Scream Catcher

by Vincent Zandri

  “Put the gun down, Mack,” Jude presses. “You’re not really going to kill him. I won’t let you.”

  Turning to his son, Mack says, “The way I see it, if it wasn’t for this man’s decision to keep closed-mouthed about the Blanchfield investigation, your personal kill game would not have happened.” Swallowing something rock hard. “Don’t you see what I’m saying, kid? Rosie’s baby—your baby; my grandchild—would still be alive if it wasn’t for secret agent man.”

  Jude has to admit it: just looking at Lino’s expressionless face makes him red-hot angry inside. Maybe Mack is right in assigning blame, even if the blame is essentially misallocated. Maybe he should be exacting his just revenge upon Lino. Because maybe Jude does want nothing more than to reach out, grab hold of the agent’s neck, wring it until mustached face turns purple and his heart … if he’s got a heart … seizes up.

  But then Lino’s done nothing wrong. At least not in the eyes of federal law. He tried to help Jude and his family, even if the help amounted to a simple, anonymous e-mail. But at the same time Jude can’t help but picture the imaginary face of the baby Rosie lost during the eleven-hour kill game of August 14 and 15.

  Mack is acting totally out of line; acting purely out of emotion. None of this is Lino’s fault. Standing by the abandoned cabin, the yellow crime-scene tape whistling in the wind, Jude knows that none of this would have happened had Blanchfield not knowingly accepted the illegal contributions in the first place.

  “Let him go,” Jude says.

  Mack, eyes wide open, bottom lip caught between his teeth.

  “You’re sure about this, Jude?”

  “What do you gain by blowing his brains out? Is that going to heal you and me, heal Rosie and Jack? Is that going to bring back my unborn child?”

  Taking a step back, Jude exhales. By that point he feels certain that he’s given his father the answer he needs whether the old Captain realizes it or not. As if to prove it, a narrow tear falls from his right eye, drops the length of his ruddy cheek. He lowers his head, chin against chest. Then he lowers the pistol, resets the hammer to safety position. Bending cautiously at the knees, he retrieves the wallet and all that it contained including the credit cards and cash. Standing, Mack hands it all back to Lino.

  “You can go now, Danny,” he whispers. “It is Danny, isn’t it?”

  Jude hands the agent back his piece, grip first.

  “Maybe you can accept my apology,” he offers. “Maybe you can’t. Just know that it’s been a trying few weeks for me and my father.”

  Nodding, Lino takes hold of the weapon, holsters it. For a moment he just stares at Mack and Jude, mustached face as cold as a cadaver. After a time he makes his way slowly, almost confidently back up the driveway to his ride. But before slipping behind the wheel, he calls back out to the father and son.

  “Blanchfield,” he says, tone typically deadpan, “the investigation into her illegal campaign contributions; the botched investigations and prosecutions … I came up with nothing.”

  “Nothing,” Mack repeats like a question. “I don’t get it.”

  Lino adds, “Nothing conclusive that would lead me to believe she’d done anything wrong … case closed.”

  So Lino has a heart after all …

  “What about Fox?” Jude calls out.

  “Excuse me?” Lino answers.

  “Where does the name Fox come from?”

  Miracle of miracles, Agent Lino actually smiles.

  “You ever watch X-Files reruns, Jude?” he asks, slipping himself inside the Suburban.

  The ex-cop has to laugh.

  Special Agent Fox Mulder …

  Lino is not beyond having a heart and a sense of humor.

  As the agent backs out towards Lake George Road, he honks the horn as if to say, Tootaloo. But Jude thinks it more likely that he’s offering his Farewell to Lake George. Speaking for both his father and himself, they are more than happy to see him go.

  104

  Burns Cabin/Elizabeth Bay

  Wednesday, 1:31 P.M.

  Jude looks up, breathes in.

  Some fresh water gulls are swooping down and diving into the flat water of the bay. Probably snatching up minnows and small rock bass in their beaks. He turns back to a cabin that, like his past, is crumbling before his eyes. He focuses on a flaky gray wasp nest that hangs from the cabin’s eave and the winged, stinging insects that guard it. Back when he was a boy, Jude used to think of honey bees as the good guys of nature, black wasps the bad guys.

  Turning back to Mack he says, “Help me down to the boat. There something I want to do before we leave this place.”

  Without protest, Mack places his good hand under Jude’s elbow and together they make it back down to the docked boat. Grabbing two of the several white rags stored inside an empty plastic taping-compound bucket, Jude soaks them in gas from the five gallon can stored in the boat’s stern. Under his own power, he makes his way back up onto the dock.

  This time when he makes the trek back up the hill to the cabin, he never bothers with asking Mack for his help. The old Captain simply follows behind his son, no doubt knowing all along what he’s about to do, but for some reason holding back.

  When they are right outside the cabin window, Jude asks Mack for his gun and his lighter. He hands him both. Aiming the .38 caliber revolver at the picture window, Jude shoots it out with three, quick rounds. Handing the smoking gun back to his father, he lights the three rags with the Zippo, tosses them inside the now open window. It doesn’t take long for the dry wood to catch. In just a few minutes, Jude and Mack find themselves back-stepping away from the raging heat of the conflagration.

  Jude says, “My kill game didn’t start with P.J. Blanchfield, or with Lennox or even with Lino. It began right here in this spot and it began with me the afternoon I allowed Burns to shoot his family.” Now waving his left hand in the air as if he were a wizard calling up the flames. “So how’s that for resolution, Mack? How’s that for breaking the bonds of my fragile past?”

  “Not exactly what I had in mind. Considering this property is still under L.G.P.D. jurisdiction.”

  “You gonna arrest me? Take me in?”

  Mack bites down on his lip.

  “Fucking out of season deer poachers,” he nods. “Always getting drunk and burning things that don’t belong to them.”

  For a few more minutes they watch the fire consume the cabin, until finally Jude says, “Give you a lift home?”

  In his mind, Jude pictures Rosie and Jack. They are his home.

  “Over the lake and through the woods,” sings the old Captain.

  Together, father and son turn away from the burning cabin, hobble their way down the hill towards the dock on the bay.

  105

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Thursday, 8:30 A.M.

  The next morning Jude stands over the gas stove inside the kitchen of the log home, aluminum crutches holding him up, while a teaspoon of salted butter melts in the skillet. He’s already cracked four eggs into a bowl, beat them smooth along with a tablespoon of heavy cream, some chopped chives, a little finely chopped Vidalia onion, four generous pinches of shredded Munster cheese, salt and pepper to taste. The butter fully melted, he adds the blended eggs into the pan, cooks the mixture slowly over a medium flame.

  When the eggs are lightly cooked some two minutes later he slides them out of the pan onto a white dinner plate set in the middle of the big wood dinner table. In the fridge he digs out some Green Mountain salsa, some more grated Munster, places it on the table in between the plate of eggs and a freshly baked baguette. Last but not least, two big freshly squeezed orange juices over ice.

  “Finally a good breakfast,” he says to Jack while breaking off the end piece of the still warm bread, slipping some of the egg, cheese and salsa onto it, popping it into his mouth.

  “What happened to the bacon?” the boy smiles.

  “Eat now squawk later.”

  G
lancing over his shoulder, Jude stares out the picture window not onto the lake but onto the vegetable and flower garden where Rosie is busy working. She’s wearing the same pair of farmer overalls Jude first met her in two years before. Covering her hands, a pair of green garden gloves. The temperature for mid-September is unusually warm—maybe eighty degrees. Underneath the overalls, she wears only a white muscle T-shirt. Even from where he’s sitting Jude can see the little splotches of mud that stain her slim bare arms, the moist perspiration that makes the brow above her brown eyes glow where her long dark hair is pulled back into braids and partially veiled with a red kerchief knotted below the hairline. Just looking at her makes Jude’s heart beat a little faster.

  Turning back to Jack he sees that some stray scrambled egg has found a home on the boy’s shirt. Maybe it makes Jude’s heart beat faster to watch Rosie working in the garden, but it makes his whole body feel lighter than air just to be home and looking at a piece of scrambled egg sticking to the boy’s Final Fantasy T-shirt.

  Father and son eat in silence, not needing to talk, Jude’s eyes shifting from Jack to Rosie working in the garden back to Jack again. There is the good smell of the breakfast and the cool welcome breeze that blows in from the open windows and the steady chop of the lake as it slaps against the stone retaining wall and the dock piers beside it.

  Breakfast is nearly history when the front doorbell rings.

  The ringing doorbell is such a rare occurrence at the county home that it causes Jack to shoot up from his seat. Not out of fright, but out of a genuine pleasure to see who the unexpected company might be. Cautious, Jude grabs hold of the crutches that lean against the table, orders the boy to “sit tight.”

  “Keep eating,” he insists. “You’re still hungry I can always make some more.”

  “Maybe you can run down to the store, pick up some bacon,” the boy mumbles with a mouthful and a grin.

  “Funny,” Jude says while, using the crutches as supports, he crosses over the vestibule floor, makes his way to the front door, opens it onto a Fed Ex man. He’s a large young man dressed in uniform shorts, ankle high socks, a blue and orange Fed Ex polo shirt with the collar down and a standard issue baseball hat. With his short dark hair and trim goatee, his smile feels warm and inviting to Jude. The smile goes well with the warm sunny day and the trees that only now are beginning to shed golden leaves.

  The young man holds a clipboard in one hand, a small package about the size of a tissue box in the other. The box is stuffed inside the usual Fed Ex envelope. It’s addressed to Mr. Jude Parish, marked “Personal and Confidential.”

  “Any return address?”

  Pursing his lips, the young man turns the package over, examines the attached pink slip.

  “P.O. Box. Gare du Nord. Paris, France.”

  Fed Ex man holds out a clipboard that also serves as an electronic signature pad.

  Jude signs on the electric dotted line.

  The signature pad back in hand, Fed Ex man about-faces, jogs back down the porch steps in the direction of the Fed Ex van parked in the gravel drive. Not far from the L.G.P.D. Jeep Cruiser and the Lake George cop newly assigned to watch over the lakefront property (a simple precaution insisted upon by a still overprotective Mack).

  Closing the front door behind him, Jude makes a point of locking the closer, pushing and pulling on the brass knob just to make sure it’s good and secure. The package in hand, he carries it back into the kitchen, sets it gently down onto the kitchen table. He might open it right there and then, but Jack is holding out his now empty plate.

  “More eggs,” he gleams.

  106

  Assembly Point Peninsula

  Thursday, 9:10 A.M.

  His second breakfast devoured, Jack retires to PS3-land.

  While electronic squirts, screams and blasts filter up from the first floor, Jude pours himself a second cup of coffee. Steak knife in hand, he sits himself back down at the kitchen table. For a fleeting moment, he thinks seriously about taking the package outside, opening it up far away from the house. But then, that’s what the old, demon-tormented Jude Parish would have done.

  Lennox is dead.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of any more.

  Slicing open the Fed Ex envelope, he pulls out the box. Just a small, nondescript gray cardboard box with no writing on it. Placing it in the palm of his hand, Jude bobs it up and down, getting a feel for its light, but somehow solid weight.

  He opens the box, a bit tentatively, peeks inside and using his fingers, pulls out its contents. He recognizes the little machine immediately. It’s a Game Boy Advance identical to the one his son plays with whenever he isn’t preoccupied with his more elaborate television or computer video game systems.

  Jude thinks about how strange it is that someone should send him a handheld gaming system. But then, as an author, he’s received more bizarre presents than this (once, a woman from San Francisco sent him a blow up doll with her name tattooed across its belly). Picking up the empty box he holds it up to his face, searches inside for a note or an explanation of some kind. But like the first time he checked, there’s nothing. Just the game and that’s all.

  Jude turns the translucent gray, plastic machine one way, then the other, until he notices that a game has been preinstalled. Flipping the switch, the screen immediately begins to fill with electronic light, the word NINTENDO appearing in full 3D. The pleasant chime that follows indicates that the preinstalled game is now locked and loaded.

  Jude stares down at the screen, at the animated caricature of a muscular bald man dressed in a too-tight black T-shirt with the sleeves exploded off by fully flexed muscles. The muscle man character is holding a long, kind of black, futuristic pistol in his right hand. In the place of a gun barrel mounted to the gun’s housing however is a long shiny needle. He is raising the weapon up high, aiming it at the video game sky, revealing at the same time a black dragon tattoo planted on his right interior forearm.

  Maybe it’s the force of the instant recognition, but Jude’s head becomes a hive of buzzing adrenalin. He also discovers it’s not required of him to press any buttons or controls on the little machine. The game operates by itself on demonstration mode.

  A second character appears.

  Unlike the first one, this man character has short cropped, salt and pepper hair. He wears a white T-shirt and dark pants. The words SCREAM FOR ME suddenly flash across the narrow screen in big blood red letters.

  Level One begins with what obviously is the Jude Parish character standing all alone inside the dark interior of a split-level home. There is a stone vestibule; a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. Even a writing study. As the game proceeds Jude Parish starts to run along the top floor hallway when suddenly the Black Dragon bursts forth from out of the shadows. Black Dragon raises up a fisted hand that contains an oversized needle and syringe. When he thrusts the needle into Jude’s chest, his eyes go wide and he lets out a scream.

  It’s Jude’s real voice.

  His actual recorded screaming voice.

  When the screams stop, Jude drops to the animated floor with a distinct dead-weight thud. A short melody of sappy descending chords plays while the words “Game Over” flash across the small screen.

  The real Jude Parish’s eyes are glued to the electronic screen.

  He doesn’t feel an ounce of pain.

  No shortness of breath. No dizziness.

  Instead he begins to sense that he is living a dream. He knows for certain that he’s seated at the kitchen table. But at the same time he swears he’s levitating off the plank floor. He swallows and stares at the game while it automatically forwards to Level Two.

  Now the setting changes to a dark, forested landscape. There is a jagged mountain on one side of the game screen and a cliff face on the other. A stream running heavy with whitewater cuts a jagged horizontal line across the middle connecting the two opposing parcels of landscape. The Jude character is running through the woods awa
y from a Black Dragon who scores rapid hit points by shooting Jude with multi-colored pepper-balls from a pepper-ball launcher. The score tallies in the upper right hand corner of the screen while Jude runs past pits and traps, past safety clearings marked by yellow flags, past snakes that slither into view, exaggerated white fangs exposed. The gray rattlesnakes snap at Jude, manage to rob their occasional bit of flesh and at the same time, increase the H.P. It’s all too much for the Jude character as he suddenly drops into a whirlpool before being sucked down and spit out a culvert that empties itself off the cliff face.

  Jude screams and falls never-endingly into a black bottomless abyss, the words “Game Over” once more appearing on the screen.

  Then begins Level Three.

  The setting is a wide open, interior elevation of a courthouse building; the bottom floor a parking garage that houses a van. The white van carries a homemade bomb or IED fabricated from the same stacked fertilizer and nitroglycerin charge as the real life explosive that took out the Warren County Courthouse. Inside the van Jude is trying to free himself from his duct-taped bondage in order to diffuse the IED. At the same time, a digital sequence of numbers counts down rapidly on the screen of a laptop computer. When the counter descends to zero, a spine-tingling scream erupts only a split-second before an animated white-hot blast fills the screen. Once again comes that sad tune.

  Game Over!

  Heart pounding, breathing quick and shallow, the real Jude sets the Game Boy Advance back down onto the table. He recalls the Fed Ex package, the P.O. Box coming all the way from Paris; recalls the young Fed Ex man who stood outside the door of his house only moments ago; recalls the young man’s nice smile, dark mustache and goatee. In his mind Jude sees the man’s strong-shouldered build. He knows that Lennox can disguise himself to look like anyone. Because after all, creating characters is a part of his M.O. as a video game designer. Jude also remembers something Agent Lino told him a little less than a month ago: that it was possible Lennox survived the fall from the courthouse’s eighth floor; that he might have managed to get away via the still erect and undamaged northeast portion of the courthouse; that in all the chaos and confusion he might have gone unnoticed. And from there he might have hidden himself inside the forest, made his way up to Canada.