The Best of Horror Library: Volumes 1-5

by Bentley Little

  So Jerrod does, thanking Mr. Williams politely as he descends the stairs. He steps onto the frozen concrete sidewalk, crosses the schoolyard and takes his place at the back of Mrs. Rider’s line, where the rest of the third graders are already waiting. Mrs. Rider is at the front, asking the Farley twins how their evening went and if they had any troubles with their math homework. Her hair is black with stringy, gray highlights. Her eyes are brown and warm. Jerrod loves Mrs. Rider. Feels he can tell her things he wouldn’t tell anyone else. If he had a choice, Mrs. Rider would be his grandmother, instead of the boney-bodied, wispy-haired old woman he is forced to kiss each Christmas and every other Easter.

  The bell rings and everyone gets quiet, and for a moment there is only the wind and the brittle leaves scraping across the playground, and the diesel roar of the school bus driving away. The chatter of other classes as they line up in other areas of the playground. Jerrod hears none of these things. He looks over his shoulder at the mountains. The column of smoke continues to writhe into the sky. He watches it, and smiles.

  “I know,” he says. “I’m coming.”

  * * *

  Belinda Rider stands before her class, silently counting as her students wait for her command. She has twenty-four this year. It’s a big number—the biggest she’s ever had. Eight more than she ought to have considering the size of her classroom and the curriculum she is expected to cover. She knows this will become an issue in the spring, when the prospect of summer ignites the souls of all children, sending them into early afternoon frenzies that are almost impossible to control. But for now, in the cold morning air, she doesn’t mind the number. They are quiet and pleasant, and as she sees their rosy cheeks and running noses, and their wide, obedient eyes, she can’t help but feel love for them.

  “Okay, class,” she says, turning to the side and extending a hand to guide them. “Let’s head inside. Remember this is pizza week. You’re only two good days away, so no fooling around.”

  Shoes scuffling over pavement, the children head inside. They are mindful of their spacing. Their lips are tightly sealed. No one wants to be the one to ruin the monthly pizza party for the class.

  Belinda smiles down at them as they pass. Karli Millstein with her ladybug barrettes. Kurt Rowe in the Grizzly football jersey he has worn every day since his birthday. Nicki Waters, lips always turned up as if she just got away with something, or is about to try. Belinda’s eyes linger on the girl, and she wonders which of the two it is today. Maybe neither. Probably both.

  Then Nicki is gone and Mitch Schroeder is there, head down, untied shoelaces tapping the ground with every step.

  “Good morning, Mitch,” she says.

  “Morning.”

  He still has the bruise on the back of his neck—a thumb-sized purple smudge in a halo of yellow, just below the hairline. Seeing this makes her smile fade away, makes the cigarette burns in his jacket all the more noticeable, and she suddenly recalls the glazed look in his father’s eyes at the parent-teacher conferences. The stink of alcohol on his breath.

  “Is everything okay?” she says, because it’s all she can think to ask, and makes a mental note to check back in with the counselor. She tries to remember where she put the forms, the ones all teachers are required to fill out whenever suspicions of abuse arise. They’re somewhere in her desk—probably the bottom drawer, behind the detention slips, the confiscated bubble gum, and her throat lozenges.

  Mitch answers without looking up. “Yeah. I’m fine.” Then, like the others, he vanishes through the doorway.

  She is about to follow when she stops. Her instincts are telling her she has only seen twenty-three faces this morning. Someone is missing. She turns around and sees him, a snowman of a child in a gray sweatshirt standing at the far end of the painted line. His backpack hangs low on his back. The straps swallowed up by the cotton of his sweatshirt, and the soft flesh of his chest. To Belinda, it looks as if he’s carrying the weight of the world in there. He is looking over his shoulder, and he’s giggling.

  “Jerrod,” she says. “We’re going in now.”

  Jerrod says something that isn’t directed at her.

  “Hey, Jerrod.” She starts down the painted line. By the time she reaches the boy she is limping, the cold infecting the bone-on-bone grind of her arthritic hip. She smiles through a wince and puts a hand on Jerrod’s shoulder. Heat radiates from under his coat. He flinches and looks up at her.

  “It’s time to go,” she says. “Your classmates are already inside.”

  “Okay,” he says, hopping to adjust the weight of the backpack, and starts for the door.

  “Who were you talking to back there,” she asks, limping along beside him.

  “No one,” he says. “I’m moving today.”

  “Are you?”

  “I have a new home, now. My parents said no, but I’m going anyways. They can’t stop me anymore.” He hesitates before going through the door and whispers. “I only have one more chore before I get to go. Like a test.”

  Belinda frowns. “Who says so? Your parents?”

  Jerrod doesn’t answer, and as he steps through the doorway, Belinda decides to alert the counselor of this child as well.

  * * *

  “Sit down, everyone,” Mrs. Rider says when they’ve all entered the room. “And take out your journals, please. You know the drill. I want you to write about the best thing that happened to you last night and the worst thing that happened to you last night. You have ten minutes.”

  Jerrod unzips the large pocket of his backpack, pushes the Book aside, and retrieves his spiral-bound notebook. He opens it to the proper page, grabs a pencil from the metal lip just inside his desk, and begins to write.

  He’s good with words, has been since he was very young, and is able to construct the new letters with relative ease. They’re more difficult than the cursive q’s, z’s, and y’s he learned last year on Mrs. Morey’s ice-cream paper, but after practicing at home these past few days, the new letters are coming out quite nicely.

  “Five minutes,” Mrs. Rider says from her desk. “Start wrapping things up, please.”

  Jerrod finishes early. He puts his pencil down and stares at the wooden surface of his desk, at the things that had been carved by students who must be grownups by now. There is the smiley face with the red-inked eye, the etching of the name TuRnER, and the letters F-U-K. Jerrod has never been able to figure out the last one, because it isn’t a word he’s ever heard of. F-u-c-k he’s heard of, but not F-U-K. He thinks the letters might be initials, or maybe something from the Book that he hasn’t gotten to yet.

  “Time’s up,” Mrs. Rider says. “Now, who would like to share with the class?” She scans the room, passing over Jerrod once. Twice. It makes him nervous, because he didn’t write about his evening. She passes over a third time, then says, “Mitch? How about you?”

  Mitch Schroeder shakes his head. His eyes are wide.

  “Yep, come on…up to the front of the class.”

  “Mrs. Rider, I didn’t write anything,” Mitch says. He covers his paper with his arms.

  “I know for a fact that you did, Mitch. Now, come on. Everyone has to share sooner or later. Might as well get it over with today.”

  Mitch sighs. He gets up and drags his feet to the front of the class, shoelaces tapping all the way. Once there, he twists from side to side, holding his journal in front of his face so all Jerrod can see is a bushy tuft of red, curly hair blooming from the top of Mitch’s notebook. Mitch begins, reading each word as if it is its own sentence.

  “The worst thing that happened last night was my dad got mad and yelled at my mom and left and my mom cried and yelled at my brother and me and we didn’t get dinner. The best thing was my mom took us out for ice cream later and I got to have a large peanut butter cup sundae to myself.”

  He lowers his notebook, moves quickly to his seat. His face is red and when he sits down he puts it into the fold of his arms so that only the back of his head and
neck are showing.

  “That was very nice, Mitch,” Mrs. Rider says. She opens a drawer in her desk, shifts a few things around, and pulls out a pink sheet of paper. “I’m jealous of your peanut butter cup sundae. Was it good?”

  Mitch nods, but doesn’t lift his head. Jerrod watches as Mrs. Rider writes on the pink paper. He is barely aware that his fingers are stroking his own paper, smudging the letters. Making them warm.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Rider says, still finishing her writing. “I have to run to the office for a minute. Who’s our policeperson? Karli? Aren’t you in charge this week?”

  Karli Millstein nods and lifts her paper badge into the air.

  “Good. I’ll expect a full report when I return. Remember, class. It’s pizza week.” Her eyes linger on Nicki Waters, then she stands and leaves the classroom, the pink paper waffling in her right hand.

  For a while, the class is quiet. Jerrod looks down at his paper, at the letters he has carved there with his mechanical pencil. The writing isn’t finished yet, but he has to wait. Write. Read. Write. Read. That’s the pattern. Write. Read. Write. Read. It’s what the Voices say.

  Then Nicki is out of her desk, moving to the front of the room. “I’ll read,” she says, as if she’s doing the class a favor, and stands primly beside Mrs. Rider’s desk.

  “The best thing that happened to me last night,” she says, “was when I got to go to my Nanna’s house and watch the Hannah Montana concert on cable.”

  The class stirs, and the anticipation is thick in the air. Jerrod can feel their eyes on him. Watching. Waiting. Nicki glances at Jerrod. An evil grin spreads across her face.

  “The worst thing that happened to me last night was when Jerrod Steihl farted and I smelled it all the way from my Nanna’s house.”

  The children erupt in full-blown hilarity. Nicki doesn’t waiver, doesn’t move. She is glaring at Jerrod. Waiting for Jerrod to cry. For once, Nicki Waters will be a stupid jerk that doesn’t get what she wants.

  The laughing continues. The jeers begin. Like Nicki, they are all leaning, watching, waiting, hoping for the moment in which Jerrod Steihl finally snaps. They do this in the way that Jerrod’s father once slowed while driving past a traffic accident, or the way that his mother used to cling to her cell phone when hearing a juicy bit of gossip about a neighbor or fellow church member.

  He bends down and reaches into the large pocket of his backpack. The cover of the Book is made of smooth leather and feels nothing like the harsh, cold seats of the school bus. He tightens his grip and pulls it out, setting it on his desk beside the notebook. He flips pages until he finds the first of his two bookmarks: a Richie Sexson baseball card. Not the Seattle Mariner Richie Sexson, but the Milwaukee Brewer Richie Sexson. It’s the better Richie Sexson, so said Jerrod’s dad.

  Here the writing is still in English, though it isn’t the English Jerrod has been learning these past few years. The English in this Book is different, full of strange words, like thou and thy, and larger ones that are too complicated for him to pronounce. He scans down the page. The jeers become crueler, angrier.

  “Are you going to cry, Jar-head?” Jerrod hears one of them say. “Are you going to squirt some?” Jerrod’s eyes roll across the words until he finds the tiny note he left himself the night before. READ HERE—You have to do it three times, it says in his familiar chicken-scratch scrawl. He nods, as if it was the page telling him to do this rather than his own handwriting, and then begins to read.

  He speaks quietly, barely able to hear himself over the ruckus around him. It doesn’t matter; the Voices didn’t say anything about the words being heard, just that they must be read aloud. He repeats this phrase twice more, closes the Book, and picks up his pencil. He has to work quickly if he is going to finish before Mrs. Rider comes back.

  “Look at his tongue,” says Bennie Holliday. “It’s like he’s going to eat his own face.”

  Jerrod realizes Bennie is right, feels the wetness of his tongue on his lips. He doesn’t withdraw it. He is focused and this is his focused face. Something has awakened within him. He writes as if he has known this language all his life. The tip of his pencil swoops and spins, etching the intricate new letters into the page.

  When he finishes, he rips the paper from the notebook. Holds it in front of his face, staring in awe at the alien script. There’s an electric feeling in the air, shockwaves rippling up his arms and across his chest. It’s a feeling Jerrod has never experienced before, and now that he has it, Jerrod never wants to let it go.

  “Oh man, he’s going to eat the paper,” someone says.

  “Probably,” says another. “He eats anything.”

  Everyone laughs.

  Jerrod turns his head, stares at them, and the laughter quickly dies.

  “I’m supposed to eat the paper,” he says quietly, and devours it, stuffing it into his mouth and tearing away large chunks. At first he has a hard time chewing. Then his saliva softens it into pulp, and the paper tastes good. It tastes oh, so good.

  The students gape at Jerrod with wide, unbelieving eyes. One of them is able to mutter, “Geez…” And Karli Millstein, seeing as she is the policeperson, is brave enough to say, “That’s disgusting.” But as he thrusts the remaining bit of paper into his mouth, no one makes a single move.

  Jerrod swallows and relishes the feeling as it slides down his gullet. The edges of the paper have made small cuts in the corners of his mouth, and he thinks he might be bleeding. But he doesn’t care. A warm sensation is growing in his chest, and, for the first time in his life, he is aware of his potential strength.

  Almost, he thinks, and reaches again for the Book.

  This time he opens it to the second bookmark, a third place ribbon he earned for one of his poems during last year’s county fair. He pushes the ribbon aside. Now you read this, his handwriting says in the margin of the page. But only once. DO NOT READ IT TWICE. Reading it twice would be bad for everyone— the school, the neighborhood, maybe even the entire town. Reading it once was only bad for Mrs. Rider’s classroom. Once is enough. For now.

  The Voices grow louder, chanting Jerrod’s name from faraway places. Smokey places. Snowy places. These are the Voices that called Jerrod into the yellow-grassed fields nearly two years ago, the Voices that led him to the secret hiding place of the Book, buried there, deep down in the earth. Jerrod doesn’t know why they spoke to him then, or why they speak to him now. All he knows is that the Voices are sweet, pleasant, and he believes everything they say.

  Leaving his belongings on his desk, he zips up the pockets of his backpack, puts it on. The backpack isn’t necessary for the thing to work, but it is camouflage. He stops beside Mitch Schroeder’s desk.

  “Hey, Mitch.”

  Mitch doesn’t say anything. He keeps his head down. Jerrod can see a doodle on Mitch’s journal entry. It’s Spiderman, better than the window drawings, hanging from the corner of the page.

  “I like Spiderman, too,” Jerrod says. “He always knows when it’s time to run away.” It’s the best he can do for the boy who was almost a friend. Then Jerrod is walking again, and the Voices chant on. They don’t want Jerrod thinking about Mitch Schroeder. Not with work to be done.

  Jerrod doesn’t go all the way to the front of the room. He stops in the corner where Mrs. Rider keeps the overhead projector and the rolled up maps the class uses during their Geography period. Jerrod figures this spot is as good as any. Close enough to the door. Close enough to the middle of the room.

  “What’s he doing?” Karli Millstein says. No one knows.

  He raises his arms above his head and he can feel the bottom of his gray sweatshirt lift up, revealing his rotund, pale belly. Any other time on any other day, this would’ve left Jerrod wide open to verbal attack. This time, on this day, no one notices Jerrod’s exposed flesh, veined with purple stretch marks. They seem more concerned with the floor of the classroom. It’s starting to shake.

  The warmth in Jerrod’s chest becomes hot.
Sweat beads and drips from the corners of his brow. He closes his eyes. In his mind, he sees a small, black seed. The seed is smooth, perfectly round. He can feel it with his mind, the way he can taste a cheeseburger before he takes his first bite.

  “Grow,” Jerrod says and scrunches his face in concentration. “Come on… grow.”

  The seed in his mind begins to pulse, ripple like a pregnant belly. A tendril bursts from one side of the seed. A second explodes from the other. Then a third. Then a fourth. Jerrod hears something from the corner of the room. It’s Nicki. She isn’t crying yet, but her eyes are wide and her once mischievous face is vacant and pale. He watches. Waits. The floor splits and the Voices cry out. As Karli Millstein’s paper badge flutters away from her grasp, dancing through the air like a late-autumn leaf on a winter wind, an exhilarated and guttural cackle boils up from the depths of Jerrod’s core.

  * * *

  Belinda Rider feels the bone-on-bone grinding deep within her pelvis, shooting daggers of pain throughout her abdomen and down her left leg. Her hip is begging her to stop, but she won’t. She can’t. She needs to get back to her students.

  She had already left the office when the building began to shake. At first she thought it nothing more than a small earthquake, which this area receives every so often. She could recall three distinct tremors during her tenure at the school, none of which resulted in any damage.

  But a moment ago, as she walked past the gymnasium, the halogen lights began to quiver in their housing and she grew worried. By the time she reached the cafeteria, a fire extinguisher had fallen off the wall and the power had gone out, and she was afraid.

  Now she is terrified, hobbling as fast as her body would allow in the worn support of her orthopedic shoes. She ignores the pain erupting in her hip. Barely notices the commotion of the classrooms to her right and left as colleagues instruct their students. Everything is a muted jumble of sights and sounds.

  A screeching static bursts from the overhead speakers. Principal John Winter’s voice pours down from above. “Do not panic. This is not a drill. Please proceed with School Lockdown Procedure. I repeat…this is not a drill. Please proceed with School Lockdown Procedure.”