Scream Catcher (20 page)

“Cell phone,” he smiles, pulling the small Verizon unit from his jeans pocket.

As his wife heads for the upstairs, Jude pulls his mobile from his pocket, dials the number for the Lake George Village Precinct.

Assembly Point Peninsula

Thursday, 8:29 P.M.

Jude stands alone inside the kitchen with the rain coming down outside the big window. He waits for a connection … and waits. But he gets nothing. The wireless telecommunications signal simply produces a repeating
beep
.

But that doesn’t stop him from trying.

He pulls the phone from his ear, speed dials his father’s private office number, again holds the device up against his head … and again waits.

This time he gets even more nothing. Not so much as an electronic
beep, beep, beep
. All he manages is a huge helping heap of dead air and following that, termination of the call.

“Damn!”

Jude pockets the mobile phone. Taking the flashlight in hand, he walks back through the vestibule to the front door, opens it. He takes another look outside, shines the beam of light in the exact spot at the end of the drive where the Jeep Cruiser should be parked.

Still nothing there.

Once more he descends the porch steps, walks out to the drive. Out beyond the exterior log wall of the two-car garage, he sets his eyes upon the lake. Still no sign of the police boat.

Back up on the front porch, the overhead shields him from the now light rain. It only makes sense that his personal witness protectors must have been called back in to assist with the blackout emergency. Even from where he stands he can make out the distant sound of cop sirens blaring from the Jeep Cruisers that shoot down the village Main Street all the way on the other side of the lake.

Jude knows that along with the massive blackout comes the possibility for numerous automobile accidents, acts of vandalism, looting sprees, injuries, accidental deaths, random acts of violence, not so random acts of violence.

In his heart he knows that it’s a bad idea. The village will be as crazy and dangerous as a jungle—a drunkard’s paradise. Jude is a former cop. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to come to the conclusion that the safest place in any blackout is right here, inside the walls of one’s home-sweet-home.

* * *

Stepping back inside, he closes the wood door behind him.

Inside the living room to his immediate left, the white wedding candle suddenly goes out, reducing the space to blackness. It’s like a giant wind has suddenly whipped through the big log home.

Aside from the smoldering, glowing ember of a candlewick, he can’t see a thing. Nights on the lake are always dark, but with an overcast sky and the lights from the village extinguished, the blackness seems all-consuming.

Jude steps into the living room, walks the walk of the blind man, right arm extended out before him like a pointer, like a replacement for the eyes. He moves slowly, a snail’s pace, sliding the soles of his boots along the hardwood in the direction of the wick instead of lifting them one at a time.

But when the wick burns out completely, he can no longer be guided by its orange glow. He has to instead rely on the candle’s smoky fragrance. The smell guides him across the living room floor. That is, until he jams his knee into the coffee table.

The collision startles him more than the sharp, yet delayed pain in his kneecap.

“It’s okay,” he calls out almost by instinct, even though neither Rosie nor Jack have voiced their concern. “Just tripped is all.”

Moving sightlessly around the table, he makes it to the candle, pulls the pack of matches from his jeans pocket, fires it up. As he relights the candle another emergency siren can be heard coming from outside the log home.

His chest grows tight.

The demon is awake and wants to play.

Turning, Jude limps his way around the couch, makes for the stairs, heads straight into the master bedroom. Bending down, he takes a painful knee beside the bed, reaches under for the long black plastic case that houses his shotgun.

The Molloy Gravel Pit

Thursday, 8:40 P.M.

Deep night inside the abandoned pit.

The heavy rain has slowed to a gentle mist, while flashes of lightning are visible half a mile to the southeast in the direction of Lake George. Black Dragon stands outside Fuentes’s Jeep Cruiser which was delivered to him by his student, T-Bred, only moments ago. Gripped in his right hand is a white plastic bottle of lighter fluid. He’s squeezing the bottle, soaking the interior of the Jeep Cherokee with the flammable liquid until there’s nothing left to spray.

Black Dragon appears as an opaque silhouette against an already impenetrable night. Black bodysuit, black face paint, black gloves, black shin-high boots. Tossing the empty can into the open driver’s side window of the Jeep Cruiser, he pulls a pack of matches from a pouch attached to a Velcro waist belt. Just an average looking pack of cardboard matches, the words Linda’s Blue Bayou printed on the cover in large blue letters above the silhouette of a voluptuous, naked lady.

Black Dragon wipes the mist from his eyes. He glances over his right shoulder at the brilliant jagged lightning. He listens for the rumble of thunder, but hears nothing. Surrounding him on all sides is the barren rock face of the carved out pit. Nothing alive for miles around. Only dead, hard shale; only his own throbbing heart.

Nothing alive inside the Jeep either.

Or, nothing alive anymore that is. Only the remnants of what once upon a time was a supercop. Black Dragon pictures his student and the one job, or test, assigned to him. A simple but oh so gruesome task that resulted in murder and yet another scream in his collection of screams. And what a job T-Bred has done eliminating the 23 Assembly Point Road protector. What an astounding accomplishment, the evidence of which is now recorded on his iPhone app, which he brings to right ear. Even at a low volume, he can hear the distressed scream of Supercop Fuentes as his throat was cut. Not a scream really. More like a gurgle. But it’s enough to raise the hairs on the back of the Black Dragon’s neck. What a kill game sound bite it will make. What a super piece of realistic audio.

Now that the future kill gamer has completed his assignment, it is time for T-Bred to blend back into the blacked-out night where he is to report to the Glens Falls
Wild Bill’s All Day/All Night II
arcade. He will know what to do once he gets there.

Cupping his right hand over the lit match, Black Dragon strikes it against the sandpaper edge of the pack. Inside the shelter of his hand he watches the sulfur burn and spark. At the appropriate time Black Dragon approaches the Jeep, tosses the lit match into the fuel-soaked interior and the large, lifeless torso that’s laid out flat in its open back space.

Taking a quick step backwards, he feels the immediate eruption of the red-white flame.

* * *

Lake George Village

Thursday, 8:42 P.M.

Mack drives out of the parking garage, pulls a sharp left onto the main Lake George Road. This stretch of narrow, curving Adirondack highway will take him from the village L.G.P.D. precinct around the northern point of the lake to the Brook Trout Bridge, which is where he arrives in a matter of minutes.

Driving the Jeep Cruiser onto the metal bridge he pulls over, gets out. Leaning over the railing he stares down into the fast moving whitewater.

Nothing but white foam and mist.

Not far on the east side of the lake, lightning strikes. The thunder concussion shoots across the water. Its reverberation is violent enough to rattle the seventy-year-old steel-framed bridge. Pulling a miniature Maglite from his raincoat, Mack heads to the opposite side of the bridge. He hooks a right-hand turn, makes his way onto the soft shoulder and then down the semi-steep embankment until he comes to the head of the Brook Trout stream. It’s there he shines the bright white beam of Maglite into the water. At first he sees nothing that might garner his attention. Nothing but the swiftly moving heavy water and the rocks that impede its path. Soon enough it becomes apparent that water and rock is all he he’s going to see.

But then he’s about to kill the light, head back up to his Jeep when he spots something else in the water. Coming closer to the bank, he shines the round beam of Maglite onto a small object that’s caught up on a tree branch. The closer he comes to the water the more he can make out the object. In his mind he’s able to see that it’s doughnut shaped, not at all like a dead bird or a stick or a tree branch. The closer he comes to the bank, the more he makes out the object for exactly what it is: the Electronic GPS Surveillance Bracelet.

Turning, he heads back up the embankment, goes straight for his Jeep. Slipping back behind the wheel, he thumbs the radio transmitter.

“Emily,” he spits, “this is Mack. Over.”

“Yes Captain Mack, I’ve got you. Over.”

“I’ve located our surveillance bracelet underneath the Brook Trout Bridge just like the GPS said it would be. And at present, it is without its owner. Over.”

“I read you Captain. Do I alert all vehicles? Over.”

“All vehicles are occupied with the blackout. Contact the Staties immediately with the sit rep. Over.”

“Copy that. Contact the Staties. You go check on your son, Captain. Over.”

“I’m on my way. Over.”

* * *

Heart in throat, Jimmy Mack drives, speeding past the miles of State-protected pine forest that lead to his son’s Assembly Point home. He knows that at this point nothing should prevent him from seeing to his family. With Lennox free it’s quite probable that a new kill game is about to begin with Jude, Rosie and Jack acting the part of the victims. It’s exactly what Profiling Agent MacSweeny predicted. It’s been his worst fear all along: that Lennox would somehow slip out of the ankle bracelet; that once free he would use the opportunity to begin another kill game, this one motivated by revenge and aimed at the man who is to testify against him in court. Even the blackout feels too much like a coincidence.

It has to be a part of the game. As will be the recorded screams of his son’s family.

* * *

Mack drives pedal-to-the-metal.

But it’s at the intersection of Lake George Road and Fort Anne Road that the old Captain spots the pillar of flame. The red-orange fire is coming from approximately two hundred yards up on his left, not far from the rear entry to Sweeney’s Boxing Gym.

Maybe it’s out of pure call-of-duty, or maybe it’s out of pure instinct and cop intuition, but Mack immediately finds himself driving onto Fort Anne Road in the direction of the large fire and what he knows in his bones will be Lennox’s location. Motoring all the way down into the manmade cavern, he sees what looks to be a white and blue Jeep Cherokee 4x4 consumed in flame. The exact model and make of all L.G.P.D. cruisers.

Coming to a stop, Mack opens the door, gets out, draws his old NYPD .38 service revolver. He walks guardedly towards the burning wreck. His heart skips a beat when he spots the license plate lying on the wet shale floor. In the light of the fire, he reads, LGPD-9.

“Fuentes.”

Turning quickly, he spots a big smiling man dressed all in black standing by the open door of the Jeep Cruiser.

Assembly Point Peninsula

Thursday, 8:50 P.M.

Locked inside the screened-in patio, Jude sits and waits and feels the demon tapping at his insides with a clawed finger. He fears what might be out there in the black woods. When Rosie walks in, big brown eyes laser-beamed upon the shotgun laid across his lap, he turns quickly to face her.

“Expecting company?” she says, tan face tight and apprehensive.

It did not dawn on Jude that Rosie might be upset about seeing a real live shotgun gripped in his hands. He stands, careful to be sure the double barrels are pointed away from his wife.

“Is Jack alone?”

“Sitting up in bed with his Game Boy and a flashlight.”

Something hits the ex-cop then. Sideswipes him is more like it. It’s not that his brain has yet reached panic mode; there’s simply nothing to panic over other than the unknown. But Jude immediately feels that the frivolous use of a flashlight might not be the best way to solve their fragile battery situation.

“Stay here,” he insists.

Shifting the shotgun into his left hand, Jude moves across the slate floor, brushes past Rosie abruptly. He scoots through the living room and up the stairs to Jack’s bedroom. Leaning the shotgun against the hall wall, he goes inside, pulls the flashlight from the boy’s hand.

Jack looks up at his father from his bed, round face painted not with surprise but with a pout.

“What’s wrong, dad?”

Jude sets himself down on the edge of the boy’s bed.

“Listen little man, there’s no telling how long this blackout is going to last.” Holding up the flashlight as if to make a point. “That means we have to conserve all the battery power we can. Get it?”

Jack nods in understanding. He says, “Rosie said it was okay if I use a candle. But she wasn’t sure what you would say about it. So she thought the flashlight would be better.”

Jude inhales and exhales, waits for the calmness to enter into his bloodstream. He takes a quick glance around the log-walled room—at the dinosaur and
Sponge Bob Squarepants
posters, at the television and the attached PlayStation 3 video game system. Eyes back on his boy, he shrugs his shoulders, purses his lips. Although he says not a word about it, he can’t get it out of his mind that
the dark monster is out there …