Scream (16 page)

"No, Dad, it wasn't-"

"Yes!" Dad coughed again, a phlegmy hack. His face calmed,
and a shadow passed through his darkening eyes. "Yes, Mark. It
was. I played the game, you know. The game of religion. I knew
all the rules, all the right words to say. But in the end it was just
that-words. I didn't mean any of it. Not really."

Mark placed his other hand over his father's. He knew what
he was saying was true, of course. He'd known it his whole life.
Dad was a phony. Their whole family was phony. Their whole
church, in his opinion. It was all just going through the motions.
He knew it to be true, but he couldn't stand to hear his father
say it. "Dad, please stop-"

"Mark" Dad smiled, a weak grin that barely made it to his
eyes. "It's OK. I need to tell you this. I drove you away with all
my religion."

He stopped, and tears pooled in his eyes. His jaw shifted
back and forth ever so subtly, bottom lip quivering. When he
spoke again, his voice was strained and tight. "I'm lost, son. I
spent my whole life thinking-fooling myself really-that I was
on the right track. Doing, doing, doing. But now look at me,
lying on my deathbed, and I'm lost. I don't even know what's
right anymore. What the truth is."

Tears spilled out of Mark's eyes and trickled down his cheeks.
He swiped at them with his sleeve and tried to swallow, but
he couldn't get past the baseball in his throat. Man, he wished
Cheryl was here. His father's words were so damning. What was
he saying? He'd spent his whole life trying to impress God and
everyone that he was religious only to realize now, moments
from death, that it was all worthless?

Dad's eyes momentarily rolled back in his head, and he slowly
closed them. Mark caught his mother's eye and motioned her
over. When Dad's eyes opened again, there was only a flicker of light left in them. He was fading quickly. He licked his lips and
reached for Mom's hand. "It's almost time," he whispered.

Mom sat on the bed next to her husband and held his hand
in her lap. Tears wetted her cheeks. Mark could tell she was
holding back the sobs, damming the river behind her eyes.
"Dear, we've had a good life together," she whispered. "And I've
loved you the whole time. Like nothing else."

Dad's lips trembled. He blinked slowly. "My love for you never
faltered. Not even the gates of hell could prevail against it."

A stab of guilt ran through Mark's heart. He thought once
again of Cheryl and how he'd betrayed her, wounded her. The
gates of hell had been flung open.

Dad squeezed Mark's hand, but there was no strength left
in his once-firm grip. "Son. I love you. I didn't say it much and
showed it less, but I always have."

Dad's eyes rolled back again, his irises disappearing almost
totally, and slowly closed. His breathing became labored and
wheezy; he was struggling for every breath. Mark knew the end
was upon him. He leaned forward and whispered in his father's
ear, "I love you too, Dad. Always did."

Dad's eyes suddenly flipped open wide like two springloaded window shades. He gripped Mark's hand with unusual
strength. His whole body tensed, and he fixed his eyes on a spot
high on the wall directly in front of him. His mouth gaped, and
fear-not just your matinee scary story kind, but staring-intothe-too-gruesome-face-of-death kind-deep-froze his eyes. The
sound of screams-those screams-echoed through Mark's
head. Weeping and gnashing. The gates of hell. It was time. His
father was dying right in front of him.

Dad gasped one final breath, then his frail body relaxed,
hands losing all strength, eyelids slowly drawing shut.

It was over. Dad was dead.

Mark released his father's hand, rushed past his whimpering
mother, and escaped into the hallway. The weight of death in
the room was too great for him. He found a padded bench in a
small waiting room down the hall and fell onto it. The screams
were still there, bouncing around in his head. He sat with his
elbows on his knees, head in his hands, fingers laced through
his hair, crying.

The scream. It had predicted another death. He tried to think
it through, reason it out logically, but his mind was awash with
nothingness, like it had been erased clean, an empty chalkboard. He'd think about it some other time. But not now.

His dad just died.

UDGE'S ROOM IN THE BASEMENT WAS HIS FORTRESS.
His chamber. His sanctuary. Another collage of photos
had been removed, leaving two walls still decorated, the
one in front of him with snapshots of a short brunette, thick
around the midsection, brown eyes, pixie nose, full lips, large
white teeth. In one photo she's with a man, his arm around
her waist, pulling her close, no doubt preparing to wow her
with his romantic prowess. He might have to be dealt with. In
other photos she's by herself, climbing out of her car-a gold
'99 Pontiac Sunfire. In another she's leaving work, in another
entering her dormitory, and in yet another, walking to or from
class along a white sidewalk, the sun illuminating her round
face. She's attractive in a common, homely sort of way and has
a habit of tucking her hair behind her right ear.

The wall to his right was dotted with photos of another
woman. In a few days, she'll take center stage, but for now, that
honor belongs to Shelley.

Shelley Kurtz, college sophomore.

He leaned back in his chair and stroked his soul patch. It
needed to be trimmed soon. If only a soul was easy to patch.
His had a few holes.

He focused on one snapshot of Shelley in particular. She's
looking at someone off the picture, head turned slightly to the left, no, right, his left, a sinister smile playing across her face.
He'd used the photo-editing program on his computer to zoom
in on her face before printing if off. There's something about
the shape of her mouth, the way the lips part ever so subtly,
turn up on the corners, flare the nostrils, crinkle the eyes at the
corners. Something familiar.

His mind went back to the barn.

The girl.

The kiss.

1974

With their lips still pressed together and that deep warmth still
surging through his bones, the barn door swings open, allowing
bright rays of sunshine to flood the interior of the barn.

"Ha! Caught ya!" Four girls enter the barn, arms crossed
or hands on hips, chins up, backs straight. Katie's older sister
Bethany and her snotty friends. One of them has a cigarette
dangling from her lips. (Daddy calls it a cancer tube, coffin
nail, death stick.)

"Well, well, well," Bethany says, strutting to within feet of
Katie and him, hands on her hips. "Looky what we got here,
girls. A couple of real lovebirds. Caught in the act."

Releasing his hold on Katie, Judge steps back, cheeks
burning, hands beginning to tremble. (That stupid trembling!)
He looks at Katie. Her face is bright red, but there's anger in
her eyes. Anger like he's never seen in a twelve-year-old girl,
or any twelve-year-old, for that matter, and though he would
never admit it to anyone, it scares him just a bit.

"Shut up, Beth," Katie growls. "It's none of your business."

Bethany, four years older and three inches taller than him,
walks over, her feet shuffling through the hay and straw on the floor and shoves him, both hands landing squarely on his chest.
He stumbles back but maintains his balance.

"What are you doing to my sister, punk?" Bethany hollers,
lunging at him and giving him another push, this time
succeeding in knocking him off balance and giving him a seat
on his butt. "Tryin' to feel her up or something? You violatin'
my sister?"

He scrambles to his feet, his shirt now clinging to the sweat
on his back, and, though he is fully scared now, looks Bethany
directly in the eyes (devil eyes, windows to hell, the eternal pit
of fire and brimstone where the wicked weep and gnash their
teeth for... forever and ever).

Katie steps between them and pushes out her chest. She
looks up at Bethany, meeting her older sister's icy stare with
one equally as cold, if not colder. "Leave him alone. Why don't
you and your freak friends go muck out the horse stalls?"

Bethany glares, and her nostrils flare. Red spots crawl up her
neck and tint her cheeks. She's mad, mad as a wet hornet, as
they say. She leans forward and pokes a finger in Katie's chest.
"Watch your mouth, you little tramp." She straightens up, seems
to tower over both of them. "And I'd watch where I put my lips
too." She jabs a thumb in his direction. "No tellin' what kinda
diseases this little germ is carrying."

That brings a round of laughter from Bethany's cronies (the
laughter of devils).

Katie narrows her eyes and stares knives at her sister. "You're
such a witch." Then she reaches for judge's hand. "C'mon. Dad
will get rid of these trolls for us."

But before Katie can take a step further, Bethany catches her
in the chest with her hand and pushes her backward. A sinister
grin splits her face, and the corners of her mouth seem to reach
almost from ear to ear. "Oh, no. You're not going anywhere. Dad's in the far field, and Mom went to the store." She glances
at the loft ten feet above. "You know, it's pretty dangerous in the
loft. How many times has Dad told you not to goof around up
there? I guess you'd get pretty bruised if you fell."

And before his mind even registers it, she smacks Katie full
on the cheek. The sound echoes in the silence of the barn (like
the crack of a whip on bare skin). Katie stumbles to her right
and reaches for her face. She remains like that for at least five
seconds before righting herself. When she straightens up again
there are tears in her eyes, but more than that, there's hatred.

Bethany's hand still hangs in the air; her lips tremble. "Girls,
take care of lover boy. I want to teach my little sister a lesson
in respect."

The three other girls, all much taller and heavier than he,
form a half circle around him, sneering and blocking his view
of Katie. One of them shoves him in the chest, and he stumbles back and falls, landing hard on his butt. He hears another
smack and a cry of pain. He tries to get up, but one of the girls,
the fat one with the cigarette, kicks him in the leg, sending a
shock of pain through his thigh.