Scream Test: An unforgettable and gripping psychological thriller

by Mark Gillespie

  Anyway, Nicole didn’t want to turn back.

  She pressed her thumb against the button. An electronic hissing noise sizzled and then cut out.

  A woman’s voice answered the call. “Hello, may I help you?”

  “Good afternoon,” Nicole said, adopting a stereotypical Brooklyn accent. It wasn’t great but with any luck, no one in the concrete fortress knew the first thing about authentic New York accents. “I believe you’re expecting me. My name is Jami Maddox and I work with Klein Productions. I’m here on behalf of Grady, who as usual, is late sending out birthday presents. Just to confirm – this is Kane Dallas’s house, right? I have the correct address?”

  A moment’s silence.

  Nicole backed away from the intercom. She wondered if the woman inside the house was watching her on camera. An even more worrying thought entered her mind. Had the woman met Grady Klein’s PA before at some point? If so, this thing was over already.

  A click from the speaker.

  “You’re the woman from Klein?”

  “That’s right,” Nicole said. “Jami Maddox. I’m Grady’s personal PA.”

  “And you’re delivering something for Kane?”

  “Just dropping off gifts and an apology from Grady. Is Kane there? Can he hear me right now?”

  “Mr. Dallas is in his room. I can patch him up if you like?”

  “That would be great,” Nicole said, digging a hand into her pocket. “And just so you know this is the real deal, I’ve got a little something extra here. Something Kane might like to hear.”

  “Sure,” the woman said. “Just give me a moment please.”

  “Take your time.”

  Nicole pulled Ellie’s iPhone out of her pocket, unlocked it and thumbed her way to the recordings app. Setting it up, she placed the phone’s speaker about an inch from the intercom system.

  Another click from the machine.

  “Go right ahead,” the woman said. “Kane’s patched up from his room. He can hear you.”

  Nicole felt the sun pounding on the back of her neck. He’s listening. She took in another lungful of hot air and hit play on the most recent saved recording. Untitled. Taken little more than an hour ago in Room 59.

  Grady Klein’s tinny voice spilled out of the phone speaker. There he was, back from the dead and singing an out of tune version of ‘Happy Birthday’. Nicole adjusted the volume, brought the iPhone closer to the intercom, well aware that the old man was probably half-deaf.

  She let it play, her thumb hovering over the stop button.

  “Happy Birthday to yoooou. Happy Birthday dear…”

  She pressed stop, killing the tune before Klein could say Ellie’s name. Dallas and his little servant didn’t need to hear that part. This recording was Nicole’s passport into the house. No breaking in. No dogs, no high-tech security. Ellie had hummed ‘Happy Birthday’ back in the hotel at just the right moment, prompted by Nicole. Klein was still eagerly trying to impress her back then. Thank God, he’d taken the bait.

  “Sorry,” Nicole said, laughing as she slid the phone back into her pocket. “My battery died before Grady’s grand finale. Had to charge it on the drive over here so I could play what little I got for you. But you get the picture. Grady wanted to be here himself but he’s so busy right now with the next Bob Tucci movie. Casting, pre-production – it’s a nightmare.”

  There was a short pause. Nicole was convinced she’d blown it.

  “Come on in Jami,” the woman said. Her voice was less guarded this time. “Just walk straight up to the front door. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Nicole felt electricity crackling in her veins.

  “Thank you.”

  The wrought iron gate creaked open. The barrier, which had looked so imposing, now resembled a pair of welcoming arms.

  Nicole hurried along the driveway, eager to get inside and outrun the Cassandra-voiced doubts that lingered in her mind.

  The gates groaned shut behind her.

  She approached a sixty-something woman dressed in a t-shirt and white pants, standing on the front step under a silver awning. The woman was extremely short in stature, no more than five feet tall, with black curly hair and eyes that squinted in the sun.

  “Hi Jami,” she said, as Nicole approached the steps. “Thank you for stopping by today.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Grady doesn’t want Kane to think that he’s forgotten about him.”

  The woman pointed to the flowers in Nicole’s hand. “Oh my goodness. Lilies? Aren’t they lovely? I’ll have to make sure they go in water right away. My name’s Diane, by the way, and I’m one of Kane’s special little helpers. That’s what we like to call ourselves. That or Kane’s army.”

  She giggled at her joke.

  “Yeah,” Nicole said, coming to a halt at the foot of the steps. “Well, I guess that makes me Grady’s special little helper.”

  Diane laughed and shook her head. “These big shots, huh? Movie stars. Icons. Legends. Yadda-yadda. Where would they be without us women to make their coffee, to tie their ties and polish their shoes? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Right,” Nicole said, glancing past the woman towards the house. The door was slightly ajar.

  “Shall we go into the house Jami? It’s getting so hot.”

  “It sure is.”

  Diane shielded her eyes with her hand. “I can’t stand it when it gets this hot in LA. I really can’t. C’mon, the air-conditioning’s on.”

  She led the way into the massive Dallas residence, her flip-flops clapping off the stone staircase that led to the door. Nicole followed her in, taking one last look down the meandering driveway towards the street where Eric’s cab was parked.

  The dogs had stopped barking, at least for now.

  “What a beautiful house,” she said, waiting while Diane closed the oak-paneled door over. The tiny woman then punched numbers into a metal box on the wall. Nicole thought she could hear the front gates wheezing shut.

  “Thank you,” Diane said with a jolt of enthusiasm. “On behalf of Kane, of course. It’s his house after all.”

  “Sure.”

  Nicole’s eyes darted around the space in front of her. The house was spotless. Outside and inside, it had an ultra-modern feel and there didn’t seem to be any particular odor in the air underneath the delicious air-con. Bland, that was the word that sprang to mind. It was certainly devoid of the dirt and stories seeping out of every crack in the Chateau Lux.

  She couldn’t believe she was walking around inside his house.

  Where was the Shadow Man? Where was his room?

  There was a wood clad wall on both sides of the entry. The cladding stretched inwards, leading to a spacious kitchen area under a ceiling of recessed lights and beyond that, a living room that jutted out to the left. The walls were covered in pictures, most of them featuring Kane Dallas’s extended family. Nicole knew the old man had five sons and two daughters between two marriages and that all the kids and their kids had grown up and bred like rich little rabbits. Dallas’s two eldest sons, James and Montgomery, were powerful players in the movie business just like their father had once been. One was an actor, the other a producer. ‘Hollywood royalty’ – that’s how the media referred to members of the Dallas family still in the business.

  Nicole’s eyes lingered on the family portraits.

  They started off in black and white and transitioned into color, all the obscene fashions and hairstyles of each era on display. Kane Dallas was the centerpiece of almost every shot – the grand old patriarch who’d clawed himself out of an impoverished upbringing to become the biggest movie star in the world. Nicole recognized the red-haired Maureen Callahan, Dallas’s first wife, by his side in the older photographs. His second wife, Yvonne Wilson, a country singer, was with Dallas in the later family portraits. Both women were dead now.

  Wall-to-wall images. Vacations in the sun. Big smiles, golden tans and white teeth. And beside these family snapshots, framed picture
s of Dallas in his glory days, mostly black and white shots taken on the sets of his movies from the fifties and sixties, many of them old-school sword and sandal epics showing off Dallas’s rugged, muscular physique. He’d been quite the specimen in his prime.

  “Such a lovely house,” Nicole said again.

  “It is,” Diane said, nodding along in agreement. “It really is. Over eleven and a half thousand square feet of living space. Huge, right? That’s way more than an old invalid like Kane needs, that’s for sure. But don’t you tell him I said that. Okay? Don’t you dare tell him now.”

  She laughed. It sounded like a hyena being tickled to death.

  Nicole walked ahead of Diane, pointing at the massive floor-to-ceiling windows near the dining table. She could see outside onto the pool area: a large, heart-shaped swimming pool, rows of sunbeds, an outdoors bar and what looked like a small trampoline.

  “Look at that view.”

  Diane nodded. “To die for. We’ve got the Pacific on the opposite side of the house and right here, spectacular views of downtown LA. You should see it at night Jami. Oh my God, listen to me, would you? I sound like I’m trying to sell the place, don’t I? You’ll have to forgive me. There’s not much conversation with Kane these days so whenever anybody else shows up I’m like…”

  She made the blah-blah gesture with her hand, fingers and thumb snapping together.

  “Oh,” she went on, “but you really should see the view at night Jami. It’s really something, you know? Hey, want me to take those flowers off your hands? And the lovely gift box too? Ooh, brownies!”

  Nicole shook her head. “No thanks. I’d like to give them to Kane myself if that’s okay? I’ve got orders to take a couple of selfies and send them onto Grady this afternoon. I guess we should have the presents in there too.”

  “Of course,” Diane said, grinning. “That’s absolutely fine.”

  “He’s got a lot of pictures on the wall. Does he see much of his family?”

  Diane rocked her hand in a so-so gesture.

  “Let’s put it this way – he probably wouldn’t have so many pictures up if he got more visits from them. Ahh well, you know how it is. Everyone’s so busy, aren’t they Jami? They see him when they can but it’s not much by anyone’s standards and especially considering his age. Anyway, he’s got me and all the other little helpers in Kane’s army. He’s in good hands.”

  “May I see him now?”

  “Of course,” Diane said. “You must be quite the busy bee yourself, huh? Working for Grady Klein and all – how exciting. Yes, yes. Kane’s up his room or his old man cave as he likes to call it. I’ll take you up there now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re so welcome.”

  They left the kitchen through a wide hallway, a short walk that took them to a gently winding staircase with a folded-up chairlift attached to the railing. As they walked upstairs, Diane continued to make small talk. Nicole did her best to respond politely to any questions but chit-chatting with Dallas’s servant was the last thing she felt like doing. The woman’s voice was giving her a headache.

  On the second floor, Diane led the way down a long, carpeted hallway that seemed to stretch on for miles. The floor creaked under their feet. Sounded like they were venturing through a haunted house at midnight and yet that noise didn’t belong in the modern, soulless building on Blue Jay Way. Not with the sun shining in from outside.

  “Here we are.”

  Diane stopped outside a black four-paneled door. There was no dressing room sign with Dallas’s name on it. Just an ordinary door like all the other doors in the house.

  “Kane?”

  Diane gave Nicole an encouraging smile. She knocked. Softly at first, then a little harder.

  “Kane? You decent?”

  There was a deep, gargled reply from behind the door.

  “YEAH.”

  Nicole’s body stiffened straight.

  Diane smiled as if Kane Dallas was a grumpy dog that needed a little encouragement to get going.

  “We’re coming in old man.”

  Another grunt from within.

  Diane pushed the door open, standing aside to let Nicole go in first. Nicole, her legs rubbery, walked past the grinning woman and into the brightly lit room.

  Kane Dallas was sitting in his wheelchair. The chair was parked beside a white L-shaped couch, the centerpiece of the modest-sized room. The old man, dressed in a Lakers t-shirt and gray sweatpants, had his back to the two women as they walked inside. He was staring through the floor to ceiling windows towards the smoky, distant skyscrapers of downtown LA. The walls were covered in family photos here too, as well as young Kane-in-costume shots taken from various movie sets. A massive Samsung TV was fixed to the wall and a black and white Humphrey Bogart movie was playing with the sound off.

  A row of scented candles was lined up along the window ledge, filling the room with the scent of rose petals, jasmine and lavender.

  Nicole dug her fingernails deep into the wrapping paper on the gift box. She couldn’t even pretend to smile right now.

  Diane walked over to Kane, grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair and turned him around so that he was facing Nicole. As she spun the chair towards the front, she made a loud ‘vroom’ noise as if entertaining a child.

  “Look,” Diane said, raising her voice several notches. “This is Jami Maddox. Jami’s here to see you on behalf of your friend, Grady Klein. GRADY KLEIN.”

  Dallas stared at Nicole with a blank expression. A giant gnarled thumb pointed over his shoulder towards the view.

  “GORGEOUS, isn’t it? What a view.”

  The words were muffled, the old man shouting every few syllables as if at war with his voice. Kane Dallas had suffered a stroke seventeen years ago and had been confined to a wheelchair for at least the past ten. Up close, he looked even older than his age. His face was a rubbery mask, trapped in an eternally dumb grin. The blue eyes that had once wowed millions of moviegoers had lost their sparkle.

  “City of ANGELS!”

  Nicole nodded.

  “Jami brought you flowers and candy from Grady,” Diane said, her mouth beside Dallas’s withered ear. “How about you get your selfie pictures now Jami and I’ll take those flowers off your hands and put them in water? I can’t abide the thought of leaving them for much longer.”

  “My battery died again,” Nicole said, tearing her eyes off Dallas. “Looks like we’ll have to skip the pictures.”

  “Oh dear,” Diane said, knitting her brows together. “That’s a shame. Would you like to use my cellphone? I’ll send the photos to your email address if you like?”

  “No thanks,” Nicole said, handing Diane the flowers and candy. It was good to be rid of them. “It’s not that important. I’ll just sit with him for a while and tell him what’s been happening with us at Klein Productions. That okay?”

  “That’s fine with me,” Diane said, marching towards the door. The gifts were under her arm. “I’ll go back downstairs, find a vase for these flowers and I’ll have to check on lunch too. Would you care for anything to eat or drink Jami? I can’t believe I haven’t offered you something already and after you coming all the way out here to see Kane in this godforsaken heat. Something to drink?”

  “No thank you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Dallas’s little helper smiled as if she couldn’t quite understand the refusal. “Suit yourself.” She then pointed to a low-hanging intercom beside the door. It was barely a few feet off the ground, the perfect height for a small child or someone in a wheelchair to access. Nearby, Nicole spied something on the back of the door. The tail end of a Yale poking out of the keyhole.

  “He just loves company,” Diane said. “But if it gets too much or you need anything, just push this button and I’ll be back.”

  “Will do,” Nicole said. She could hear Dallas’s labored breathing behind her. “Take your time.”

>   Diane waved with added enthusiasm. “Have fun you guys. I’ll be back soon.”

  Nicole walked over, smiling as she closed the door behind Diane. Her hand slipped a few inches down to the Yale. She coughed loudly, burying the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  She could hear Diane singing to herself on the way downstairs.

  “Happy Birthday Kane,” Nicole said, turning around to face the old man. She gripped the handle of the tote bag hanging over her shoulder. “Do you like the gifts from Grady?”

  Dallas answered with that vacant look on his face. Like he was asleep with his eyes open.

  “WHAT?”

  “GRA-DY KLEIN. He wishes you a very Happy Birthday.”

  Dallas nodded as he looked her up and down.

  “Ainchoo a pretty one,” he said in that strange underwater voice. “PRETTEEEE. I’ve been around enough dames in my time to know a looker when I see one. HOLY COW. Where were you when I was thirty?”

  “Thank you,” Nicole said. She wasn’t putting on a Brooklyn accent anymore. She wasn’t sure when she’d stopped trying.

  “YOUNG!” Dallas barked. “Back in the day sweetheart, in my PRIME…”

  He pounded his chest on the word ‘prime’.

  “…I woulda given your old man a run for his money. HA-HA! How old are you?”

  Nicole was beginning to relax. She couldn’t feel her heart fluttering around her ribcage anymore. “I’m older than you think.”

  Dallas chuckled. He lifted a crumpled Kleenex off the arm of his chair and dabbed at his wet chin. Then he pointed a shaky finger at one of the family portraits on the wall. “My daughters…in their sixties and seventies. BELIEVE THAT? Why am I still around? My great-granddaughter…she says God forgot about me.”

  Nicole shook her head. “He didn’t forget about you.”

  “WHAT D’YA SAY?”

  “You heard me.”

  Dallas tapped a finger off his mangled ear. “Speak up doll. Not what I used to be no more.”

  Nicole stretched to her full height, towering over the old man in the chair. “One hundred and two years old. That’s remarkable. Tell me, have you had a good life, Mr. Dallas? It’s been a long life but has it been a happy life?”