Scream Catcher Read online

  “Oh Jesus.”

  There is simply no time to warn Rosie.

  He pulls her in towards him, throws both their bodies down onto the trail, shoves them inside the area where the vertical mountain wall joins up with the horizontal path.

  Rolling and dropping down the mountain now in a thunderous avalanche are dozens of rocks and small boulders. The deadly rocks rain down in the same spot where only a half second before they stood along the trailhead.

  When the boulders smack against the trail they do so with a resounding thud, spraying gravel and wet dirt up into their faces. The rocks pound the ground, rapid concussions rattling their teeth.

  Rosie screams as Jude holds her tightly, shifting his hands so that they cover her eyes and mouth. He is convinced he’s about to take a direct hit to the head. He’s petrified of being killed out there on this trail, that his wife and son will soon follow.

  Jude closes his eyes, joins Rosie in a chest-splitting shriek.

  Until suddenly the last rock has passed and once again, the only sound that can be heard above their own panting and beating hearts is the rain spattering against the trail.

  They wait there for what must be a full minute before either one of them has the courage to move their bodies away from the mountain wall and back onto the trail. Fear or no fear, moving is something that has to be done. In his heart Jude knows that the avalanche of boulders has not been a natural occurrence. He knows that Tongue is one solid prehistoric chunk of shale, granite and clay—that any loose rock has already made its crushing descent off the mountain peaks during the thawing of the last ice age. He knows that the avalanche can only be attributed to Lennox.

  Rolling himself off of Rosie, it becomes apparent to Jude that they have stepped into yet another kill game trap, but at the same time emerged from it somehow unscathed. Doesn’t matter how much their bodies tremble, their teeth chatter, they are still alive. But then he also knows that the avalanche remains proof positive that the beast is still out there pursuing them, yet keeping a careful distance. If all that’s occurred thus far on the mountain has been intended as a series of tests or teases, Jude knows that he’s passed them all. He has completed his first objective: the saving of Rosie. That single act has earned him the right to go after his boy. But then he has no idea what might be in store for him or Rosie further up the mountain where he will, by the grace of God, locate Jack.

  Alive.

  * * *

  Pulling the ever-silent Rosie up onto her feet, Jude wipes the mud and tears from her cheeks, kisses her wet lips.

  “Jack is close. I can feel it.”

  Careful to step over and around the heavy rocks, they continue their trek along the trail. Before they get too far, Jude raises his right hand overhead. Making a fist he extends only the middle digit. He knows Lennox has to be looking down upon them. He can feel the beast’s electronic eye cutting into the damp skin on his back. Jude can only hope that Game Boy has a clear, unobstructed view; that from the beast’s mountain perch he has no trouble reading sign language.

  83

  Tongue Mountain

  Friday, 3:56 A.M.

  The hike uphill seems to go on forever.

  But the distance covered can be measured in feet, not yards. The physical exhaustion is taking its toll on Jude. Maybe it’s the gradual rise in elevation combined with his soaked-through clothing, but as they approach another clearing, he begins to shiver. It’s an uncontrollable reaction—his body entering into a near fit of trembling and shaking.

  Rosie is moving directly behind him, following his every footstep along the narrow trail. She too is damaged; physically, emotionally—a human train wreck. How bad her overall condition is, Jude has no way of telling. But then she isn’t talking. She can hardly seem to manage a single word. He senses how damaging it would be to her already shattered psyche if she were to take notice of his own physical breakdown. If she knows he can no longer be her support and her guide, she might enter into freefall of despair.

  She might lie down and die.

  With his teeth chattering inside his skull Jude is convinced that hypothermia is settling in to blood and bones. He’s got to get a hold of himself. It doesn’t make an ounce of difference if he’s shaking from hyperthermia or from fear. He has no choice but to carry on along the trail towards Jack’s position. He must do it without Rosie losing even an ounce of confidence in him.

  Shining the Maglite directly upon it, Jude lights up the trail.

  Just beyond the thick pines off to his right-hand side, he spots what looks to be yet another clearing, this one smaller than the one down by the stream. In order to be sure he lets go of Rosie’s hand, takes another step or two forward.

  Definitely another clearing.

  Lennox has been using the clearings to his advantage, placing traps, obstacles and objectives inside them. How the beast managed to create such an elaborate playing field in just three days is anybody’s guess. But then maybe he had help—an assistant or a partner in murder. Jude once more tries to recall the topo map that he stupidly discarded in blind anger; tries to recall the precise location of Jack on the mountainside in relation to their position on the trail.

  He can only believe they must be close. Maybe closer than close.

  But then it becomes apparent that they have arrived.

  “That’s the one,” Jude says under his breath. “As God as my judge, that’s it.”

  All shaking, all trembling leaves him. As if by some miracle he no longer feels the ice chill that for a time seemed to have invaded bone marrow and flesh. Even his teeth are no longer rattling. He begins to feel only warmth. He also experiences a definite rise in energy level, as though having hit the imaginary wall he has somehow managed to pull his sad sack of rags and bones clear over the top.

  Sprinting the remaining distance of the red trail, Rosie and he enter the clearing that holds Jack. They run to the boy, stand over his still, prone body while sucking deep painful breaths. Like Rosie before him, Jack has been bound with duct tape at the ankles and wrists. Unlike her, no tape covers his mouth as if Lennox made a conscious decision to pull it off before leaving the boy alone. Nor is the boy’s body wrapped in clear poly. He is still dressed in the same Batman and Robin pajamas he went to bed in earlier the previous evening. Covering his feet, Converse sneakers.

  Is it possible Lennox took the time to slip Jack’s sneakers on?

  In the bright Maglite, Jack appears to be rain-drenched and chilled, but otherwise unharmed. Or maybe that’s what Jude wants to believe.

  You have to be alive because my son cannot die before me.

  Dropping down to his knees the ex-cop shines the Maglite in the boy’s face.

  He prays, Dear God, let him be alive!

  The white light is meant as a shocker and it works.

  “Jack,” Jude pleads, voice cracking. “Jack wake up.”

  Rosie is standing off to the side. Jude can see that there is something gravely wrong with her. Something more than the obvious. He knows there has to be something going on with her insides. She’s grimacing in pain. She sets an open hand on her belly, sucks in a deep breath. But when she sees her husband looking her way, she quickly turns. There comes a quick, not too distant spark of lightning and thunder that rumbles across the valley as though making its way directly towards them from the lake. The cold rain falls harder. It pelts Jack’s face, makes his eyes blink, his eyebrows scrunch when it hits him directly on the cheeks, nose and lips. As the seconds pass, he begins to stir back to life.

  He opens big brown eyes wide.

  Voice groggy, he whispers, “Dad …” But it becomes immediately apparent that for now anyway, all attempts at making words will trail off into a haze of exhaustion and confusion.

  Rosie stands.

  From where Jude is kneeling he can see that her cotton nightgown is drenched, the thin fabric adhering to her breasts and thighs, open hands still pressed against her belly, long rain-matted hair veiling her n
arrow face. He wants to scream. But there isn’t a thing he can do for her.

  Jack tries to sit up.

  “Why am I outside? Why are my hands stuck together?”

  Sensing the panic that is beginning to settle into the eight-year-old boy—because he has to know by now that this is not the usual “dark monster” dream—Jude takes him into his arms, clutches him tightly.

  “You’re okay now, kid.”

  But you know full well that Lennox is out there watching. You know it’s true because you’re not dead yet. Black Dragon is out there watching and plotting and laughing and if none of you are dead it’s only because the beast won’t be satisfied until he catches your final screams …

  Jude feels Jack trembling in his arms.

  No doubt the sedative has begun to wear off while fear settles in.

  “The dark monster woke me up,” says the boy, voice vibrating, teeth clicking together. “He made me scream into his phone before he put his hand over my mouth and stuck a needle in my arm.”

  Jude feels a chunk of ice melt inside his stomach at the mention of Lennox and a needle. He pulls himself away from Jack, far enough to get a look at the boy’s face in the glow from the Maglite.

  “Jack,” he says, hands still gripping both the flashlight and the boy’s arms. “He’s not the dark monster. He’s just a man.”

  But you’re lying to yourself. Black Dragon is every bit the dark monster. You’ve seen it yourself—seen it in the form of the dead fish and the dead bird. Seen it in the form of Fuentes’s decapitated head. You felt it when you dropped down into that pit, and when those boulders smacked and punched the trail floor only inches from your skull. He’s a dark monster and he will torture all three of you before he captures your screams and kills you …

  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 rainwater 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.”

  “And … 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.”

  84

  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 loom 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 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 mountaintop 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 onto 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 shock 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 onto 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 Ammon
ium Nitrate mix stacked one atop the other in two separate identical rows of six.

  Each one of the bags has been crisscrossed with 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 thrill kill; the kill game climax.