The Absence of Screams: A Thriller

by Ben Follows

  Just as he was about to fall asleep he jerked into a sitting position, a cold sweat coming over him.

  It took him a moment to realize what he had seen in his peripheral vision that had scared him, but when he did he couldn't take his eyes off it.

  There was a small red dot flashing in the top left corner of the room. It would have been invisible when the lights were on. It was only because of the red light of the LED clock reflecting off it that it became visible.

  Todd got out of bed and walked over to it, his brow furrowed. It was small, but there was unmistakably a small black bulge in the top corner of the room. He grabbed an armchair from the corner of the room and dragged it along the carpet so that it was situated beneath the light.

  He climbed onto the back of the chair and looked at the minuscule object. It took him a few seconds to realize what it was, but when he did he felt as though all his worst fears had come to fruition.

  It was a camera.

  35

  Marcus pulled his sheets over him when the door opened, staring at the wall. He had to yank on the sheets to get them untangled from his legs.

  He and Angela were leaving the base that day and going to a University for Marcus to give another speech. The same speech, containing the same lies, which he had been telling for a decade. Somehow it didn't give him the same excitement it once had.

  “Marcus,” said General Thompson.

  Marcus turned over and looked up at the looming form of the general, then back at the wall.

  "What do you want?" said Marcus.

  “You left this in my office."

  Thompson reached over and dangled the Commendation Medal in front of Marcus's face.

  "Give it to someone who deserves it."

  Still leaning over him and offering the medal, Thompson said, “When you recover, you will thank me for this."

  Marcus looked back at him. "You can leave now."

  “I’ll leave this on the desk.” Thompson placed the medal on the desk and opened the door. "You understand I'm doing this because of the immense amount of respect I have for you, right?"

  "Apparently not enough to believe me."

  Thompson sighed. "I hope you feel better, Marcus."

  The door opened and shut.

  Once Marcus was certain Thompson was gone, he sat up and turned the television to the news.

  The news coverage on the Tatiana Shembly case was mostly focused on Todd Anderson and the inability of the media to track him down after he had been bailed out of jail. Marcus watched without much interest. The reporters were mostly filling time with recaps of what had happened thus far.

  Angela came back after lunch with no food for him.

  Marcus had received no indication that she had gotten someone to look over her phone history and see who Marcus had called. He assumed she didn't want anyone in the military growing suspicious. In this case, it worked to Marcus's advantage.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’re leaving.”

  Angela put her suitcase on the floor and repacked her clothes from the dresser. She frowned at Marcus for a moment.

  "Guess I have to pack yours too," she said, shaking her head in disbelief, laughing. "I didn't think through that part."

  Marcus turned over. "Really? You didn't think about how firing a blank at my spine would inconvenience you? I feel so sorry for you."

  "Fuck off," said Angela, looking up from her suitcase. "If I was able to find out who you called without tipping off Thompson, I would have put a bullet in your head by now."

  “I didn't call anyone."

  Angela scoffed. “You just stole my phone for no reason? Were you looking up some porn? Can you even do that anymore?"

  She smirked and glanced at his crotch, raising an eyebrow.

  “Fuck you," said Marcus, self-consciously pulling the blankets over himself. "I always knew you were rotten.”

  Angela laughed and shook her head. She threw what clothes Marcus had unpacked into his suitcase and zipped it up. “You trusted me like a sister.”

  Marcus fell back onto the bed. “I thought we were helping people. We were just scamming them.”

  Angela closed her suitcase and stood. “Keep thinking we're helping people if it helps you sleep at night. No one's telling you what to think. Besides, you were getting scammed as well. We're leaving in thirty minutes."

  The door shut. After a few minutes, Marcus sighed, lifted himself out of bed and climbed into his wheelchair, grunting as he did so. Getting into the chair had been so much easier when he didn't need it.

  He grabbed the rapidly depleting bottle of pain medication and popped a few into his mouth.

  After staring at it for a few moments, he put the commendation medal into the front pocket of the suitcase.

  Thirty minutes later, they were in the car.

  Their luggage and the wheelchair had been piled into the trunk. A few soldiers had come up to them while they were walking across the base, and Angela had acted the role of the doting caretaker. Marcus had remained solemn and distant, knowing it was useless to tell them the truth, but also refusing to play Angela's game.

  A part of Marcus hoped that they would be stopped at the gate and the guards would call them out on their lies, but they were waved by without a second thought.

  They left the base and drove back toward Harper's Mill.

  It was a long empty road which stretched along a vacant expanse.

  Marcus eyed the steering wheel. He flexed his fingers and stretched out his shoulders. He cracked his neck.

  He was trying to psych himself up to grab the steering wheel and crank it to the right, sending the car into the ditch. The cops would come and he would be given a chance to tell his side of the story. It occurred to him that he should have called the cops instead of Jeff.

  He cursed internally to himself. The cops could have actually helped him, unlike Jeff.

  They were almost exactly between the base and Harper's Mill. Both were specks on the horizon in either direction. Mountains rose up in the background of the base.

  They drove toward an intersection in the empty expanse and Marcus saw the first thing that seemed out of place on their drive. In the distance, a black van was coming toward them at top speed.

  Angela slowed at the stop sign, looked both ways, then proceeded to move through the intersection.

  The black van approached the intersection as Angela moved through. It made no effort to slow down as it approached the stop sign. The front of the van seemed to be armored.

  Marcus and Angela both looked up at the van as it changed its angle as it went through the intersection and came directly at them.

  "What the fuck?" yelled Angela.

  Marcus was in too much shock to reflect her statement. He locked eyes with Jeff Candor, his big head, stringy hair, and missing teeth the same as the last time Marcus had seen him, in the front seat of the van.

  Jeff grinned at Marcus just as the van slammed into the driver's side door.

  36

  Angela ducked at the last second, throwing up her arms in front of her as the door collapsed inwards, the windows shattering and spraying glass inside.

  Marcus’s seatbelt locked as the momentum threw him toward Angela's sprawling body.

  Suddenly, Angela and the driver’s door were gone.

  Marcus's face smashed into the airbag.

  His ears started ringing. He couldn't hear anything.

  It took him a few moments to realize the car was upside down.

  The car landed in the ditch. Marcus's neck snapped back and the windows shattered.

  Marcus hung upside down from his seatbelt. His head throbbed and his ears were ringing. He looked up at his legs.

  His right leg was bleeding profusely.

  For the first time, he was thankful he couldn't feel his legs.

  He looked to his right, mostly so he wouldn't be looking at the mess of his leg.

  In the empty field outside the car, Angela struggled to her feet
. She was covered in debris and had a number of minor cuts.

  She moved the bloodied hair from her face and stared at Marcus for a moment. The pure anger and wrath coming from her eyes made Marcus lean back as much as his seatbelt would allow.

  She looked past him, shot him another look, then turned and took off at full-speed through the field.

  Marcus turned back to the driver’s side of the car. The black van had come to a stop. The side door slid open. Two sets of feet stepped out of the van and onto the road. Both wore military issue boots.

  One walked toward the intersection. The other crouched down and looked through the window at Marcus. The man had a square face, a shaved head and sunglasses. There was no doubt, even without seeing the gun prominently displayed at his waist, that he was ex-military.

  “Marcus?” he said.

  Marcus nodded.

  The man pulled a knife from his belt and crawled inside the car. Marcus reflexively pulled away from him.

  “I'm cutting the seatbelt," he said. "Brace yourself.”

  The man cut the seatbelt and Marcus fell onto the roof in a heap.

  Marcus's broken leg was twisted up in the airbag. The man cut the airbag out. He grabbed Marcus's legs and dragged him across the roof of the car and onto the edge of the ditch. He wrapped up Marcus's injured leg with bandages from a pouch at his waist, temporarily stopping the bleeding, then hoisted Marcus onto his shoulder and walked toward the open door of the van.

  “My stuff is in the trunk," said Marcus.

  “I'll grab it," said the man.

  They walked to the open doors of the van. Marcus turned his head toward the intersection. The second figure, a woman wearing the same garb as the man, was running toward the open field on one side of the road, gun in hand. She scanned the field and pointed it toward the shrinking figure of Angela in the distance, getting smaller every second.

  After a few moments, the woman holstered her gun and walked back to them.

  The man dropped Marcus into the van and climbed in after him. Marcus looked down. The bandages on his leg were soaked red.

  Jeff leaned back from the driver’s seat. His pants hung over his prosthetic leg, which started just above the knee. "Marcus, how are you?"

  Marcus looked around the van. There were weapons covering one wall and computer monitors covering the other. “How did you find me?"

  Jeff shrugged. “We would have gotten you earlier but we couldn’t figure out a way to get onto the base." He turned to the man beside Marcus. "Sam, deal with that leg."

  Sam, the man who'd carried Marcus from the car, nodded and took a first aid kit from beneath his seat.

  Marcus winced as Sam rubbed ointment into his leg. Jeff shot him a confused look, as though Marcus should have been used to not feeling his legs by now.

  The woman climbed in and closed the door behind her. She wore sunglasses and her red hair was pulled into a ponytail.

  “Angela ran," she said. "She's going toward Harper's Mill. The car’s hidden from the road. It won't be found anytime soon."

  Sam pulled the bandage tight and Marcus clenched his teeth.

  “Will she go to the police?” said Jeff, turning to Marcus.

  "No," said Marcus. "She'd be putting herself at risk. She didn't go to any of the military experts to check if I'd called you. She won't go to the police."

  Jeff nodded. "If she does, the Smith's will take care of it.

  “The Smith's?”

  The woman held out a hand, smiling.

  "Victoria Smith. Mercenary for hire. Call me Vic. This is my brother Sam. We've been working with Jeff for a few months.”

  Marcus shook her hand and looked at Jeff. "What have you been doing with Jeff?"

  "Tying up some loose ends," said Jeff. He turned back around in the seat and turned on the engine, ending the conversation.

  Sam buckled Marcus into a seat then the siblings took their seats as well.

  As they drove, Marcus breathed a sigh of relief.

  37

  Todd stepped out of the bus and onto the sidewalk. He was wearing the sweater Dennis had given him, along with his own jeans.

  As soon as he'd noticed the camera watching him, he'd made a plan to escape. He'd waited a few hours, then gone into the bathroom with his clothes, dressed, and climbed out the window into the black night.

  He had dropped onto Dennis's front lawn and looked back to see if anyone had seen anything, but saw nothing to indicate any suspicion.

  He'd walked to the closest bus station, gotten the first bus of the day, and taken it to Carney, where Danielle's cryptic clue had indicated she would be.

  It was a ten-minute walk through Carney from the bus station to the café, which was located in front of a small amusement park with a small roller coaster and a Ferris wheel.

  One part of the roller coaster was above the Coffee shop. Todd and Danielle had come here the previous summer, and Danielle had attempted to take a selfie just as the roller coaster took a sharp turn above the coffee shop. Her phone had been ripped from her hand and fallen to the ground.

  It wasn't until they had gotten off the ride and went to find the shattered pieces that they had learned the phone had just missed a stroller with a baby in it, the mother standing a few feet back.

  Todd and Danielle had claimed innocence and never heard about it again. Apparently, no one had managed to connect Danielle's phone to her. She had gotten a new one and remotely wiped her broken phone. Todd was the only one who knew about it, and he liked to tease her about it.

  He stepped inside the cafe just as the fall sun rose over the horizon. Compared to the chill breeze of his walk, the inside of the cafe was warm and inviting. It smelled of fresh coffee and pastries.

  Todd looked around the cafe. Danielle was not among the few patrons, sipping drinks and using laptops or reading. He had tried texting her to say he was on his way, but had received no reply.

  He looked around for a few moments then walked up to the counter.

  The barista, a tall man with square glasses, looked up at him. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for my girlfriend, Danielle. She's a black-haired girl who came in earlier. Maybe last night.”

  The barista nodded. “Can I see your ID?”

  Todd frowned. “Why?”

  “I have information but was only told to give it to one person.”

  Todd handed over his ID. His heart was racing. He wondered why Danielle wouldn't want anyone to know where she was other than him. He felt flattered in a strange way.

  The barista took the ID, read it for a few seconds, and nodded. He handed it back.

  “She’s at the Knights Inn down the street," he said. "She's in Room 26. You should be prepared before you go."

  "I should be prepared for what?"

  The barista hesitated for a moment, as though looking for the right words. "She looks like she's been through a hurricane," he said. "Whatever happened to her, I'm happy it wasn't me."

  Todd felt a strange urge to strangle the bartender, but he managed to swallow his rage and nod. He thanked him and left the cafe.

  He walked the few blocks to the Knights Inn. It was a two-story hotel with a pool and parking lot in the center. The parking lot was almost entirely vacant, and the lights were off in most of the rooms. If Todd had seen a tumbleweed blowing through the parking lot, he wouldn't have found it out of place.

  Todd walked around the pool to the far staircase and walked up to the second floor. Rooms 25 and 26 were situated across the hall from one another in an alcove at the back corner of the hotel. No one would pass by these rooms, nor would anyone be able to see what was taking place inside unless they were in the alleyway behind the hotel and looking up at the windows.

  He turned to room 26. Sound of a news broadcast came from inside.

  He knocked twice. The creaks of someone standing from a bed and walking to door could be heard. A shadow fell across the peephole for a moment.

  The door open
ed.

  Todd's heart jumped into his chest, his entire body awash with such a flurry of emotions that he couldn't even describe what he was feeling.

  Danielle stood before him, looking as beautiful as ever. Her slender features gave way to a pointed chin she hated but Todd found cute.

  She was covered in cuts from head to toe, some poking out of her shirt. Todd found himself thinking of the long, deep, tapestry of scars that crisscrossed her back, which she had received from a motorcycle accident when she was five.

  One of her arms was in a sling.

  Todd emotions settled on joy when he saw Danielle smiling. She stepped into the hall and pulled him into a hug and nestled her head into his shoulder.

  "I'm so happy you came," she said.

  Todd returned the hug, holding her close, feeling her warmth.

  “Come inside and I'll explain everything." She let him go, turned, and walked into the room.

  Todd entered the room, joy overtaking the dread inside him, and closed the door.

  The hotel room was basic, with two double beds and a television straight out of the nineties.

  He looked at the bed and frowned. It took him a moment to take in what he was seeing.

  There was a man watching the news broadcast on the television. He uncrossed his legs and climbed off the bed. He was a few inches taller than Todd.

  "Who are you?" Todd managed to say.

  The man walked over to Todd and held out a hand. Danielle stepped back.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you,” said the man. "Danielle has told me so much about you?"

  Todd shook his hand. “How do you know Danielle?"

  The man laughed and looked to Danielle. She stepped toward them and held up her left hand. The man held up the same hand.

  On their hands were gold rings with words engraved into them. The rings were identical.

  “Todd,” said Danielle, slightly awkwardly, “I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Ricky.”

  38

  Dennis sipped the mug of coffee and flipped through the newspaper laid out on the metal table before him. He had come into the station early that morning with information about Todd Anderson.