Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

Karen took off her coat, but held on to it. “If we’re at all in the way, please, just let us know,” she told George.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re a lifesaver, Karen.”

Amelia bent down and pried Stephanie off George’s leg. The child clung to her now. Amelia looked so forlorn as she rocked Stephanie. “I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully. “I’m so sorry, Steffie….”

“Why are you sorry?” the child asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Amelia winced, and then she seemed to hug her young cousin even tighter.

Watching them, Karen felt so horrible for Amelia and everyone in this house.

George collected his daughter from her. “Amelia, sweetie, do you think you could talk to Jody?” he asked. “He won’t come out of his room. I’m really worried about him. Maybe he’ll talk to you.”

Wiping her eyes, Amelia nodded, and then started through the living room toward a back hallway.

“Jody’s my son,” George whispered to Karen. He stroked his daughter’s hair. They trailed after Amelia. “Five minutes after I told him the news about his mom, Jody ducked into his room and shut the door.”

In the hallway, they stayed back and watched Amelia knock on the bedroom door.

“He did the exact same thing a few months ago when his cousin died,” George explained. “Jody just worshiped Collin. He was holed up in his room for two whole days. I thought he’d miss the funeral. My wife had to leave his meals outside the door and even then, he hardly ate a thing. He only came out to go to the bathroom.” George’s voice cracked a little. “God, I don’t know what to do. It’s such an awful helpless feeling to know your child’s hurting….”

Karen felt the same way watching Amelia. She wished there was something she could do to make the pain go away.

Amelia knocked on Jody’s door again and called to her cousin, but he didn’t answer. “Jody? Please let me in,” she called. “I know how you feel, believe me….”

“I’m sorry!” he replied in a strained, raspy voice. “I gotta be alone right now, Amelia. Could you go away, please?”

Her head down, Amelia slinked away from his door. She looked at her uncle, and shrugged hopelessly. “Sorry, Uncle George,” she murmured. “Guess I’m just useless. I–I’m so tired. Would it be okay if I went to lie down for a while?”

He nodded, and kissed her forehead. “Sure, sweetie, your bed’s all made down there.”

Amelia gently patted Stephanie on the back, then wandered through the living room and foyer to a set of stairs leading to a lower level. Looking over her shoulder, she glanced at Karen, and then started down the steps.

“Do you think maybe you could talk to him?”

Karen turned at George and blinked. “You want me to talk to your son?”

He shrugged. “Well, you’re a therapist. Maybe you’d have a better idea about the right thing to say….”

“You know, I think we should just respect Jody’s need to be alone,” she whispered, touching his arm, “For a while, at least. If this is how he grieved for his cousin, then it’s what he knows. That’s how he got through it last time. Why don’t we give him until dinner’s ready, and try again? Okay?”

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “I think you’re a very smart lady,” he said. “Thanks, Karen.”

She smiled at him. “Well, um, I’ll go down and check on Amelia.”

“Take a right at the bottom of the stairs. The guest room’s the first door on your left.”

Downstairs, Karen paused in the large recreation room. It had a linoleum floor and high windows that didn’t let in much sunlight. There was a big-screen TV, a sectional sofa, and someone’s treadmill. Stashed in one corner were a bunch of toys, including a dollhouse. Karen draped her coat over a chair. She gazed at the collection of framed family photos on the wall. She figured the stylish, attractive redhead in the pictures was George’s murdered wife. There were also a few photos of Amelia with her family. Karen had been hearing about the Faradays for months, but this was her first actual look at them. She could see a resemblance between the sisters, Jenna and Ina. Studying the pictures of Mark Faraday, she wondered how that pleasant-looking, slightly dumpy man could have shot those two women and then himself. It was hard to comprehend that they were all dead now. In one night, Amelia had lost nearly all of her family-and in such a violent, heinous way.

There were photos of Collin Faraday, too. From the way Amelia talked about her dead brother, Karen had expected him to have been this stunningly handsome, golden-haired teenager. Instead, he just seemed like a normal, nice-looking kid with a goofy smile.

“My brother’s death wasn’t an accident. I know it wasn’t,” Amelia had told her during their first session. “Because I killed him.”

Karen remembered staring at her, and wondering exactly what she’d meant.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t mention anything about it,” Amelia had said, squirming on Karen’s sofa. “It’s too soon to drop a bombshell like that on you. And now the session’s almost over. Jesus. Please, tell me you’ll see me again, Karen. I trust you, and I can’t keep this to myself any longer. Please, don’t send me away-”

“It’s okay, I’m listening,” Karen had said calmly. “We’ve got time.” She wasn’t one of those clock-watching therapists. If a patient was in the middle of something important, she never cut them off because of time. In this instance, she luckily hadn’t scheduled any other sessions that afternoon, so Karen could go on for another hour or so if it meant understanding Amelia Faraday better. Already, she wanted to help and protect this girl.

“What do you mean, you killed him ?” Karen asked as gently as possible. “Can you talk about it?”

Amelia nodded. “I was at a Booze Busters retreat in Port Townsend,” she replied, sniffling. “Six of us took an RV there for the weekend and camped out. But I had this premonition about Collin the whole weekend, all these feelings of hatred for him that I can’t explain. I kept thinking about how I would kill him, and it was crazy. I didn’t want that to happen. I couldn’t have meant it. I didn’t even want to think about it. I loved my brother. He was the sweetest guy….” She started sobbing again. “I’m sorry.”

“Take your time.”

Amelia wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “I must have blacked out, because all I have are fragments of what happened.”

Fragments again , Karen thought. She scribbled the word down in her notes.

“I was standing on the dock in our backyard with Collin,” Amelia explained. “Our house is up in Bellingham-on Lake Whatcom. I hit him with a board or something-a piece of plank, I think. He just-just looked at me, stunned, and-and an awful gash started to open up on his forehead. He let out this garbled, frail cry….” Wincing, she shook her head. “God, it was this weird, warble-type of sound, almost inhuman. And then he toppled off the dock into the water.

“I don’t remember anything else. It’s like I lost nearly everything from that afternoon, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up from a nap in the RV in Port Townsend-and it was dinnertime. But I had those images in my head. It’s how come I knew about Collin before anyone else. I tried to call my folks and tell them something had happened, but they were spending the weekend at their cabin, and the cell phone service is lousy out there-”

“There was no one else staying with Collin?” Karen asked.

Amelia shook her head. “He was alone in the house for the weekend. Before my folks left, I teased him about how he’d be raiding the booze cabinet, watching porn, and having a big party while they were gone. He had a friend coming over that afternoon. He’s the one who found him. When Collin didn’t answer the door, his buddy went around to the back and saw him floating by the dock. His sleeve had gotten caught on something. They figured he’d had too much to drink, then fallen off the dock, and hit his head on some pilings. Turned out he had alcohol in his system. And maybe that’s true, but he didn’t die the way they think.”