Scream (26 page)

He suddenly had the impulse to do it now. Why wait? It
would never work anyway; she was too irregular. He'd have to
come up with some other way to take her, which might take
days. And he didn't want to have to wait any longer. His impatience grew with each day. Now would be as good a time as
any. He didn't have his ether with him, but he could subdue her
easily enough with just his hands, drag her back to the car, and
take care of things there.

He rose out of his crouched position, straightened the tightness out of his knees, and took one step out of the serviceberries
when he heard a rumble coming from the left. He stepped back
and pulled a branch in front of his face. Moments later, a semi
loaded down with timber rushed by, its Jake Brake groaning
through the turn. By the time the truck disappeared around the
bend to his right, she was past him, her ponytail swinging like a
blonde pendulum as she plodded on, steady, tick-tick-tick-tick.

He pressed his molars together and cursed under his breath.
Stupid. Impulsiveness never paid. That's why he planned so
carefully. But he'd have to come up with another way. This was
too unpredictable, too risky. But he would take her. And soon.

Her clock was ticking, running out of time.

After the excitement at Pro Auto Parts, Mark drove slowly back
to his garage, his mind still saturated with questions, questions
that no doubt would just have to go unanswered. He'd driven
around for almost an hour wrestling with the questions, trying
to sort out what had just happened, and searching, searching
for anything that made even the remotest bit of sense.

Now he was sitting in his garage, in a stranger's car, trying
to do his job but finding it almost impossible to concentrate.
How was he just supposed to go back to work doing the same
old mundane thing when it had happened again? The scream.
A death. Well, an almost death. But he had to get back to
work. The '97 Taurus behind whose wheel he was sitting was
in desperate need of new brake pads. Probably needed them a
thousand miles ago.

He was about to shut down the engine when a loud knock
came from the back of the car, from the trunk. He spun around
in the seat and saw two cops standing by the rear panel, a man
and a woman, both dressed in brown shirts, beige pants, handguns hanging casually at their side. The woman wore her brown
wide-brimmed hat sitting low on her forehead.

He killed the engine and climbed out of the car, dropping
the keys in his pocket. "Hey, officers, can I help you?"

The man, middle-aged, tall, lean, and wiry, with a narrow
chin and Frank Zappa thing going on with his mustache,
extended his hand and shook Mark's. "Sheriff Hickock." He
motioned toward the female cop. "This is Deputy Foreman. You
Mark Stone?"

Mark looked from Hickock to the woman, a petite young gal,
no more than thirty. She looked familiar, may have been the
deputy that questioned him the night of Jeff's accident. Then it dawned on him. Andrea. He'd called 911, and they were probably following up on his bizarre call. "Sure am. Is this about
that woman Andrea at Pro Auto?"

Hickock hooked his thumbs in his belt and narrowed his
eyes. "Andrea Kreiger. Almost died a little while ago. Did you
make a 911 call from here, saying someone was gonna die at
Pro Auto?"

Mark leaned back against the rear door of the Taurus and
swallowed. Oh, boy, how was he going to explain this one? He
nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Mr. Stone, I'm gonna be real honest with you," Hickock
said, nailing Mark with a look that only a cop could get away
with. The kind that made cocky kids and dumb criminals put
on their best manners. "As you can imagine, we don't usually
get calls of that nature. And it raises a little suspicion. More
than a little, actually. Would you like to explain how you knew
she would have a very close encounter with death?"

Foreman was jotting notes in a small notepad.

Mark shifted his weight nervously. Any way he explained it, it
was going to sound absurd. Better to just tell the truth and let them
interpret it however they wished. "Well, I, uh, have been getting
some phone calls interrupted with these screams, see, and...well,
it's weird, the people I've been talking to have all died."

Hickock jumped in. "Screams? What kind of screams?"

"Screams. Like full-out horror movie screams. Lots of 'em.
Like a bunch of people all screaming at once. It lasts maybe five
seconds or so, then stops."

Hickock glanced back at Foreman, who was standing a
couple feet behind him and to the left. She nodded. She was
getting it all down. Great.

"You said the people to whom you were talking when
these ... screams ... occurred all died. How many times has it happened?" Hickock's face showed no expression while he
talked. Either he was actually taking Mark seriously, or he was
one heck of a poker player.

"Three. Four, counting Andrea. First a friend of mine, Jeff
Beaverson-"

Hickock glanced at Foreman, and she met his look. "The
auto fatality. Coopers Hollow," she said.

"You heard screams before Beaverson wrecked?" Hickock
said.

"Yeah. He heard them too."

Hickock looked back at Foreman again. She shrugged and
shook her head. "Did you tell Deputy Foreman about these
screams then? When she talked to you at the scene?"

The evening was still fuzzy, a patchwork of memories,
images, sounds, smells. "I don't know. I don't remember much
from that night. Sorry."

Hickock waved his hand in front of him. "OK. Go on. Who
else?"

Mark continued. "Then there was Jerry Detweiler. He was
my parts supplier until... his heart attack. Then last Friday my
dad died. He lived in Virginia."

Hickock remained motionless, his face like granite. "And
they all screamed on the phone right before they died."

Mark shook his head. "No. They didn't scream. Other
people-the screams-they came from somewhere else."

"Where?" When Hickock said where, his shoulders rose and
dropped, and his eyebrows mimicked their quick movement.
He then made a quick glance at Foreman again. Was that a
smirk Mark noticed on his face?

"Well," Mark said. He wasn't going to dare tell Hickock the
screams came from hell, though by now he was almost convinced
they couldn't have come from anywhere else. Especially after his experience with Dad and Andrea. "I'm not sure. I just know
they're there. And then the person dies."

"Dies immediately?" Foreman asked, then shot Hickock a
look as if seeking his blessing on her interruption.

Mark nodded. "Jeff and Jerry, yes. Sounds like Andrea would
have if I hadn't called for help. My dad was several hours later."

Hickock exchanged another look with Foreman. The corners
of his mouth curled into a slight grin, and he pulled both
eyebrows up, wrinkling his brow. This time the look on his face
said exactly how he felt about Mark and his story-nut job.

"Look," Mark said. He knew he had to do some fast
explaining and give them something they wanted or he'd find
himself in the loony bin before the day was over. "I don't understand it either. I never had anything like this happen before. I
get three phone calls interrupted by some weird screaming, and
all three people die. Now I don't know if it was just coincidence
or something else going on, but when I get another call and
more screaming... well, what would you have done? I put two
and two together."

Hickock unhooked his thumbs and gave Mark a long hard
stare as if trying to decide whether or not to slap the cuffs on
him and haul him away. Thankfully, he decided on the not.
"OK. Thank you for your time, Mr. Stone. I hope you understand why we had to come here and ask some questions. It does
seem a little odd when someone calls 911 saying someone else
seven miles away is going to die. Then it almost happens. Most
likely would have happened if our guys hadn't gotten there
when they did."

Mark shrugged it off. "I'm glad they got there in time."

Foreman slid her notepad back into her shirt pocket and
nodded at Mark. Hickock turned to leave, then stopped. A smile thinned his lips. "You'll call us again if you get any more
of your screaming phone calls, won't you?"

"If you'd like me to."

Hickock lost his smile. "I would."

Back at the cruiser, Wiley dipped his head as he slid behind
the wheel.

Jess shut her door and sighed, holding her hat on her lap.
"Well, what do you make of that?"

Wiley didn't look at her; he was still looking at the garage,
watching Stone through the open bay door. Odd fellow, that
Stone. And his story, however far-fetched it seemed, was somewhat disturbing. "First tell me one thing."

Jess hesitated, then said, "Go ahead."

"Are you a born-againer?"

Jess sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do we have to keep landing
on this topic?"

"Just answer the question."

"Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated?"

"Answer."

"Yes, I am."

Wiley snorted. He couldn't hide his disdain for the type. He'd
seen enough of them in his lifetime to leave a bitter taste in his
mouth for a very long time. Hypocrites, every one of them, as
far as he was concerned. Jess didn't seem like a fanatic, or a
hypocrite, but maybe that was just because she did a good job
of hiding it. She probably talked all high and mighty on Sunday
mornings. Hello, Brother Morton, fine day the Lord's given
us, isn't it? His mercies endure forever, don't they? Praise be to
the Lawd Almighty! Amen and amen! Now please excuse me while I go memorize Paul's epistle to the Galatians. Yeah, he
knew the type.

Jess cocked her head at an angle. "Do you have a problem
with that?"

"Not if you keep it to yourself and don't go thinking you're
better than everyone else."

"You asked me about it, remember? And I don't think I'm
better than anyone. We all have our problems. Now can we
please get back to our guy Stone here."

Wiley ran a finger over his mustache. Jess was nibbling on a
fingernail, watching Stone work. "You first," he said.

Jess stopped nibbling long enough to say, "Me first what?"

"You asked me what I think about Stone. You first."

"In a word? Crazy."

Wiley slowly shook his head and pressed his lips together.
"No. I don't think there's anything crazy about him. Not yet,
anyway.

"Then what was all that about screams over the phone? You
think he's telling the truth?"

Wiley tapped the steering wheel, drumming out some
unknown rhythm just to keep his hands busy. He continued
watching Stone, who was busying himself with the right
passenger-side tire of the Taurus, occasionally casting furtive
glances at the cruiser. "Right now, I'm not assuming anything.
He's odd, I'll give him that. And his story is even odder. Check
Beaverson's and Detweiler's phone records. See if either of them
talked to Stone right before they died."

"And if they did?"

Wiley brought his shoulders up and let them drop. "Then
there might something to his screaming stories."

They sat in silence for several seconds until Wiley could feel
Jess's eyes boring holes into the side of his head. "What?"

"You think he had something to do with the deaths?" Jess kept
her voice low, like they were talking about some top-secret case.

Finally, Wiley pulled his eyes away from Stone and fixed
them on Jess. "I'm not saying that. We need to cover all the
bases though." He turned his head back to the garage and found
Stone still fiddling with the front tire. "I don't like this."

"Like you don't like missing person cases?"

"Exactly."