Scream Test: An unforgettable and gripping psychological thriller

by Mark Gillespie

  Unable to find the space she wanted, Ellie decided to walk up to an old woman standing on the curb across from Cassandra’s house. The woman wore a long black winter coat and there was a checkered scarf wrapped around her bird-like neck. Pink slippers guarded her feet against the cold.

  The woman smiled as Ellie approached.

  “Hello there,” she said, cold mist shooting out of her mouth. “Are you alright?”

  Ellie shrugged. Sluggishly, she pointed at the Saint house across the street.

  “What happened?”

  The woman shivered and wrinkled her already wrinkled face up as if that was a big question that demanded a big answer. She was clutching a silver flask in her gloved hands. Ellie wondered if this was the same white-haired woman she’d seen occasionally coming out of the house directly behind where they were standing now. It was a nice house – a gable-roofed bungalow with a short, curving driveway and a well-tended garden with flowerbeds and gnomes. Clearly it was someone’s pride and joy.

  “Do you know her?” the woman asked.

  “Yeah,” Ellie said, staring intensely at the two-story house across the street. “I kinda know her.” The drapes in the Saint house, upstairs and downstairs, were pulled shut. The family car, a silver Ford Focus, was parked in the driveway like it always was. “But I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks. We had sort of a fight.”

  The woman nodded. “Look at all the vultures who’ve gathered around here for a piece of meat.” She held a hand aloft. “I know, I know – I’m one of them. Guilty. But it’s so hard not to look, isn’t it? Especially when something as odd as this happens on your doorstep. My name’s Mary, by the way. Mary Price. What’s your name dear?”

  “Ellie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ellie. Are you out here all by yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mary offered the flask in her hands. “Do you drink coffee? It’s lovely and warm.”

  “No.” Ellie said, her eyes still glued to the house across the street. “No thanks. What happened? I just want to know what happened?”

  “Well,” Mary said, gripping the flask tight to her chest as if she wanted to absorb the heat. “Crude gossip aside, here’s what I do know. That poor girl was out on the front lawn this morning, on her hands and knees at first. Then she was up, running around. Shouting, spitting and cursing at the neighbors. As loud as thunder. Oh, it was terrible.”

  Ellie felt dizzy. She almost reached out and grabbed Mary’s matchstick arm to stop herself falling over.

  “Are you okay Ellie?”

  “Is she in the house? Do you know where she is now?”

  “Yeah I think she’s in there,” Mary said. “Whatever triggered her, it’s over and it’s been over for a long time. Unfortunately for Cassandra, some of the local a-holes decided to record her instead of help her. Poor girl. Even my daughter, Amy, and her family down in Pennsylvania, have seen it on the news or on the Internet. They’re saying she’s mad. Some people are saying that she’s possessed and that it’s been caught on film – blah, blah, blah. What a crock. And yet look, the goddamn newspapers are out here in full force because they think it’s an event. They can’t all be local either. Oh, it was bad though. I caught the tail end of it and she was…she was growling at one point. I mean, really growling like a dog.”

  “Cassandra’s not mad,” Ellie said. “She’s not possessed either.”

  “Of course not,” Mary said. “The girl had a mental breakdown – that’s as plain as day. Say Ellie, what do you know about her parents? They keep themselves to themselves around here. I’ve tried smiling and saying hello sometimes but they don’t even look at me. Are they…?”

  “Assholes,” Ellie said.

  Mary giggled like a schoolgirl and took a sip of coffee. “Thought as much.” Her blue eyes skipped back and forth between the Saint house and Ellie. Even though she disapproved of the crowds she was a part of, it was clear the old woman was having a good time. “They don’t seem very happy.”

  “They’re not. And Cassandra’s not.”

  Ellie realized that Mary was staring at her.

  “What is it?”

  “What about you dear?” Mary said. Her eyes, the bluest eyes that Ellie had ever seen, were piercing but kind. “What’s it like for you at home? I know, I know, I’m a nosey old biddy and it’s none of my business. But I only ask because you said you were friends with the poor girl and sometimes two people flock together because they’re going through the same ordeal. I speak from experience. I came from a broken home myself and my best friend when I was a teenager, Miriam, was the same. This was a long time ago. We were drawn to one another like there was some magical power at work. I can’t imagine getting through those early years without Miriam’s help. Without her shoulder to lean on. Anyway, things at home – they’re okay?”

  All Ellie could manage was another slight shrug of the shoulders. She was still trying to take everything in.

  “Oh,” Mary said in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry dear. But take my word for it – it won’t always be this hard.”

  They stood side by side, watching the circus unfold on Maple Drive. Ellie overheard a local news reporter, Sam Melville, slick-haired and tanned, talking to the camera about the girl who’d broken down on the street and whether she was destined in time to become a symbol for the broken youth in Canada. Groups of teenage boys stood behind Melville’s greasy head, waving at the camera. Making other signs with their fingers too.

  Most reporters however, were going with the possession story. Running with it all the way, talking about exorcisms and Satan visiting the western outskirts of Toronto.

  Ellie stood in the cold, trying to call Cassandra. Again, there was no response. Was Cassie ignoring her or was she unable to pick up because of the freak show outside her house? What was she doing in there? Ellie left texts and voicemails, apologizing for acting like a bitch on the day of the disastrous presentation when, in the aftermath, she’d taken out her anger on her friend. She’d walked away from Cassandra that day and it was wrong.

  How much had Ellie’s absence in Cassandra’s life figured into today’s meltdown?

  “You see Jimmy Baer over there?” Mary said, pointing to a group of people standing nearby. “He’s the big fat man with the Santa beard. Checked shirt. I was talking to him about five minutes before you came over and he said there’s a ton of videos online now and that everyone’s watching. All because of that YouTunes or whatever the kids call it. Not many people talking about a nervous breakdown either, that’s what Jimmy says. Just that the girl’s gone crazy or she’s possessed.”

  “She’s not possessed,” Ellie said through clenched teeth. “She’s sick.”

  “I know sweetie. Most people on the street here know it too. Unfortunately, sick’s not as interesting as possessed.”

  Mary insisted that Ellie, despite more refusals, take a sip of coffee. Ellie reluctantly obliged. It tasted gross but it was hot.

  About ten minutes later, a stocky Arab-looking guy with curly black hair and a hard jawline, was doing the rounds on the street, showing people some of the most recent video uploads. Ellie leaned in, feeling sick to the pit of her stomach at the thought of what she was about to witness.

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t need to see it again.”

  The footage was grainy at best. It had been taken about fifteen meters from the lawn, but sure enough, that was Cassandra lying on her back on the grass. Freshly cut, by the look of it. She was lying about ten feet from where the Focus was parked. Her body spasmed in time to some ungodly rhythm. Looked like she was having a seizure. A few people, older men and women, hurried over to check on her and she turned on them. That was putting it mildly. She lashed out, calling them all sort of names – real sewer-class curse words that Ellie had never heard Cassandra use before. And Cassandra was no stranger to curse words. It was only a short clip, thank God. Less than a minute and a half. It made Ellie feel sick but now she understood why people tho
ught there was a demon in Cassandra.

  No wonder it had blown up on YouTube.

  “Holy shit.”

  Ellie felt numb. She also felt dirty for standing around in a crowd, listening to people laugh and lose their shit over the sight of her friend in pain.

  Enough. She had to get out of there. Mary let it be known that she was going back into her house anyway with no plans to come back out. The old woman gave Ellie a strong hug and labored slowly up the driveway towards the front door. In Mary’s words, she was going to ‘hide under the blankets with a hot water bottle and wait for the shitstorm to end’.

  Ellie tried calling Cassandra one more time. No luck. After that, she pushed past the crowds and went to the river, walking and running in equal measure, trying to put the circus noise behind her. When she reached the Rouge, she flopped onto the usual bench facing the water. It was quiet there, thank God. There was only birdsong and flowing water. Thoughts about Cassandra.

  And Nicole.

  She stayed there, leaving shortly before sundown.

  The media circus lasted a few days. To everyone’s surprise, the Cassandra Saint story gathered steam online and in mainstream media outlets. It was a strange, oddball diversion from the usual glut of depressing news stories and one that Canadian news, as well as several major news organizations in the States, seemed only too happy to pick up and run with. Demonic possession was a talking point. There was a big debate – was Cassandra Saint a fraud or not? In most polls, over eighty percent said yes and still the story went on and on.

  Cassandra’s parents went on TV. They were interviewed on prominent one-hour specials and to Ellie’s horror, they didn’t do the right thing and shut down the suggestion that Cassandra was possessed by some kind of demonic force. The Saints sat there under the bright lights of a glossy studio, putting on a good show, playing the part of concerned parents all the way. Holding hands. Exchanging long, meaningful looks.

  Ellie had read once that the singer, Elvis Presley, shot a lot of TV sets in his home in Memphis. Looking at the Saints, she understood why.

  This was their fifteen minutes of fame. Some of the other kids at Ellie and Cassandra’s school were interviewed too, kids who hadn’t said two words to Cassandra in their entire lives. Now they were on TV acting like she was their best friend in the world. Even Miss Cranston popped up for a short interview on CTV, talking about how quiet Cassandra was and even referring to her as ‘a bit of a strange duck’. Ellie, for her part, refused to talk to anyone. Her dad, enjoying the conveyer belt coverage on TV like it was a comedy, said the Saints were raking in the cash. He also said they’d better enjoy it while it lasted because there was a big fall coming.

  Ellie’s dad was an asshole but he was right. The Saints were milking this story for all it was worth and it couldn’t last. Cassandra had contrived a way to let the world know how unhappy she was and instead of acknowledging how damaged their daughter had become, the Saints preferred to go along with demonic possession.

  For Ellie, there was no peace except by the river. Cassandra’s story went on and on, involving scholars, religious figures and other social commentators. Debates, more debates. At one point, the Saints let slip to a journalist that their daughter had said something about a teenager called Nicole who’d allegedly died in the area a long time ago. Something about a murder. Something about Hollywood. The connection was made to Nicole West, the seventeen-year-old-actress who, along with her mother, had gone missing in 1954 and according to unsubstantiated rumors, was buried in Rouge National Urban Park.

  Ellie didn’t go to school much during that period. She’d sit on the freezing bench by the Rouge River instead, thinking things over. She was a solitary figure, ignored by the hikers on the trail to Frenchman’s Bay and she was happy to keep it that way. Why did Cassandra have to bring up Nicole’s name like that? Like she gave a damn anymore. She’d quit on Nicole during their class presentation. Ellie was the one who’d seen it through to the end. Ellie, not Cassandra. Yes, Nicole’s story had to come out but not like that. Not in a freak show. Cassandra Saint was not possessed by the spirit of Nicole because the vengeful spirit, if she needed a body to carry out her purpose, needed someone strong. Someone much stronger than poor Cassie.

  Ellie was the lone messenger. She would carry the cross. It still made her burn inside thinking about the injustice. Thinking about what Nicole and her mom had been through that night, dragged from their home in LA, thrown into a van and taken on a thirty-plus hour nightmare road trip to the outskirts of Toronto.

  All because of him. The man who hadn’t been punished.

  The Cassandra Saint story went out with a whimper. It was put out of its misery by a scathing attack in the Toronto Star, written by a well-known national journalist, Katie Grier. Grier went after the Saint family with guns blazing, not to mention the mainstream media and all the people who’d enabled such nonsense to sweep everything else, including life and death matters, off the front page. Grier used the word ‘hysteria’ repeatedly in her article. The whole country, she argued, had been caught up in it. She compared the Saints to the Lutz family of the infamous Amityville house of horrors. She was typically brutal, but nothing if not honest. Called them con artists. Even Cassandra.

  Ellie was alone by the river on the day that Grier’s article came out in the Star. She texted Cassandra one last time, hoping for a reply. Nothing. According to the good old West Rouge rumor mill, the Saints had fled their home on Maple Drive.

  Just like that. Ellie’s friend, she was gone.

  Was the whole thing planned? Ellie didn’t think so. She’d seen that footage and it haunted her dreams. Cassandra wasn’t that good of an actress and no matter how much money had poured in because of the circus attention, Ellie was convinced that her friend’s breakdown was legit. What came afterwards, that was bullshit. That was Cassie’s parents. That was the media. That was everyone else.

  Ellie glanced to her left, to Cassandra’s empty place on the bench.

  At least she still had Nicole. Best of all, Nicole could go home with Ellie, unlike Cassandra, and that meant Ellie wouldn’t be alone, sitting in the corner of her bedroom while her parents were fighting all night in the other room. Nicole, her new bestie, would sit beside Ellie and they’d share one headphone each, playing Avril Lavigne as loud as they could to block out the noise.

  7

  Ellie tried to get off the bed but Klein threw her back down.

  She landed on the mattress with such force that not only did Ellie think the bed’s wooden legs would buckle under impact, but that the whole thing would crash through the carpeted floor in an explosion of noise and plummet all the way to the next room down. Another entry for the Chateau Lux’s greatest hits.

  I wanna stay in the room where Grady Klein killed Ellie Ferguson.

  She closed her eyes, just for a second. Another monster was leaning over her in the darkness there. The Shadow Man. His broad shoulders expanding like flower petals under the sun. The monstrous roar as he threw the first sledgehammer of a punch to her face. Spitting, laughing. Raping her over and over again.

  Ellie opened her eyes and Klein was standing over her.

  “What are you doing?” Ellie said, sitting up on the bed. She reverse-crawled until her back was pressed up tight against the ornate wooden headboard that looked like a giant paper fan.

  “Relax,” Klein said, his eyes foggy with lust. “Just relax.”

  Ellie bounced off the bed like a jack-in-the-box and ran for the door as if the building was in mid-collapse. Fear propelled her arms and legs to work like never before. But Klein was surprisingly quick on his feet for a big man. His thick, muscular arm was wrapped around Ellie’s slim waist before she could even make it past the bed. The grip was solid and it felt like she was fighting off an anaconda.

  “Down!” he yelled.

  Ellie landed on the mattress and it felt like she was going up and down on a bounce house. Now her arms were flat to the side. She couldn’
t move; she was paralyzed with fear.

  “I don’t want this.”

  Klein nodded at the iPhone camera over on the desk. A single bead of sweat trickled down his cheek and fell onto his chest, still damp after the shower. Or maybe it was all sweat now. “Camera’s rolling. You do want this. Show me how much you want this.”

  Ellie stared at the ceiling and saw a number of mismatched paint smudges up there. Numerous cracks, expanding across the surface.

  She heard a light thump. Klein’s towel hitting the floor.

  “Bob Tucci’s going to love you,” he said, standing at the foot of the bed. His eyes were ablaze, his erection at full mast. His chest was rising and falling in a way that didn’t look safe.

  “I think I love you. You’re young, beautiful, fucked up. You’re perfect.”

  Ellie sat up, her arms folded tight over her chest like a boxer hiding behind a guard. Klein’s two-hundred-pound body dropped onto the bed like a bomb and the mattress howled in protest. Now he was crawling towards her. His skin glistening with fresh perspiration.

  Ellie’s insides clenched like a fist. She heard a sudden voice in her head. A whisper that spoke just to her.

  It was my mouth. Not yours.

  Klein’s hulking frame pinned her to the mattress. His skin burned as it pressed up tight against Ellie and pushed her deeper into the bed. It felt like he was melting on top of her.

  She pounded both fists off his arms. “I can’t breathe!” She pushed at the weight crushing her internal organs but she might as well have been trying to dislodge an elephant. “I can’t breathe!” Klein’s disgusting body odor was in every atom of the room. And that horrible, raspy breathing.