The Scream Read online

  There was a lot of noise coming from ol’ Dr. Wyler’s Wreck Room. The Scream’s showpiece tune was building toward its climax, with the chanting and the screaming on the record cranking the speakers way past the blowout point. Then he realized that the damage wasn’t confined to the airwaves. Things were actually getting trashed in there. He wondered what kind of rowdy shit the kids were up to now.

  The Scream played on; it was the only thing going that didn’t piss him off. He paused for a moment, listening to the haunting chorus of the last song on the album, “The Critical Mass” . . .

  “When we all come together

  in blood and bone

  In flashing light,

  in crumbling stone . . .”

  “God, this is the shit,” he told himself. The music swelled.

  “The Father spits on all their fears

  The Mother slits the veil of tears . . .”

  There was screaming on the album, artfully interwoven with the music, accentuating the black Armageddonal mass that the song was designed to evoke. He could almost see Tara, at the front of the stage, her robe slipping away to reveal more exquisite female flesh than mortal teenage man was ever meant to see, her belly swelling in hideously erotic mock-pregnancy, the gleaming dagger in her hands poised to slide into her navel as the taped voices and the audience chanted . . .

  “Magdhim Dios! Satanas Dios!

  Asteroth Dios! Ellylldan Dios!”

  The bass and drums pounded relentlessly; the voices joined in ecstatically as Tara slid the knife slowly in . . .

  “Sancti Dios! Omnitus Dios!

  Magisterulus Baalberth Dios!”

  It was his concentration on the screams that ripped the vision from his head, brought him back to the living room and the commotion downstairs. He had listened to the album at least a million times.

  He was hearing screams . . . real horrorshow screams . . . that weren’t on the recording.

  Eddie froze; automatically instinct kicked in. Adrenaline chiseled through the drugs and the anger, assumed control. His senses heightened. The dull ache in his nuts oozed up into his vitals. He found himself scoping out every detail of the room, as if it were the most important thing he’d ever seen in his life. Touch assailed. Scent assailed.

  Sound assailed.

  Somewhere in the house, large expanses of glass exploded: the picture window perhaps, the mirror behind the bar. There was only one way to be sure, and it was entirely out of the question. Thuds and screams and wet tearing sounds came together in terrible, terminal polyrhythms.

  People were dying down there. That much was clear. He didn’t know who, or how, or why. He wasn’t sure that he cared. A curious calm had settled over him, a silencer muffling the report of his fear. The words YOU CAN STILL GET OUT OF HERE impressed themselves upon his brain in twenty-four-point banner headlines.

  He turned and took a glance down the hallway to the front door. It was open. Curtained oblong windows surrounded it like Roman pillars. He could see split-shots of the Caddy, still idling there. It was his guess that it hadn’t been left all alone.

  Then he looked at the fireplace.

  God only knew what use Dr. Wyler had for a fireplace California: romance, perhaps, or simple savoir faire. Whatever the case, it had all the necessary implements in the stand beside it: poker, tongs, dainty shovel in cast iron and bronze. As he looked at them, the six-inch switchblade in his pocket seemed not nearly long enough.

  All he had to do was step fully into view of the Wreck Room stairway, snag the little fuckers, and make his merry home. By force.

  I can’t do it, his mind said. Oh, yes, I can. Shades of gray argumentativeness erupted between his logic’s poles. He needed the weapons; he needed to survive. He was amazed by how succinctly each side of his brain argued its points.

  Then the point became moot.

  Someone came up the stairs.

  It took a moment to recognize Deke Eli, even though they’d been friends since kindergarten. But it was understandable; Deke’s face wasn’t usually drenched in blood and terror, and his lower lip didn’t usually dangle by a thread like a rope of mozzarella in thick red sauce. The moment of unrecognition was a blessing for Eddie; it lent an air of detachment to his perception of the seconds preceding Deke’s death.

  Eddie stood, frozen, as Deke tripped at the fourth step from the top. The third step caught him at mid-shin, toppled him forward. The top step caught him across the chest, between armpit and nipple. His face slammed into the living room carpet.

  He lifted his head. It left a skull-sized splotch. “HELP!” he screamed, his eyes searching Eddie’s and finding them, holding them.

  Then the Screamer came up the stairs behind Deke. He had one of Dr. Wyler’s lovely metal-sculpture lamps raised over his head like a bludgeon, upside-down. For one hysterical moment, it looked as if he were wearing the lampshade on his head.

  Then the lamp came down, and Deke’s head exploded like a ripe tomato full of brain and bone. It sprayed six feet in every direction, polka-dotting Eddie from forehead to toe. Eddie shrieked. The Screamer howled.

  The paralysis shattered. Eddie broke for the fireplace. There was a sofa in the way. He jumped over it, his feet neatly skirting the glass and brass coffee table. The Screamer was not nearly so slick. Both feet went through the glass, from the sound of it, immediately followed by both knees. Eddie sensed this in the moment before his hands closed around the poker’s handle. Then he whirled.

  The Screamer was framed in the brass and jagged glass. He looked confused. Blood was smeared across his cheeks and chin in a clownish, psychotic oval. Blood covered his gloves. The broken glass had etched fresh gouges in his shins, his thighs, and his biceps, but they didn’t appear to be bleeding at all.

  Another smell, stronger and richer than the reek of Deke’s mashed brains, cut into Eddie’s nostrils. A high, sweet smell, of sick things crawling under the porch to die.

  Eddie gagged, but his grip on the poker was firm. He brought it back in a Pete Rose stance, his gaze trying to cling steadily to the mirrored black expressionless expanse of the Screamer’s sunglasses, as if he could see through to read the intention in the eyes.

  “EEYAAOW!” the Screamer howled. Its teeth were black.

  Its gums were black.

  “NO!” Eddie screamed. Even then, he was swinging. The poker made a clean connection with the bridge of the Screamer’s nose. The face collapsed inward with alarming ease. The shades, deprived of their center of balance, slid off. Eddie saw what was behind them.

  That was when he lost it.

  Completely.

  “EEYAAOW!” the Screamer persisted, reaching forward.

  * * *

  Perry found Cyndi under some Anne Klein originals on her mommy’s closet floor, after everybody else had been dealt their hands. She was dragged out easily. Noisily.

  Beautifully.

  Then his friends came in, and they held her down on the thick white shag. The music downstairs was still pounding up through the floorboards. The screaming had long since died off. “Gonna be my baby tonight,” he said, and then helped himself to a few of the things she would no longer be needing.

  Her T-shirt.

  Her panties.

  Her eyes.

  * * *

  * * *

  ONE

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

  NEW YORK CITY

  The crowd smelled blood. Jake Hamer could see it in their eyes, in the subtle flaring of nostrils, in the way they surreptitiously licked at the dry corners of their mouths. It was the high, heady scent of blood just about to spill, simmering in the air beneath the hot stage lights, hanging above the studio audience like a canopy of cannibal musk and expectation.

  Thank God, Jake told himself, this is only a talk show.

  Indeed, today’s broadcast of The Dick Moynihan Show had a true gladiatorial air about it. People had come to experience a pitched and furious battle—to the death, with any luck—much as the jolly
old Romans of yore had hit the coliseums for some viscera and wine. Nobody was armed; at least not visibly. This was lucky for everyone, the Christians in particular.

  Though He’d be surprised, Jake continued, somewhat snidely. His kids are holdin’ their own, alrightee. Out of the red sand and into the bleachers.

  Jacob Hamer was no stranger to the arena. You could see it in his dark eyes, which smoldered even when he smiled. You could see it in his barbaric black mane, the ruddy lines of war in his face, the pumped-up muscularity that his Rock-Star-on-Parade garb accentuated. At the age of thirty-three, he had done his share of bleeding: both physical and emotional. Much of the blood had spilled back in early ‘71, at the tail end of America’s adventure in beautiful Southeast Asia; but there had been much since. He had a Purple Heart, a Certificate of Valor, and a platinum album on his wall. He had been a teenage troublemaker, a grunt, and a vet with a dream. Now he was a band leader, a family man, and a spokesman for that dream. The more things changed, the more one thing stayed the same.

  He had always been a warrior.

  There were five other people on the stage with Jake. One was Pentecostal, one was Fundamentalist, and one was merely Catholic. Jerry, on the other hand, believed in money. Yke (rhymes with like) believed in rock ’n’ roll.

  And I, Jake mused, believe that it is time to raise some hell.

  That evened the scales, at least in terms of body count: three Christians, three infidels. Nice symmetry for the studio audience and all those millions of viewers at home. At least no one can say it wasn’t a fair fight. . . .

  BAH-DAH DAH DAH-DAHHHH . . . The taped theme music swelled. Moynihan stepped into the crowd, which promptly went nuts. It was like the first thunderclap in an electric sky where the storm had been brewing for hours: an awesome sound, a slight release, the knowledge that this was only the beginning.

  Dick Moynihan smiled cherubically and just sucked it all in. He knew how much power was crackling in this studio, no doubt about it. It was feeding his fire.

  Moynihan trod firmly on the trail blazed by Phil Donohue, from the format of his show to the gray of his hair to the roving microphone in his hand. He had just the right combination of boyish charm, wit, intelligence, and good liberal common-manliness to pull this kind of housewife’s talk show off in style. Jake had always liked him, found him wonderfully evenhanded. He gave everyone just enough rope without ever quite letting them hang themselves.

  But, boy, did he ever love the smell of blood.

  The applause was steady and loud. Dick waved his free hand in the air for silence, got it even as his first words eased out through the speakers.

  “How many of you,” he began, “like to listen to rock music?”

  CLAPPITYCLAPPITYCLAP! A vigorous response, unsurprisingly focused in the prorock section of the audience at his far left. He picked out a handful of sympathetic faces—the cute redhead and her smug, lucky bastard of a boyfriend; the bald guy with the enormous handlebar mustache; the executive woman with the bird-of-prey features—and filed their locations away in his mind. Play to the crowd was the name of the game. It was a game that he excelled in.

  “How many,” Moynihan continued, “have kids who like to listen to rock music?”

  CLAPPITYCLAPPITYCLAPPITYCLAP! Way more than half, this time around, pretty much scattered through the three audience sections. Fewer prorockers seemed to have kids than be them, but not by all that much. The overwhelming sound came from the middle section: people with kids and no hard. fast opinions.

  “And how many of you don’t like rock music at all?”

  CLAPPITYCLAPPITYCLAP! The prorock forces were just slightly outnumbered by the antirockers, most of whom were gathered in the seats to Jake’s right. Awfully crafty of Moynihan to put the speakers and their opposition directly across from each other. Jake noted and filed his adversary of choice, a twitchy little woman in the front row who looked like Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show. She looked like she’d be fun to piss off.

  “Okay,” the talk show host concluded, gesturing again for silence. “I’d like to read you some statistics now, see what you think.” He pulled an index card from his pocket, made a subtle issue of scrutinizing it. “It says here that fifty-one percent of our teenagers will have experimented with drugs by the time they’re thirteen. Fifty-one percent will be consuming alcohol. Thirty-five percent will be involved in teenage pregnancies, ninety percent of which will wind up as abortion. And thirty-one percent will have attempted suicide by the time they’re fifteen years old.”

  Pause for dramatic effect.

  “These frightening statistics come to us from Pastor Daniel Furniss, nationally known evangelist and director of Liberty Christian Village, a religious community for teenagers with just the kind of troubles we’ve mentioned. Pastor Furniss contends that rock music is the key factor in the corruption of America’s youth.

  “Concurring with Pastor Furniss are Joel Wenker, author of The Knock Rock Handbook; and Esther Shrake, wife of the esteemed congressman from Vermont and founding member of Morality Over Music. They all feel that rock music must be stopped, before it’s too late. And they’re prepared to do some-thing about it.

  “Pastor Furniss has been making headlines with his Teens for Christ Task Force, which selectively pickets targeted groups, and something he calls the Big Blaze for Jesus, wherein teenagers are invited to bring their rock and roll records, posters, and magazines to Liberty Christian Village every Sunday night, throw them on the big blaze, and hopefully”—Moynihan added just a touch of soft-spoken sarcasm—“see the light.” He turned to the audience with a flourish, voice rising.

  “And M.O.M. has lobbied to get sweeping restraints in place on record sales, on video broadcasts, and on the airwaves. Congressman Shrake has recently introduced a bill into Congress that would require the rating of albums, much like the rating of films; forbid the sale to minors of albums and concert tickets of acts featuring objectionable references; empower the FCC to ban airplay of any ‘adult’ material which violates prescribed ‘community’ standards; and establish a screening board to check music videos for references to sex, violence, drug use, occult practices, or anything that promotes, and I quote”—and Dick raised his eyebrows just a little as he read this—“‘disrespect for traditional family-oriented values.’”

  He turned toward Esther Shrake, his shoulders shrugging, his face an open question mark. The floor was obviously hers. Mrs. Shrake, a trim, chinless woman with wide blue eyes and neatly tailored hair and suit, cleared her throat. “First of all, Dick,” she said, “let me say that this is not a censorship issue.”

  A titter rose from the heathen element of the audience. Moynihan didn’t say anything, though whether this was in agreement or just the playing out of more rope was impossible to say. Esther composed herself and pressed on, enunciating every word as though she were a grade-school teacher driving the point home to a group of particularly slow children.

  “We are simply trying to give parents the information they need to make an informed choice! Parents have a right to control the kind of stuff their children are being exposed to. The legislation proposed simply gives them the means to recognize that right.”

  It was an impassioned appeal, and it drew a mixture of catcalls and applause from the audience. Jake rolled his eyes dramatically and shook his head in disbelief.

  Moynihan turned to address the man three seats to Jake’s left. “Pastor, perhaps you’d like to elaborate on that a bit.”

  “Yes, I would, Dick.” Pastor Furniss’s rich baritone voice had a hint of hickory-smoked good ol’ boy in it, friendly and forceful all at once. He was plump and serge-suited, with a silver-sprayed pompadour and expensive black leather shoes.

  “I’ve got a number of things I’d like to say on the subject, but let me start with this:

  “Your kids are in trouble, people. Your families are in trouble. This country’s in trouble. And a big part of it is pouring out of your kid’s stereo s
ystem. When he turns on the latest record by The Slabs or The Scream or Jacob Hamer or what have you, he is leaving himself wide open for a sound that promotes sexual permissiveness, drug abuse, alcoholism, disobedience of parents, rebelliousness, violence, Satan worship, occult practices, abortion, and suicide.”

  Jake looked over at Yke Dykeburn, the blond-maned giant to his immediate right. Yke was making a goon-face and jabbing his thumb at Furniss as if to say, Duh, yeah, wut he say. It would have been difficult not to laugh; and Jake obliged.

  “Of course, these gentlemen find it amusing,” Furniss continued, unruffled. “They’re the ones who are creating the problems, and reaping the benefits. They, and others like them, are directly responsible for the death, debasement, and misery plaguing our youth—”

  Boos and applause, in equal frenzied parts, cut him off. He shrugged, grinned, and nodded in a way that dismissed his critics and acknowledged his supporters simultaneously. You can’t say he’s not slick, Jake thought, and then Furniss got another shot in.

  “I just pray that America will be strong enough to come to its senses, ‘cause we’ll be in one heck of a mess if we don’t get back on the track, and I do mean pronto.” He deferred, then, to the crowd’s mixed response and Dick Moynihan’s next comment.

  “So, on the one hand,” Moynihan said, “we’ve got one group saying that the devil is making our teenagers do it; and whether you believe in the devil or not, you’ve got to agree that rock music is dangerous in that it promotes destructive and anti-social behavior in our young people.

  “And then”—indicating Jake’s side of the panel at long last—“we’ve got these guys over here.”

  A healthy portion of the audience laughed: for the first time during the show. Moynihan was a master of comedic timing and the subtle release of tension. Even Furniss grinned, giving credit where due. Jake had to do the same, despite the fact that Furniss was the most pernicious rectal grievance in his life at the moment.

  “Let’s start with Jerry Crane, promoter of the Rock Aid concert being held this Saturday at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia,” Moynihan said. Jerry cast a tanned and robust nod to the crowd. He was pushing fifty in style, and it was clear that he knew it; at the same time, the stress he was under was equally clear. “Now, in a generation that has witnessed Band Aid, Live Aid, Farm Aid, Hearing Aid, AIDS Aid, Amnesty Aid, Nature Aid, Space Aid, and even the Florida-based Gator Aid—a benefit to preserve the Everglades from developers—Rock Aid is still something of an anomaly. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time that the rock industry has thrown a benefit concert in self-defense. They claim that the proposed legislation is the thin end of the wedge, that it attacks freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the separation of church and state . . .” He let it trail off, hinting that the litany of accusations was nothing new.