he had taken into his room to pretend he was eating breakfast. He had disposed of the bag in the trashcan of the boys’ restroom.
Beside the parking lot was the practice football field. Toby set off quickly across that field. As a rule, no student could drive a car during school, even during lunch. Getting out ten minutes early was one thing. It was doubtful that anyone would complain, especially with the excitement over the coming playoff game distracting everyone’s attention. But he and his dad agreed that allowing him to break the driving rules would be going too far. Accusations of favoritism would arise, and soon more students would be bringing excuses for why they should be able to take their cars to get lunch.
Toby was starved. He had not eaten since he had sneaked food last night. The heat inside him boiled up and made him able to think of only one thing, taking in more raw flesh. Toby was well aware that he was probably even more of a freak now than he had been before Dr. Porter’s new treatment. But now he didn’t care. His mind was too focused to care. He just had to eat. He just had to feel the meat in his mouth and then feel the heat working on it, producing the energy inside him.
After the practice field was the playing field and then a grassy lot. On the other side of that lot was a quick shop. Except for the students who lived nearby the school, the quick shop was the only alternative to having lunch outside the school cafeteria. The little store catered to that, with a grill and a deep fryer. Toby made it inside before the bell rang to release the other students.
“Well hello, Toby,” said Mr. Phil, the clerk. Mr. Phil was an old man, who had owned this store for years. Toby wished the store was owned by strangers, who wouldn’t be able to talk to his parents about what Toby bought, and then this would be a lot simpler.
“Hello, Mr. Phil,” Toby replied.
Besides Mr. Phil, there was a heavyset woman, who was in the food prep area, getting ready for the lunch rush. Toby made his way to the large cooler doors at the back of the store. Once there, he nonchalantly checked behind him.
Normally, Mr. Phil would be watchful when there was a kid Toby’s age in the store. But Toby was the son of the superintendent of schools. So Mr. Phil would never suspect him. He went to work with the woman in the food prep area.
It wasn’t really cold today, about as cold as most days in a South Carolina November. Toby’s jacket, which was little heavy, might have tipped off suspicion. But most people associated being small with having a lower body temperature. Today, that worked for him. He was just the extra cold skinny boy.
Toby made his way to the end, where the meats were kept. He checked behind him once more. The coast was clear. He opened the cooler door and then reached down and grabbed a half-pound of hamburger meat. He placed it in one of the inner pockets of his jacket. Before going up to the counter, he grabbed a bottled water. For appearances, he bought one of the deep fried burritos to take with him. Outside, Toby dropped the burrito in a trashcan. Then, leaving the lot, he heard the distant sound of the bell ringing. He walked a little further before stopping and pulling out the pack of meat. He ripped off the cellophane and ate the raw hamburger right there, outside.
The half-pound was delicious and perfectly adequate. He could feel the heat working on it immediately. He wouldn’t need to feed again for several hours.
Toby placed the hamburger packaging back in his coat to be discarded at the nearest convenient trashcan. He looked toward the school, where students were coming his way. Toby started back toward the school again, drinking his water as he walked.
It wouldn’t always be this simple. He didn’t think he should go on stealing like this. He would have to think of a better plan. By the time he made it past the students moving in the opposite direction, to where he had just come from, Toby thought he knew what to do. He would continue to fake like he was eating normal food, for his mother’s sake. But tonight, he would take his car out, under the guise of wanting to go into Green Pastures to take care of an irresistible urge to try Chinese food. But what he would really do was buy a couple of coolers, good ones that could store food for over twenty-four hours without the ice melting. He’d fill them with raw meats and stash one somewhere between the quick shop and the high school. He’d stash the other somewhere near the house, in the garage maybe.
Was this all crazy? Yes, he thought it was. But he could live with that for right now. Because it was also very fun.
***
Celeste had expected to receive a call, at anytime, probably from Kendra, announcing Paul was dead, possibly murdered. But what would they say, that his lifeforce seemed to have been sucked from him? What did the coroners say when they found somebody in Paul’s condition?
She didn’t get the call, immediately. But she did get a question answered anyway. They had found the boy she had taken at the park. It was in the Monday paper. The report said the boy was believed to have had a heart attack. That made sense enough. When you had no lifeforce, your heart would probably be the first thing to give.
Celeste had lifeforce in abundance. With it, she had learned even more. Yesterday, not long after taking the boy, she had begun to see things as she’d never seen them before. The very simplest of things became fascinating. Unfortunately, the public library had been closed on Sunday. So she’d gone to the bookstore. There she took books from the shelves and read by the benches in front of the magazine racks. Even in reading, she could see things she hadn’t before. Not only could she follow the author’s words with ease; she thought she could almost feel what the author was feeling when he or she wrote their words.
And the people around her, moving about the bookstore. She could read them better too. Now that she wasn’t hungry for their lifeforces, she could study them. She saw their movements and the looks on their faces and she knew more about them. She knew what the looks meant. She couldn’t read minds. No, her understanding of the people around her was highly emotional. She could tell the feelings that person had, even if he or she was trying to hide it, and she could tell the depth of that feeling.
She knew this would only get stronger. When she could handle more lifeforce inside her, it would get stronger. But she did not feed again on Sunday.
Celeste went into work Monday. Tiffany said that Paul hadn’t shown and that he hadn’t called either. Celeste volunteered to run the bar, along with her section. She comforted Tiffany, saying Paul was probably just hungover and avoiding the phone. He’d come into work tomorrow, she said.
Celeste ran her section and the bar with the greatest of ease. But she could feel the lifeforce starting to dwindle. Tonight, she would have to feed again. Around five that afternoon, she figured out whom she would feed on. Parker Swinson came in for an early dinner.
“Where’s Paul?” he asked Celeste after she took his order.
“Out sick, I guess,” Celeste replied, not nervous at all.
“Or maybe a monster ate him.”
Parker laughed, but Celeste could sense his fear. She couldn’t sense it well, deeply, because the lifeforce in her was too low. She wondered if he had talked to Paul. How much did he know about what she could do?
That night, she went straight from work to his house. She paged him on the intercom outside the door.
“Go away,” he said from inside.
Celeste knew she had to get in. He knew something. He would know what had really happened to Paul, when someone finally found him and the coroner declared it a heart attack. As she stood outside, deciding what to do, she was surprised to hear the lawyer speak again.
“I know what you can do. And I think I know what happened to that bartender. If you go, I won’t ever tell anyone. But please, just go.”
Celeste thought she could hear something inside his voice, besides his plea for her to leave. A part of him could not resist her. She pressed the button and said, “Open the door, Paul. I’ll give you what you want.”
A few seconds passed before the door came unlocked. Celeste went inside and took her third victim.
***
The new spirit showed up early Tuesday, not long after James arrived at his hill. Having collected it, James got up and began his pilgrimage home. As he started down, he felt the spirit move. It, unlike the others, wasn’t trying to hide from him. It wanted to get started immediately. James stopped where he was and sat down on the side of the hill. He gave the spirit control.
“I’ve been watching you,” the spirit said.
“Oh. How long?” James asked.
“Long enough to see two others enter you. Long enough to know what you did.”
James hesitated. Was the spirit leading him, like a clever lawyer, trying to get James to confess his deeds?
“What did I do?” James asked.
After James returned control to the spirit, it laughed. It was incredible to feel the humored emotion of the spirit and to laugh without willing it.
“You’re a clever man, Mr. Kisner.”
The spirit knew his name, which suggested it probably knew more.
“Call me James. And tell me what you know.”
This time the spirit didn’t laugh, but James still felt its amusement. “You, while being possessed by two spirits, committed a total of five murders. The first three were with a gun. The second two were with fire.”
James was impressed, and he was excited to have such a knowledgeable being inside him. “You are obviously able to move about more than the first two spirits.”
“I’ve been around a lot longer than they have. I’ve been around a lot longer than your parents, even longer than the town they live in.”
James was curious as to exactly how long, but other things tempted his curiosity more. “So why did you wait? Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
There was calmness to this spirit. It didn’t mind answering James’s questions.
“Because my methods are not as simple as theirs. I needed more time to scout and plan.”
“Plan for what?” James blurted.
Again, the spirit laughed at him. “Do you really want to know that in advance?”
James wondered how much this spirit could sense in him. How well did it know his desires? “No. Surprise me.” He would spare this spirit the speech about protecting James from culpability. It was no doubt sophisticated enough to understand that already.
“That I will,” the spirit said. “Are you ready to begin?”
James thought for a few seconds. “Shouldn’t we wait until night?”
“We can start preparing now. You don’t even have to go home. I’ll supply us with everything we might need.”
James considered all he had with him. His main concern was communication with his parents, who, if they called repeatedly and he didn’t answer, would become worried, and possibly contact the police. But he did have the cell phone with him. He could use it to check his messages.
“All right, let’s begin,” James said, then gave over control.
***
The call came Tuesday, a little after noon. It was Kendra.
“Celeste,” she said to the answering machine, with Celeste sitting off on the couch listening. “Can you come to the pub? I know it’s your day off, but come anyway. Something terrible has happened. Hurry, please.”
Celeste didn’t go to the pub. She actually never went there again. She thought it would be a while and many victims later before someone would put it together. But someone would figure out that Celeste was associated with the rash of male heart attacks going around. So she was leaving. It was no big deal to her. She wouldn’t need much, since she could always get men to do what she wanted. She would take things from them, money and shelter, as she went along.
Guilt. She could feel none. She was now a creature of taking. Celeste left Green Pastures and never returned.
***
The spirit had scouted well. They were able to travel without being seen and by untraceable conveyances. First, it was in the back of a cigarette delivery truck they had stowed away in. They exited the truck in a small town north of Arabuke and quickly made their way into the back of a cluttered van parked outside of a bar. They waited there, hidden away behind the backseat, for about an hour. After riding for a little while, they exited the van, which was now parked in the driveway of a shoddy looking house. By the terrain, they had traveled across the border of South Carolina into a mountainous area of North Carolina.
They didn’t move far from the van, just around to the backyard and then into the back door of an old man’s house. From there, they entered a dusty cluttered room that looked like it was being used for storage. They waited there in silence until well after nightfall. Then they broke into a few different places, mostly cars and garages. Without a single glitch, without once being detected by a person or even a dog, they made their way out of these places with various items. When they were done, a large backpack stuffed with supplies was strapped to James’s back.
Then they sneaked out of town and into the forest. They traveled for several hours, mostly uphill. James didn’t become tired by all of this. Somehow, with the heat that allowed the spirit to bond with him, James was given extraordinary energy. Besides that, the spirit was the one willing all the movement, with James patiently going where his body and the spirit took him. Not even the cold that came with the added elevation bothered him.
Soon, they were traveling downhill, still through the trees, but making much faster progress. The ground leveled off and they waded their way through branches and brush until they came to an opening at the bottom of a mountain. They went inside, where they sat the supplies down. They then went outside to gather wood, which they brought in and used to build a fire. Now with light, they got into the backpack. They first laid out the stolen sleeping bag. They then used a knife to open a can of beans, which they ate with a bottle of water.
“We have plenty for now,” the spirit said. “I know more places where we can get supplies if we run out.”
“Where are we?” James asked.
“The Smoky Mountains,” the spirit replied. “Not too many people know about this cavern. Even fewer care about it. But it’s perfect for us. We can play here for a while.”
James felt the spirit’s excitement at saying they would play here. He couldn’t wait to see what play meant.
“This cavern winds around and has lots of places to hide. There’s another opening. If you didn’t know how to get there, it would take you a few hours to figure it out. But we could do it in a matter of minutes. So if anyone traces us here, we’ll get a good head start.”
James thought about what was implied. “So you’re planning on keeping us here for a while?”
The spirit laughed. “That’s completely up to you. You can get rid of me at anytime.”
Now James laughed. “I guess that’s true. But we’ll see if I want to get rid of you.”
They said nothing else. A little whi
le later, they put out the fire and went to sleep.
***
They had come out of the cavern Wednesday morning. They’d gone part way up the mountain, then climbed a tall tree. From there they sat and watched an adjacent mountain and the valley below. As they waited, wet from the dew of the morning, James thought of what the spirit was doing. But he would not question the spirit, just await the outcome. This was his favorite spirit of all. It had a constant excitement in it, not like the other spirits, who seemed to need a certain set of circumstance. This spirit liked all that it did. Building a fire in the night, stealing from someone’s garage, climbing a tree to watch the terrain below, was all exciting.
On Wednesday, there was nothing. In darkness, they returned to the cavern and repeated many of the actions of the night before. James thought he could sense the spirit was willing to talk to him, but the spirit also sensed him and knew James would like the unspoken way of communication better, at least for now.
Thursday morning, they returned to the tree. James took the body, but just for a little while. He called his voice mail. To his relief, his parents hadn’t called. He thought that must be his father’s doing. They had both sensed his desire for independence. His father was able to respect that more. Dad would be encouraging Mom not to call. Cold and miserable, James returned the body to the spirit, and he became enthused and comfortable again.
“Natives used to come to this area. They used the cavern below and trees like this one to spy on the white man who was encroaching upon them. That’s how I learned of the effectiveness of this plan.”
James was amazed by the strategy the spirit spoke of. But he was even more amazed by the implication. It was possible that the spirit had learned of this through some obscure book. But it seemed more likely that the spirit had been around at that time, centuries ago, when the Indians sometimes used guerilla warfare against settlers who were stealing their home from them. Had the spirit actually seen the Indians do this?
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 40