Don't Scream 2 Read online

  DON’T SCREAM 2

  BLAIR DANIELS

  MY CONFESSION

  "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

  My voice shook as I spoke.

  "It has been two years since my last confession."

  "Go on, my daughter, and tell me your sins."

  The priest's voice was low, quiet. Unfamiliar. That was by design – I'd driven 20 miles from my apartment, to a church in the middle of woods. It was easier that way. I took in a deep breath, but only a squeak came out.

  Get it over with, I told myself. Just say it.

  "Father, I'm guilty of gossip. Jealousy." The venial sins came out first, as they always did. It was almost easy to confess them. "And..."

  My heart beat faster. My hands grew sweaty, slipping against the wood. I stared at the divider between us. White, cloth mesh. The priest's dark outline, on the other side.

  "I did something terrible, a year ago."

  Silence.

  The kneeler bit into my legs. The stuffy heat pressed into me. He has to accept my confession. Has to absolve me of my sins. Right? As long as I am genuinely, heartily sorry... which I am. The mesh swam before my eyes; the shadow behind it shifted.

  "I hit someone."

  Once I'd lanced the wound, it all came bursting out of me. "I knew I had too much to drink. I knew I shouldn't have been driving. But I did. I sat behind that wheel, started my car, and —"

  "Who was it, my daughter?"

  His voice was surprisingly calm. No scream, no gasp, no groan of horror. I wondered briefly how many confessions he'd heard like this. Confessions past the normal realm of jealousy, anger, infidelity, theft.

  How many murders had been confessed within these walls.

  "I don't know. That—that's the worst part, Father. I just kept driving. I didn't... even stop." My voice cracked. Tears burned in my eyes. "I didn't check if they were still alive. Didn't call an ambulance. Didn't..."

  "I understand, my daughter."

  It was out. I'd told him everything. The tears rolled down my cheeks as I sobbed. Gaining composure, I said in a shaky voice: "Those are my sins, Father, and I am so sorry."

  Silence.

  It stretched into seconds, then minutes. The hot air pressed into me. My knees ached. Finally, I spoke. "Aren't you going to absolve me, Father?"

  His voice came from the other side, loud and clear. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

  "What? Why not?"

  "Because I'm not a priest."

  Horror thundered through me. "What do you mean, you're not a priest?"

  No reply.

  Who is he? A police officer? A man, waiting to do something terrible to me? Somebody... I lifted myself up from the kneeler, legs shaking, and peered around the divider.

  I froze.

  No one was there.

  "What the hell?" I whispered. "Wherever you are, I'm going to —"

  "Kill me?"

  The voice came from behind me. I reeled around – a shadow flickered across the mesh, now on the other side. Where I'd just been kneeling.

  I immediately ran over to the other side. But the kneeler was empty.

  "Where are you?" I yelled.

  "Everywhere," the voice echoed back.

  In a panic, I ran to the door. Grabbed the knob. Turned it as hard as I could.

  Locked.

  "Let me out!" I screamed. The doorknob slipped and slid under my sweaty fingers. "Please, let me out!"

  "No."

  The voice was low and raspy – right in my ear. I whipped around. Nothing there. Just that vague silhouette, behind the cloth mesh. It was standing, now. As if, at any second, it would dart out and grab me.

  "Help me!" I screamed, banging my fists against the door. "Please! Help!"

  "You know what you did."

  The voice seemed to come from every direction. Echoing, reverberating, growing louder and louder in overlapping whispers.

  "You deserve this."

  I threw my entire body against the door. It shook underneath me. Thump. I reeled back and threw my body against it again.

  "Nothing can save you," it continued. "You are beyond redemption. Worthless."

  "No!" I screamed, throwing my body against the door again. But I was weaker, this time. The guilt pulled me down like a weight of lead. "No... please..."

  "Even if you get out that door, I will follow you. Wherever you go, I will be there."

  The voice was dark and low. The shadow was pressed up against the mesh, now. It looked wrong – misshapen, twisted, different. Like something trying to look human.

  "No!" I screamed and flung my body against the door.

  It flew open.

  I fell onto the floor. Coughing. Gasping. Spluttering. "Are you alright?" a voice asked.

  A priest stood over me. He extended a hand. Slowly, I climbed to my feet. I glanced back at the confessional — the room was empty. The shadow was gone.

  I wanted to run. Out the door, into the parking lot, into my car. I wanted to drive and drive, until I was miles away from this place.

  Miles away from what I did.

  But no matter where I went – it would follow me. It would flicker across my rearview mirror on the open road. It would live in the mist on the hotel bathroom mirror. It would lie in the spare bed, roiling and twisting under the sheets, as I lay wide awake.

  "I will follow you anywhere."

  Raspy whispers filled my ears. A shadow flit at the corners of my vision. But I forced myself to look away. Forced myself not to listen.

  I locked eyes with the priest.

  "Father... I need to make a confession."

  THE HAT

  Grace always wore a hat to school.

  Even in 90*F weather, she had that knitted, black beanie pulled down to her eyes. Rain or shine, hot or cold — always the hat.

  It wasn't long before the rumors started. Since she was new, the rumors were especially cruel. "I bet she's bald," Marie said, watching Grace sit alone at the lunch table.

  "No, I've seen some blonde hair poke out," I said. "She's not blonde."

  "Maybe it's a style thing. Like goth or something," Marie replied.

  "Hey. Don't bring us into this," Cara shouted from the end of the table, twirling a lock of dyed-black hair.

  "Maybe her head just gets really cold. She could have a medical condition –"

  "No. I've got it." Lara, the nerd of our little group, leaned forward. Her brown eyes gleamed with excitement behind her glasses. "It's a psychological experiment. This is exactly what she wants us to do. Focus on it, form theories about it, obsess over it. It's brilliant, actually. I bet she got Mr. Hernandez to sign off on it." Her fist slammed into the table. "Dammit, she's totally going to get an A in psych –"

  "Stop it," Marie said, rolling her eyes. "Not everyone is obsessed with grades like you."

  After lunch was Algebra 2. It went terribly, as usual, and I made a fool out of myself when Mr. Giordano called on me. I walked back to my locker in a foul mood, when I heard a voice call out behind me.

  "Hey, Clara!"

  It was Grace.

  I'd never really seen her up close before. She was pretty, in a delicate sort of way; pale skin, pale blue eyes, tufts of blonde hair sticking out from underneath her hat. She wore lipstick, but no other makeup – a refreshing look, compared to the rest of the girls at school.

  "I saw you get that question wrong," she started. "Sine is opposite over hypotenuse –"

  "So?" I asked, bristling.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean – I just wanted to help." She passed me a piece of paper. "This mnemonic helped me a lot. I thought it might help you for the test."

  She gave me a small smile and walked away.

  I watched as she disappeared down the ha
llway, and felt a pang of dread. Something about the shape of her head looked... wrong, somehow. The contours, and the shadows they created, looked out of place.

  That's when I realized the truth.

  She wears the hat because she has some sort of deformity. And here we are — laughing at her, mocking her. She must feel awful.

  I felt rotten inside.

  After that, I never talked about Grace at the lunch table. She was a nice person. Not only did she help me, but she also ignored the derisive laughs, the pointed fingers, when any other teenager would have fired right back.

  We should have looked up to her, not made fun of her.

  Days, then weeks, went by. Every day, Grace wore that black beanie on her head. But each time, it grew a little less shocking, a little more normal. The others slowly got used to it. We didn't talk about it anymore. Things were getting back to normal.

  Then it all went to shit when we got the substitute teacher.

  "I'm Mrs. Chang." The chalk scraped against the board as she wrote her name in fine cursive. "I'm your substitute teacher for U.S. History. We'll be starting with World War II, so please open your textbooks to page 264." She turned around and faced the class.

  Her eyes fell on Grace.

  "No hats in class," she said.

  Grace's eyes widened. She went pale. The rest of the class broke into hushed whispers. All the other teachers had just grown used to it. Or were sympathetic to the fact she was the new kid, and let it slide.

  Not Mrs. Chang. "Well, what are you waiting for? Take it off," she said, with an annoyed chuckle. "Now."

  "I can't," Grace replied, in a small voice.

  My heart pounded in my chest. Grace didn't deserve this. Never.

  "You can't take off your hat, huh?" Mrs. Chang paced through the rows of desks, until she was right in front of Grace. "Why not?"

  Grace just shook her head in silence. Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to roll down her cheeks.

  "This is awful," I whispered to Marie.

  "Yeah, it kind of is."

  "Mrs. Chang," I started, stuttering, "Grace always wears that hat. Mrs. Suresh allows it, and I think –"

  "Silence!" she snapped, glaring at me. She turned back to Grace. Taking her silence for defiance, not fear, she continued: "You're being disrespectful, holding up the entire class. Now, please — take the hat off."

  Grace brought her eyes up to Mrs. Chang's. "I can't," she said, again. Her voice quavered.

  "You can't? Or you won't?"

  "I can't!"

  Mrs. Chang became enraged. Her nostrils flared; her eyes grew wide. She reached forward. Grabbed the hat. Yanked.

  It popped off.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  Then the room erupted into chaos. Screams. Vomit. Terror.

  The back of Grace's head was blown open. Jagged bits of skull gave way to blood, brains, darkness. A small, matching hole sat on her forehead, near her hairline.

  She'd been shot in the head.

  Mrs. Chang stood in front of her — pale, frozen, terrified. Grace got up, snatched the hat back from her. For a second, she locked eyes with Mrs. Chang. As if she was going to slap her. Attack her. The classroom collectively held its breath.

  Then Grace ran out of the room, sobbing.

  We never saw Grace after that day. She stopped coming to school. I still don't fully understand what happened, and we don't talk about it. We're too scared to. No one can explain exactly what we saw within the walls of that history classroom.

  Well, we didn't talk about it, until senior year started a few weeks ago.

  There's a new kid in our class.

  Who always wears a scarf.

  THE CRYING WOMAN

  Every night at 4 AM, without fail, I hear a woman crying in our backyard.

  The first time it happened, my wife woke me up. "Harry, do you hear that?" she asked, in a terrified whisper.

  Those are four words you don't want to hear in the middle of the night. Images of a home invasion raced through my mind—shots fired, our children and my pregnant wife dead in their beds. But when I strained to listen, all I heard was the sound of someone crying.

  Man or woman, child or adult, I couldn't be sure.

  Only one thing I knew: it was coming from right under our window.

  "Is there someone out there?" Emily called from the bed.

  "I don't know."

  Despite the sound, when I squinted into the gray shadows, I couldn't see anyone. "I'm going to check," I said, heading for the door.

  "No. Stay here, we'll call the police. Some people use recordings of babies crying to lure people out—"

  I laughed. "Where'd you hear that? Forensic Files?" I swung the door open. "First of all, it's not a baby. Second of all, I won't actually go outside. I'll just take a look. I can't see jack from the window."

  I went downstairs, armed with nothing more than a cell phone. But when I shined the light around through the windows, I didn't find anyone.

  The crying, however, continued.

  Now it sounded like it was coming from the forest surrounding our backyard. Just past the treeline. And to me, it sounded like a woman's cries; too restrained to be a child's (from experience with my kids, I know crying usually proceeds to full-out bawling in ten seconds,) and too soft and high-pitched to be a man's.

  I pulled open a window, cupped my hands, and called out: "Hey! Do you need help?"

  The crying sound stopped immediately.

  But she didn't reply. No other sounds came from the forest, save for the wind rustling through the trees.

  "Hello?" I yelled. "Anyone out there?"

  A beat of silence.

  Then she started screaming.

  Blood-curdling shrieks. Over and over. No words, no cries for help. Just screaming.

  That pushed me into action. I pulled out my phone and dialed 9-1-1. "There's a woman screaming in my backyard. I think she's hurt, or in danger. She won't respond to me. My address is XX Petunia Ave."

  The stairs creaked as my wife rushed down. "Did you call the police?" I nodded. "Oh my God, what the hell is going on out there?" She kept her hand protectively over her belly, as if to shield our unborn child from whatever horrors lay outside.

  My hand reached for the glass door. What if someone is killing her? Right now? Or what if she's being abducted, and they'll both be gone by the time the police are here?

  Emily yanked me back. "No. You are not going out there."

  "But—"

  She pulled the door shut and locked it. "You could get killed!

  Thankfully, the police arrived a minute or two later. As they walked into the backyard, the screaming cut off suddenly. Their flashlights scanned through the trees as they searched, lighting the leaves in white.

  Twenty minutes later, they came back empty-handed.

  They didn't find so much as a footprint in the wet mud. "Probably what you heard was the foxes," the officer said. "They've got this crazy mating call that sounds just like a woman screaming."

  "But I heard her crying—"

  "Look it up online," he said, with a smile. "I've been fooled by it too. They sound just like a woman screaming her lungs out. It's insane."

  By the time we climbed back in bed, the gray light of dawn was spreading over the horizon. When I couldn't sleep, I took the officer's advice and looked up fox sounds. Apparently, they do make a sound that sounds pretty similar to a woman screaming.

  Convincing myself that's all it was, I fell asleep.

  But the next night, it happened again.

  4 AM, on the dot. The soft crying, coming from the forest. I called the police again—yet again, they found nothing.

  They also warned me not to call them over the crying again, unless things got worse.

  And so I didn't call them when it happened the next night. And the next. And the next. I chalked it up to the foxes, even though they only made screaming sounds, not crying. I forced myself to fall back asleep every time
.

  We invested in a heavy-duty white noise machine. Bought fans, too, for good measure. Turned everything up to full blast and, for about a week, we all slept like babies. Thankfully, the kids' rooms didn't face the backyard, so they never heard a thing.

  Then the night of August 24th happened.

  The night started out well. Emily and I got the kids to sleep early, and we cuddled in bed for a long time—longer than we had in weeks. "Our little Ellie," I said, skimming my hand across her belly. Despite her being five months pregnant, there was barely a bump there. "Are you sure you're eating enough?"

  "I'm fine," she replied, pulling my hand into hers and giving it a squeeze. "I just don't want to gain so much weight, like I did the last two times."

  "You know I think you're beautiful at any weight, right?" I asked. "You don't need to do this for me."

  "I'm not." She smiled, and closed her eyes. "I love you, Harry."

  "I love you, too."

  We fell asleep in each other's arms.

  Only to be woken a few hours later by the crying.

  It was louder. Much louder. So loud I could hear it over the white noise. As I tossed and turned my way out of a deep sleep, and pulled myself out of bed, I realized why.

  It wasn't coming from the window.

  It was coming from our closet.

  I immediately shut off the white noise and got out of bed. "Who's there?" I yelled, my hand firmly on my phone. Ready to dial 911.

  No response. Just more halting sobs, shuddering breaths, soft sniffles.

  "What's going on?" Emily asked, sleepily.

  "There's someone in the closet."

  I turned my phone's flashlight on. The light twinkled in the darkness, bouncing off the metal doorknob. "Emily, call the police," I said, advancing towards the door.

  I heard the soft sounds of the dial tone behind me—then Emily's hurried voice.

  "We're calling the police," I said. "Tell me who you are!"

  More sobbing.

  I charged up to the door. I grasped the doorknob. With a deep breath, I twisted and pulled.

  A terrified woman looked up at me.

  It was Emily.

  Her eyes were red and swollen. Her face was wet with a never-ending stream of tears. But it was, without a doubt, my wife. She looked exactly like the woman I'd just left in bed.