Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

“Well, I guess this goes with the clingy, possessive part of her character. But she wanted us to work out our own secret language, so we could write and talk to each other, and no one else would understand. She even wanted us to dress alike at school. I mean, how queer is that? Oh, and she claimed she could read my thoughts. That was another thing. Annabelle said she was telepathic. I remember laughing at her and saying she was tele- pathetic, and she got really pissed off at me. I think that was the beginning of the end for us.”

She picked up the terrier and moved it farther down the steel sink. “Better back up,” she said.

But George didn’t hear her past all the barking and yelping. He was thinking about the matching clothes, a secret language, and some telepathic connection. Was Annabelle hoping Erin would take the place of the twin she’d lost?

“Hey,” Erin said loudly. “Unless you want to get doused, better stand back. He’s gonna shake it off.”

George backed up toward the cages, and watched the dog shake off the excess water. Erin started working a towel over him.

“Did Annabelle ever mention to you that she had a twin sister?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, Andrea .” Erin said, nodding. “She told me Andrea was abducted by some pervert neighbor when the kid was four, and he raped and killed her. I mean, talk about creepy and tragic, right? And then I talked to another girl in my class, Deborah Wothers. Annabelle tried to be Deborah’s friend for a while, because Deborah’s so nice and everybody loves her. But Deborah was smart enough to keep her distance. Anyway, she told Deborah that her twin sister, Alicia , slipped and fell in the tub and drowned or some bullshit like that. So, you’re telling me she really did have a twin?”

George just nodded. He knew both stories were fabrications, of course. But he wondered if there was a sliver of truth to the abduction incident.

Erin had stopped drying the dog. She stared at George. “So, this twin, how did she really die?”

“She didn’t. She’s alive, and her name’s Amelia,” he explained. “The Schlessingers put her up for adoption when she was four. I’m trying to find out why. Amelia doesn’t know anything about her birth family. I was hoping you could fill in a lot of blanks for me, Erin. Did Annabelle ever talk about her mother?”

With a dumbfounded look, Erin shook her head.

“Nothing?” he pressed.

“Well, I heard she offed herself when Annabelle was just a kid. She hanged herself in the basement or something. Annabelle was supposed to have found her. I never had the guts to ask her for details.”

“What about the father?”

She shrugged. “I used to see him at church, that’s it.”

“Didn’t you ever see him at Annabelle’s house?”

“I never went there. I don’t think anyone in the class did, either.” Erin wrapped the dog in the towel, then carried him to a cage, and set him inside. With a sigh, she pulled off her gloves. “Anyway, I never set foot in the place,” she said. “Annabelle always came over to my house. She pretty much hated living out there at that ranch in the middle of nowhere.”

“Did Annabelle ever talk about her Uncle Duane?” George asked.

Erin pried a stick of Juicy Fruit out of her pants pocket, then unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. “Nope, sorry.”

She put her work gloves back on, opened another cage, and pulled out a miniature schnauzer. “C’mon, bath time, you mangy son of a bitch,” she muttered. She set the dog in the steel tub, then stopped and turned to George. “You know who you should talk to? Mrs. Cadwell, our homeroom teacher sophomore year. Caroline Cadwell, she was practically a friend of the family. I think she even knew Mrs. Schlessinger. She could tell you a lot.”

“Caroline Cadwell,” George repeated. Along with Erin, she’d been quoted in the newspaper account about the fire.

Stroking the dog’s head, Erin paused to glance at George. “As far as the Schlessingers go, Mrs. Cadwell knows more than anybody else, and she’s seen more than anybody else. She can tell you all about the fire, too.”

“Really?” George asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied, nodding. “Mrs. Cadwell’s the one who identified the bodies.”

Salem, Oregon-July 2004

It was 8:50 P.M., and still light out-still pretty hot, too. But she felt a soft, cool evening wind against her bare legs.

Eighteen-year-old Sandra Hartman cut across the deserted baseball field. Her shoulder-length black hair was freshly washed, and she wore a blue blouse, khaki shorts, and sandals. She warily eyed the empty bleachers. The place kind of gave her the creeps at night, even with the late sunset.

She was on her way to meet some friends at Lancaster Mall. They planned to see Dodgeball , of all things. The only reason for going was because a bunch of guys she knew were supposed to show up.

Sandra lived eight blocks from the mall. It wasn’t very pedestrian-friendly right around there. Ordinarily, she would have driven over. But her parents had taken the car for some business dinner her dad had. When she’d mentioned she might go to the movies, he’d insisted she grab a ride from a friend or stay home.

Everyone was still in a panic over the disappearance of Gina Fernetti just ten days before. The story was on TV and in the newspapers. Regina Marie Fernetti was twenty, a journalism major at the University of Colorado, and home for summer break. She and two girlfriends had gone to the Walker Pool on a busy Saturday afternoon. Gina had driven. They’d just claimed a spot on the grass, and laid out their blankets when Gina announced she wanted to get a certain tape cassette out of the car for her Walkman. She left her purse and blanket behind, and went off toward the parking lot with her car keys. When she didn’t return fifteen minutes later, her friends checked the lot. Gina’s car was still there, still locked. They searched the pool area, and had her paged over the public address system. The lifeguards even made everyone get out of the pool for ten minutes just to make sure Gina hadn’t missed the announcement. Gina’s girlfriends finally called Mr. and Mrs. Fernetti who, in turn, called the police.

No one had seen Gina Fernetti since. She’d just vanished.

So Sandra’s father was being a bit crazy-overprotective. To appease him, Sandra had tried to get one of her friends to pick her up at the last minute, but with no luck. They were carpooling over to the mall, and it was already crammed. Sandra figured she could get a ride home later from one of the guys, and her dad would be none the wiser about her walking to the mall alone.

She had about twenty minutes until the movie started, and figured she’d be at the mall in ten. Sandra noticed the street-lights go on as she made her way across the baseball field. She slipped through an opening in the fence, and started down a residential street. She didn’t see anyone else around. It was a bit eerie and unsettling. On a warm night like this, more people should have been out. Was what had happened to Gina keeping people inside with their doors locked?

Sandra picked up her pace, but then suddenly balked when a shadow swept in front of her. She realized a car was pulling up behind her with its headlights on. She glanced over her shoulder: a silver SUV.

Strange, five minutes ago, she’d noticed a silver SUV coming up the road toward her before she’d cut through the baseball field. Was this the same one?

The vehicle slowed down and pulled over to the curb in front of her.

“Shit,” Sandra murmured. A little alarm went off inside her. She quickly crossed the street, and watched the SUV slowly creep over toward her. She walked as fast as she could without breaking into a sprint. She told herself not to run. As long as she pretended not to notice them, they wouldn’t know she was scared and they wouldn’t start chasing her-not just yet. Somehow, maybe it would buy her time. She could be overreacting too. Would someone really try anything in a residential neighborhood, where people could hear her screaming? Plus, it was still kind of light out, for God’s sake.