Scream (7 page)

She was thirty-one and doubted her brain was very pliable.
That sent a wave of panic over her. She could easily slip into a coma here and nobody would know. Who knows how long she
would last. How long can a person survive without water? Just a
few days, she thought. At least she would die in her sleep. Better
than being fully aware of the fact that her body was gradually
wasting away and life was slowly oozing out of her.

But since the coma, the most attractive option, was no guarantee, she had to try to escape. It really was the only way. She
walked over to the wall, stretching her aching back and legs,
and leaned against it, scanning the countryside for any sign of
the dogs. She then went to the other three walls and peered
through them. No dogs. They had to have gone off in search of
food. Now was her time. Now or never.

She walked over to the cutout door and placed her hand on
the latch. It was locked, but she'd expected that. She jiggled the
latch, pushed against the door, rammed it with her shoulder,
but it didn't budge. Something was blocking it at the bottom.
Looking between the planks, she saw a large cinder block sitting
on the ground, snug up against the door. She tried pushing it,
lying on her back and kicking at it with both feet, then sticking
the heel of her pumps through a one-inch gap between the
planks and rocking it, but it didn't move.

Looking around the interior of the barn, she was once again
reminded of the futility of her situation. The structure had been
gutted, the loft removed. It was literally four walls, a roof, straw,
bats, and her. And the mice. A cloud of doom settled over her,
and she sat on her haunches and cried. For the first time since
waking in this prison two days ago she let the tears flow. And
flow they did. Sobs shook her shoulders and burned in her
throat for what seemed at least twenty minutes.

When she had wiped her tears with her shirt, she rocked
back on her hands and stared at the rafters. A thought suddenly
entered her mind. A thought from somewhere deep in her past, her childhood. From where it came she had no idea since she
hadn't entertained such a thought in over two decades. When
she was a child, her mother had taken her and her brother to a
Nazarene church until her father had finally forbid it.

The thought came again: she should pray.

It was a silly thought, she had to admit. A childish thing to
be thinking at a time like this. Or was it? She remembered her
Sunday school teacher saying that God listened to our prayers.
That He cared. But did He care about her? Did He even know
who she was?

She wrestled with the thought a few more moments, then
settled the matter. If God was God, then of course He knew
who she was. Whether He actually cared about her or not
remained to be seen.

God, I know I haven't talked to You in some time.

Praying after so many godless years felt awkward. Maybe she
should say it out loud. "I'm sorry I sorta forgot about You. That
wasn't right." She looked around the barn again, nothing but
wood and straw. "I, uh, could really use some help right now.
Please show me a way out of this. I want to live." There, it was
done. Not the most eloquent prayer He'd hear today, of that she
was sure, but it was sincere. She meant every word.

She waited a few minutes for some great revelation to appear,
a flood of light, a booming voice, an angel in bright array, something, but nothing happened.

Standing to her feet, she took a step toward the door again
when her toe caught on a warped board. Bending low to the floor,
she pushed straw out of the way and inspected the board. A chill
buzzed down her back. Of course! The trapdoor for shoveling
straw and hay to the animals below. Why didn't she think of it
earlier? In a barn like this, built on a small hill, there was a basement of sorts where the animals were kept. Feed and bedding were stored on the first floor, animals below. She wiped the rest
of the straw from the door and checked the latch. It was open!

Just then the low whine of an engine broke the silence.
Amber jumped up and ran to the wall, pressing her face against
the boards. A white sedan was bouncing down the dirt lane, a
cloud of dust in its wake. She kicked the boards and cursed. Her
mind began to race. She looked through the crack again. The
car was almost there. It had to be the maniac. Judge. Quickly,
she ran to the trapdoor, pushed a thick layer of straw over it,
and sat in her corner.

Moments later the engine shut off and a car door slammed.
A figure appeared outside the barn door, rolled the cinder block
away, fiddled with the lock, and swung open the door.

"Well, well, awake are we?" Judge said, stepping through the
cutout doorway. He had a brown paper bag in his arm, but his
face remained in the shadows.

"I brought you some things. Water, apples, toilet paper." He
set the bag on the floor and stepped toward the door. "Are you
finding your accommodations cozy?"

Amber did not answer, did not even attempt to look at him.
She had a stubborn streak that ran through her like a vein of
cold iron ore, forged from years of withstanding her father's
psychological abuse.

"Well, you won't be here long, my dear. And tonight you'll be
getting some company." Then he stepped through the doorway,
pushed the door closed, locked it, and shoved the cinder block
back in place.

Amber dropped her head into her hands.

Outside, judge began hollering. "Buck! Duke! Get over here!"

In the distance the faint sound of barking echoed over the
pasture. The dogs were back. The barking grew closer until it
was just outside the barn.

"Hey! Where've you been?" Judge was hollering. He cursed
loudly then grunted, and one of the dogs yelped. Then another
curse, another grunt, another yelp.

"Do your job and keep watch!"

The car door closed; the engine revved to life, and the sound
of wheels rolling over packed dirt ground through the barn.
Amber got up slowly, walked to the wall, and watched as the
white sedan disappeared over the horizon, leaving a tan trail of
dust billowing into the still air.

The Dobermans were circling the barn, noses to the ground,
hungrily searching for a morsel of food.

Judge liked the light dim when he meditated. The single bulb
hanging from the ceiling gave no light. Instead, an oil lamp,
resting on the top shelf of the metal bookcase, cast an orange
undulating glow around the small room.

He leaned back in his desk chair, stroked his soul patch, and
studied the wall before him. The pictures of Amber had been
removed, and a new face had taken their place.

Virginia. Friends call her Ginny.

Now only three walls were adorned with photos-in front
of him, to his right, and to his left. Three to go. But the other
two would remain nameless until their time came. That was his
way. One at a time. Focus on one guilty soul at a time.

Virginia. He was no friend.

He'd already found out all he needed to know about her.
Twenty-five. Five-three. Brown hair. Brown eyes-eyes like
deep pools of dark chocolate. Single. Drove an '02 Ford Focus.
Silver. Plates ABD-6488. Employed for the last three years with
Just For You Salon. Cosmetologist. She worked the afternoon/
evening shift, got off at 9:30, walked to her car with a friend, took twenty minutes to drive home, and arrived at 42 Broad
Court by herself at precisely 9:55. Give or take.

He'd wait for this one at home. Nice and dark, secluded area,
and plenty of shade. It had taken him almost two weeks to find
her. She'd be easy.

Virginia. He let her name resonate through his mind,
focusing on her face, her quick gait, perfect posture, shoulders
back, chin up, pelvis tilted just so. He envisioned a hardwood
gavel dropping on the bench. The sound of wood on wood
echoing through the still courtroom. Guilty! Sorry, Virginia,
but the long arm of the law eventually catches up to all of us.
You did the crime, now you must pay the time.

He knew full well she didn't do the crime. Well, she must
have committed some crime in her life for which she had yet
to pay. Speeding violation. Tax fraud. DUI. Something. But she
hadn't committed the crime. Those girls were long gone. He'd
kept track of them for a good many years, following their movements around the country, their multiple marriages, multiple
families, multiple name changes, but they'd scattered too far,
become too obscure. With his other responsibilities it was too
much to keep up with, and too risky. Someday, though, justice
would find them, in its own way, in its own time. For now, for
him, it wasn't so much the need to render justice on them as it
was the need to render justice for justice's sake. For Katie's sake.
Someone had to pay.

Katie. He closed his eyes, rested his hands on his lap, and let
his mind replay the events of so many years ago.

1974

Katie McAfee was a tomboy who lived on a small family
farm in western Garrett County. Her strawberry blonde hair
was shoulder length and always parted into two perky pigtails.
Her nose was spattered with light brown freckles (sprinkled
is how she used to put it), her mouth permanently bent into a
smile, and her blue eyes were brighter than the afternoon sky
on a cloudless day.

The first time judge met Katie, she was hoisting bales of hay
into an old '59 Ford farm truck. Rust dotted the side panels, the
paint had long been faded, and the front bumper was cockeyed,
like it was smirking. Katie later told him, "My dad tried to move
the bull with it, but ole Otis just pushed back. And Otis won."

His dad knew Katie's dad through some mutual friend, and
they had arranged it so judge could work the summer at the
McAfee farm. He wasn't too thrilled about the idea at first, but
after one look at Katie in those worn jeans with the hole in the
seat, he was a card-carrying farm boy. Loved it so much he even
volunteered to show up on Saturdays and help out for free. "I got
nuthin' better to do, anyway," he said, trying to sound casual. But
everyone knew the real reason a twelve-year-old boy would volunteer to spend his Saturday mucking out horse stalls had nothing
to do with priming his work ethic or an inbred love of animals
and everything to do with a certain twelve-year-old girl.

That summer, he and Katie saw each other every day except
Sunday. That's when he would attend Heritage Baptist Church
with his parents and sit and stand when he was supposed to, say
"Amen, brother" and "Praise the Lord" and "God is so good" when
it was appropriate, and joyfully place exactly seventy-five centsone-tenth of his weekly pay-in the felt-lined offering plate.

Yes, Sunday was the Lord's Day, and no work was permitted.
They wouldn't even think of going out for lunch after church
because his dad said them going out made the people at the
restaurant work, and that was "displeasin' to the Lord." Though
he never could figure out why it wasn't displeasin' for Mom to
spend an hour in the kitchen preparing Sunday dinner. It was
just one of those things he never would understand. Like why
it was so important to have his hair trimmed short enough that
it didn't touch his collar or ears, or why he could never go to
the matinee over in Spicerville like so many of his friends, or
why he couldn't wear shorts in the summer, even when it was
so hot you could fry an egg on the hood of Mr. McAfee's old
Ford pickup.

He spent eleven weeks that summer working side by side
with the prettiest girl he ever saw, and when the last week finally
arrived, a knot had twisted itself somewhere in his stomach and
made it hard to even eat. Katie commented on his lack of appetite every day at lunchtime, but he would just shrug his shoulders
and say he wasn't feeling well, maybe it was the heat. If she only
knew how he really felt about her. Soon, he would only see her
on Saturdays if Dad allowed it. That thought made the twist
grow tighter, so tight he actually thought he would vomit.