Scream (6 page)

Mark grunted. That pretty much summed it up. How 'bout
bad life?

His mind went back to the scream. At the time he'd thought
nothing of it. Just some interference in the cell phone signal or
something. But now, for some reason he couldn't explain, he
wasn't so sure. But what was it? It was the first time he'd ever
heard such a thing, and it just so happened to occur on the same
night-only minutes before-Jeff got in a bizarre car accident
and died? Not just died, burned to death. Weird. Very weird.

He reached for a chip and flipped it into his mouth just as
the phone on his desk rang.

Mark quickly chewed the chip, took a gulp of Diet Pepsi, and
answered the phone on the third ring. "Stone Service Center."

"Mark, it's Jerry down at Detweiler's. How's it going?"

Crappy, Jerry, but thanks for asking. That's what he wanted
to say, but he had no desire to talk about Jeff's death yet. Play it
safe. "'Bout half. What, you working Saturdays now too?"

Jerry chuckled. "When business is good you do what it takes
to keep it that way."

"You got a point there."

"Hey, I have that fuel injector you ordered. For the '99 Cavalier. You-"

Screams cut off Jerry's voice like a guillotine. The screams.
The same ones Mark had heard before-before Jeff died.
Hideous, tortuous wails and groans. An image of thousands,
maybe millions, of twisted faces, distorted with pain, flashed
through his mind and his blood ran cold, as if someone had
jammed an IV of ice water into his vein. Goose bumps freckled
his skin, and his neck and jaw tingled. His throat suddenly
tightened, and he found it hard to breathe.

Like last time, it lasted maybe five seconds then ceased
abruptly.

"Mark? Mark, you still there?" Jerry was talking to him, but
Mark's mind was not registering it as actual words spoken to
him. They were off in the distance somewhere. "Hello?"

"Uh, yeah, Jerry, I'm still here." He had to force the words
out past his restricting trachea.

"Did you hear that?"

Mark closed his eyes, willing his muscles to relax. He took a
deep breath. "Yeah, I heard it."

"What was it? Sounded like screaming."

Like hell itself. "I know. I don't know what it was."

Jerry snorted into the phone. "Crazy. Anyway, I'll run the
injector over to you right now."

Mark still wasn't thinking clearly. He was still hearing the
screams ringing in his ears. "O-OK. No, wait! Jerry. Wait."

"I'm waiting. What is it?"

"Are you calling from a landline?"

"You mean a regular phone? Yeah. Why?"

A thought had suddenly occurred to Mark, and it made his
heart thump. He was on a landline too. There was no way the
screams were some kind of interference, signals crossing with
something else. "Um, nothing. Just wondering. You don't have
to bring the injector out here. I'll come get it."

There was a pause, and Mark could hear paper rustling in
the background. "No, I'll drop it off. I have a couple other parts
to deliver, and you're on the way."

Panic seized Mark. He gripped the phone tighter with a
sweaty palm, tried to sound calm. This was crazy! "Jerry, really,
I insist. I need to get out of the shop for a little. Cabin fever
thing, you know? I've been putting in some long hours, and
I'm getting stir-crazy. I'm leaving right now. I'll be over in ten
minutes. Don't go anywhere, OK?"

"But-"

"Jerry, please." He knew his voice was rising, and he knew
Jerry probably thought he'd completely lost his grip on reality,
but he didn't care anymore. He pressed his molars together then
relaxed them. "Don't go anywhere. I'm coming right over. OK?"

"OK, OK. I'll wait for you. Don't be too long. I got things to
do, you know."

Mark blew out a breath and loosened his grip on the receiver.
"Thanks. See ya in a few."

"OK. A few."

Mark raced down Broadway in his 1973 Ford Mustang, slowing
only for the dips in the road at each intersection. Pineville was
a small town, hokey even, and anywhere one wanted to go in
any direction was no more than a ten-minute drive-going
the posted speed limits. But Mark wasn't anywhere near the
posted limit.

His mind raced too. He'd heard it again, hadn't he? Were
the screams real? Of course they were. He'd heard them with
his own ears. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jerry heard
them too. So did Jeff. They were real, all right. Too real. Made
his skin itch just thinking about it.

Crazy. That's all Mark could make of it. And his bizarre
reaction. Just because Jeff died shortly after the screams didn't
mean Jerry was in immediate danger. Or any danger at all, for
that matter.

Crazy. Jerry had to think he was half out of his mind. Maybe
he was.

But what if he wasn't? What if there really was something
to the screams? What if Jerry's life really was in jeopardy? He
couldn't afford to be wrong. Jerry couldn't afford it. No, he'd done the right thing. Jerry was safer just staying put and waiting
for Mark to pick up the injector.

At the intersection of Broadway and Clayton, Mark slowed
the 'Stang just enough to keep rubber on asphalt and took the
ninety-degree turn at a tire-screaming speed. An elderly man
working in his garden jerked his head up and around and yelled
an obscenity, flailing his arms wildly.

Up ahead, Detweiler's sat on the corner of Clayton and
Monroe. Mark pressed the accelerator; the engine rumbled,
tachometer climbed steadily. Just before the entrance to
Detweiler's parking lot, he stomped on the brake and jerked
the steering wheel hard to the right. The car bounced into the
parking lot and came to a stop.

Mark jumped out of the car and ran for the front door. His
pulse was pounding out a steady rhythm in his ears, and the
adrenaline rush had left him nearly out of breath. He was lucky
to make it here without getting pulled over.

Swinging open the glass door, he stepped inside and called
for Jerry. When no answer came, he looked around and noticed
the store was empty. No customers in the aisles. No Jerry behind
the counter.

C'mon, Jerry. Don't tell me you left anyway.

Mark peered out the storefront window and saw Jerry's tan
Chevy S-10 sitting in the parking lot, Detweilers Auto Parts
emblazoned across the door panel.

"Jerry!" He listened and approached the counter. "Hey, Jerry.
It's Mark. You here?"

No answer.

"Hello? Jerry?"

Still no answer.

Mark leaned over the counter and nearly choked on his own saliva. There, behind the counter, lying prone on the cement
floor, was Jerry Detweiler.

Mark rushed around the counter and rolled the large man
over. Jerry's empty eyes, like two blank TV screens, bulged
toward the ceiling, mouth open, a trickle of blood curling
around his nostril. Mark pressed his fingers against Jerry's
carotid but felt nothing. No life-giving blood pumping through
the artery. No steady pulse throbbing under his fingertips. A
groan escaped from somewhere deep in Mark's chest, and he
clenched his jaw tight, cursing under his breath.

Jerry was dead. But it couldn't have happened more than
five minutes ago. Mark had just talked to him, and the drive
here only took seven minutes tops. He reached for the phone
on the counter and punched in 911. Then, with phone jammed
between his ear and shoulder, he placed both hands on Jerry's
barrel chest, one on top of the other, and started compressing.

RIGHT RAYS OF WARM MORNING SUN SLICED BETWEEN
the planks and landed on Amber, stirring her out of a
deep sleep. She rolled to her back, opened her eyes, and
focused on the rafters high above. A family of bats hung silently,
adjusting their wings to settle in for a day's worth of slumber.
Birds sang a cheerful melody from a nearby tree, but other than
that it was still and quiet.

Wait a minute. Quiet. No dogs. She rubbed her eyes, sat up,
and scooted over to the wall. Leaning her face against the planks,
she searched the outside for any sign of the Dobermans.

A gentle breeze rustled through the treetops. Long, cirrus
clouds stretched across a bright sky. The pasture glistened like
glitter as morning light danced on the dew. It was chilly, and
her skin puckered with goose bumps. She remembered the
weatherman saying the overnight temperatures were going to
be in the upper forties all week.

But all was quiet. Maybe her four-footed prison guards had
wandered away in search of food.

She had no idea what time it was, but from the low position
of the sun in the sky, she figured it to be about eight or nine.
She did know it was Monday morning, though. She'd been in
the barn for two full days with no sign of her abductor. Judge,
he called himself. Odd. Would he ever come back? Or was he just going to leave her here to dehydrate and rot? Trapped in
this musty old barn-a wooden tomb. The first day, Saturday,
she'd screamed and screamed until her lungs burned and her
voice was hoarse, but no help had come. She truly was in the
middle of nowhere. Where nowhere was, though, she hadn't a
clue. Was she still in Maryland? Did he take her to some remote
farm in West Virginia? Or Pennsylvania? Either way, no matter
where she was, she would surely die here.

Suddenly, an attempt at escape didn't sound so bad. She
didn't know how much longer she could survive here. She tried
to drink the water and eat the apples sparingly but found it
harder than she thought. Her growling stomach had been very
persistent. The result was less than half a gallon of water and
two apples left. Add that to the fact that she had no toilet paper,
no blankets to keep her warm during the cool nights, a bed of
uncomfortable straw she shared with a nest of mice, and the fact
that the Dobermans, those demon dogs from hell, were always
waiting, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold
on to her sanity.

She climbed to her feet, ignoring the pounding headache that
only intensified whenever she was upright. The lumps on her
head had gone down but were still very tender. She'd concluded
the first day that she probably had a concussion, and all kinds
of images of blood clots and slipping into a coma swam through
her cloudy mind. When she was sixteen, her brother fell from
the loft of their barn and landed on his head. He was in a coma
for three weeks, then in rehab for three months. The doctors
said the only thing that saved his life was the fact that he was
only eighteen and his brain was still pliable enough to adapt
and compensate for the injured areas.