A Whisper To A Scream (19 page)

Then I think it might be too soon. Maybe I
should get over Adam gradually, like in stages.

My back pocket vibrates. I pull out my phone.
A text from Wren.

Did you hear about Katie?

I don’t feel like texting her back. Even
though I probably should because I’m not sure how much longer I can
keep everything involving my break-up with Adam to myself. Wren
will be there for me. She will help me through it.

Adam’s house looks like a pebble from where I
sit. Part of me wonders what he’s doing or how he feels about
everything. Another part of me wishes that he would just vanish.
The fact that I don’t have to see him for two more days makes it
easier. But come Monday, I’m certain the pain inside of me will
spiral out of control when I have to endure the torture of seeing
his beautiful face. I hope the earth blows up before then. Maybe
I’ll get lucky. I doubt it.

Mom calls for me and I give up on watching
Adam’s house. Nothing much has happened anyway from what I can see.
At one point a two people, probably his mother and father, walked
from a black car to the porch and then walked through the front
door. Adam’s car a yellow dot that resembles a gumball has been in
the same spot for as long as I’ve been sitting outside.

Grease crackles and pops as Mom places
another piece of breaded chicken in the frying pan. An enticing
aroma of Italian breadcrumbs and garlic salt floats in the air and
I inhale. The only problem is I have no appetite. I slide a chair
out and sit down as Mom flips the piece of chicken over. “You
hungry?” she asks. I dip my chin down in a slight nod. I have to
lie. I have to keep up the façade that I’m whole because I can’t
let Mom know I’m actually in pieces. I’m shredded like grated
cheddar. “Wren called,” she says. “She says she’s been trying to
get a hold of you, but you haven’t been answering your phone.”

I glance at my nail beds. “I’ll call her back
later.”

The rest of the day doesn’t consist of
anything. I eat a few bites of chicken and Mom watches me, and then
asks if I’m feeling okay. I tell her I’m fine and that I’m just not
as hungry as I thought I was. I help her clean up then go to my
room. I’m in a Pink Floyd kind of mood and I rummage through my
drawers looking for my copy of Dark Side of the Moon. I yank open
the top drawer of my dresser and take a step back. Navy blue spills
over the edges of the drawer like the choppy waters of the
Atlantic. I reach out caressing the fabric; it’s rough, yet soft.
My fingers glide across the sweater several times before I pull it
to my chest, hugging it tight. I smell him and it rips me open,
like a flesh eating carnivore has been feeding on my insides.

I need to give this back to him. I can’t have
any reminders of him around. Just his scent, a mixture of his
cologne and soap, makes me feel like I’m lying at the bottom of a
canyon, limbs sprawled out, spine broken, blood flowing from my
head. I place my ear against the wall. Mom snores so loud I can
hear her through the wall. I won’t be gone more than a half-hour. I
don’t think she’ll be up before then. So I roll the sweater up in a
ball, tuck it under my right arm and climb out my window.

Chapter 24: The Monster Inside Me

Adam stood in front of the window in the
cottage he’d converted into an art studio. He was thankful to be
out of his house. The second his parent’s walked through the door,
an argument exploded between them.

Adam had been in his bedroom, lying down when
he’d heard the front door slam and his mother’s wild shriek. They’d
been fighting a lot lately. He couldn’t pretend to understand what
was going on between them when they’d always been so secretive
about everything. But just before Adam had walked out the door to
escape the madness, he’d heard his mother as she shouted, “Of
course not! Because I’ll never be like her!” Then he’d heard the
sound of a plate shattering. He’d assumed that his mother threw it
at his father and his father ducked and then the plate crashed into
one of the cupboards.

A flash of moonlight seeping through the
window hit his face. Adam closed his eyes and a soft sigh crept out
of his throat. He thought of Ellory. Yesterday he’d pushed her
away. He’d lied to her when he told he’d led her on and that he
didn’t feel anything for her. He did. He felt too much—which is why
he’d pushed her away. To save her from himself. Even though he knew
he’d never harm her, he didn’t want her to see this side of him.
The monster.

Katie was coming to behind him. He’d knocked
her out a twice already and the chloroform he’d used wore off too
quick for his taste. He stayed very still listening to the sound of
her whimpering. An evil grin spread across his lips and a wicked
gleam sparked in his blue-green eyes.

He spun around, inching closer. Katie
squirmed and her eyes snapped open. She thrashed violently, trying
to free herself from the restraints. “Adam!” she cried, muffled by
a mouthful of silver tape. “Don’t do this!”

Adam rested the blade of the butcher knife
against his lips. The cold metal sent a chill down his arm. His
foot began tapping; his palms were sweaty, fingers trembling. There
was about to be a river of blood right before his eyes. And on top
of his excitement for it, he hadn’t figured out what he could do to
keep it from happening. How could he stop himself from killing
Katie?

In all honesty, he couldn’t. Once the monster
came out, Adam had less control over himself. It was like an out of
body experience. The monster controlled everything. And the only
thing Adam could do was hover above and watch.

He threw Katie a hateful look. Everything was
all her fault. If she could have put her feud with Ellory to the
side and stayed away from him, then they wouldn’t be here.

Yes, Katie Halston could now blame her own
death entirely on herself.

Adam started pacing. When he first brought
Katie here, he bound her to a chair with masking tape. He glanced
over at her. She couldn’t speak because of the tape across her
mouth but her eyes followed him. Then, she started sobbing. The
sound of her muffled cries echoed throughout the confined
space.

Adam couldn’t think. The sound of her sobbing
drowned out his hearing. He stopped mid-pace and pointed the
butcher knife at Katie. “Would you shut up?” he screamed. “I can’t
think!”

Katie’s cries died down to a soft whine. Adam
narrowed his eyes, thinking, hard. “To kill or not to kill, that is
the question,” he said, trying to sound scholarly.

There he was, letting his urges get the best
of him. He had been doing so well lately. But then Katie had to
come along and ruin everything.

He walked closer to Katie, hovering over her.
She cowered in the opposite direction in fear. More tears ran down
her cheeks and Adam ripped the piece of masking tape off her mouth.
“You’re sick!” she screamed.

Adam looked at her emotionless with cold
eyes. “Stop crying.”

Katie lowered her head. “You’re going to kill
me, aren’t you?”

Adam smiled. “Yes. Yes I am.”

That was when Katie started screaming—loud,
howling— blood curdling screams. “Help me! Someone help me!”

Adam reached around and turned on the stereo.
He played Vivaldi—he swung his knife back and forth like he was
conducting the piece himself.

Katie continued screaming, and Adam put his
empty hand over her mouth. “I thought I told you to stop crying.”
Kate clamped her teeth down and bit into Adam’s hand.

“Ouch!” Adam shook his hand and pulled it
away. The second he did, Katie started screaming again. He walked
over to the kitchen counter and tore off a fresh piece of masking
tape. He stood in front of Katie and smacked the silver tape across
her lips.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It will all be
over soon.”

Adam lifted the knife, bringing it to Katie’s
throat. He dragged the knife lightly across her slender neck,
giving her just a scratch, and he relished the sound of her
scraping flesh. It was better than music and took him back to a
time in his childhood. The first time he experienced his lust for
blood.

He stopped with the knife and gave it a
little toss. Katie was crying so hard that she was having a hard
time breathing. Adam placed the knife back on Katie’s throat, when
he heard it…..

Someone was knocking at the door. Adam
froze.

“Adam!” shouted Ellory. “Are you in
there?”

No. No.
He thought. He could not let
Ellory catch him doing this. So when she started pounding on the
door a second time, he dropped the knife and jumped out the back
window.

Chapter 25: Where are you?

The quaint little cottage stands out among
the trees. A fleck of white, standing out in a sea of brown.
Flickering candles burn brightly and I know I hear Vivaldi blasting
from a stereo inside of the tiny house. I pound on the door, Adam’s
sweater still tucked under my arm. “Adam!” No answer. “Are you in
there?” I shout. I pound on the door again. Still no answer.

I step away from the door, frustrated. I
remove the sweater from underneath my armpit and lay it in front of
the door. I lift my head, taking one last look at what Adam had
called our special place, and then I turn around and disappear into
the darkness.

****

The next day, Wren shows up at my front door.
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, placing her hands on her
hips.

I pull back the door. “Hey Wren. Come on
in.”

She steps inside with a fierce, protective
look in her blue eyes. “I’ve been so worried! I thought something
might have happened!”

“I’m fine Wren.”

“How was I supposed to know that? All of this
Katie stuff has the whole town in an uproar.”

We go into my room. I fall back on my bed and
Wren clears a spot on the floor moving a mess of my dirty clothes
with her foot. “So Katie hasn’t shown up at home yet?”

“No,” Wren says quietly.

“I still think everyone is making a big deal
out of nothing. I still think she’ll come home eventually.”

Wren scoffs. “I think you’re living in
denial.”

I sit up and cross my legs. “Wren, we’ve got
to school with Katie our whole lives. We know her.” I tell her the
same thing I told Mom yesterday. “She probably hooked up with a
townie in a motel room or something.”

Her eyes widen, baffled. “For two days in a
row?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Wren looks around my room, taking in the mess
and he eyes center on something on the floor. She picks up the card
and flips it open. Her jaw drops. “You got another one?” She turns
the card over a few times the stares at the inside again.

“Yeah. A few days ago.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be,
then?”

I thought it was Katie, but that turned out
to be just an assumption. “No. I don’t know who it as and at this
point I really don’t care.”

“How can you say that?” Her voice goes up an
octave. “Someone has been harassing you and you don’t care. What’s
wrong with you?”

“They got what they wanted. I don’t see the
point in obsessing over it.”

“What do you mean?”

My heart sinks and my bottom lip quivers. I
avoid eye contact all-together, afraid that if I look into Wren’s
worried eyes, I’ll fall apart all over again. Today, I’ve been
doing a good job keeping myself together. “Adam dumped me.” The
words were so hard to get out that they come out barely above a
whisper.

I hear the emotion in Wren’s voice. “No.” She
moves from the bed to the floor and pulls my head to her chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sigh. “Wren, I just want to forget about
it. Can we please just talk about something else?”

My throat vibrates and I feel like at any
second I’m going to explode. I’ll become a splattered wall-paper of
blood and guts. Please change the subject, Wren and do it fast.

I pull away from Wren and she smiles
exuberantly. “I got asked to homecoming.”

A half-smile stretches across my lips.
“That’s awesome. By who?”

“Mike Roberts,” she says blushing. “He’s in
my physics class.”

I take both of her hands in mine. “Wren, I’m
so excited for you.”

“I’m pretty excited too,” she gushes. “You
should see my dress.”

“I’m sure it’s gorgeous.”

Wren goes into detail and describes the cut
of her dress, the color, the length and doesn’t leave out a single
expletive. I’m so happy for her. She’s so selfless always giving
and worrying about others before herself. She totally deserves
this. She deserves all of the happiness the world can give.

“You can come with us if you want,” she
searches my eyes. “I know Mike wouldn’t care. I’m sure he’d love to
have two dates.”

“Wren, I’m not going to be the third wheel on
your big night.”

Wren looks down at her hands. “That’s not it.
I wouldn’t consider you the third wheel, Ellory. You’re my best
friend. This is our last homecoming and I just can’t imagine
spending it without you.”

Her kind words fill me up with warmth and
cover up the void that’s missing inside of me. At the moment my
sorrow is replaced by unrequited joy. But that only lasts briefly
when I realize I might see Adam at homecoming with another girl and
I don’t know if I can handle that yet. “I’ll think about it,” I
tell her, hoping that she’ll be content with the fact that I’m not
giving her a definite no or a definite yes. She is.

Chapter 26: I Know

On Monday, I’m frozen in the open door of my
first period English class. Miss Miller sits at her desk reading a
book and my eyes shift back and forth between my desk and Adam’s. I
can’t decide if I’ll be able to go through with today. I told
myself this morning that I’d be fine. I told myself that I’d made
it through the worst of this whole break-up, but I haven’t seen
Adam since Friday night, well technically, Saturday morning and I
know when I do see him, I’m going to lose it.