Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

“Oh, my God,” Karen murmured.

“So, weeks later, that Sunday morning Amelia went missing, Lon came over to Clay’s looking for her. Clay let him come in and look around. But he also took that opportunity to tell Lon that if he found one more mark on Amelia, he’d kill him. Anyway, after Lon left, Clay called me. He said it was obvious Amelia had run away again, and he thought she might show up at his house eventually. He wanted me to come over. He also figured if Amelia had any new bruises, I should take the Polaroids, and then we’d call the state police, a lawyer, or child protective services.”

Naomi let out a long sigh. “I was at work when he called me that Sunday. They needed me there to work the register at the goddamn Safeway. I remember Clay asking me, ‘You mean, you can’t take a few hours off to help a child who might be in trouble?’ Then he hung up. That was the last thing he ever said to me.”

Naomi started to cry. “I was still at work when someone at the store told me Clay had been shot because they’d caught him trying to molest a neighbor’s little girl. I couldn’t believe it, and I still don’t. Clay never would have hurt Amelia. I might not have been there to see how it happened. But I know they have it wrong. There’s a difference between what people saw that day and what’s true. I’m certain of that.”

“I agree with you,” Karen said. “Do you think it’s possible Amelia was in her underwear because she wanted to show Clay some new bruises?”

“I wondered that, too,” Naomi said. “But they’d have said in the newspaper that she’d recently been beaten and then, no doubt, used it as more evidence against Clay. Besides, I don’t think Clay would have let her take off a stitch of clothing after that cop made those innuendos about the Polaroids.”

“Well, maybe Amelia was napping-” Karen started to say. But a click on the line interrupted her.

“I’m sorry. Just a sec,” Naomi said. “Let me see who this is.”

She clicked off, and while Karen waited, she figured even if they came up with a reason why Amelia had been in her underwear, they still couldn’t explain why she’d run screaming from Clay’s house and into her abusive, sadistic father’s arms.

Naomi clicked back on the line. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, there’s a crisis at work, and I need to go over there, to the same Safeway. I’m a manager there now. How’s that for progress?”

“Well, congratulations,” Karen said, with a weak laugh. “Thank you for talking to me, Naomi.”

“If you’re ever able to figure out what really happened that day, let me know, okay? You have my number. Sorry I wasn’t more help.”

“But you have been, believe me,” Karen said. “Amelia’s still in trouble. And you have helped her, Naomi. You have.”

“Well, thanks. Take care.”

Karen clicked off the line. She sat in the front seat of the car and watched the raindrops sliding down her windshield. Across the street, a woman stepped out of the library, put up her umbrella, then headed down the sidewalk. She disappeared around a corner.

Karen glanced at the library doors again and then at her watch: 7:50.

“Damn it,” Karen murmured. “She should have been here at least an hour ago.”

Amelia was once again missing.

The car window was open. Amelia felt the cold wind whipping through her hair and an occasional raindrop on her face. She was driving Karen’s Jetta, on her way to Wenatchee. She felt tense, but excited, too. She thought about how she’d finally get to use her father’s hunting knife slitting that bitch, Karen Carlisle’s, throat.

Amelia woke up with start, and in total blackness. She’d been having these horrible dreams all night. This was the latest, her gleefully planning Karen’s murder.

Earlier, she’d had a nightmare in which she’d put a gun in Shane’s mouth and pulled the trigger. They’d been in rowboat on a lake somewhere. She’d washed Shane’s blood off her face and hands with lake water. It had seemed so real. But Amelia kept telling herself these were just nightmares. She was still asleep in the spare bedroom at Karen’s house.

But why was it so dark? And what had happened to the sound machine? She didn’t hear the waves and those seagulls. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything.

A panic swept through her. She didn’t remember the bed feeling this hard, or the scratchy blanket. It smelled musty, like a basement.

Something had happened in the middle of the night.

Amelia had thought she’d dreamt that, too. She’d seen herself at night in Karen’s backyard with a strange-looking, pale man with jet-black hair. They’d lifted a decorative stone from the garden, uncovering where Karen hid the house key. Then they’d snuck into the house. The next part, Amelia figured must have been a dream, because she and the man had been in Karen’s spare bedroom, standing over herself in the bed. She’d watched herself sleeping. Bending over the bed, the man had put a damp cloth over her face. It had burned. For a moment, she’d felt as if she were suffocating.

Had it all really happened? It must have, because she was no longer in Karen’s guest room. This dark, dank room was in a totally different place far away from all sounds and light.

Amelia sat up and blindly groped around for a light. Her hand brushed against a lamp beside her, and she switched it on. Someone had taken away the lampshade, and the bare lightbulb was blinding. It took Amelia a moment to recognize the secondhand lamp from the guest room in the lake house. Sitting up on a cot with an army blanket over her, she glanced around the gray little room. There were a few boxes shoved against the wall, a stack of old records and board games, some old paint cans, and a broken hardback chair.

Amelia ran a hand through her hair, and realized most of it had been chopped off. They must have cut her hair, very short, while she’d been asleep, but why? She touched her nose and lips. They still burned from whatever was on that cloth the man put over her mouth. She had no idea how long ago that was. She looked around for a clock or a mirror. But there wasn’t one on the makeshift nightstand beside her. Someone had turned over a box to hold the lamp without a shade.

But they’d left her an opened can of Del Monte sliced peaches, a pack of chewing gum, and a small jar of Noxzema.

Amelia stared across the room at the big, bulky door. It was closed.

She knew where she was. This place had always given her the creeps. For years, she’d been afraid of somehow getting trapped here.

She was in the family cabin by Lake Wenatchee in the basement fallout shelter.

And yet, somehow, at this very moment, she could still feel the motion of Karen’s car, and a cold breeze through the open window kissing her face.

And she knew Karen was going to die.

She wandered up and down the aisles at the Wenatchee library, searching for Amelia. Karen figured she might have missed her somehow. But she’d already walked around outside the building in the cold rain searching for Shane’s car. She’d seen plenty of vacant parking spots, and no sign of the VW Golf. She’d already explored the reference, periodicals, and nonfiction sections with no luck. Now, as she zigzagged around the shelves of books in the fiction section, Karen heard an announcement over the PA system saying that the library was closing in five minutes. Above her, every other row of overhead lights went off.

Karen was filled with a lost, hopeless feeling. She kept thinking about how Amelia was the only one who could get through to her sister, Annabelle. She might even know Annabelle’s next move.