The Scream Read online

  And the third?

  She made her way across the room, heading for the open window. She didn’t want to think about it.

  She couldn’t think of anything but . . .

  The three mike stands were spaced in an arcing parabola, dividing the room into irregular pie-slice quadrants. It was the preferred rehearsal arrangement of late, as it left everyone facing inward and hence able to communicate better.

  “But not as good as New York,” she said to herself, thinking back to the cavernous, forty-eight-hundred-dollar-a-month converted dance loft into which she’d built the separate light-and-sound booth and the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that let them see exactly how they’d look on stage. That had been her dream and her domain: a huge work area with a kitchen and a sleeping loft, a weight room and even a little niche where she could escape to meditate, though even that had become a luxury in the months before they’d left.

  Pennsylvania had seemed intriguing at the time—positively idyllic if one bought Pete’s heartfelt schmooze, which she did more often than she wished. She could kick herself for just letting go of the place, for not hedging her bet and going through the myriad hassles of subletting. Another fool for love learns the hard way. She should have known better.

  Too late now.

  Shut up.

  It had seemed like a good idea, then: Pete’s dad had died, and his grandmother was in danger of losing the whole mountain. Jake and Rachel were anxious to get their newborn out of the funky confines of Manhattan’s Chelsea section, and the appeal of a farmhouse on a mountain in Pete’s old stomping grounds, yet still within an afternoon’s drive of the Apple, had proved irresistible. The inevitable tinge of urban burnout was beginning to reach even through her carefully cultivated patina of fast-lane fever.

  Eventually, the country called. Bigger work space, lower cost of living, scenic splendor, quaint and friendly locals . . .

  Outside, a bullhorn blared and fed back in howling counterpoint to her train of thought. She reached the window and shut it abruptly, mercifully muting the harangue. Something about homosexuals; she couldn’t tell. The following ripple of cheers didn’t make it through either.

  “Shut up,” she said, out loud this time. Another bad sign. Stress.

  There was definitely trouble in paradise. The first six months had been great, like a protracted working vacation. The hotel was long defunct; they leased it and began fixing it up. The combined monies had allowed Pete’s grandmother to keep the family property from being parceled out to pay ongoing taxes. She and Pete and the rest of the Jacob Hamer contingent had a twenty-six-room hideaway to live and work in. The potential was staggering. In theory, anyway. In theory, they should all be one big, happy family.

  Except . . .

  Except that she hated sharing the kitchen. And the bathrooms. And the clutter of sixteen wildly different souls, and the homey chore sheet that no one but her ever seemed to take seriously, and a thousand other niggling little domestic details that marked the loss of autonomy.

  Mostly, though, was the simple fact that the old studio had been—when all was said and done—hers, and hers alone. One person with the bottom-line say-so. One name on the lease.

  And she liked it that way. She’d always been nothing but generous with regard to its access, even from the early, hungry days. She dearly loved the group and was as dedicated as anyone, perhaps more so. But she’d had a decent career as a hired studio-gun before this gig, and she always considered the loft, which facilitated that success, her ultimate safety net. Her ace in the hole should things, God forbid, ever go wrong.

  Hamer band or no Hamer band, Jesse Malloy’s butt was covered in New York.

  But this place . . .

  This one was theirs.

  And that was a difference she’d spent the better part of the last five months trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed. It was getting harder and harder to do: the renovation process, which had been massive and unanimous at first, had gradually tapered off with the increased workload that the Rock Aid gig had brought on.

  It was pretty much in an everyone-for-themselves status lately. The contractors were unreliable and expensive, especially with the lack of session money coming in and royalties not due in for another couple of months. The crew had their rooms in varying states of disrepair. Pete had helped her a little, but somehow his latest efforts to put the finishing touches on his own private writing room had superceded any commitment to helping her with the carpentry work she needed to get hers going. And so on and so on.

  It was selfish, to her way of thinking. The same self-absorbed quality that had so recently emerged in other areas of their lives. Like the bedroom.

  It wasn’t that she was helpless, even though carpentry was not her cup of tea. It wasn’t just that she was so damned busy, even though major portions of her day were consumed in programming data for the new album as well as integrating the special effects and video sequences for the ever-so-important Rock Aid gig on Saturday, their big fifteen minutes for the history books.

  She just needed some time to herself, in an utterly private space.

  Especially now. Her second home test had conflicted with the results of the first, at which point the instructions on the box cheerfully suggested that you purchase yet another to be sure. Yeah, right. There was only one way to be absolutely certain, and she had already gone and done it, yesterday afternoon.

  And now she sat, trying not to think about it, unable to avoid it. Waiting for the results.

  She looked down at the phone, which sat in squat black antiquated silence on the end table. Its dimwit Radio Shack companion sat next to it: an old-style, boxy answering machine in fake-wood tones that ate more messages than it ever relayed.

  “C’mon, Jaws, cough it up.”

  She stared at the little green running light, hoping that the red incoming light would magically light. Nothing. The green light winked balefully back.

  Her guts throbbed from the tension. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Ring, damn you,” she said to the phone, half-convinced she could psychically will a response. She waited a beat. “Ring.”

  It did.

  She gasped, feeling as though a garrote had suddenly tightened around her throat. Faraway sounds of trapdoors swinging open echoed in her inner ear.

  The phone rang again.

  She did nothing. The throbbing need to take charge just froze up inside her. A distant, more dispassionate voice in-formed her that she should pick up, that Jaws would do it on the third ring if she didn’t. She debated the wisdom of letting it. She debated the wisdom of a lot of things.

  But she caught it, halfway through the third ring.

  Too late.

  Jaws cut on, red incoming light glowing dutifully. She put the phone to her ears. A howl of feedback instantly started up. She slapped down on the volume, muting the speaker. The howling evaporated. Jaws looked utterly indifferent and continued recording for its allotted three minutes maximum. She would play the tape back another dozen times before ultimately erasing it.

  “Hello? Yes?” Be calm, she thought.

  The voice on the other end was crisp and female and professionally compassionate. “May I speak to a Miss Jessica Malloy, please?”

  “This is Ms. Malloy.”

  “Miss Malloy, this is Lenore Kleinkind at the Susquehanna Women’s Services Center.”

  “Yes.” Small voice, sounds of throat clearing. “I’ve been expecting your call.” She paused. “So . . . what’s the verdict?”

  “Miss Malloy, your blood test results are positive.”

  Silence. Oppressive. Muted bullhorn in the background, wailing something about saving children from—

  “Miss Malloy? Are you there? I said—”

  “Yes, I heard you. The test results are positive.”

  “Yes.”

  The remainder was brief and to the point. Miss Kleinkind, pointing out, in accordance with recent federal regulations, she was obligated to po
int out the many services available. Further, suggesting that Miss Malloy come in for a consultation. Ms. Malloy agreeing to come in the next morning and informing her that there was only one service she currently required, and that she required it immediately. Miss Kleinkind saying very well and arranging for a time.

  As Jesse listened and cried, she thought back to the other times in her life she’d marched down this very same road. Once, when she was seventeen and stupid and a little too fertile to ride bareback. Her parents had paid for it, thinking they were sending her on a weekend skiing trip. It had passed like a very bad dream into the closet of her soul, and hardly rattled at all.

  The next time was four years later and a whole world wiser. She had quite literally fucked up, putting a little too much faith in the glowing advertising claims of a certain brand of contraceptive sponge. She fell into the unlucky twentieth percentile, who were almost certain to never appear on the box looking happy and carefree.

  She’d refused to allow herself to view it as anything other than an invasion of her autonomy, and further refused to submit to the biological conscription at a time when her career looked so promising.

  All the same, she had done it with a little more penitent awareness that time: bargain-shopping through the Village Voice classifieds for the best price, ultimately opting for a local anesthetic. It was cheaper, and besides, that way she saw exactly what was going on from start to finish.

  Sounded good at the time, anyway. The procedure was performed by a petite Korean physician at a service on East Thirty-seventh Street, who was very concise and competent. As they prepared the local, the matronly nurse advised her to “hold my hand.” She wondered why.

  She found out soon enough. The procedure was competent and expedient and modestly professional.

  And, to no one’s real surprise, excruciatingly painful.

  That was okay, though. That was to be expected. And seeing it had helped, somehow, to accept the responsibility. She needed to see it and hear it and feel it, as the suction pump pulled and pulled and . . .

  She became very cautious from then on: multiple methods, more caring selection as to partners. A lot of introspection. She was resolved that that would be the last time.

  Which was exactly what was so unfair. She had been cautious. A little overathletic, maybe, but still . . .

  The rubber had broken. It happens. The sperm were heroically inclined. Unfortunate, but to be expected, knowing Pete.

  But the cap . . .

  Her cervical cap had come dislodged. It shouldn’t have. It was new and a perfect fit right down to the centimeter. The odds were astronomically in their favor against that’s ever happening.

  But it went and happened, just the same.

  And now, as the late summer afternoon peaked and the unfairness of it all became moot, Jesse savored the flat taste of bile that accompanied the title of the only service she would be requiring tomorrow afternoon. A strangely brutal word, with harshly backlit consonants that raked against her insides like a rusty coat hanger.

  Outside, the chorus was dying down.

  “Holy, ho-lee,

  Holy, ho-leee . . .”

  Jesse cried.

  * * *

  FIVE

  Mark Schimmel was just pulling the last trash barrel into position when the jet-black van screamed into the BP Gas ’n Go. It was 5:56 in York, Pennsylvania, which was checkout time for the second shift, and Mark had no intention of wearing his goddamn green regulation grease monkey jumpsuit for one second past six o’clock. In this kind of heat, it was a goddamn pressure cooker. It was insane. It ran against every civilized notion of human decency.

  Unfortunately, however, Big Joe Glandular was there, and Big Joe was district supervisor. He was also a complete bastard, but that did nothing to mitigate his authority. Enhanced it, in fact. He had proven that by firing Sally, docking Alan back to beginner’s wages after nearly ten years of dedicated service, and single-handedly turning the lives of all who worked there upside-down.

  Not to mention zeroing in on the mysterious cash shortages that had plagued the station for the last four months.

  Which was not good news for Mark Schimmel: he of the skinny build and bold beak nose and twenty years of age. Oh, no. Not when he’d been generating an extra three hundred dollars a month that was entirely off the books. The odds against getting caught were great (he was very careful, making a point of visiting everybody’s shift every day and—trusted buddy that he was—only pilfering five to fifteen bucks per shift from the cashbox in the back). It wasn’t fear of reprisal at all.

  It was just that he’d come to rely on the extra income.

  Rather heavily, in fact.

  So, with Big Joe on the premises, it was important to be cool. Everything by the book. Hence, the keeping-on of his miserable BP uniform. Hence, the orderly blocking-off of the islands on his side of the station. Let them get gas on poor old scapegoat Alan’s side for the next four minutes.

  But did the black van get the hint? Hell, no. It howled in off Queen Street from the direction of I-83, neatly circumvented the trash barrel in the center of the outside lane, and screeched to a halt in front of the #3 Regular pump, engine idling high and heavy, stereo blaring.

  “Oh, nice,” Schimmel bitched to himself. “Thanks a lot, guys. Real bright.” He thought of yelling at them, then thought instantly better. Big Joe would like that a lot, you bet. Time to play Politeness Man, he told himself, and sauntered over to the driver’s side.

  “Fill it up. Regular.” The driver said. He was an intense-looking guy in his late thirties, early forties, with a thick brush of red beard and very little hair up top. His voice was soft, but it cut surprisingly well through the noise of the van. His eyes were hidden behind black shades.

  “Sorry,” Mark said. “This side is closed. If you want—”

  “Fill it up,” the driver repeated. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard.

  “You don’t understand,” Mark began, and then the smell socked into his nostrils. A ripe and rotten smell, made dizzying by the heat.

  It was coming from the van.

  “No, you don’t understand,” the driver said, and Mark could feel the cold gaze from behind those sunglasses with alarming clarity. “Fill it up or I’ll blow your little nuts off. And I do mean now.”

  From inside the van, several voices made an identical sound:

  “EEYAAOW!”

  It was time to reconsider, Mark realized. Perhaps it would be a good idea to serve this guy after all. Bravery was not his long suit; and besides, he liked his nuts right where they were.

  “Fill ‘er up,” he said with obedient pleasantry, and nearly gagged on the words. The smell was that bad. It made the reek of petrol almost heavenly by comparison. A rush of nausea gripped him as he took the nozzle out of #3 pump, flipped the handle down, and walked over to where the van’s chrome gas cap hung gleaming in the evening sun.

  “You wanna cut the engine?” he called out as he twisted off the cap and inserted the nozzle.

  No response.

  “I can’t fill it up if you don’t cut the engine!” he announced, and then he heard shouting, followed by the sliding-open of the side door on the passenger side. More impassioned shouting followed: some of it from the driver, none of it directed at Mark. He decided to leave well enough alone on that particular subject, set the nozzle on the second notch, and moved toward the bucket where his squeegee lay waiting.

  That was when the Screamer came around the back of the van.

  “Hey, dude! EEYAAOW!” the guy hollered. “How’s the gas-pumpin’ bizniz?” His voice was thick, and his gate was stumbling, as if he didn’t really have control over his body. Drugs, most likely: downs, or booze, or both together.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  No, not by a long shot.

  Because the guy’s skin was all wrong: so wrong that it was painful to look at. It was puffy and pale and greenish, mottled, as if there were some rank dis
ease just waiting for its chance to burst through the surface. And it was slick, in a way that made Mark’s own flesh crawl.

  It didn’t sweat the way skin sweats.

  It sweated like cheese . . .

  “Oh, Jesus,” Mark said, involuntarily backing away. He felt the kick of his double Wendyburger with onions, pickles, and extra cheese, reminding him that they weren’t quite digested yet, they could come kicking back at him in a highly acidic and lumpy state at any moment. It did not give him happy feets. He wavered, belched a rancid bubble, and backed away some more.

  “Hey, man!” the Screamer continued, grinning. His gums, Mark saw, were black as the wraparound shades that mercifully shielded his eyes from view. “You dig The Scream?”

  “Uh . . . yeah.” There was a lump in Mark’s throat that was easily the size of his prominent Adam’s apple, and it tasted very bad. There was no hiding the revulsion that grimaced across his face; but there was still the voice in his head, and it said be cool, be cool . . .

  “Yeah, well, we’re goin’ ta see ‘em tomorrow night, man,” the Screamer enthused. “Up in Philly. Gonna be fuckin’ great. EEYAAOW!” He threw his head back as he howled the last, coyotelike. The flesh between his chin and his shoulder blades pulled strangely taut.

  As if it were threatening to snap . . .

  “Oh,” Mark said. It was in response to his stomach, which said that it was, yes, ready to kick into reverse. He clutched his belly and stepped backward off the island, stumbling as he landed one step down.

  “And you know what’s really cool, man?” the Screamer persisted. “They got this backup band called Cleaver, man, and they’re really fuckin’ great. You ever hear ‘em?”

  Mark shook his head no, less in answer to the question than in denial of the truth that shambled toward him now. He shot a quick glance back at the office, saw Big Joe still bawling out the new station manager, both of their backs toward him. Suddenly, the great outdoors as seen from the top of the Queen Street hill seemed monstrously claustrophobic, all that dark blue sky and rolling countryside closing in like the walls in one of those 1940s Universal Pictures torture chamber scenes.