Scream (35 page)

Little had been said during the past tense hour. They had
agreed to wait and see if Mark called, then do something about
the dogs. Neither of them was eager to give Cheryl's strangulation plan a go. For one, it meant sticking your hands outside the
barn and having them frightfully close to the chomping jaws and
knifelike teeth of the Dobermans. Second, it meant pulling off
a Houdini trick to actually get the belt around said Doberman-
with-the-chomping-jaws's neck. And third, it meant finding the
strength to pull the belt hard enough to strangle the dog. There
were no guarantees. The plan was far from foolproof. But right
now it was all they had ... if Mark didn't come through.

"What time is it?" Amber asked.

"Five," Cheryl said. "I'm gonna keep it on now. I'm guessing
he'll worry when I don't call at five but wait until about five
after to call me. Just hope there's enough life in the battery to last that long." She paused and looked at Amber, then at Ginny
who was stilled curled into her turtle-shell semi-catatonic ball,
soaking in the outside world. "Are either of you religious?"

Ginny shot her a quick look then broke off eye contact.

Amber shook her head. "Not anymore. My mom dragged me
to Sunday school every week when I was a kid, though. Why?"

Cheryl snorted a short laugh. "I was just thinking we should
maybe pray. It may be the only hope we have." She looked from
Amber to Ginny. "Any volunteers?"

There was a moment of quiet between the three women
before Amber said rather sheepishly, "I will." She wrung her
hands and looked around. "Um, I guess I'll just start then. God,
our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name ... though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ... we know
You're with us. Um, God, we need some help right now. We need
Cheryl's ... uh, Cheryl's husband to call us and for someone to
find us. Help us, God. We could really use a miracle. Please
send help. Um, amen."

Cheryl looked up and smiled at Amber. "Thank you." She
then looked over at Ginny and noticed a tear had spilled from
her eye and had a cut a single trail through the dirt on her
face. "We'll get out of here," she said, trying to muster as much
confidence as she could. "We will."

Mark was standing in the computer room again, Foreman by
his side, Brinkley at the keyboard, and a couple other deputies
he hadn't met standing on either side of Brinkley. Everything
was ready to go. Brinkley said it would take about four minutes
of airtime to locate them. Then Foreman would make some
calls and the rescue mission would be in full swing.

Mark looked at the time on the phone's display for the
umpteenth time: 5:03.

This was not like Cheryl at all. She was never late. Something
had to have gone wrong. At 5:00 he'd tried calling her phone
but got the answering service. Her phone was still turned off.
Was Pervert there and that's why she hadn't called? Was she
OK? Was she even still alive? Just before she hung up last time,
she said she'd call in an hour if she could. What did that mean?
Was she expecting Pervert to return? He didn't like this at all.
He should have told her to leave the phone on. How many times
had he tried to reach her in the past and her phone had been
turned off?

-Where've you been, Cher?

-What do you mean?

-I've been trying to call you all day.

-I had some errands to-

-Cheryl, you have to leave the phone on. What if I had to
contact you? What if there's an emergency and I can't reach
you?

But if she left it on, the battery would be dead, and then
there would be no way of contacting her, let alone pinpointing
her location.

All these thoughts crowded and shoved their way through
his mind in the couple minutes since he'd tried calling her. In
two more minutes he'd try again.

He noticed Foreman looking at him. "You all right?" she said.

"She's late. Cheryl's never late for anything. It's one of the
things that drove me crazy about her ... in a good way."

Foreman rested a hand on his arm but didn't say anything,
for which Mark was thankful. No amount of encouragement or
positive thinking or platitudes could change the reality of the moment: Cheryl hadn't called, and it was now four past five.
She was four minutes late, which for her was like an eternity.

With each passing second the tension in the little computer
room built, like the pressure before a storm when it feels like
the sky is falling and the air is rich with the smell of ozone.
Brinkley annoyingly tapped a pen on the computer keyboard.
The other two deputies looked mildly disinterested. One examined his fingernails; the other, with hands shoved in pockets up
to the wrists, watched the screen saver on the monitor, the text
Serve and Protect that slowly bounced around on the screen
oddly reminding Mark of the old Atari game Pong.

Mark checked his watch: 5:05. "I'm trying again," Mark saidPlease, God, let it be on-and punched in Cheryl's number.

Her phone rang, and his heart nearly stopped. "It's ringing,"
he almost shouted.

After one ring: "Mark?"

Tears sprung to Mark's eyes, and he had to hold back a sob.
This sudden surge of emotion surprised him. He swallowed
hard. "Cheryl. Baby."

"Mark, I'm OK. We're all OK."

"You sure? Because-"

"Yes. We're all OK."

"Has he come back yet?"

"No. Did you tell the police?"

"Yeah, I'm here at the station. They're going to triangulate
your signal and we'll know exactly where you are. We're gonna
get you out, babe. Just hang in there."

There was a pause on the other end, and Mark realized
Cheryl was crying.

After a few seconds she said, "Hurry, OK?" Her voice was
weak and broken. Mark could tell she was exhausted, physically
and emotionally.

"We are. Just don't give up, OK?"

"0-" What came next dropped Mark to his knees. Screams.
Wailing and crying. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Hell's
chorus drowning out his dear wife's voice. It was the last thing
he wanted to hear. He collapsed to the floor and began to cry.
"Cherrrylll!" He tried yelling over the screams, but it was
useless. The cacophony only grew louder, drowning out every
other sound. Then, as if a switch was thrown, it was gone. There
was a moment of silence.

"Cheryl!" Then a dial tone, reaching through the phone and
tearing at Mark's heart. She was gone. Just like that.

He looked from Foreman to Brinkley. Their faces were like
granite, etched with hard lines of concentration ... and maybe
disbelief. "She's gone."

Foreman looked at Brinkley, who was on the phone with
Cheryl's network provider. "Did you get it?"

"OK," he said into the phone, scribbling numbers as he
listened. "Thanks." He dropped the phone into its cradle and
frowned, his loose jowls sagging well below the line of his jaw.
"We got the primary array. That's it." He looked at the piece of
notepaper he was writing on. "Bedford County, Pennsylvania.
Latitude, thirty-nine point seven-nine-one degrees north.
Longitude, seventy-eight point six-six-two degrees west."

Mark turned to Foreman. "Did you hear it? The screams?"

She nodded, her jaw tight. "Try calling her. Maybe the signal
just got interrupted."

Mark dialed Cheryl's number. Nothing. Dead. A feeling of
dread swept over him and landed in the pit of his gut like a
rock. Cheryl was going to die, and all he knew was that she was
somewhere in Pennsylvania. Bedford County.

Cheryl had heard the screams too. She didn't know what they
were, but she'd heard them. And they'd given her the chills, top
of her head right down to her tailbone. Sounded like hundreds,
maybe thousands, of people in pain, awful pain, crying,
screaming, moaning. She had been thinking it was probably
just a bad signal when the cutout door burst open. Judge stood
in the doorway, Stetson riding low on his brow, hands hanging
loosely at his sides like a gunslinger.

Ginny screamed and scrambled on all fours to where Amber
and Cheryl were standing.

Judge had moved quickly, taking the distance between them
in five long strides, ripped the phone from Cheryl's hand, and
stomped on it.

Now facing him, Cheryl saw the hate in his dark eyes. Anger,
no, more than anger, rage burned in them like a fire. His chest
rose and fell, drawing in deep breaths, nostrils flared. His lips
twitched and jaw muscles flexed. They were going to die. He
was going to kill them right here, right now. She was sure of it.

He turned his head and called over his shoulder. "Duke!
Buck!"

Within seconds the Dobermans were there, swirling around
his legs like two shadowy demons, panting heavily, pink tongues
dangling between snarled lips.

A shot of fear paralyzed Cheryl. He was going to let the dogs
have their way. She imagined what it would be like to be eaten
alive, then pushed the thought from her mind. She had to stay
alive. Stay positive.

"That was stupid. Really stupid," Judge said, drilling Cheryl
with narrowed eyes. He raised a hand as if to hit her, stopped it in midair, then slowly lowered it to his side, fingers opening
and closing. "Stupid."

With that he turned and headed for the door. The dogs
stayed where they were, eyeing the women, snarling and snapping their jaws like two snakes tasting the air.

"Come!" Judge said. The dogs whimpered, chuffed, then
obeyed and fell in beside him. At the door, judge turned his head
and drilled the women one more time. "I won't be gone long."

As soon as the door closed and the metal lock fell into place,
Cheryl reached for the cell phone. The casing was now demolished, crushed and cracked, and a single white wire protruded
through one of the fractures in the plastic. She tried turning it
on, but nothing happened. She tried again, pushing the button
repeatedly. Still nothing. It was dead.

And so were they.

"We have to go now!" Mark said. His hands were trembling,
and a sickening nausea had settled in his stomach.

"Hold on, Mark. Just hold on," Foreman said. She took a few
steps toward him, hands outstretched. "It's not that easy."

"What? What do you mean? You know they're somewhere
in Bedford County. Get some people on it!" He couldn't believe
they hadn't moved already. They'd been standing around for
ten minutes. Why wasn't Foreman on the radio calling in the
troops? Cheryl could be dead any minute. And he didn't even
want to imagine how it would happen.

Foreman placed both her hands on Mark's shoulders. He
pulled away. "Mark, listen," she said. "We only got one tower. It
helps, sure. Really helps. But the fact is that one tower leaves us
with"-she looked at Brinkley-"how many square miles?"

Brinkley shrugged, his thick shoulders rising and falling in
rapid fashion. "Hundred and twenty, hundred and forty, max."

Foreman looked back at Mark and raised her eyebrows.
"That's a lot of land. And mostly farms and wooded area. And
the sun'll be down in a little over an hour. We're soon going to
be out of daylight. Do you know how hard it is to search for a
single barn in the middle of a hundred and twenty square miles
in the dark? And besides, just because the tower is in Bedford
County doesn't mean the barn is."