The Scream Catcher

by Vincent Zandri

  Out the corner of his left eye, Jude can’t help but see that Rosie is no longer standing up straight. She is somewhat hunched over, open right hand still pressed against her belly. And something else too: a spot of blood red that now stains her nightgown where it’s hiked up between her legs.

  “Rosie,” Jude says from down on his knees. “Tell me what’s happening?”

  She throws him a glance, does her best to painfully straighten herself back up.

  “The baby . . .,” she whispers.

  Jude feels something inside him snap.

  Turning back to the boy he watches the rain water pour off his brow onto a soft round face, onto thick lips. He reaches out, unravels the duct tape that binds little wrists and ankles. Standing, he lifts the boy by his hands, pulls him back up onto his own two feet.

  The boy wobbles, stumbles out of balance.

  “I’m cold…I’m hungry.”

  “Tell you what,” Jude says. “Let’s find the road that leads down the mountain to the village. We’ll grab one of the boats from behind the courthouse, drive it across the lake. When we’re home, I’ll make us some scrambled eggs.”

  “Well . . . done . . . bacon,” whispers Jack, as if his spirit is lifting.

  Jude holds out his left hand, palm up. Jack tries to reach out and take the hand. But when his hand falls like a suddenly wilted flower, Jude senses the fear that is leaking from the kid’s pores.

  He turns back to Rosie.

  He must get her to a hospital as soon as possible—sooner than possible. His smile dissolved, Jude nods, as if to say, you know what to do, Rosie. In single file, the three of them walk on towards the heavy tree cover.

  “That bad man,” Jack says as they leave the clearing for the trees, “I wish he really was the dark monster.”

  Jude shines the Maglite onto the trail. First down slope, then up. No one in his line of sight. No Lennox anyway.

  “Why would you say such a thing, Jack?”

  “Because the dark monster is a nothing. And nothing can’t hurt us.”

  Tongue Mountain

  Friday, 4:18 A.M.

  Lake George, and the mountain stream that helps feed it, remains situated on the right-hand side. The Tongue Mountain summit and its dirt access road looms in the near distance to the left. While Rosie does her best to follow close behind, Jude grips Jack’s hand, leads his family on a bushwhacking trek through the woods in the direction of the open road.

  “Why are we running?” huffs Jack, still groggy from the injected sedative.

  “Don’t talk,” Jude answers. “Just keep going.”

  In his mind, he knows the truth. It’s a truth he keeps repeating to himself—that Lennox is watching, that the beast can pounce on them at any moment.

  Coming upon the far edge of the wood, Jude holds out his hand, signals for his wife and son to duck down, take cover in the heavy scrub brush that hugs the road’s edge. Moving slowly ahead along the shoulder, he beams the Maglite towards the westerly uphill slope only to find nothing but open, hard-packed dirt road. But when he shines the light on the easterly downhill, he is able to spot a white van parked off to the side—a commercial cargo van with no windows installed along the side panels of the rear bay.

  Instinct tells Jude that without question, the van belongs to Lennox.

  The beast would require a big van for transporting three unconscious bodies plus one very large dead cop.

  Turning back to the woods, he whispers to his wife and son, tells them to stay put while he makes a quick check on a vehicle he hopes will transport them down off the mountain.

  Maglite in hand, Jude moves slowly along the road’s edge, careful to keep the circular beam of light focused on the white van. T-shirt plastered to his back, heart beating in throat and temples, he can’t help but feel exposed. At any given moment, the Black Dragon might emerge from the forest, put a bullet in his head. Or maybe the beast would prefer to slap him around with more pepper-balls. In those dark woods, anything is possible.

  Don’t think Parish . . .

  When he reaches the van, Jude goes to work shining the light through the windshield, working his way from the passenger side of the vehicle to the driver’s side. What he discovers surprises the hell out of him. What he learns is that Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox has planned something far larger than this mountain-top kill game. He has something else in mind. Something far more complicated.

  The proof is evident in the equipment stored inside the van.

  There’s a laptop computer that’s been set out on the front passenger side seat. Attached to the laptop’s rear utility panel is a wire that leads to what Jude recognizes as a portable bionic ear booster—a handheld, disk-shaped electronic apparatus with attached plug-in earphones. Jude is no stranger to the device. Similar devices are assigned to stakeout detectives in order to amplify the voice of a person or persons either protected behind a wall or positioned too far out of earshot. With that device, Lennox could no doubt record the screams of his victims for up to a mile away.

  There is a portable radio scanner and a satellite phone charger that’s been plugged into the dashboard cigarette lighter which immediately explains Lennox’s ability to call Jude, but why he has not been able to make an outgoing call. Placed atop the center console is a half-spool of gray duct tape. Next to that, a black Weider weight-lifting belt probably intended to support the beast’s lower back while he hoisted and transported the bodies to and from the van. Beneath the belt, an open cardboard box that contains maybe a dozen clear vials of what Jude can only assume is the sedative that he, his wife, and child were injected with earlier in the night.

  But the objects of Lennox’s kill game are not what shocks him the most. Shifting to the back bay doors of the van, he flashes the Maglite through the square windows. The penetrating light allows him to see that set up at the far end of the cargo bay are two separate stacks of fertilizer. Nothing organic. Judging by the red-lettered WARNING labels printed directly on the bags, chemically produced material. Standing out on the Tongue Mountain access road—a road Jude has traveled both on foot and by Jeep maybe a dozen times before—he counts a total of twelve, one-hundred pound bags of Ammonium Nitrate mix stacked one atop the other in two separate identical rows of six.

  Each one of the bags has been crisscrossed with the gray duct tape as though to reinforce their packaging and at the same time, hold in place what appears to be a total of twenty-four (or two per bag), shotgun shell-sized blasting caps. Emerging from beneath the duct tape and the caps is a system of red and black wiring that feeds directly to a plastic one gallon milk jug now half filled with a crystal clear liquid—what Jude guesses to be a detonator of Nitroglycerin.

  The bags and the explosive detonator have been connected to a second laptop computer to which is connected yet another series of color-coded wires with white pads attached to their ends—wires that, at present, have been connected to nothing.

  Jude steps back away from the van, lowers the Maglite, inhales a mouthful of the rainy night air. He considers the possibilities. What exactly is it that Lennox intends to destroy? What does it have to do with the carefully constructed kill game he’s devised and inflicted upon his family? Is Lennox trying to outdo his previous contests? Is he reaching for an entirely new method of delivering the thrill kill? Something more complex and daring?

  Taking a step back from the van, Jude wipes the rainwater from his eyes with the backs of his hands. Something inside his head begins to buzz as though he were standing beneath a set of high tension wires. It comes to him then that this would make the fourth kill game Lennox has engaged in within the Lake George town limits. The numeral four might make a nice, even number.

  The magic number!

  This might be the fourth and final kill game—the one in which he will attempt to make his mark. Or, his final mark anyway. Maybe this exercise of fear and death in the woods has only been prologue to something more terrible—foreplay before the big thril
l kill; the kill game climax.

  Is that why Lennox hasn’t killed them yet?

  Maybe the beast is willing to forego their deaths for the sake of their participation in the big kill game ending?

  The van-bomb, once detonated, will pack a devastating punch for sure. Judging by its size, it’s capable of killing more than just a few people. This well-fueled bomb has to be capable of taking out dozens, perhaps hundreds of people. Clearly, Lennox intends to commit mass murder.

  But where exactly is the big terrible going to happen? And when?

  This is the one time you have to think, Parish; the one time you can’t just do. . .

  When Jack shrieks, Jude loses all train of thought.

  Tongue Mountain

  Friday, 4:30 A.M.

  Lennox stands massive behind Jack and Rosie.

  While he poses no immediate physical threat to Rosie, he has the barrel to a silenced automatic pressed up against Jack’s head.

  Staring at his family on the dirt access road, Jude wants to shout out to his wife, tell her to make a run for it. But he’s well aware that he and Rosie both know exactly what would happen if she were to attempt a break. Clearly, from where they all stand, it’s obvious who maintains the upper hand.

  When Lennox shouts, “The Player drops the Maglite to the road and crawls into the back of the van,” Jude does so without an ounce of hesitation. Without argument.

  He does it in the interest of preserving the lives of his loved ones.

  In the rear spaces of the Ford cargo van, Lennox quickly goes to work. He starts by binding Jude’s knees with a half-dozen revolutions—or layers—of gray duct tape, then gagging him by sticking a second, smaller piece of duct tape over his mouth.

  At the time, this course of action seems like nothing special—just the prudent securing of hostages. But then Lennox proceeds to do something very unusual. Rather than bind Jude’s wrists together behind the back and to the ankles (in the standard method of hogtying), the beast forces Jude to hold his arms straight down at the sides so that each of his wrists are pressed tightly against its accompanying hip. He then secures the ex-cop’s hands to the hips by wrapping another six layers of tape tightly around his belted waist. Jude wonders, just what exactly is Lennox trying to prove by tying me down in this manner? What is it he has planned that requires hands and wrists to be attached to the hips?

  In the end, Lennox sits back in the van’s cargo bay, smiles a now broken toothed smile. He seems genuinely pleased with his work. But then, what the hell does he have to complain about? Throughout the entire restraining operation, Jude has put up no resistance. After all, his child is bound in a similar manner to the front passenger seat (although the boy’s wrists are simply bound together in his lap and not at his hips). In the same vein, the ailing Rosie is once more bound, gagged and laid out on her side only inches away from Jude on the ribbed metal floor. While it pains him to see his family treated this way—tied up like wild animals—he knows it’s foolish to put up even an ounce of resistance. Why give Lennox a reason to further hurt the people in the world he loves the most?

  Seated on that cold hard van bed, what Jude has to keep in mind is this: the fate of his wife and child rests not in the hands of the beast, but in his hands alone.

  The binding completed, Lennox maneuvers Jude into a seated position against the cargo bay’s back metal-paneled door. While on his knees, the beast then pulls wires, not from the detonator, but wires that have been connected directly to the P.C. with what Jude recognizes as a portable network connector. Lennox sets the cotton probe-covered wires onto Jude’s lap, pulls up his T-shirt, attaches three of the probes to his bare chest, securing all three over the heart with a single six inch strip of duct tape. He then pulls the fourth probe from the P.C., attaches it to Jude’s neck, above the carotid artery.

  So there it is, the reason for binding my wrists to my hips: Lennox has thought this through. He doesn’t want my hands to get in the way of his wires.

  The wires now in position, the beast then turns himself around, begins speed-typing a series of instructions into the computer, causing the screen to ignite into a fire engine red background superimposed with white letters that read: Activation Secured.

  Having himself a giggle, he whispers, “Game fans, listen up! The motion sensitive detonator has been calibrated and primed. Level three begins now.”

  Crawling between the stacks of fertilizer, Lennox moves back up into the driver’s seat. Adjusting the rearview mirror in order to stare into Jude’s eyes without having to strain, he fires up the van’s engine. Careful driver that he is, he looks both ways before pulling safely away from the Tongue Mountain access roadside, begins the drive down the snake infested mountain in the direction of the still blacked-out Lake George Village.

  Tongue Mountain en route to Lake George Village

  Friday, 4:45 A.M.

  Paralyzed and helpless, Jude eyes the back of the bald, black-painted head of Hector Lennox. His hogtied wife is laid out beside him on the metal pan floor, his boy duct-taped to the front shotgun seat. But eyes never veer far from the beast as he steers the van downhill off the mountain, through the unchained gate just outside the unmanned guard shack, then a mile further down the now paved portion of the access road.

  When they come to Main Street Lennox hooks a left, drives towards the village center.

  A hard rain continues to pellet the van’s metal roof. Outside the windshield, Jude can see that the pronounced Adirondack darkness is broken only by the distant and not too distant bolts of lightning that split off from one another before striking the lake and the wild mountain country beyond it. Other than the hum of the all-terrain tires traversing the road and the steady purr of the cargo van’s meaty engine, all is strangely quiet.

  The atmosphere surrounding the wood and brick-faced three and four story structures is unusually sedate, unusually peaceful. Only the occasional Lake George Jeep-cruiser speeding unknowingly past, its whistles and flashers going full bore, break the calm silence of the blacked-out night.

  Coming upon the inoperable yellow flashing traffic signal that marks the center of the village, Jude can’t help but notice that Lennox is slowing the van down. He’s hooking a right into the narrow one-way drive that accesses the new Warren County Courthouse and its lakeside parking garage.

  That’s when it all begins to make sense.

  It all becomes so crystal, Jude swears he must be smiling again. He must be smiling or be out of his fucking head, because now he knows what Lennox has had planned all along. The van I.E.D. is to be detonated via motion sensitive device, the trigger wires of which have been attached to Jude’s chest and neck. It’s not enough for the video game designer to simply blow the Court House to oblivion. The thrill killer must make a more theatrical gesture, a more complicated feat of violence and daring. Instead of simply pulling the trigger on the detonator and running like hell, the beast must rely on Jude’s heartbeat to set the thing off.

  That’s why he didn’t allow us to die up on that mountain . . .

  The van comes to a full stop.

  Without hesitation, Lennox reaches into the back cargo bay with a black-gloved right hand, sets an extended index finger onto the computer keypad, presses ENTER.

  With eyes now set on the computer, Jude immediately catches sight of the big number “30” that flashes up on the screen. Set directly beside the 30 is a second series of numbers beginning with 60 and counting down from there, one number per second.

  Thirty is how many minutes my family and I have left to live. Because now I can feel it in my bones: this time we die . . .

  Opening the van door, Lennox climbs out, makes his way around to the back. He throws open the bay door to Jude’s immediate right. Reaching inside, he yanks off the duct tape gag sending a world of sting flashing through the ex-cop’s lips and mouth.

  “Home again, home again,” sings the beast. “Jiggidy jig.”

  Glens Falls Medical Center

/>   Friday, 4:58 A.M.

  Having arrived back at the Glens Falls Medical Center only moments ago, L.G.P.D. Lieutenant Daniel Lino swallows a deep breath and enters into the private room.

  “How are you feeling now, Captain?”

  “Like I’ve been shot,” Mack groans. “What about my son?”

  The old Captain has an intravenous line needling a jagged vein on his right arm, a close-pin-like monitoring device attached to the thumb on the right hand, a clear tube shoved into his left nostril. Patches of dry white mucous are caked in the corners of his mouth. Other than a large white bandage that surrounds the upper right-hand shoulder wound, he is bare-chested.

  Lino fingers the now dry piece of scrap paper that’s been shoved into his trouser pocket. He thinks, the front door to 23 Assembly Point Road wide open . . . a little boy’s bedroom a partially burned out shell . . . inside the master bedroom, cut-away ropes tied to the four corners of the bed . . . on the floor before the bed, a pair of discarded panties and a baseball bat . . . in the far corner of the room, an empty shotgun case . . .

  “State Troopers have set up roadblocks inside the fifty mile radius. Choppers are scouting the lake region. If Lennox is running with your family in tow, we’ll find him.”

  The old Captain grunts, thinks, Nice try.

  Mack has been a cop for going on forever. Six years in New York City, almost thirty-four years in upstate. In that time, he’s witnessed more homicides than he’s cared to count, more torture and rape victims than he’s cared to remember. But never before have the lives of his own loved ones been at stake.

  Never before has he felt so entirely ineffectual.