by Amy Cross
“Maybe she thinks the world's gonna end,” Brady muttered.
“I don't think it's that,” Lucas continued. “I get the impression old Mrs. Offerman just... lost her mind after her husband left. Some people just can't cope with reality.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“Wanna try round the back?” Brady asked finally.
***
“We can't just go inside, can we?” Brady whispered, as Lucas pulled on the back door and found that it was unlocked. “What cause do we have?”
“Wellness check?” Lucas replied with a shrug, before looking through into the messy, cluttered pantry. “Mrs. Offerman?” he called out. “Patricia Offerman, are you home? My name is Mike Lucas, I'm with the local police department. I'm here with Officer Dan Brady. Do you mind if we come in?”
They waited, but the house remained silent.
“We should leave,” Brady said after a moment. “We've got no right to go inside.”
“She's a sixty-five-year-old woman,” Lucas pointed out, “and we've got a report that she's been acting strangely. More strangely than usual. Come on, we can't just walk away. What if she needs help?”
“But -”
“Fine,” he added, “then wait outside, but I want to make sure she's okay. Kook or not, she's a human being.” With that, he stepped into the pantry, although he immediately scrunched his nose as he noticed a foul smell. “Jesus,” he continued, making his way toward the door on the far wall, “what's she been doing in here? It smells like all kinds of bad!”
“That's not normal old lady stink,” Brady replied, following him across the pantry. “I'm not entirely sure I like this.”
“There's blood on the floor,” Lucas pointed out as he reached the door and looked down at a series of red smears on the tiles. Nearby, an old freezer stood with its door wide open, and the compartments had been torn out, as if someone had been desperately searching for food. “Still think we don't have good reason to be doing this?” He paused, before knocking gently on the door. “Mrs. Offerman? This is the police. Do you mind if we come inside?”
He waited a moment, before turning the handle and then slowly pushing the door open.
“Jesus,” he whispered, as he saw a gaunt, emaciated figure sitting at the kitchen table. He could only see the figure from behind, and at first he was struck by the large, graying bouffant hairstyle, although after a moment he realized that the flesh on the back of the figure's neck was torn and mottled, exposing a hint of spine on one side. “Mrs. Offerman?” he said cautiously, as he looked around the room and saw smeared blood over all the surface. On one of the nearby counters, a lump of dry red meat was resting next to a carving knife.
“Is she okay?” Brady asked, spotting cockroaches scuttling around the floor. Some were even crawling over the old woman's foot.
“No,” Lucas whispered. “No, I don't think she is.”
Stepping forward, Lucas began to approach the woman from behind, although he hesitated as soon as he saw her right hand. Clutching a steak knife, the hand was impossibly thin, and he quickly realized that sections of flesh were actually missing, exposing the bones and tendons beneath. He'd already seen enough to know what he'd found, and he figured it was only a formality to confirm that she was dead.
“Mrs. Offerman?” he said after a moment, as he began to step around the table, while keeping his distance. There was a long, thin chunk of glistening red meat on her plate.
He took a step to the side, which finally allowed him to see her face.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, as he realized that almost all the flesh had been scraped from her skull, leaving just a few patches around her eyes. Even her lips had been torn away, as had her nose, ears and all the skin and muscle around her cheeks, with the last scraps of meat having been carved away, leaving scratches in the bone. Her eyeballs were intact, staring straight forward with shocking intensity. “Who did this to -”
Suddenly her face flickered slightly, and her eyes narrowed.
“Call an ambulance,” he stammered, taking a step back and turning to Brady. “Dan! Call an ambulance!”
“Not a hearse?”
“Call a goddamn ambulance!”
Looking down at the plate, Lucas realized that the chunk of meat looked suspiciously fresh. He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to run out of the room and vomit, but as he stepped closer he saw that the meat had been partially sliced, as if the old woman had at least begun to eat. Leaning down, he looked under the table and saw that while the woman's left leg was dry and knotted, with most of the flesh scraped away, her right leg had a much fresher wound, as if a slice had just recently been cut away.
When he looked back at her torso, he realized that her night-dress was hanging open, revealing her bare chest. This, too, had been picked clean, and several of her ribs were missing. Looking down at the table, he saw some of the ribs resting near the plate, with all the meat having been torn away, or...
Nibbled.
“Mrs. Offerman?” he said after a moment. “Oh Jesus, Mrs. Offerman, I don't -”
“I'm sorry,” she replied suddenly, her head twitching again, “but you'll... have to... excuse me.” Her voice was impossibly dry and hoarse, but after a moment she held her left arm out and then grabbed a carving knife with her right hand.
Lucas watched in stunned horror as she sliced a long, thin strip of meat away from her forearm, and finally she set the meat on her plate. Clearly in pain, she picked up her knife and fork and began to cut a section of meat from the side.
“I imagine you're here about the Goldmans who've moved in next door,” she continued. “I'm not surprised. I could... tell something was... up with them from the very beginning, but...” She paused, as if she could barely get the words out. “I'm sorry, would you mind waiting in the front room?” she asked finally. “I'm... I'm in the middle of dinner.”
With that, she slipped a slice of her own arm into her mouth and began to chew, as Lucas began to slowly back out of the room.
The Scream
Chapter One
It begins just after dawn.
A scream so loud, it rattles the windows of the bar where Mary Hopkins is lifting stools down from the bench.
So anguished, it causes Eric Hawkins to stop his truck at the edge of the town square and roll down his window, before leaning out open-mouthed to try to see what's going on.
So piercing, it wakes everyone who wasn't already awake on a sleepy Tuesday morning. Even Elizabeth Kellerman, who famously slept through the 1982 twister, sits up suddenly in her bed, staring in bemused, creeping horror at the window.
Not one person in town is spared the awful sound.
And it doesn't stop.
Not after ten seconds. Not after sixty.
Not even after a couple of minutes.
It just goes on and on and on.
The scream isn't just one tone, of course. It twists and changes, sometimes filled with sobs, sometimes howling with pain, and sometimes sounding as if the screamer – whoever she is, and it's definitely a she, that much everyone can tell – is on the verge of collapse.
And still it won't stop.
People start coming out of their homes, their businesses, their places of work. They stand on the dusty streets of Pine Ridge and look around, trying to work out where, exactly, the scream is coming from. Pine Ridge isn't a big town, it was even left off one national map in the 60s when the cartographers missed it under a crease, and the scream is loud enough to be heard from all four corners of the place. When the residents realize the noise seems to be echoing from every building, they start looking nervously at one another, each of them hoping that someone else will know what to do.
That someone, as always, is Mayor Don Ridley. He comes striding out of the courthouse, adjusting his pants as he walks. No-one asks about the pants; they all know that 'Big' Don Ridley is just the kind of guy who always seems to be adjusting his pants whenever he arrives anywhere. Reaching t
he center of the town square just as he finishes straightening his belt buckle, he shields his eyes from the sun as he turns and looks all around, but by now the scream seems to be echoing not only from the town's buildings but also from the distant mountains.
It's everywhere, and it's getting louder.
And after fully three or four minutes now, it still hasn't stopped.
“I think it's coming from behind the bar!” shouts a man who just emerged from the post office, and he takes off along the dirty street, picking up a couple of companions along the way. They hurry around the corner, convinced they're going to find the source.
“No,” says a woman, pointing across the town square, toward the movie theater, “it's coming from somewhere over there!” She sets off in that direction, while most of the others still stand around, waiting for someone else to tell them what the hell is going on.
“Don?” asks a man, stepping across the street and approaching the mayor from behind. “Where do you reckon it's coming from?”
He waits for an answer, as do several others who've started to come closer.
“It's comin' from the back of the Beauy place,” Don mutters finally. “That's where.”
He starts stomping across the lawn, past the statue of his great-grandfather Godford Ridley, and over toward the tall, red-bricked building that occupies the entire southern face of the square. The others glance at one another for a moment, before setting off after him. No-one in Pine Ridge ever doubts Don; when he says something's so, it's so, which means the scream simply must be coming from behind the Beauy place.
As Don and a group of other men head around the side of the building, a few people remain on the town square, looking around nervously as the scream echoes in the air.
“It's a woman,” says Rebecca Jones, standing outside the bank.
“Or a child,” suggests Felicity Hornmaker, who happened to be passing that spot when the scream began.
“It's not a child,” says Doctor Matt Kielty, stepping off the sidewalk and looking along the street that leads out of town via the garage. “A teenager, maybe. You can tell from the way it seems to be sobbing at the same time, it's definitely not a little kid. It's a girl or a woman.”
“It must have been going on for almost five minutes now,” Rebecca Jones says, with fear in her voice. “How can it last so long?”
Listening for a moment, Matt Kielty winces as he hears that the scream is filled with lots of other little sounds. There are sobs and whimpers, moans, cries of pain, brief lulls followed by full-on guttural roars, and more and more people are emerging from the nearby buildings now, stunned as the scream goes on. Even though no-one actually says the words, most of them are thinking the same thing: it sounds like someone is being tortured.
“Make it stop,” Alison Horner says, her voice trembling as the scream continues. “Why can't someone make it stop?”
Chapter Two
“It's okay, honey,” Mrs. Chinnery says, putting her hands over her daughter's ears. “I'm sure it'll stop in a moment. Just go and play a game or something.”
“Who is it?” Alice asks, looking over at the window as the scream continues outside. “Shouldn't someone go and help?”
“I'm sure someone will,” Mrs. Chinnery continues. “Alice, please try to -”
Hearing a noise in the next room, she turns and leans around the corner just in time to spot a man making his way into the hotel's reception area. Wearing a faded brown leather jacket and with a hint of great exhaustion in his eyes, the man glances around for a moment before spotting Mrs. Chinnery watching him.
“This is a hotel, right?” he asks calmly, with a notable British accent. He clears his throat. “I saw a sign outside, but it seemed kind of old so I wasn't sure...”
“Just one moment,” Mrs. Chinnery replies, forcing a smile before turning and placing a hand on Alice's back, steering her daughter through to the front room. “We have a customer, honey, so you need to be good.” She hits a button on the front of the TV, bringing up the gaming system's menu, and then she increases the volume until it almost drowns out the sound of the scream outside. Almost. “Wait right here.”
With that, she hurries out of the room, leaving Alice to stare at the bright flashing colors on the screen. After a moment, however, the little girl turns and looks over at the window. She can still hear the scream.
Chapter Three
“Come on!” Don shouts as he leads a couple of other men around the back of the red-bricked Beauy building, into the alleyway that used to service the goods entrance before the whole place shut down a few years earlier. Trash from the final-day clear-out is still rotting in crates, lined against the wall. “It's comin' from round here somewhere!”
Stopping next to him, Davey Hunter turns to look at his brother Kenny, as the scream seems to echo from the walls all around them.
“I'm not sure it's comin' from down here, exactly,” Davey says after a moment, with a hint of hesitation in his voice. After all, it's rare for anyone in Pine Ridge to contradict Don Ridley. “Whoever's hurtin', it sounds like they're at least a block over, more like down by the truck stop.”
“Or the pharmacy,” Kenny suggests, looking the other way. “I think maybe that's where it's comin' from.”
“No,” Don says firmly, taking a few steps forward, “it's closer than that, it's somewhere around here! Are you two dumb, or what? There's no way it's more than a block from here.”
Kenny and Davey share a glance. Neither of them wants to force the matter, but they both think Don's wrong.
“Fine!” Don says finally, turning to them. “Go check wherever you think, I'll look here!” He waits for the two men to run off. “Go!” he shouts, causing them each to immediately hurry in their chosen direction. Muttering something under his breath, Don wheezes a little as he walks along the alleyway, looking around for any hint that the source of the scream is nearby. So far, however, he can't even tell if it's coming from up high or from somewhere at ground level, or maybe from inside one of the buildings. The damn noise seems to be everywhere at once.
Reaching the Beauy building's old service entrance, he leans inside for a moment, but all he sees is the empty delivery room, complete with a few shafts of light breaking through the wooden ceiling. He waits, convinced that the sound of the scream seems to be coming from somewhere inside, but after a moment there's a subtle shift in the air and he turns to look back along the alley. Suddenly he's certain that the scream is coming from somewhere outside.
Adjusting the front of his pants, he sets off to look in the next building along.
Chapter Four
“Cash, actually,” the man says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bundle of notes. “How much did you say again?”
Mrs. Chinnery stares at the money for a moment, a little wide-eyed at the shock of seeing so much in his hand. “One hundred and twenty a night,” she stammers, watching as he starts counting out a series of fifty dollar bills. She's already wondering if she should have asked for more, but the constant scream is making it hard for her to keep her thoughts straight. “I, um...”
“That's for two nights,” the man says, sliding the cash toward her, “plus a little extra that I hope might cover breakfast as well.”
“Sure thing,” she replies, gathering the money and counting it quickly, before stuffing it into her pocket. It's been so long since she last checked a guest into the faded old hotel, she can barely even remember the procedure. “I'm gonna need to see some I.D. as well, Mister...”
“Roake,” he says wearily, slipping the money back into one pocket before pulling a battered passport from another and holding it out for her. “Thomas Roake. You can hang onto that if you want, I won't be needing it while I'm here.”
“I've always loved the English accent,” she tells him, flicking through the passport and finding it full of visa stamps, not only for America but for scores of other countries as well, with lettering in Chinese, Arabic and several scripts she
doesn't recognize at all. It's clearly the passport of a man who has traveled the world. Finally she finds the photo page at the back and turns it to take a better look. “Oh,” she says after a moment, “Father Thomas Roake... I didn't realize you were a priest.”
“That's not a problem, is it?”
“Of course not. Do you... Do you mind if I make a copy of this? For our records, you understand. I think maybe it's the law too.”
“That's absolutely fine.”
Heading over to the copier in the corner, she slips the passport under the lid and starts tapping at the dusty buttons. Her hands are trembling slightly, and she already feels as if the constant scream is wearing her down.
“I'm sorry about the awful noise,” she continues, turning to him with a smile. “I'm sure it'll stop any second now. Pine Ridge really isn't like this usually. Well, obviously not, I mean...” She glances at the window, but the scream continues outside. “It has to stop soon.”
“Is there somewhere I can get food?” Roake asks. “Like a diner or something? I've never been to a real American diner, I'd like to one time, before...” His voice trails off for a moment. “Well, truth be told, I want a really big American burger with all the trimmings. Something tells me it'll taste a lot better here than back in England.”
“There's Hoare's on the town square,” she tells him, as the copier spits out a couple of black-and-white sheets. Taking the passport out, she heads over and hands it back to him. “They do real good food at Hoare's. Tell 'em Annie sent you, and they'll make sure it's extra juicy.”
“Annie?”
“Me. Annie Chinnery.”
“Oh, right.” He slips the passport into his pocket. “Thank you for the suggestion, Mrs. Chinnery. I'll go there right after I've dropped my bag in my room.”
“You'll need your one of these,” she replies, reaching under the counter and pulling out a small wooden box filled with various keys. “Let's see, it's been a while since anyone stayed here, so...” Her nervous hands fumble with the keys for a moment, before she turns to look at the window and, in doing so, knocks the box off the side of the counter, spilling keys across the worn red carpet.
