One Last Scream

it.

Amelia stood by a cot in the grimy little room. Her hair had been cut in a short shag style identical to her sister’s. Despite the blanket wrapped around her, she was trembling. She wore the same T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms she’d had on last night. In her hand, she held a jagged piece of glass. Dumbstruck, she stared at Annabelle.

For a moment, neither one said a thing.

“Are you going to pretend you don’t know me?” Annabelle asked finally.

Amelia slowly shook her head. Clearly, she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. She didn’t move.

Karen kept tugging at the cord around her wrists. The skin there started to chafe and burn.

“Tell her who I am, Karen!” Annabelle barked. She suddenly grabbed Karen’s arm and jerked her forward.

“Amelia…. honey, this is your twin sister, Annabelle,” she said carefully. “You haven’t seen her since you were four, not since before the Faradays adopted you. Do you-do you recall telling me that you often talked into the mirror when you were a little girl? You-”

“You have to remember me,” Annabelle cut in, her voice choked with emotion. “Just look at me, Amelia. I’m your sister, your real sister. Those others, they weren’t your real family.”

Amelia stared at her. “My God, you killed them, didn’t you?” she whispered.

Annabelle let go of Karen’s arm. “I did it to bring us closer together,” she said. “You needed to feel what it’s like to have absolutely no one. That’s what happened to me after you left, after you forgot about me. You need to feel that firsthand, so we can be the same again.”

Karen edged back from her again. She kept pulling at the binding around her wrists. She felt it loosening.

“You killed my parents,” Amelia whispered, squinting at her twin, “and Collin and Aunt Ina….” She still had the piece of glass in her shaky grasp, as if ready to strike. “I felt it when you killed them. I thought it was me….”

“I’m closer to you than any of them ever were,” Annabelle said. “And we can be sisters again, Amelia. We’ll be there for each other. You really don’t have a choice. There’s no one left.”

“My God,” Amelia whispered, tears in her eyes. “You shot Shane, too. In a boat. I saw it. I thought it was a nightmare. Oh, Jesus, he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Annabelle nodded. “I had to. It makes us closer. My boyfriend will die tonight, too. It’s one more thing we’ll share. We don’t need them if we have each other. Don’t you see?”

Suddenly, she grabbed Karen again, and yanked her toward the fallout shelter doorway. Karen stumbled onto the dirty, concrete floor. Annabelle pulled her up by her hair.

“Stop that!” Amelia cried. “Stop hurting her!”

“Karen, make her understand!”

Trembling, she knelt in the doorway. She frantically tugged at the cord around her wrist. She could almost squeeze her hand past the knot. “Your sister wants you to start someplace new with her. She killed that police detective. The police think you did it. They’ll probably blame you for my death, too. Annabelle’s making it so you have no one else to turn to except her.”

Annabelle rolled back her sleeve and pressed the revolver to Karen’s head. “And I’ll look after you, Amelia, I promise,” she said. “I’ve forgiven you for turning your back on me. You’ll forgive me, too. You’ll have to. I’m the only family or friend you have left.”

Tears streaming down her face, Amelia stared at her twin sister. “That mark on the back of your wrist,” she murmured. “I felt it when that happened. Someone burned you….”

“Our father put a lit cigar out on me. You felt it, too?”

Amelia nodded.

“See?” Annabelle said, with a tiny smile. “We feel each other’s pain.”

Karen tried not to squirm as the cord scraped a layer of skin off her knuckles. Still, at last her hands were free. But she kept both hands clasped in back of her. The cord dangled off one wrist.

“Please, Annabelle, put the gun down,” Amelia said, finally. “You don’t have to do this. Let her go. Karen’s my friend.”

“I know she’s your friend,” Annabelle whispered, nodding. “That’s exactly why she has to die.”

“Wait. Look at me,” Amelia said, imploring her. “Do you really feel what I’m feeling right now?”

Annabelle nodded.

“Okay,” she said. Then she slashed the piece of glass across her own hand.

Annabelle let out a shriek. The gun flew out of her grasp.

It happened so fast, Karen wasn’t sure if Annabelle had dropped the gun in a moment of panic or if she had actually felt the glass, too. Karen only knew that the revolver dropped on the floor right in front of her. She dove on it.

All at once, Annabelle was on top of her, frantically clawing at her, struggling to retrieve the weapon. Karen fought back. She wouldn’t let go of the revolver. With her elbow, she smacked Annabelle on the side of her head, but the young woman was relentless. She tugged at the revolver and scratched at Karen’s hands. Suddenly the gun went off.

An earsplitting shot echoed in the tiny gray room.

Jody went limp and fell to the kitchen floor at the man’s feet.

George quickly put Stephanie down and started toward his son.

“No way!” the man said in a loud voice, glaring at him from behind the dark glasses. He had his.45 trained on Jody’s crumpled body. “First you show me the safe, then you can tend to the kiddies.”

Crouching down, George carefully pried the duct tape from Stephanie’s mouth. He watched her eyes tear up with the pain. Once he pulled the tape off, she gasped for air, and then started crying. She threw her arms around his neck. “Daddy, Daddy…” was all she could say.

The young man grabbed Jody by the collar, then dragged him across the kitchen floor as if he were a bag of laundry. Then he dumped him at Jessie’s feet. George could see Jody was still breathing. But he was afraid his son might have a concussion.

“We need to get him to a doctor,” Jessie said.

“Shut the fuck up!” the man snapped. He turned to George, and pointed the gun at him. “I want to see where this safe is,” he said. “C’mon, show me, and bring the little brat with you.”

“It’s in the living room,” George lied. He took one more look at Jody, still breathing, but not moving a muscle. The blood from the gash on his forehead had trickled down to his jaw.

“Where in the living room?” the man pressed. “I’ve been all over this dump.”

“Around this corner,” George said, shielding Stephanie’s eyes from the sight of Mrs. Bidwell’s corpse on the sofa. Steffie cried softly. Her whole body was trembling. George patted her on the back. “When I say go, run as fast as you can out the front door,” he whispered. “When I say go. Okay, honey?”

She sniffed, then nodded her head.

“Good girl,” George said under his breath.

“So where is it, man?”

George nodded to an antique oval mirror on the living room wall. It was 24 by 18 inches, with a very ornate, pounded-tin frame.

“The mirror?” the young man said. “Shit, I already looked behind there, asshole.”

“Well, then you weren’t looking very carefully,” George replied.

“Show me.”

George patted Steffie on the back again. “I need to put you down for a minute, sweetie,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Be a good girl, and remember what I told you.”

Stephanie clung to his leg.

Swallowing hard, George reached for the mirror on the wall. “The money’s not in the wall, it’s in the back of the mirror,” he lied. He glanced back at the man with the sunglasses, and then lifted the mirror off the wall. It was