The Scream Catcher

by Vincent Zandri

  The portable radio goes dead. Jude turns it off and on again. Bits and spurts of broadcaster voice ooze from the small speaker like ghosts in the machine. But even that dies out after maybe ten seconds. Holding the radio in both hands he gives it a shake, attempts tuning into another station. But still he comes up with nothing—not a sound other than the slight blood drumming in his head.

  Jude feels he has no other option but to set the radio down onto the hood of the Jeep.

  He says, “I don’t suppose there’s anymore batteries.”

  Rosie brushes back long dark hair so that it veils the right side of her face. She stands tall between the Jeep’s grill and the ever still Jack.

  Crossing naked arms over her chest, she says, “You mean like in case of emergency.”

  Outside the dim garage another thunder crash. As if on cue, the three of them about-face, gaze across the room at the wide roll-up door like somehow they possess the power to see right through it, all the way up through the woods to the lake road. Slowly turning their attention back to one another, Jude notices that Jack is copying Rosie by crossing little arms over little barrel chest.

  “End of the world,” the proud boy repeats. “Night of the dark monster.”

  Rosie and Jude find themselves exchanging tight-lipped frowns like Kid’s got a point.

  “There’s always the Jeep radio,” Jude suggests. “Let’s try and find daddy’s keys. ‘Less of course, the dark monster ate them too.”

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Thursday, 7:54 P.M.

  Maybe its signal is far stronger, but the dash-mounted Jeep radio provides no real answers. What Jude does discern however from the WGY broadcast is this: while believed to have originated in New York’s upstate region (anywhere between Cohoes to the south and Plattsburgh to the north), the power outage is no longer limited to the Adirondack North Country. An immediate chain reaction has occurred and its debilitating effects have rippled along the already overtaxed power grid. Much of New York State and parts of Montreal are either blacked or browned out.

  According to the limited reports, power plants have been afflicted by “sudden and traumatic overloads” which means flash-fires spontaneously sparking inside overheated generators and turbines.

  The entirety of New York City is down, including the subways. As a former resident, Jude pictures the throngs of commuters stranded in subway cars, emergency lighting causing stunned faces to glow with eerie apprehension. Airports are shutting down runways and rerouting incoming traffic.

  The ex-cop sits behind the wheel of the old Jeep. His wife and son stand silently beside him outside the open door.

  Electrical Power Grid System . . .

  The four words provoke an imbalance inside his guts, a sickening sense of over vulnerability, food for the demon. For Jude, the situation is not unlike driving over the Brook Trout Bridge, knowing that it might collapse the moment he reaches its center, sending him on a fifty foot drop to the rocks and rushing white water below.

  The WGY broadcaster announces that the station’s emergency-generated signal is growing ever weaker. In a few moments, the station will shut down for an indefinite period of time in order to conserve what little energy it has left at its disposal.

  Between the electrical storm and the cold dark garage interior (and the coming of the dark monster), he can’t help but be reminded of the1938 Orson Welles, War of the Worlds broadcast.

  It’s exactly how he puts it to Rosie.

  Laughing, she rolls her eyes in total agreement.

  “Dad,” Jack speaks up, “what’s the War of the Worlds?”

  Turning to his son, Jude gazes into deep brown pools reflected in the dim flashlight.

  “It’s a story about the end of the world,” he admits.

  That’s when the radio goes silent.

  Brook Trout Bridge

  Thursday, 8:08 P.M.

  With the van parked off to the side of the road inside a cluster of pine trees, Black Dragon momentarily separates himself from his student while making his way on foot towards the Brook Trout Bridge. In the pitch darkness, he jogs along the soft shoulder until coming to a metal span bridge constructed as a part of the “Federal Employment Act” of the mid-1930s. In his right hand, he holds the electronic surveillance bracelet. Looking down off the bridge, he can see how the heavy stream water foams white and effervescent against the rocks and boulders before rapidly emptying itself downstream into the lake. For a time, he just stares intently down into the frothing water. He listens to its perpetual rush, feels the mist that rises up from the deep gorge wet and slimy against a black-painted face.

  Off in the distance comes the whine of police sirens.

  The entire town of Lake George, Black Dragon begins to realize, has officially assumed panic mode. While this is a good thing, it also means that time is short.

  Holding the surveillance bracelet out over the water, Black Dragon lets loose with a high-pitched laugh. He releases his grip on the device, watches and smiles as it disappears into the white water.

  The white water flows heavy beneath him.

  He pictures the bracelet already sitting on the bottom of the lake not far from where the stream empties into it.

  “Time to catch some screams,” he mumbles before trotting back to the van.

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Thursday, 8:10 P.M.

  T-Bred parks the white van far enough around the corner from 23 Assembly Point Road not only to go unnoticed, but to also shield the vehicle behind the thick stand of pine and birch trees. Having issued his final farewell to his mentor (Black Dragon having slipped into the lake in order to issue the L.G.P.D. Lake Patrol the surprise of their short lives), he reminds himself that stealth and surprise attack are the keywords for the stormy night. Especially when it came to Ray Fuentes, the plainclothes cop assigned the job of protecting the Parish lake-front property.

  During the past two nights, T-Bred, under orders from his mentor, has spent hours casing not the property, but the protector—the geriatric Super cop. Like a deer hunter, he observed the protector’s patterns of behavior from an old tree stand anchored to a thick pine in the center of the woods.

  Turns out, there hasn’t been a whole lot to learn.

  Ray Fuentes is a simple man, after all, with simple needs and routines. It’s been his habit to remain inside the parked cruiser for all hours of the afternoon and night. For T-Bred, it seems like the only time the cop spent away from the Parish home was from eight in the morning to noon when a blue uniform took over. That’s when Fuentes would head home to his double-wide in Fort Anne for a shower, a shave and change of his shirt.

  One would think that the old cop would need some sleep eventually. But then T-Bred knows from careful observation that super cop, Ray Fuentes, counts the occasional Z while on witness protection duty inside his dry, cozy Jeep-cruiser. Which is exactly what T-Bred is counting on while, with digital video camera and Teflon-coated fighting knife in hand, he slips out of the van, quietly closes the door, begins his silent trek along the dirt road through the rain and the near pitch dark of the Adirondack woods.

  Lake George Village Precinct

  Thursday, 8:11 P.M.

  Only minutes into the power outage and already for Captain Mack, the village precinct feels like a fishing trawler that’s suddenly capsized. Headquarters is running on half power via emergency generator, while the staff of uniformed and plainclothes cops run around in every direction, some seemingly without purpose other than getting out of the way of those who have something important to accomplish. With landline and cell phone services temporarily out of order, the limited radio chatter has become a cacophony of shouts and cries for help and/or backup.

  For the past half-hour, he’s been in a frantic search for what he can only assume is misplaced forensic evidence crucial to the next morning’s preliminary hearing. Despite his search, nothing has shown up. He knows it’s possible if not probable that P.J. Blanchfield appropriat
ed it in order to perform some last minute study and examination. But then perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. Perhaps he’s giving her the benefit of the doubt. Because all calls to her office have thus far gone unanswered and not a single soul in the department can produce the sign-out slip required by law.

  And now the phones are down.

  Mack was about to head out to the courthouse when the blackout hit. Now it’s impossible for him to go anywhere. The blackout brings immediate chaos to the upstate vacation resort, with Main Street having been barricaded off on both its north and south ends. But the action allows for the uniformed police to organize the evacuation of the village business district. Uniformed police holding bullhorns to their mouths calmly request that tourists exit the commercial establishments and proceed in an orderly fashion to privately owned vehicles parked in the municipal lot, or to areas designated “Bus Stop.”

  But many of the tourists (especially the bikers) are drunk and going nowhere fast.

  Having already ordered the dispatching of additional units to patrol the outlying streets and their now useless traffic lights and signals, Mack has requested that the remainder of the force begin patrol operations for the Lake George, plus the Town of Fort Anne which is included within its jurisdiction. He’s also called out the Department of Environmental Conservation rangers to patrol the state parks that line the perimeter of the lake, including Tongue Mountain. Per S.O.P, he’s been in close contact with the S.E.M.A. command center located in a bunker basement between the downtown Essex and Washington Avenues in Glens Falls. But for now, he must await word from the State Police Commissioner down in Albany who will almost certainly offer his personal assistance. But the forty year veteran would rather cut off his pinky finger than have the State Police, or any other foreign agency, patrolling his village and lake-side streets.

  Then there’s the issue of his son, his daughter-in-law, his grandson.

  With the Lennox prelim to take place in a matter of hours, he knows that of all the nights having passed since the arraignment, tonight will be the most crucial. Possibly the most dangerous or vulnerable.

  Lennox has been too quiet, too out of sight for three days and two nights. Only the ankle bracelet has provided any kind of signal indicating his downtown village presence. But then Blanchfield passed down strict orders to avoid placing any kind of tail and/or trace on the beast—give him nothing he could use against us in court, nothing he could construe as “harassment” . . . Three days without a word or a sighting of the scream catcher. It’s as if he’s gone underground, prepared himself not for a defensive war, but an all out frontal attack . . . And now this blackout.

  Sitting himself up on his desk, Mack attempts to radio Ray Fuentes. With the power completely out, it’s imperative that Ray remain glued to the Parish residence at all costs.

  But then Ray is not responding to the radio call.

  No response other than cold static.

  That’s when Mack’s intercom buzzes loudly.

  Thumbing the speaker, he grunts, “Yeah.”

  “Captain, this might have something to do with the blackout, but I’m getting a very strange reading from Lennox’s surveillance bracelet.”

  Mack perks up, pulls the handset, presses it up against his ear.

  “Come again.”

  “The Global Positioning System is giving me a reading entirely different from his normal address in the village.”

  “What address are we looking at?” Mack swallows.

  When the communications dispatcher laughs, Mack pictures her pleasant dark-skinned face and equally dark eyes.

  “Just tell me, Emily.”

  “The address is the same as that of the Brook Trout Bridge along the George Road.”

  Mack bites down on his bottom lip.

  “Does Ray have his cell phone on him?”

  “Cell phone service is overloaded and useless, Jimmy.”

  The old Captain slides himself off the desk. With a pounding heart, he grabs his smokes, shoves the pack into his chest pocket. He barks, “Buzz Lt. Lino. Tell him to make a check on Lennox’s apartment. When he’s done, I need him to locate some missing evidence.”

  “What missing evidence?”

  “Just have him radio me, please. I’m going out to make a check on my kid.”

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Thursday, 8:21 P.M.

  With a turn of the key, Jude kills the Jeep’s electric power.

  Inside the garage’s near complete darkness, he begins to sense that both his wife and son are looking to him—the former cop—for answers. Ex-cop or no ex-cop, he has no answers or solutions to a problem he himself can barely comprehend.

  Overloaded Electrical Power Grid System . . .

  But that does not mean he’s lost the ability to work the immediate problem.

  “Why not fire up the wedding candles, set them throughout the house?”

  “Exactly my thoughts,” Rosie agrees.

  Even Jack gets into the act.

  “Can I light the matches?” he poses, Cheshire cat grin painting a round face.

  From back inside the living room, Jude peers out the floor-to-ceiling bay window onto a blacked-out Assembly Point Road. Over his right and left shoulders the candlelight flickers off the tall log walls while the clang of plates and silver wear confirm that Rosie has started washing the dishes by hand in the kitchen sink.

  “Take it easy, Rosie. It’s not worth all the strain.”

  “I’m not an invalid, Jude. Besides, it’s my night to do them.”

  Not far behind him, Nigel, Rosie’s pet canary is singing and chirping up a storm. Set on the coffee table not far from the bird’s perch, Charlie, the blue Betta fish swims to and fro in his big translucent vase. Outside the window the rainy darkness is so thick and concentrated, Jude can hardly make out the gravel drive beyond the porch much less any of the trees across the road maybe one-hundred feet in the distance. He searches for Ray’s Jeep-cruiser. More specifically, the interior light that radiates from off the dash and from the old Lieutenant’s on-board laptop.

  But from where he stands inside the log house, there is nothing to see.

  No lights to cut through the darkness.

  Turning, he heads for the kitchen where he grabs one of the two flashlights set on the table. Without a word, he heads out over the stone vestibule floor to the front door.

  The simple action of opening the door, stepping outside causes Jude’s stomach muscles to tighten, throat to close up, mouth to go dry. He descends the steps onto the stone walkway, all the time shining the flashlight towards the top of the long, uphill gravel drive. Though the light cuts through the dark and the rainy mist, he isn’t able to make out a thing. No unmarked Jeep-cruiser that is. Only the empty driveway, the equally empty road beyond it and a small illuminated circle of pine branches.

  Well, I’ll be damned . . . Ray could have at least told me he was leaving . . .

  About facing, Jude hurriedly makes his way back to the safety of the house, locking the front door behind him. Traversing the vestibule past the candle-lit living room to the kitchen beyond it, he feels adrenalin fill his head like blood inside a blister. His sternum grows tighter than tight, breathing becoming rapid and strained.

  Rosie stands by the kitchen sink, a white dish towel folded over her right shoulder, a still damp dinner plate in her right hand. Seated at the table, Jack is chowing down on a piece of chocolate cake, seemingly oblivious to any real danger or dark monsters lurking in the dark corners.

  Rosie reads Jude’s face for the tell-tale signs of distress. The scrunched brow, the wide, unblinking eyes, the mouth that’s slightly ajar. That’s when Jude notices her own face taking on a hard, pressed-lip expression.

  She says, “What’s wrong, Jude?”

  “Ray’s gone.”

  The plate falls from her hand, bounces against the pine floor boards, sending an instant shockwave throughout the otherwise silent and dark log house.

&nb
sp; “What was that?!” a startled Jack barks.

  “Sorry,” Rosie nervously speaks, while awkwardly bending at the knees, picking the plate back up. The fact that the plate hasn’t shattered is a big relief. Or so it seems. But then, this isn’t about broken plates. It’s about the Parish’s immediate safety, their immediate protection.

  “What about the patrol boat?” Rosie begs.

  Stepping closer to the picture window, Jude peers out onto the lake.

  No green or red running-board lights. No white lights.

  “Gone,” he whispers.

  The hard rain blows, spatters against the kitchen window.

  “Is dad in trouble?” asks Jack from the kitchen table where he’s downing a slice of chocolate cake with a glass of milk in the semi-darkness.

  “No, honey,” Rosie is careful to answer, candlelit eyes set not on the boy but on her husband. “Dad and I are just making adult conversation.”

  His cake gobbled up, Rosie orders Jack to head upstairs for a “tubby by candlelight.”

  The boy is so bright-faced and enthralled by the idea—the distraction—he jumps out of his chair, sprints for the upstairs bath.

  First, Rosie folds and sets the dishtowel neatly over the near edge of the kitchen sink. Then, she adjusts the waist of her skirt so that it more comfortably conforms to her hips and pregnant belly. She flips long, dark hair back behind her ear.

  “Let’s not get bent out of shape,” she offers. “If Ray is gone it’s probably just to help out with the blackout emergency. Same with the police boat.”

  Jude tries to swallow. But his mouth is too dry. As usual Rosie makes perfect sense.

  “I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” she adds. “If not, then we’ll get in the Jeep, head out to the police station.”

  Breathing deeply, Jude recalls Mack’s warning of that very afternoon. No matter what happens, he’s not to leave the house. But then, Jude can’t imagine that the old Captain had a blackout in mind when he said it. Who anticipates a blackout?