The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  “Yes,” Molly said softly, “I got that feeling tonight, too. But what happened next must have been hard.”

  “Oh, no. That was easy, too. I’d been reading about the Scalper in the paper and watching it on television. I knew all about it—the shaved heads and the car they thought he might be driving. I told David what to do and he did it. I should have done it all myself. If I’d done the shaving, there wouldn’t have been any of those cuts.”

  “Because David was scared and you weren’t,” Molly said.

  “David was more than scared. He was a sniveling wreck. The thing he feared most, though, was my father finding out what he and Mom were doing. So he did what I told him to do.”

  “Where did you put all the stuff—her watch and earrings and the things from the house?”

  “Oh, we buried everything, way out past the house, in this cedar thicket where no one ever goes. Her hair, too.”

  “And the gun?”

  “That, too. I hated to. I wish I still had it.”

  “You must have been scared while you were doing that.”

  “No. Really. A little hurried because Stu was on his way home. That’s all. It was like a wonderful adventure. I never had such a good time. Like while the boys were out doing this silly stuff, shooting at rabbits, I was doing something real, far more important and exciting. Something I would never ever tell them about.”

  Molly kept her eyes fixed on the yellow stripe unwinding in her headlights. Alison was not so different from Louie Bronk, she thought. Both lived down the same sort of rabbit hole, where killing people was the best sport.

  “Stuart didn’t know, did he?”

  “No. By the time he got home, we were all finished and David had called the police.”

  “Does he know now?”

  “I don’t think so. But he doesn’t want to know.”

  “Mark?”

  “God, no. You’d never tell Mark something like that. He’s such a blabbermouth. Such a baby.”

  Molly moved her eyes sideways, straining to see Alison’s face in the dark. “When did your father find out?”

  Alison sucked in her breath. The gnawing sound filled the cab again and Molly clenched her teeth against it. Her own fingers could feel the flesh being ripped away from the nail.

  “That was the bad part,” Alison said. “I hated that, and it was so unnecessary. He never had to know. For the first few days, he didn’t. But then David broke down and told him. By that time, he was more scared of the police than he was of my father.”

  “And then Louie confessed. That must have been a surprise.”

  Alison made a small popping noise that sounded like an exclamation of delight. “It was the most wonderful moment of my life. It was magical. Like I’d made it happen. Like there was this invisible connection between me and him. Like it was all meant to turn out that way. He came along at the right time and he’d done so many murders it didn’t matter if he took on one more. He was just perfect.” The girl’s voice was more animated than Molly had ever heard it.

  “Especially after your father got Frank Purcell to supply Louie with the essential information about the murder so his confession would stick.”

  “I guess. I didn’t have anything to do with that. Daddy did that, for himself, I think. To avoid scandal. Maybe a little for me. He believed it was an accident.”

  “It was an accident,” Molly said.

  “Mmm. It’s hard to remember exactly,” Alison said in a dreamy voice.

  Molly started to nod, but the gun jabbing into her jawbone stopped her. “How about David? I guess the execution was just too much for him.”

  “Oh, he was a gutless old woman. He was thinking about telling. After all this time.” Alison’s voice dripped with contempt. “Conscience. Religion—those aren’t real things. And who cares whether some scummy lowlife like Bronk gets executed?”

  “I do.”

  “You and that fat church woman.”

  “And David, of course. He cared. So you shot him.”

  “I had to. I did it Tuesday night, with his own gun. And put him where he wouldn’t get discovered for a while.”

  “I can certainly understand why you had to kill David to keep him from telling. But Georgia—that’s another matter. To kill for money, Alison!”

  “No.” The gun ground into Molly’s neck. “Not for money. If you think that, you don’t understand anything.” Her voice was earnest, fervent.

  “Tell me,” Molly said, “so I will.”

  There was such a long pause that Molly thought Alison had finished talking. But finally the girl said, “My father and I were happy together. Close. Georgia ruined that. She made him act like some silly adolescent. I didn’t want to leave home. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to stay there with him, but she drove me out. She spent all this money making our house ugly and they were like these stupid moony honeymooners. I couldn’t stand it.” The gun muzzle prodded Molly’s jaw. “There. Turn right on 980. Right here.”

  Very carefully, Molly made the turn onto the narrow road. They were getting close to the end of this trip. She had to grip the wheel hard to keep her hands from shaking. She glanced down at her bunch of keys dangling from the ignition. In the light from the dash the little tear gas canister Grady had given her gleamed among the jumble of keys, just inches from her right hand.

  “So money didn’t enter in?” Molly asked.

  “Well, it wouldn’t have been right for her to get any of my mother’s money. You can see that. But mainly it was to get her out of the house so I could go back and take care of Daddy. He’s sick.”

  Molly kept the questions coming while she tried desperately to come up with some plan of action. They were coming to the end of the line. “The master poet stuff—I suppose that was to make it look like there was another crazed killer at work. To direct suspicion away from your family.”

  “I got the idea from you. From the poems you included in your book. So I wrote you some verse, put you under a curse. Now I’m going to do worse, send you home in a hearse.”

  Molly couldn’t see her face but she suspected the girl was smiling.

  “Why me?” Molly asked. “Why threaten me?”

  “At first it was just to get your attention and make it look like a homicidal maniac was out there. I thought you might write about it, make it public, so everyone would think that. I didn’t really intend to kill you. Not then. Not until I saw that you would never give this up. See, you’re like me—you stay with things forever.”

  A sign on the left said Point Blank. Their destination. Too fast, too soon. She wasn’t ready. Maybe she could rattle this girl, get her to lose concentration. “Well, it turned out there really was a homicidal maniac out there, didn’t it, Alison? And your plan didn’t work since they’re getting ready to arrest your father.”

  From the gasp, Molly could tell she’d made a direct hit.

  “No, they’re not,” Alison said.

  “Yes,” Molly said. “They are. I heard it from Lieutenant Traynor just before I left Austin tonight.”

  “I don’t believe it. Okay. There’s the sign. Turn left right here, on this unpaved road.”

  Molly slowed down and started the turn. “It is true. They’re going to arrest him and they don’t give a damn that he’s dying. He’ll take the blame for you.”

  The gun jammed into her jawbone, savagely. Molly gritted her teeth.

  “How do you know he’s dying?” For the first time Alison’s voice rose in anger. “How do you know that?”

  Molly completed the turn. Gravel pinged against the bottom of the truck. “He told me.”

  “He told you?”

  “Yes. And I bet you heard it from Stuart, who learned it from his doctor.”

  Alison’s voice turned icy again. “Turn left here onto the grass and drive on past those trees.”

  In her headlight beams, Molly saw a circle of tall pines and beyond that a narrow grassy point that seemed to slope down into the darkness. She co
uldn’t see it, but the lake had to be in that darkness, somewhere below.

  Carefully, she turned off the gravel. The truck bumped onto the grass. God, the gun was cocked. One of these bumps could set it off. She slowed down and headed toward the trees. When she reached them, she applied the brakes gingerly, coming to a gentle stop.

  “Keep going,” Alison said.

  Molly gave the gas pedal the tiniest pressure. The truck inched forward, bumping out onto the narrow promontory. The grass sloped downward. About twenty feet from where the land fell off into black space, she stopped.

  Alison shoved the gun against her neck. “Not yet.” Her voice was back to the dead drone as if now she was just dealing with dull logistics. “Go on. Right to the edge.”

  “This will never work, Alison.”

  “Everything else has.”

  Slowly the truck moved out to the edge. About five feet from the edge, Molly braked again.

  “A few more feet,” Alison said.

  Molly inched the truck forward and stopped. In the headlights, aided by a thin drizzle of light from the cold sliver of a moon, she saw the gleam of black water below.

  She raised her left foot to press the emergency brake.

  “No!” Alison ordered. “Just put it in neutral. And leave the engine running.”

  Molly gripped the wheel. So that was the plan. The truck was going into Lake Livingston. With Molly inside. Probably already dead with a bullet in the brain. Or was it going to be an accident? Molly would drown, like her daddy. That face in her dreams, glowing green through the dark water, flesh trailing like seaweed—it would be her own face, her own fate.

  She hesitated with her hand above the shift. Inside the dark cab, cold tremors rippled along her spine. The gun still pressed into her neck, her jugular, her spinal cord—her lifeline. In just seconds it would be blown apart. She had to do something.

  She could just take her foot off the brake, push the pedal to the floor, and send them both hurtling off into space. Take whatever came. But the shock would make the gun fire, right into Molly’s neck. She put her hand on the shift and eased it into neutral. With her foot above the brake, she waited to see if they would roll. The truck moved forward an inch, another inch, then stopped. The slope was decidedly downward, but the long grass seemed to be holding them.

  “Put your hands back on the wheel.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Molly did it.

  “Now stay right there.” Alison moved the gun away from Molly’s neck for the first time. Molly glanced sideways. Alison had shifted the gun into her left hand. She opened the passenger door and backed out carefully, keeping the gun pointed steadily at Molly’s head.

  Molly glanced down at the tear gas canister dangling among the keys. Now or never. But first she’d have to turn off the ignition and pull the keys out.

  Leaning into the cab, Alison said, “Move your hands up to the top of the wheel where I can see them.” Molly winced. Now. She was going to do it now. Her temple throbbed where the bullet would hit. She started to slide her hands up. Then she did two things at once. She turned the key in the ignition and ducked down. She jerked the keys out and threw herself flat onto the passenger seat. The gunshot boomed inside the truck. The cab shook. Glass shattered.

  Molly fumbled for the canister, got a grip on it. With a shaking hand she aimed up and pressed. A spray hissed out. It hit the dashboard and sent a cloud of mist back at Molly. God damn. Her eyes were on fire. She glanced up through the tears. Alison stood in the open door, holding the gun level with both hands, aiming down at her. But Alison’s eyes were streaming, too, and her face was contorted. Molly sprang forward and whipped the heavy key chain up into the hand holding the gun. It hit home with a bone-cracking thwack. The girl screeched and jerked her hand back.

  Molly’s lunge flung her against the dashboard. The truck started to roll forward. She scrambled for the open door. Before she reached it, the door slammed shut, knocking her to the floor, under the dash. With the weight shift, the truck picked up speed.

  The fall was a swooping descent, down into a black hole. Then the impact—a head-on crash into concrete. Her body slammed against the seat. Then nothing. No breath, no heartbeat, no light. A moment of suspended nothing. A hesitation in time and space. Then a liquid gurgle from the darkness. Black icy water trickled around her, then cascaded. A tilting of the globe, a lurch, and the truck sank like a boulder.

  Molly reached up and grabbed the seat, struggled up from the floor. But in the dark she wasn’t sure it was up, or down, or sideways.

  Water gushed and swirled everywhere. Then it crashed down on her, a roaring tidal wave. Where was it coming from? An open window. Yes, the gunshot had broken a window. She could climb out. But where was it in all this darkness? She felt the force of the gush and moved toward it, but it drove her back and pressed her against something hard. The door. She reached behind her and groped along the hard surface—metal or glass. The water had risen to her waist. She had to find the door handle. It was happening so fast. Her groping fingers found something. She scrabbled at it, got her hand around it. The door handle. She jerked on it and pushed with her shoulder. But nothing gave. It felt welded shut. She tried again, ramming her body into it again and again. The pressure on the other side was like a menacing beast of supernatural strength. She could hear it gurgling and slavering, forcing its way in.

  She’d read something once, after the Kennedy incident. How to get out. What was it? Something about pressure equalizing. Something about waiting. But there was no time. The inky water was swirling under her arms, sloshing up into her face.

  She turned her head and saw a faint haze of greenish light in the blackness. The headlights. Good Lord. She hadn’t turned them off and they were still working down here. A sputtering sound came from her lips. A damn good battery. That’s what her daddy would say. Those Chevy trucks, they last and last. Get yourself a Chevy truck, darlin’. You won’t regret it. Oh, you were right, Daddy. But what about me? What should I do? Tell me. Tell me now.

  Water splashed into her open mouth, gagging her. Panicky, she gulped for air and sucked in more water. The level was up to her neck, eddying around her head, pushing up her nose, into her mouth. She was drowning. It was the end. Give in now, she thought. Abandon the struggle. Get it over with.

  The swirling water lapped into her ears. It growled and rumbled. Darlin’, it said. Darlin’. You are made of water. It’s your element. You are Pisces. A fish baby. Keep your head up. Up is where the air is. Down is the water. Keep your head up. And wait. You can wait. You’re in your element. A fish. A mermaid. Never afraid of the water. Not you. Remember? Even the ocean that first time. Just wait. There’s plenty of air. In my pocket. Breathe the air in my pocket. Breathe in and out. Listen to your breath. Slow and easy. Stretch your head up. Wait for the right time. Soon now.

  Molly stretched her face up into the darkness. She sucked in the little air that remained. She was floating up off the seat. Her nose butted against something. Only one breath of air left.

  The water roared in her ears. Now. Find the door handle now. It will open now.

  She took a deep, long, shuddering breath and submerged. Her hands groped for a door. They swept over smooth metal. Glass maybe. She pictured the recessed handle, but she couldn’t find it. Then a finger caught on something narrow and smooth. She grabbed with both hands and pulled. She pressed her shoulder against it. Nothing happened. She fluttered her feet until she found something to brace them against. Then she pushed again, throwing every ounce of strength against the door. It softened, then gave slightly. Again she pushed, forcing it—harder—until it opened a few inches, then a few more, then just wide enough for her to squeeze out. She slipped through, flowed through, undulated through, made of water. Pisces.

  She swam free into the black water. But her air was used up, her lungs scorched. She didn’t know which way was up. In both directions stretched black nothingness. She stopped swimming. A tickle of something rippled
up her leg. Bubbles. Air bubbles, heading for the surface. In the faint cloudy green light from the headlights she caught a glimpse of them—a line of silvery bubbles shooting up, seeking their own element. It was the last breath of air escaping from the truck. She followed it. Up and up. With a desperate final surge, she burst to the surface. Air. She drew in racking great gulps of cold night air and looked up at the slender crescent of moonlight.

  She rested back in the water, letting it support her as she greedily inhaled and exhaled. The water made soothing sounds in her ears. It felt purifying, and after what she’d heard and seen tonight, some purification was sure in order. Beside her, a chain of bubbles burbled to the surface, then stopped abruptly. She looked down into the water and thought she saw a distant greenish glow—the headlights still burning. Oh, he’d enjoy that. A reliable battery. How much he’d enjoy that.

  She heard a gunshot, but it sounded miles away. Nothing to do with her.

  After a time, she submerged and swam out to the middle of the lake, as far as one breath would take her. The cold water numbed her eyes. When she surfaced she heard another gunshot. But she just smiled and leaned back to let the water float her. Nothing to worry about.

  Like Br’er Rabbit in the brier patch, she’d been thrown right into her element.

  The beat of the music was relentless.

  “Five,” Michelle called from the front of the room. “Six. Keep those abs sucked in.”

  The push-ups were hurting more than ever, Molly thought. That’s what happens after five measly days off. Five months to build the muscle, and five days to lose it.

  “But, Mother,” Jo Beth said, pushing up and down with ease, “this Prison Ministries is a Christian group—it doesn’t sound like your sort of cause at all.”

  Molly pushed herself up and groaned. “They do good work. Anyway, only half of it goes there. The other half—and we’re making a big assumption here that there will be any royalties at all—goes to the Assistance Center.”

  “Seems pretty extreme,” Jo Beth said, “but if it makes you feel better, I will draw it up tomorrow. You really want to include the Japanese money, too?”