Jacob thought he might get sick. The Dr. Pepper that had been so cool and wonderful just minutes ago sat on his stomach like tainted water. “I don’t think I can.”
“Well…If you want her, you’ll have to. And believe me, if you give up on her, you’ll regret it until you die. When I tried to avoid feeding her for a stretch it felt like I was the one dying. I was like a drug addict that needed a fix or something. I was just so weak all the time, but when I caved in and fed her, everything was perfect.”
“If it was so perfect, then why did you sell her to me?”
“Because, Jacob, I’m an old man. I can’t keep this up like I used to. But, she can go on and on. She just needs the right mate to help her.” Gus leaned over, patting Jacob on the back. “And, I meant what I said when I told you she chose you. She could feel you coming to get her days before you even knew you would be. She’s like that. Almost like magic.”
Almost?
Sighing, Jacob rubbed his face with his hands. “I just don’t think I can give her someone to feed on. I just couldn’t take a human being, and…offer…them to her.”
“Oh, sure you can. Just do what I did.” He drank from the can, belched a breathy burp. “Pick someone you don’t like.”
“Wuh-what?”
“I’m sure there is someone that has wronged you. Just take them and offer their blood to the loveseat. It won’t make the taking of a human life part any easier, but the guilt won’t be so bad. Trust me.”
After that, Jacob was quiet. Of course there was someone that had wronged him. Severely. There was always someone who has wronged anyone severely, but Jacob felt that his culprit was worse than most others. He wondered if he could do it, even to someone as cold-hearted and selfish as Hannah.
Only one way to find out…
He thanked Gus for his time.
“Just remember,” Gus began. “It will all be worth it in the long run.” Before Jacob was out of earshot, Gus added, “Don’t get caught.”
****
After dark, Jacob drove to Mable Street. He parked his car in the cul-de-sac, two blocks down from the house. Hopefully Hannah hadn’t changed the locks yet, because he still had a spare key that she was unaware of.
Using the moon as his light, he followed its gray paths etched through the yard to the back door. Most of the lights downstairs were off, but upstairs the bedroom light shined, a bright square amongst the blackness. He fished the key out of his pocket, put it into the lock, and twisted. There was a faint click. He smiled. He’d figured she would have been too lazy to change the locks, something he would have done without delay. But, he supposed there wasn’t a hurry to do so, because she probably hadn’t once considered the possibility that Jacob would show up to kidnap her and offer her to a possessed loveseat.
Even as he thought it, the situation felt justified and not odd or foul.
He knew the house so well that he moved through the kitchen and up the stairs in stealth. His feet avoided the sags in the stairs that would cause a squeak or pop. At the top, Jacob glanced down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was opened a crack, a bar of light shining on the carpet. He crept to the door. As he got closer, he could hear the soft sound from the TV. Family Guy. She loved that show. He peeked inside and saw her.
Hannah.
She lay on the bed, head propped on pillows and eating a bowl of ice cream in a t-shirt and panties. Her new lover was nowhere to be seen. He briefly wondered where she might be as he pushed the door open.
Hannah turned to him, the spoon of vanilla ice cream suspended in front of her mouth, her eyes round as spheres. “Juh-Jacob?”
Then he was on her. His hands gripped her throat, banging her head against the headboard until she no longer struggled. The ice cream had toppled over, spilling a cold, white pile on the sheets. He checked her pulse. Still breathing. He scooped her off the bed, throwing her over his shoulder, and quickly fled back to his truck.
Then he was heading to the apartment he shared with the loveseat. He kept to the speed limits, singing along with the songs on the radio.
When he arrived at the apartment, he dug out a handful of the napkins he’d kept from Burger King, went around to the bed of the truck, and opened it. Hannah was awake, but dazed, and before she had the chance to scream, he’d stuffed the napkins in her mouth.
While she fought to spit them out, he carried her inside.
He tossed her on the floor, at the base of the loveseat.
Thank you my dear. He heard her whisper.
“Jacob? What are you doing? What is…?” But, before she could finish, a sonorous roar resounded from deep inside the couch, silencing Hannah in midsentence. She turned towards the couch, then slowly back to Jacob, looking as if she wanted to ask him a question.
Jacob gasped when the cushions sprung open like a mouth. A writhing flesh-colored tentacle lapped out, slithering over the front, and finding Hannah’s ankles. The snake-thing curled around them. Hannah screamed. Another tentacle shot out, penetrating her mouth. Her throat bulged as it traveled down into her stomach. She gurgled, choking on it. Then the tentacles hoisted her in the air, pulling her into the loveseat. She struggled against them, trying to break free, but her attempts were fruitless. She disappeared into the couch; the cushions closing after her darting hands went underneath.
Then the loveseat belched.
Full and satisfied.
After a moment, Jacob turned and walked away. He was surprised he felt nothing at all over what had just transpired.
He showered.
After he finished, he went to the loveseat naked and dripping. They made love several times during the night. She introduced him to other creative techniques using her tentacles, taking him to intense heights he never thought he could reach.
Without her, he wouldn’t have.
And he was her favorite of all she’d ever had. He knew for certain. He could feel it.
The next morning, needing to gather his energy for another day of adolescent-like frolicking, he called out of work. When his boss told him he had acquired more than enough paid time-off hours and he could use some of them for a mini-vacation, Jacob was ecstatic.
The honeymoon was far from over, and the loveseat wouldn’t need to feed for several more days. When the time came, he would find Jennifer, and reunite her with Hannah.
After that…well, he’d already begun preparing a list of prospects.
GEARHEART’S WIFE
John Gearhart.
No way it’s the same John Gearhart.
But how many John Gearharts could there possibly be? Tobe understood that yes, the first name was very ordinary, but how common could the last name possibly be? Gearhart. And, how many people could possibly have both names, and not be the one he was hoping it to be.
Tobe Crooks couldn’t think of anyone else other than the John Gearhart, the man who had directed a bale of exploitation movies in the late seventies before graduating to gory splatter movies in the eighties.
The only John Gearhart he’d ever heard of.
What am I gonna do if the door opens and it’s actually him!?!
Probably piss his pants, and spend another hour awkwardly apologizing for the ammonia-like smell while the horror legend signed his home refinance papers.
That was Tobe’s job. Taking the paperwork from the title companies to the borrowers to be signed, then notarizing their signatures to make it legal. He was constantly introduced to different houses and living conditions and not one of them was ever identical. And the pets! Tobe liked pets, his family even owned some, but he’d been in some houses where the pets were running the lot, and not the owners. There was one evening where he’d been subjected to having to watch a toddler roll around on the floor in cat puke stains. As much as he wanted to ask how they could let their kid play in filth and cat excrement, he couldn’t say a word. It was his job to go in, smile, and no matter what the environment was, he had to represent the lending companies in a positive light.
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A glorified paperboy that had to suck it up and shut up.
He’d been doing the job for over a year now, and this was the most excitement he’d experienced: The possibility of meeting one of his favorites in the genre, a true icon in the horror world. His stomach buzzed with anxiety and stimulation, a nice change of pace from his drab work routine. He felt like all he did anymore was drive, stop at gas stations long enough to pump a small fortune into the tank, buy a cherry Dr. Pepper and some kind of beef jerky, and then drive some more. To say he was getting tired of it was a meek interpretation. Typically, when he was at home his family wasn’t. His three kids would be in school, his wife at work, leaving it his responsibility to be the housekeeper since Kaylyn had to handle all the evening parental duties herself. He often became lonely, cranky, and his temper’s fuse was about as long as a grass seed. The job had lost its new car smell, and he needed to swap out the car fresheners almost daily.
He’d had a love for horror movies for as long as he could remember, and wasn’t exactly sure how it began. It’d just always been there. He’d even contemplated a career making his own films. It had been easier when he was younger to take a video camera and a group of friends into the woods to record some kind of short, gory picture. It was a lot of fun, but eventually his friends lost interest. He never did; however, without the motivation his friends had offered, and even the support they’d given him, his desire to make horror movies quickly diminished. His parents were encouraging enough while he was growing up, but as he got older, talks came frequently on the art of growing up and getting a real job.
And he eventually did grow up, resigning from making movies, and the possibilities that might have come had he continued pursuing them. Now there was this emptiness in him, and he assumed it was because he’d given up his dream before seeing how far he might have gotten…if anywhere.
He slowed the Jeep as he neared a four-way intersection. The GPS informed him he had two miles to go before he needed to turn. His chest buzzed. He couldn’t sit still in his seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Tobe wanted to smoke now more than ever. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in three weeks and the cravings had hardly dissipated. But, he’d needed to stop; if not for his health, he needed to do it for his bank account. It had cost him some money and time taking online classes to become certified as a signing agent, but overall he was glad that he had. He liked being his own boss, choosing who he worked with—at the amount of money he was making, he wasn’t selective—and for the most part, he could pick and choose his working days. Although, he hadn’t become well enough established to set his own pay rate, that usually meant he had to take the long distance jobs for short change.
It was a living, sort of…Maybe it would be a good one someday.
“In .7 miles, turn right onto Windy Circle Drive,” said the husky, android like voice of the GPS. He’d named her Felicia, for no reason other than he thought she sounded like one.
His stomach cramped.
Almost there.
The drive had felt agonizingly long, yet had also seemed to zip by too quickly. He wasn’t prepared. He needed to figure out what he was going to say without coming off as a weirdo fan-boy. After all, Tobe was going to be in his house and if this was the John Gearhart, then he would probably be skeptical of having someone who knew who he was in his home. He might even think Tobe had somehow planned this, intentionally.
But if it was the John Gearhart, what was he doing in North Carolina? Tobe knew at one point he’d resided in Georgia, which was where the majority of his films took place. He supposed he could have moved, retiring in North Carolina how some folks like to finish out their lives in Florida. It had been nearly fifteen years since the man had made a movie, so it was very plausible that he got out of the business and settled here.
The GPS reminded him his turn was forthcoming, so he slowed the car down, checking his mirrors for cars and not seeing any. Actually, he hadn’t seen any in a good while. It had been only his car on this stretch of blacktop with nothing but countryside all around.
It really seemed like a lovely place to settle down.
Tobe steered the Jeep into Windy Circle and stopped at the mouth of the gravel road. It sketched through the woods and looked as if it might go on forever. Was this the right place? He put the car in park, and double checked the address on the confirmation sheet.
111 Windy Circle Drive.
This was the right place.
He rolled the window down. It had recently rained, and the late spring air outside was thick and sticky. With his head poking out through the open space, he looked from right to left. He’d expected to find a brick plank of mailboxes, or possibly a stake with house numbers nailed to it, but he found neither.
“What the hell…?”
The GPS was telling him to continue forward. The distance left to travel was displayed in the left corner of the screen and it told him he had two miles left to go. On the screen were thick green blotches around the purple line for the road that showed him nothing but woodland would wall him in once he began to drive inward.
He sighed, put the Jeep in gear, and started to drive forward. He left the window down, enjoying the wind brushing his cheek and the sweet smell of the damp woods. He could hear the gravel popping under his tires.
As he traveled, the woods seemed to close in around the Jeep, pressing tighter in on him as if the limbs wanted to reach in and snatch him out. Why had that thought occurred to him? He stared at the leafy, low-hanging branches, and thought they did impeccably resemble big green hands. Although he knew they wouldn’t start groping at him, he rolled up the window just in case.
Anyway!
The air coming from the vents suddenly felt too cold on his dampening skin. He could feel the inklings of a chill zinging up his spine. The radio became static-choked as the song tried to bleed through, but mostly it was annoying chatter now, so he shut off the radio completely, and turned the AC down to low.
Then he noticed the house marker, its golden numbers twinkling in the shadowed area under the trees. 111. He kept on, following the gravel road through the woods.
Finally, the path opened up on a two story, log cabin home nudging the woods behind it. The trees crowded around it, their thick arms held out as if trying to keep anyone from seeing the house behind them. There was a decent sized yard in the back, neatly cut grass on each side, and a three door garage sitting off to the left that wasn’t connected to the rest of the house. A Ford Escape was parked at an angle in front.
It was a cozy, yet capacious place, just the kind of home Tobe had always dreamed of owning himself. He parked the Jeep behind the Escape and twisted the key, killing the engine. He patted his pocket to make sure his cell phone was in there. It was. Then he grabbed his brief case from the backseat and stepped out of the car. The air felt like a heated moist blanket on his skin. The chills he’d had were gone, and now he could feel his body beginning to sweat. Usually when he started sweating, he couldn’t stop. He hoped John Gearhart, whether he was the one he hoped he was or not, had air conditioning.
It was blinding out here, sunlight reflecting off the beads of dew dotting the blades of grass. Tobe could see mist curling along the trees, making its way into the yard as evening approached and bringing cooler temperatures with it. He quickly crossed the graveled driveway, and climbed the wooden steps to the porch. An eave was above him and followed the length of the porch around to the side of the house. Planters hung from hooks with vibrantly colored vines growing out of them. He’d never seen such plants before and wondered what they were. Kaylyn liked to dabble in gardening, but usually that entailed the slaughter of credulous plant breeds. These he was looking at now were lovely flora, and he would like to have some decorating their house.
Tobe used his index finger to ring the doorbell. He could hear the faint chime reverberating within the house. He observed the porch as he waited. There were two rocking chairs, a small table set up
between them with an ash tray on top and a half-smoked cigar nestled in the corner.
The sound of footsteps approaching the door from the other side brought his attention back in front of him. The back of his throat felt as if it was bubbling. No way was this going to play out how he’d hoped it would, but still he couldn’t stop himself from being anxious about it.
A lock clicked.
Tobe’s heart hammered.
Another lock clicked as well.
He readied himself for disappointment.
Then the door knob turned and the door swayed open. The screen door remained closed as a shape appeared in the shroud of shadows behind the mesh. Standing on the other side was a man, an older man, probably in his late seventies, but other than some worry lines around his eyes, he appeared to be very healthy for his age. His face looked smooth and wholesome. He had a short moustache above his lip, sugar-colored hair, and thick black glasses that reminded Tobe of the digital 3D glasses you would get at the movie theaters.
Tobe smiled.
It was the John Gearhart. He’d seen enough pictures of the film-maker and watched plenty of interviews on special edition DVDs to be certain.
This was him!
“Yes,” Gearhart said.
“Mr. Gearhart?”
“That’s me.”
“Hi, I’m Tobe.”
“The Notary, I presume.”
“That’s me.”
“Great,” he pushed open the screen door. “Come on in.”
Gearhart stepped back to give him room for entrance. Tobe entered the house, taking the door from him, and letting it bang closed behind him. From the brightness outside, stepping into the house was like entering a cave. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the sudden change in brilliance.
Tobe gave the foyer a quick scan. Nothing about the interior design screamed a horror movie legend lived here, and he assumed that was because of the wife. She was the one who’d probably chosen the style, the decor.
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