The Scream

  The thing laughed, its teeth so close that he could feel the razored whistle of their movement.

  That’s only the beginning, though, it continued. I also brought the one who made it. She’s wonderful, brilliant, a real musician. Almost as brilliant as you are. It laughed again. And beautiful, too.

  I really think that you’ll like each other a lot.

  Alex had thought that he was beyond pain. The moment proved him wrong, once again and forever.

  In his mind’s glowing eye, he could see her clearly. Momma wasn’t lying. She was truly beautiful. The fact of his life’s long loneliness jammed itself through his core like a hot lightning rod.

  And it was too late, too late . . .

  Best of all, though, is the fact that she’s pregnant. That’s right. She’s still bearing the little shaver that’s sampled on her disk. Just think about that for a second, Bucky: you can get it coming in and going out, all at once.

  He tried to work up a scream. It would not come.

  Of course, I will need you to modify things. The signal she brought is too clean. It’s too . . . nice.

  But, of course, I will need you to be strong for this. And you are so close to me. Your strength is nearly gone.

  That’s why I’ve brought you something else.

  That I want you, now, to see.

  The vision changed, in his inner eye. He could see himself. He could see the room. He could see the IV, his needled arm. He could see the flagging waveforms on the monitors beside him.

  He could see the door as it slowly opened.

  And Tara stepped inside.

  It was the first time that he’d ever seen her. The blindness had come to him years before. Retinitis pigmentosa: a degenerative disease, eating away at his vision’s periphery. Narrowing it down, a centimeter at a time, like the walls closing in on the heroes in an old Universal Pictures horror film. Several feet. One foot. One inch. One microscopic sliver of light.

  And then gone.

  Leaving him open to the other side of darkness.

  And in that darkness she came to him. He knew it was her. He knew her by smell. He could see, now, exactly why she frightened him so . . . why the human fodder of fandom was so willingly drawn to her oven for the slaughter.

  She was beautiful.

  Too beautiful to be real.

  And she was coming toward him now, expressionless as she slipped the tie on her robe and let it fall open to unveil the exquisite nakedness beneath. Her breasts were perfect, not too large or too small. Her hips held sway over his inner vision. The triangular fur that crowned her depths was dark and yet revealing.

  Her eyes were only for him.

  This is the moment of ultimate giving, she said to him, in a voice as soft as silk. This is the time where I give to you, as you have given to me.

  She touched him then. So soft. So sweet. For a moment he could almost forget the teeth behind the apparition.

  I love you, she whispered. I always have. I never meant to hurt you.

  But we were born for this moment, you and I.

  And so we must come together.

  Erection was beyond him now, no matter how hot her charms. He simply didn’t have the wherewithal; his body was too far gone. Evidently that didn’t matter. She straddled him anyway, her wet crease taut against his impotence. She ground there, meticulous, her hands on his chest, and lowered her left breast to his lips.

  Miraculously, his lips began to suckle her.

  Miraculously, he began to grow hard.

  Oh, yes, she sighed. Oh, yes, my love. She kissed him on the forehead, and he grew harder still. The spark within him began to flame. His arms came up. His fingers came to light upon her perfect ass and held there, caressing, as she brought her mouth to his.

  We were born for this moment, she whispered once more.

  Then her lips parted to take him in.

  And her own eyes gave way to her fingertips.

  And, together, they were reborn.

  * * *

  * * *

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

  LABOR DAY

  PHILADELPHIA, PA

  7:06 P.M.

  Click

  . . . and as opposition mounted in an eleventh-hour effort to halt the scheduled Scream concert in the wake of the Rock Aid riot, the ACLU and Bedlam records attorney Denny Isham again refuted any connection between the band and Saturday’s violence, in which sixty-seven people were killed and scores more wounded. No one has yet claimed credit for the attack. The governor has refused to order a halt, stating that it would be unfair at this time to penalize the victims of the attack, although he has suggested that Philadelphia’s mayor boost police presence at the Spectrum. The mayor responded in a press conference earlier today that the governor’s recent budget cutbacks have left a serious manpower allocation problem, and additional police presence will be difficult. This has been a WYCS news blip. . . .

  Click

  7:07 P.M.

  Buzz Duffy was a blue-haired boy with eyes to match. It was a radiant cobalt hue that offset his sunken cheekbones and stubbled temples. Both eyes and hair were flecked with the barest hints of green and red as well. It was either a cosmetological mutation or a political statement, depending on how you looked at it.

  Buzz knew how he viewed it. He also knew how his parents saw it; and their pastor, and his stupid goddamned probation officer. In fact, most of the authority figures in his life considered it rebellious or sinful or socially maladjusted.

  What the hell. Buzz Duffy wasn’t there anymore, and they weren’t here.

  Lucky for him.

  Because here, on this day, Buzz ruled. He was in his element, which was a crowd currently estimated at about fourteen thousand and counting.

  Technically, he’d run away from home again, seeing that his folks wouldn’t allow him to come legitimately. Technically, he was in a shitload of trouble. So what the hell. It was worth it.

  He’d been here all day, watching the scene grow from circus sideshow proportions to near-mythic status. The parking lot was jammed up by noon and had even started spilling onto Pattison Avenue. There were news crews and Holy Rollers and cops and protesters and vendors and scalpers and dealers and cops.

  But mostly, there were kids. The kids outnumbered absolutely everybody, and the kids were really rocking. White-hot metal thundered out of scores of car stereos and boom boxes as thousands clustered around their cases and kegs and pipes and bongs, getting stoked for the evening’s big event. They threw Frisbees across the parking lot. They threw bottles at the Dumpsters. They blocked traffic. They scared the piss out of passersby. He’d heard ambulances go by three times, heard stories of overdoses and a couple of fights. But no arrests. Not yet.

  It was like the hordes of Genghis Khan had overrun the Spectrum Sports Arena, and anybody who didn’t like it could suck eggs and walk on the shells. And it was like they knew it, too.

  Hell, not five minutes ago he saw six guys mosey up to “the weeping wall,” the flat expanse of poured concrete on Spectrum’s southern side—brewskies in one hand, wangers in the other—and whizz their way to stardom while some geeks from Channel Four caught it all on tape and a cop on horseback just sat there, watching ‘em. They peed out a big wet message for the nightly news:

  H-I M-O-M-!

  Then they just walked away, laughin’.

  Yeah, he could feel it, all right. Try and stop us.

  Cop didn’t do shit.

  It was great.

  There was an edge in the air, potent and electric. It was the sense of Something Coming. Buzz couldn’t rightly say what; but whatever it was, it was gonna be a blast. And Buzz could hardly wait.

  This was his lucky night.

  He did, after all, have something that his so-called best friend—that stupid little chickenshit Tommy Schaeffer—didn’t. Namely, Tommy’s ticket. He’d picked up both tickets at the Ticketron yesterday; Tommy was supposed to drive down in his old man’s Malibu. It was gonna be a blas
t.

  Until Tommy’s old man caught wind of it, that is, and restricted him until sometime just before the dawn of the next Ice Age. Of course, Buzz’s folks did, too, but that didn’t stop him.

  He just ran away again. No bigee.

  Whereas Tommy Schaeffer wimped out, leaving his best buddy Buzz to fucking hitchhike all the way down from Wilkes-Barre alone. Took all damned night. He figured that forfeiture of the ticket was the least Tommy could do, under the circumstances. It was doubtless for the best.

  It was also doubtless what got him his mystery date.

  He’d first seen her hovering near scalper’s row, looking all willowy an’ lost an’ stuff. Buzz prided himself on his ability to read a person’s body English, and he had amused himself all day by guessing at each person’s secret identity as he cruised the lot, thinking: Head. Head. Dealer. Head. Slut. Scalper. Narc. Head. Scalper . . .

  And then he saw the girl. She didn’t fit into any of the aforementioned categories. In fact, the only category she did seem to exemplify was one that seemed glaringly out of place amongst the hucksters, druggies, con artists, and cops.

  Damsel.

  Like, In Distress.

  Now there was something you didn’t see every day.

  So what the hell. He talked to her.

  She said she really needed to get in to the show, but she didn’t have a ticket, and she didn’t even have any money, and she didn’t seem to have much of anything going for her beyond a kinda decent body and a kinda cute face and a look in her eyes that made him feel like maybe this was his lucky day, after all.

  So what the hell. Buzz Duffy to the rescue.

  The doors were opening. The crowd pressed toward the series of big blue sawhorses the police had set up to sort of funnel the hordes down through the search points. Security was ultratight since all that shit went down on Saturday. Buzz had only seen it on MTV, but it was enough.

  Hell, it was half the reason why Tommy and him had wanted to come in the first place, and most of why their folks wouldn’t let ‘em. They were afraid their little babies would get hurt or something. It was, in Buzz’s estimation, a waste of some perfectly good fear.

  They queued up to go in. His mystery date stood beside him. Buzz thought about it for a second, decided what-the-hell, and slipped his arm around her waist. She let him. It was a nice waist. His hand, for want of a better place to rest, found her hip. She let it stay.

  This was Buzz Duffy’s lucky day, after all.

  They were almost inside.

  “Hey, I fergot to ask ya,” he said. “What’s yer name?”

  She didn’t look up, just said, “Mary.” Her voice was real soft. He liked that.

  They were next in. Buzz handed over the two tickets with a flourish and said, “Well, Mary, don’tchoo worry ‘bout a thing.” He smiled. “This’s gonna be a blast.”

  7:11 P.M.

  Walker didn’t have time to answer questions. The operation was too complex; there were too many places where things could go wrong.

  The crew had trained for this well in advance. Everyone knew exactly what to do, how to do it, where and when. Since ten this morning they’d been at it; only a handful of minutes till showtime remained. He had time to check and double-check, to nudge and ride and stay on top.

  But no time for incompetence.

  And none whatsoever for questions.

  So when Debbie Goldstein from the Spectrum front office appeared in the backstage corridor, looking so cute and perky but for her occasional nervous ticking, he suppressed the urge to slit her pretty throat. Not a good idea at this stage of the game.

  Besides, he understood her dilemma. She was being very professional: he had to give her that. She had to treat him with the same respect she granted the folks from Disney on Ice, for example, and she did so.

  Or tried to, anyway. She had never been anything less than courteous and helpful. But it was clear that she was frightened in some vaguely irrational but indisputable way that he knew she’d be hard-pressed to voice. Oh, well. Most likely, she would not survive the hour.

  Play nice, he told himself. What have you got to lose?

  Walker slipped immediately into his Mr. Friendly-Enough-but-Too-Busy-to-Talk mode, pretending not to see her, studying his charts, letting her take the First tentative step.

  “Umm . . . Mr. Walker.” She came up beside him.

  “Yes?” he said, gaze still on the chart.

  “I . . . we’ve got a situation out in the parking lot . . .”

  “I can imagine.” Noting the spaces checked off under the pyrotechnics heading. “And?”

  Ms. Goldstein tried to compose herself, her prefab smile askew. “Well, we’re a little concerned. Especially in light of this past weekend, well, we wouldn’t want there to be another riot or anything.”

  “Don’t worry.” He turned toward her now. He liked the way she shook under his gaze, wondered what exactly had her so worked up. Was it the kids outside or the crew within or the set they had erected? Or was she sensitive enough to smell the death already in the air?

  No time for questions, he reminded himself and continued.

  “I promise you, once the place fills up and the show starts, we’ll have everything completely under control.”

  It was his sincerity that brought her around. That, and the look that he flashed to her before he turned away. The light in his eye was direct and succinct.

  She was touching her throat as she left.

  7:17 P.M.

  Hook waved good-bye to the fire inspector and paused in the middle of the auditorium, the better to let the full effect sweep over him. It was the last few seconds before the teeming swarms came through the ramps like ants on a Sunday picnic. His work was nearly completed.

  And it was glorious.

  He was ringed by five towering columns, all laid out like the points of an enormous pentagram, each one a fucking masterpiece of artful deception. From this distance they maintained every illusion of being built of rough-hewn stone. And close up, they appeared to be harmless chicken wire and papier-mâché. He should know: he had personally overseen the masking and painting, especially of the most critical front pieces.

  He had also overseen the hard-wiring and camouflage of the det-cord, which was tucked into the bundles of cable that snaked across the floor, linking the columns to the floating island at the very back of the floor opposite the stage, where his sound and light boards lay.

  And he had personally taken the fire inspector on a tour of the sight, showing him what careful pains they had gone to, the better to build this set with state-of-the-art precision. He’d shown him the wiring diagrams, which were meticulously detailed. He’d shown him his electrician and demolitions credentials, which were Class A and up-to-date. He’d shown him how each column’s flashpots and lasers and smoke machines could be precisely controlled from his station. He had shown him everything.

  Well, almost everything.

  He had neglected to show him some of the really interesting bits. Like the enormous length of hose that would soon house his secret recipe, the special sauce. Or the pheromone sensors. Or the one hundred and sixty-five six-pound surprises artfully deployed across the canvas of his masterpiece.

  Yep, Hook plumb forgot to bring those up.

  Oh, well.

  He was sure the fire inspector would hear about it later.

  7:24 P.M.

  “Excuse me,” Pastor Furniss began, “but I have a bit of a problem.”

  The security guard silently stared at him from behind the glass of the information booth. He was a colored man in his late fifties, gaunt and mean as a half-starved rattlesnake. It took a minute for Furniss to realize that the man wasn’t going to respond.

  “What I mean to say is . . .” He was nervous, off-balance, unused to being intimidated. “. . . that I believe a runaway girl may be on your premises.”

  The security guard said nothing.

  “And what I was wondering is, might I be a
llowed to go inside and look for her? That would be such a blessing—”

  “Do you have a ticket,” the man interrupted, no upward trill at the end to imply it was a question.

  “Well, no, I don’t,” Furniss stuttered. “And, you see, that’s my predicament. I need to get inside there, and see if I can find her before—”

  “So buy a ticket.”

  The pastor was appalled and sweaty. Both lay cold against him, burning. He tried to imagine such callousness in his own body. He couldn’t, praise God. Were there not such a need for secrecy . . .

  “Surely you must understand the importance of this,” he began again, putting some power behind it. “A young girl has run away from home. We suspect that she might be on your premises. It is absolutely imperative that I be allowed entrance before she has a chance to mingle and . . .”

  The security guard pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  Quiet rage set in: a righteous fury, aimed at the self-serving and the blind. It was obvious that this man didn’t care about people, the morality that bound decent civilization. He was concerned with his paycheck, the things of the flesh. No doubt, he had orders to bar God’s will.

  This was Satan’s place, no question about it. But it would be brought down.

  He believed that with all his heart.

  Praise Jesus.

  “Good day, sir.” He turned away from the window. There was no point in speaking further. He moved past the row of empty windows with the SOLD OUT banners slung across them, achieved the door, stepped through.

  The heathen hordes awaited.

  Paul Weissman was there, too.

  “So far, no good,” said the chubby young man. His face was grim. Furniss knew how he felt. “Nobody has seen her. I’m having my doubts.”

  “She’s here. Trust in the Father. We’ll find her.”

  But even Furniss was getting discouraged now, his own faith flagging. Their avenues of approach were closing off one after another.

  The pastor had hoped to avoid this situation. He’d hoped to apprehend her before she got in. Six pairs of stalwart Liberty Christian youth had been brought for that reason, scattered near the gates, distributing pamphlets, keeping their eyes peeled for that long blond head of hair.