Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

Then again, the light hadn’t protected Gina Fernetti. She’d vanished in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and no one had heard her scream.

The silver SUV crawled down the street, keeping pace with her. Sandra’s stomach was in knots. Could it be some friend of hers, playing a joke? Well, it wasn’t funny, damn it. On her left, Sandra saw a two-story white stucco house with a car in the driveway and lights on in the front windows. She thought about running up the walkway and pounding on the door.

She casually glanced to her right at that silver SUV. The driver’s window went down. “Hey, Sandra! Are you going to the mall? Do you need a ride?”

It took Sandra a few moments to recognize the driver, and when she did, she let out a weak chuckle. “Oh, my God, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” said the girl behind the wheel, smiling. “I wasn’t really sure if it was you or not. I’m headed to the mall. Do you need a lift?”

Sandra hesitated. If she accepted the ride, she’d feel obligated to invite her along to the movie. It was the polite thing to do. But she really didn’t like this girl very much. In fact she hardly knew her. She was a sophomore, two years behind her. It was weird how the girl had called out to her from the car window like they were good friends. The only other time they’d ever talked was in the school cafeteria two months before. The sophomore had approached Sandra while she’d been eating lunch with her friends.

“You must be Sandra Hartman,” she’d said. “You wouldn’t believe how many times people mistake me for you.”

“Oh, really?” Sandra had said, with a baffled smile.

“Yeah, I can totally see the resemblance now. We’re almost like twins.”

“Well, huh, maybe. Anyway, nice meeting you,” Sandra had said. Then she’d turned away. Her friends at the table had started teasing her. “Who the hell was that?” Sandra had whispered. And then one of her friends had told her.

That had been the only other time she’d talked to Annabelle Schlessinger.

“Sandra? Are you headed to the mall?” Annabelle asked from the driver’s seat of the SUV.

She worked up a smile and nodded. She figured her dad was probably right. In the wake of Gina Fernetti’s disappearance, it wasn’t smart to walk around alone at night. And it was starting to get dark. She’d be better off riding the rest of the way. So what if Annabelle ended up tagging along to the movie with her? There was no reason to be snobby toward her. In fact, Sandra realized as she stepped closer to the SUV and locked eyes with Annabelle that there was indeed a resemblance between them. “I’m meeting some friends to see Dodgeball . Do you want to join us?”

Her mouth open, Annabelle stared back at her and blinked. Stopping, Sandra saw tears well up in Annabelle’s eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I–I really wish I could go to the movie with you guys, more than anything,” Annabelle murmured. Then she cleared her throat, and straightened up behind the wheel. “Thanks anyway, but I can’t,” she said, more control in her tone. She gazed at the road in front of her. “I’m headed to the mall to run an errand for my father. Hurry up, get in.”

Sandra walked around the front of the car, a bit puzzled by Annabelle’s strange reaction to such a casual invitation. At the same time, everything was coming out all right for her. She had a ride to the mall with no strings attached. She didn’t have to spend the rest of the night with Annabelle clinging to her.

“Oh, you’ve got the air-conditioning on in here,” Sandra said, sliding into the front seat. “Feels like heaven.”

Annabelle said nothing. She stared straight ahead.

Once Sandra shut the passenger door and buckled her seatbelt, the SUV started to inch forward. After a few moments, Sandra glanced at the speedometer: 10 mph. “What, are you afraid of getting a ticket?” she asked. “Why are you going so slowly?”

Annabelle didn’t answer. The SUV crawled past the end of the block toward a turnaround area by some woods. The headlights and interior lights went off, and suddenly they were swallowed up in darkness. “What the hell’s going on?” Sandra asked.

The car stopped. Hands on the wheel, Annabelle wouldn’t look at her. Instead, she glanced up at the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, Sandra,” she muttered listlessly. “I guess you haven’t met my father.”

“What?” Sandra checked the rearview mirror, and saw a shadowy figure suddenly spring up from the floor. She gasped.

All at once, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. It happened so fast, she couldn’t fight him off. He slapped a wet cloth over her mouth. It must have been soaked with some chemical, because it burned her face. Sandra’s eyes watered up. She tried not to breathe in, and desperately clawed at his hand.

But he wouldn’t let go. Almost unwillingly, she gasped for air, and then realized it was too late. Sandra had never experienced this sensation before. She wasn’t passing out, or falling asleep, or even fainting. No, this was something different.

Sandra Hartman felt herself surrendering to something very close to death.

Seattle-three years later

“Nope, sorry, I still haven’t seen hide nor hair of Amelia,” Jessie said into the phone. In front of her on the McMillans’ kitchen table, was a pile of laundry, still warm from the dryer. “No calls either, except from Karen, checking up on me about a half hour ago.”

“Okay, Jessie, thanks,” George said on the other end of the line. “Jody should be home from school in about an hour. Could you take him with you when you go to pick up Steffie at Rainbow Junction Daycare?”

“You asked me that this morning, and I will,” Jessie said. “Now, can I tell you something? That cleaning woman of yours isn’t worth the powder to blow her to hell. There are dust balls behind your sofa and under the cushions, I found three old French fries, a plastic barrette, some popcorn and forty-seven cents in change.”

“Well, you can keep the barrette, but I want the forty-seven cents,” George said. “You sure everything’s okay there?”

“Peachy,” Jessie assured him. “I’m folding laundry, and after this I’m taking out your recycling. Pretty exciting, huh?”

“Well, take a break, for God’s sake,” George replied. “I’ll talk to you later, Jess.”

She hung up the phone, and finished folding the clothes. Then Jessie got the recycling bin out of the pantry, and carried it out the kitchen door. She lumbered up to the edge of the driveway and let out a groan as she set the bin on the front curb.

Jessie paused to take a look down the block. She spotted a black car parked about four houses down on the other side of the street. But it wasn’t Karen’s Jetta, and that was the one she was supposed to be on the lookout for.

This car was just a beat-up old Cadillac.

With a sigh, Jessie turned and headed back for the house.

Karen took the turnoff at Coles Corner to Lake Wenatchee Highway. The scenery along Stevens Pass had been gorgeous: the mountains and rivers, the trees so vibrant with their fall colors, and even a few small waterfalls. But she’d barely noticed any of it. She couldn’t stop thinking about what George had discovered, that Amelia had a twin sister.

No wonder Amelia had developed so many neuroses, having been torn apart from her twin at such a young age. With the sudden absence of her sister, Amelia might have taken on her twin’s persona. Perhaps she assumed her sister felt abandoned, angry and bitter, even destructive. And maybe Amelia was adopting those traits during her blackouts while the twin sister part of her took over. That lost time Amelia experienced kept her from knowing about this sister-half and her activities.