Mortal Scream (Harbingers of Death Book 1) Read online

  Mortal Scream

  Harbingers of Death Book 1

  L.B. Carter & LeAnn Mason

  Copyright © 2020 L.B. Carter & LeAnn Mason

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ASIN: 9781234567890

  Edited by Dawn Yacovetta

  Cover by EerilyFair Designs

  For all those who just need to scream sometimes.

  Let it rip.

  For those serving prison sentences, they bring sentences of death.

  Don’t get caught. It’s the most important lesson… and I failed.

  Living life on the move and under the radar, you’d think I’d know not to scream when witnessing a murder. It should be a no-brainer, but my mouth didn’t get the memo, drawing the cops to the wrong conclusion: me.

  And the deaths don’t stop there.

  When I foresee the demise of one of the corrections officers, my open trap catches the attention of one of the scariest gangs in the whole prison. But they’re not concerned with me—they want the officer.

  They say they’re a supernatural team tasked with overseeing the final sentence of convicted criminals… and apparently, I’m just like them. A Harbinger of Death.

  I thought getting locked up was the worst my life could get. Lesson learned.

  1

  The scream tore out of my throat like acid, scratching from deep in my belly and ricocheting off the walls of the alley. And it wouldn’t stop. My hands shook as I stared at them in horror. Blood smeared across my pale skin, cooling quickly in the night air.

  “Oh my God!”

  The appalled exclamation snuck into my ears while my depleted lungs sucked in a much-needed breath for another round of caterwauling. My attention switched from my hands to the man who’d shouted while another scream wrenched free from my protesting lungs. He was staring from the end of the alleyway, and he wasn’t alone. My eyes widened. I had a full audience. Behind him, a woman covered her mouth with both hands before lowering them with urgency to grab her child’s head and press his face into her stomach. From the wide stretch of her gaping mouth, I suspected she was also shrieking.

  But I was using my outdoor voice and could only hear myself.

  My father’s voice was loud and clear in my head though, never failing to reiterate his lessons from my childhood. If you’re in trouble, making a lot of noise is an excellent way to attract attention. If stealth is the goal, noise is a great way to get into trouble.

  This was definitely the latter even if I couldn’t remember how the situation came to be.

  The man pointed an accusatory finger in my direction, and the woman pulled out a phone with her free hand, pressing it to her ear as hard as she had crushed the child to her side. When I stood, their eyes unanimously zeroed in on my right hand.

  The knife. I was still clutching the butcher’s knife I’d wrenched from the man’s stomach. It wasn’t medically advised to remove anything lodged in the abdomen, which can stem blood loss, but the victim had already pulled it part-way out himself. For some strange reason, I thought I should help.

  I dropped the blade. It must have made a noise as it hit the pavement, but my prolonged screams overrode the clatter. Kicking it with my boot, I watched it slide under a dumpster from the corner of my eye.

  If you think it’s dangerous to run with scissors, try it with a knife. Or better yet, don’t. Another lesson poked to the fore of my mind: Always secure your weapons before moving to minimize the risk of them being turned back on you.

  Then I turned and sprinted away from my audience, down the dark alley. The same direction the actual murderer had gone, stumbling on detritus and wailing away.

  Onlookers arrived in that direction to box me in, summoned by my involuntary call. Skidding to a stop next to another dumpster, I eyed it and the brick facade it butted, questioning my ability to reach the fire escape above it. I glanced left and right at the growing crowd barricading my ground-level escape options.

  If you’re going to attempt something risky, make sure you have a back-up plan. Failure is never an option.

  I didn’t have that. Or anyone to appear miraculously and offer one up.

  Up it is.

  Scrambling up the dumpster, I choked on the rank stench emanating from within as I inhaled raggedly. Slipping on some unidentifiable sludge nearly sent me toppling into the pile of oozing black trash bags spilling like tar around the bin. The resultant gagging broke my shrieks into sharp bursting screams between heaves. I stumbled over to the middle of the single closed lid, my boots bending the plastic precariously.

  Thank the gods, I’d wrinkled my nose at wedge heels and fishnet stockings. Acrobatics would have been complicated by the fashion. What they’d have given me in terms of a few extra inches in height would have been negated by the hindrance of actually moving in the brick-like shoes. At that moment, I appreciated my parents’ push for function over fashion. My newly inflated sense of self-congratulation and my abating screams—due to hoarseness, not active choice—lured me into thinking I might just escape unscathed.

  The last few times, it had taken a minute or two for my screams to quiet. But this time, my involuntary reaction had lasted longer than the previous four … or was it five? Long enough that I’d witnessed the man take his last gurgling breath, and his blood had seeped into the knees of my pants as I knelt over him, applying pressure on his wound. Long enough that I’d been observed at the scene.

  If you stumble upon a crime scene, dial 9-1-1 then distance yourself immediately.

  I had done neither. My reaction to death was getting worse. It had been so all-consuming this time that I’d been incapable of calling for help coherently. It must have been scrambling my other faculties as well. That was my only excuse for touching a murder weapon.

  If you forego that step, the first thing you should do is memorize the name of the best criminal lawyer in town.

  At least I had my dad with me in my time of need. Never mind. That it was only as a remembered figment of my imagination and barely consciously noticed over my incessant wailing.

  “Police! Stop right there!”

  My stomach dropped to my toes, my mouth finally shutting as the shit truly hit the fan. The police had arrived. And as anticipated, I had more of their focus than the assaulted man, whose death meant he no longer benefited from their attention. The real culprit was long gone from their view, having had plenty of time to distance himself with the victim’s wallet.

  Running wouldn’t help me convince them of my innocence, but ‘don’t get caught’ was the most important lesson my parents had ingrained in me. I’d outrun the cops last time, but they hadn’t even seen me then. My time to escape had been diminishing since the first death I’d been weirdly compelled to witness, about a year ago.

  My being present had helped none of them. I’d simply borne witness to their demise. And look at the shit it had gotten me into now. It wasn’t helping me either. Being a fleeting, unnoticed presence in each city I traveled to was kind of the name of the game in my life. Like a ghost.

  And I was failing.

  Bending my knees deep, I tipped my head back, swung my arms, and leaped for the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder. The lid of the dumpster caved beneath me with a crash and didn’t reach t
he height I expected, well, hoped. My fingertips barely wrapped around the cold metal, my weight and momentum tearing me from the idea of safety.

  Shit!

  Dread flared as my bloody fingers slipped, and I hitched the compromised digits, straining for a solid grip. Adrenaline made my heart pound. Legs flailing, I swung my body to get momentum then flung a hand up toward the next rung. Since I’d lost my parents, I hadn’t really done a great job of keeping up my training habits.

  This would teach me to stop skipping gym days.

  “Get down here! In the name of the law,” a booming baritone ordered, brooking no arguments.

  Except, that idea didn’t really appeal to me.

  My means of escape didn’t agree.

  Without warning, the ladder latch released under my weight. The sliding mechanism engaged, sending the ladder, and me, plummeting toward the ground. My scream of surprise was barely audible, my vocal cords too raw to give it volume.

  I slammed into the soft body of a policeman who seemed to have followed my attempt, sending both of us crashing into the crumpled lid of the dumpster and into the decomposing garbage. Groaning in pain, I rolled my head, trying to get my bearings, the violet tips of my silvery hair splaying across my face. I was going to be so bruised tomorrow, but I couldn’t dwell on the fun colors my too-pale skin would display. I needed to get out of town and, preferably, the state, to outrun reaching hands.

  Enforcement agencies are limited to certain jurisdictions, and cutting through the red tape takes time. Bureaucracy is a friend of the fugitive.

  Before I could even roll from my spread-eagle pose, another scream crawled up my throat, my expression likely matching the dead man’s. It never made it out of my chest as the ladder followed my descent, clanging against my skull. Everything went black.

  2

  I lurched awake with a groaning gasp, my head throbbing.

  “There she is,” a masculine voice heckled from my side.

  Already sitting up, and apparently out of the dumpster, I reflexively tried to bring a hand up to rub the offending area, only to feel a pinching tug at my wrists. My shoulders strained with my hands locked behind my back. Handcuffs.

  The fuzziness of my head cleared in a hurry with the realization of my new circumstances. Daring a look up, my eyes followed the navy pants legs, past the black utility belt dripping with implements designed for the purpose of putting down threats. The short-sleeved button-up shirt matched exactly. A dark blue cap that completed the “police” look was pulled low. In the less-than-ideal lighting, the round face was too shadowed to make out much personal detail.

  “Now that you’re awake, we can have a few words,” the officer continued.

  It was coming back to me. A man mugged, stabbed… dying. Me covered in blood and screaming.

  I sat on a curb, reeking of detritus and blood. “Why am I in handcuffs? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Sometimes, confidence is enough to buy your way out of a bluff.

  As I curled my hands into fists, they felt stiff, sticky. The blood still coated my fingers from when I’d attempted to staunch the flow from the wound after liberating the gigantic knife from the poor man’s gut. Ineffectually, as it turned out.

  “Why were you running from the scene?”

  “Running? Who was running? I merely attempted to climb a ladder in an alley.”

  Do not lie, but instead choose your words carefully so that they don’t trap you later. Playing dumb can be a very useful ploy.

  “You were screaming at the top of your lungs. There’s blood on your hands… literally.” The man pointed at my bound appendages.

  At least I didn’t have to choose my words carefully concerning that specific fact. “I was trying to stop the bleeding,” I answered curtly.

  Losing your head will only make it easier to trap you or allow yourself to become trapped.

  The lessons Dad taught me were coming hot and heavy now that I was well and truly caught. With the remembered lesson in my head, I snapped my mouth closed, dragging in a heavy breath to force myself into a calm. I needed my wits about me.

  “Why were you in the alley?”

  Why, indeed? I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there. Last I knew, I’d been flagging down a cab after a fruitless night out on the town. That had been a disappointment since I rarely ventured into populated areas or connected with, well, anyone.

  “I was walking past, trying to get a cab.” I had no idea if that was true or not. I didn’t even know in what area the murder had taken place let alone where we were now. On the street that fed into the alley? Flashing red and blue lights imbued everything nearby with their hues, disorienting me with their intensity.

  The look on the officer’s face was also intense. “Witnesses saw you on the scene, hands on the victim, screaming.”

  All true. “And?” That wasn’t enough for an arrest. My rights and the limitations of the law were topics I knew very well after years of study. Though… I hadn’t kept myself up to date…

  “And that’s enough to detain you for questioning,” he deadpanned.

  Well, shit.

  Reaching down toward my hinged wrists, he wrapped a meaty, sterile-gloved hand around my elbow. “All right, use your knees. Ready? One, two… three.”

  Luckily, I was pretty lean, so moving my weight around wasn’t too hard, especially with help. I was now ecstatic in my choice not to wear a skirt for tonight’s activities, not to mention the boots again.

  This had not been one of the planned activities for my evening. How had I gotten in this position? I wasn’t some delinquent even if I kind of resembled one. Piercings and gauges didn’t make a girl a criminal though I’d been finding myself in precarious situations as of late. Situations all-too-similar to the one this night, truth be told, but with one distinct difference.

  I hadn’t been in police custody those times. I’d just been forced to move to the next stop on my never-ending journey through the country.

  Don’t get caught.

  That lesson had been drilled into me since I was young, but I’d had no reference for the warnings. I wasn’t even sure it referred solely to law enforcement. Why else would a father instill such a lesson in his child? I certainly wasn’t the most law-abiding chick in order to stay under the radar. But this instance stood out as a flagrant exception to my normal corner-cutting. Hell, maybe I was a delinquent now. A year ago, I’d been some normal-ish twenty-two-year-old, banging out a day job to pay the bills and to have enough left over to get my jollies on a couple of times a month.

  But now, I was having memory lapses and sleepwalking, or something, to find myself standing over some poor schmuck’s pavement grave. Several times over.

  And what do I do? Scream.

  Bloody-fucking-murder type of screams that pull forth from deep in my soul and refuse to abate. Like to a point where, not only could I not stop it, but I physically couldn’t seem to do anything but scream. What was happening to me?

  “Lee, you ready for me?” A husky female asked, coming around the butt of the squad car.

  “We’re going to pat you down. Do you have anything in your pockets that could stick me?” After a shake of my head, the female moved forward and began running her blue-gloved hands all over my body.

  She checked way more than my pockets and was quite thorough. If it had been the male officer who’d been frisking me, I’d definitely have felt violated, which I guessed was exactly why they’d brought in a female for the job.

  “So, I guess women are guaranteed jobs as cops as long as chicks are needing pat-downs, huh?”

  “You could say that, chick.” Touché. “Watch your head,” she quipped, pushing down to avoid another knock to my noggin as she helped me into the back of one of the police vehicles. Splashing lights still mottled my skin.

  I never thought I’d be handcuffed, covered in blood, and in the back of a police cruiser on my way to the station for an—I was sure—more rigorous interrogation. How
did I get myself into this mess? Better question… how could I get myself out? The truth shall set you free, right? Well, I didn’t do what they thought I did, so all I had to do was convince them of that… right?

  Slumping forward, I let my forehead meet the plastic divider keeping the squishy policeman who’d questioned me safe from the five-foot-eight, one-hundred-and-thirty-pound degenerate in the back. I pulled my head back slightly then let it thump forward into the glass. And again.

  “Hey! Knock it off,” the cop griped, apparently not liking my method of passing the time.

  Deciding I didn’t really want to deal with being led into his domain having personally offended the man, I sat back, letting my neck go limp against the rear instead.

  Don’t waste energy in a futile fight. Instead, wait for an opportunity to arise from which you can benefit. Patience is your ally.

  Who knew how long I’d have to wait for such an “opportunity,” but I’d learned a while back to listen to my inner “Dad” musings. Most were invaluable. That’s how I evaded capture… until now.

  The city I currently called home streaked by in a blur of shadows, neon signs, and halos of light provided by the street lamps. It seemed so normal, peaceful even, until we slowed to enter the police precinct’s back lot. The boys in blue were everywhere. Several milled around a rear entrance that was most likely exactly where we were headed. Looked like tonight’s misadventure had been broadcast through the station. They either thought I was some crazy threat and my officer might need further assistance… or they wanted to gawk.

  “Let’s go.” The male officer held the door closest to me open and waited for me to obey. With the interior lights ablaze, I could make out more of his face. He was kinda squirrely looking with puffy cheeks and a full mustache that twitched as he waited for me to scoot my butt toward the opening. “Time to be processed. Let’s go, Goth Girl.”