One Last Scream

like that?”

“You’re always so disgustingly good,” she sneered. “With Mom and Dad gone for the weekend, I figured you’d finally let loose a little, maybe get drunk or high or something. And I just wanted to be here to see it. Plus to be perfectly honest, I could really use a drink. Sorry if that offends you. But you’re making me feel like shit. Are you too fucking good to have a couple of shots with me?”

“All right, okay, fine. I’ll have a drink. Jeesh!” He got up from the table and retrieved the highball glass. He quickly tipped it back and took a swallow. It burned. Unlike most of his friends, he really wasn’t much of a drinker. Since his sister had a problem with alcohol, he’d purposely avoided it.

She broke into applause. “Way to go! Finish it!”

His throat was still on fire, but Collin forced down the rest of the glass. He gasped for air. The strong, medicine-like taste was still in his mouth. “Okay?” he asked. “God, Amelia, I don’t know how you can stand to drink this stuff.”

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, laughing. “You’re gonna feel fantastic in a few minutes.”

Collin numbly stared at her. When she laughed, she didn’t sound like herself. Or maybe he was drunk already? It couldn’t happen that fast, could it?

“I’ll make a deal with you.” With a sly grin, she nodded at her glass. “I won’t have this if you drink it for me.”

“No way!” he protested. “Give me a break.”

“Why not? C’mon, it’ll be fun. You can be the drunken screwup for a change, and I’ll be the perfect child and stay on the wagon. It’s role reversal. You’re not driving anyplace. Go for it. You’ll be doing us both some good.”

Collin was shaking his head.

“What can happen? At the very worst, you’ll get hammered. You were gonna do that later tonight, anyway. Right?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, feeling a little funny as he walked to the breakfast table. Collin picked up her glass, and guzzled down the bourbon in two gulps. He coughed and his eyes watered up.

She applauded again. “That’s just like you-rescuing me from myself. You took a bullet for me, little brother.”

He sank down on the chair beside her and caught his breath. There she went again with that little brother bit. Maybe it was something she’d picked up at school. Why was it so important that she see him get drunk?

He started to laugh. “You’re acting so completely weird today,” he said, grinning wildly. “I swear to God, it’s like I don’t even know you, big sister. I mean, you’ve always been weird, and I’ve always loved you for it, Amelia. But this-today-is a whole different type of weird. Ha! Or maybe it’s me. Am I shitfaced already?” He snickered again, and realized he must indeed be drunk, because he couldn’t stop babbling.

Collin reminisced out loud about the times Amelia had raised hell growing up, all the trouble she’d gotten into. He talked about how she’d driven their parents crazy, and he imitated their dad when he went ballistic over something she’d done: “‘Ye Gods, what’s wrong with her?’ Ha! When Dad starts in with the Ye Gods, then watch out, we’re all in trouble!” Collin couldn’t stop laughing.

But then he took a moment to look at her, and Collin realized she hadn’t laughed once. She just sat there with a cryptic smile on her face.

“I’m sorry, Amelia,” he muttered. “You-you know I love you. I do. It’s just that, Ye Gods, I think I’m drunk!” He chuckled again.

“We need to get you some fresh air.” She stood, and then helped him to his feet. “This might not have been such a terrific idea. I don’t want you sick. C’mon, little brother….”

Collin felt a bit woozy, but he could certainly walk on his own. He didn’t need her helping him. As they moved into the den, he stole a look at the sofa, where, for the moment, the throw pillow covered up those porn DVDs.

She went to the sliding glass door, and opened the curtain. She struggled to move the door until she finally seemed to notice the stubby, thick beam of wood braced on the floor, tracking for extra insurance against break-ins. Funny, she seemed to have completely forgotten it was there. She moved the beam aside, then slid open the door. “There now,” she said. “Why don’t we sit down on the couch, watch some TV-”

“No, no, no,” he protested, shaking his head. All Collin could think about was his sister switching on the TV and discovering Whore of the Worlds there. “Let’s go outside, down to the dock. You’re right, I need some air. C’mon…”

Leading the way, Collin staggered down the slight slope in their backyard toward the dock, and he realized he was truly drunk.

It was a cool, crisp May afternoon. The sun glistened off Lake Whatcom, and across the calm water he could see the mountains in the distance. The wooden dock was slightly neglected, because they didn’t have a boat. But it was still sturdy, with an upper deck that had a railing, and a lower platform that had nothing between it and the water directly below. Ever since they were kids, he and Amelia and their friends often used the dock to sun themselves, and Lake Whatcom was quite swimmable.

Collin glanced over his shoulder. She was following him with the stubby wood beam in her hand. One moment, she had it slung over her shoulder like a baseball bat, the next, she used it like a walking stick as she made her way down the grassy slope. Her black hair fluttered in the wind, and she grinned at him. She seemed to enjoy seeing him inebriated.

Though he might have felt more secure up on the dock’s upper platform-with the railing-Collin ventured down three steps to the lower, open tier. The water lapped up almost to the edge of its wooden planks. He could hear her stepping down behind him. “Boy, the lake is beautiful today,” he murmured, squinting out at its glimmering surface.

“You’re slurring your words,” she said. “You got drunk a lot faster than I expected you would.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. She’d been expecting him to get drunk? But Collin nodded anyway, and kept gazing at the lake and mountains. “Yeah, I am pretty hammered. Do me a favor, okay?”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Please make sure I don’t do anything stupid. I hear all these stories about dumb-ass teenagers getting drunk and they somehow end up getting themselves killed. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s too late,” she replied.

Collin froze. That wasn’t his sister’s voice.

“You’re not Amelia,” he murmured.

He swiveled around to see her raising the wooden beam over her head. Collin didn’t even have time to react, or ward off the blow. All of a sudden, that thing came crashing down on him, and Collin Faraday heard his own skull crack.

While hosing the blood off the dock, she thought about the funny, garbled cry Collin had made before falling into the lake. He’d sounded like a feeble old woman. And that strange, gurgling noise, it must have been the blood in his throat when he’d tried to scream out. Whatever it had been, she snickered as she remembered it now.

Her brother’s foot had caught on some of the pilings under the dock, and he was floating facedown in the water just below her.

He was their favorite, the child they’d been hoping and trying for until deciding to adopt, and she’d been a mere compromise.

They would mourn him. But they wouldn’t have to grieve for very long. Soon enough, they would be dead, too. Soon enough, she would have no family-or friends. She would be the only one left.

And that was exactly the way she wanted it.

Seattle-six months later

Karen woke up, and suddenly she knew someone else was in her bedroom.

Lying in bed with the covers up to her neck, she’d been lightly dozing for the last three hours. She hadn’t heard a peep from Amelia down the hall, just that machine churning out the sounds of waves and seagulls. Rufus