A Whisper To A Scream

A Whisper To A Scream

Lauren Hammond

Copyright © 2011 Lauren Hammond

Smashwords Edition

For Amy who introduced me to the phrase
country-fried like a turnip green.

A Whisper To A Scream © Lauren Hammond 2011.
All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be used or
reproduced whatsoever without written permission except for
quotations written in articles or reviews.

For information contact
[email protected]

ISBN: 9780983868125

The characters and events in this novel are
fictitious and are completely derived from the imagination of the
author. Any similarities to real people either living or deceased
are completely coincidental and are not intended by the author.

Prologue

February 1993

Enormous snowflakes fell from the sky like
bricks being tossed off a twelve story skyscraper. A layer of thick
frost covered the windows of every vacant car on Mavenhurst Drive.
Hannah liked the cold. It reminded her of the way she felt inside,
frozen and empty.

A stifling gust of hot air blasted from the
vents in Hannah’s 1990 Sunbird. Fumes from the exhaust expelled
from the tailpipe crawling along the snow-covered streets like a
swarm of insects. Hannah had been parked, waiting in front of the
sandy brick suburban townhouse for the last hour, but to her, that
hour felt like a decade. Hannah had never been a person with
patience.

Fidgeting, she drummed her fingers against
the steering wheel; the soft thud of her fingertips against the
hard rubber rang out like the echo of horse hoofs against a
cobblestone street. She checked her face in the rearview mirror,
and smoothed back wisps of her auburn hair, tucking the loose
pieces underneath her white knitted hat.

A cry filled up the confined space. A needy
incessant cry that turned into a howling wail, coming from Hannah’s
two month old infant in the back seat.

“Hush now.” There was nothing soothing or
loving in the way she’d said the words. Even though the baby was a
part of her, Hannah felt nothing for the tiny infant boy. She
didn’t possess any motherly instincts.

She recalled a visit to her obstetrician
months ago where she’d been surrounded by a group of happy and
excited mothers to be.

“How far along are you?” A friendly woman
next to her had asked.

“Twenty weeks,” Hannah replied with a
smile.

The woman rubbed her bulging belly which as
Hannah remembered was grotesquely large. She must be close to her
due date, Hannah thought.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I
could love anything more than this little peanut inside of me.” The
woman leaned closer and had lowered her voice. “Not even her
father.”

Hannah laughed. It was a fake laugh, but
apparently believable to the kind woman because she had laughed
right along with her.

A part of Hannah hoped that she’d feel
something for the child growing inside of her. She’d hoped that
maybe as her pregnancy progressed, she’d grow to love another
person for the first time in her life. But that didn’t happen. And
towards the end of her pregnancy Hannah contemplated ripping the
child from her stomach herself just to get it out of her.

Even after he was born and she held her son
in her arms she still felt nothing. Her son stretched in her arms,
mini limbs flailing as his tiny mouth opened to let out a yawn.

After she’d left the hospital with the
infant, Hannah thought she’d try to force herself to fell some sort
of attachment to the tiny human being that was half of her. But she
couldn’t. Every time she looked at her boy the only thing she could
think was how much better off his life would be without her.

Hannah always knew that she was hollow
inside. She was a cold fish that lacked a soul, had no conscience
and she never felt remorse for her actions. But she didn’t expect
the empty feeling that swallowed her on a daily basis to affect the
way she felt about her own child.

On the drive over, she knew she had no
choice. She’d tracked down her son’s father, followed him to
Minnesota, and now she sat in front of his townhouse with their son
waiting for him to come home.

Hannah was pulled from her thoughts when red
tail lights reflected from her right side mirror. She slid down in
her seat as car doors slammed and a man and woman’s laughter echoed
in the frigid night air.

She listened intensely as another door
slammed and in seconds she was out of her car with the baby carrier
on her arm. She climbed a set of cement steps and set the carrier
down in front of a door with the address 16 Mavenhurst Drive
hanging on it in gold letters. Then she reached into the pocket of
her heavy fleece coat and removed an envelope and placed the letter
on the chest of her infant son who was now fast asleep.

Hannah crouched down and examined the baby
one last time. She brushed a finger against his round cherub cheek.
Inside she wished that her experience had turned out differently.
She wished that she was capable of loving her son the way a mother
should. “Goodbye my beautiful boy,” she whispered.

Then Hannah rang the doorbell several times,
sprinted down the cement steps, got into her car, and took off into
the darkness.

Chapter 1: Inside My Head

The urges started when Adam Jacobs was ten
years old. He sat on the toilet, observing as his father stood in
front of the bathroom mirror, eliminating line after line of thick,
white shaving cream. It reminded him of the homemade frosting his
mother spread across a batch of freshly baked cupcakes.

His father brought the razor down and cleaned
it off in a pool of water that rested in the sink. “You see, son,”
he said as he elongated his neck, bringing the razor back to it,
“this is what you’ll have to do when you become a man.”

Adam’s eyes followed the razor—the sound of
scraping flesh throbbed in his ears. He closed his eyes as the
scraping continued. One line. Two. Three. Then….

“Ouch!” his father yelped.

Adam opened his eyes. They widened as
droplets of blood oozed down his father’s neck. Adam’s insides
swirled at the sight of it. His veins pulsated. He wanted to rub
the blood between his fingers.

He shot off the toilet and rushed to his
father’s side. The blood called to him. He dipped his fingertip in
a crimson drop glistening on the counter, but his father slapped
his hand away. That was when Adam’s heart sank. The initial sight
of the blood caused him more joy that anything he’d ever
experienced.

“Don’t worry.” His father smiled. “It’s just
a little nick.” He couldn’t tell his father that he wasn’t
concerned about him. He could never tell his father that he was
fascinated by the sight of blood.

After that moment, Adam’s urges escalated to
a new level. He’d sit in his bedroom, repeatedly pricking his
finger with a safety pin. He’d stare at his finger, watching the
luxurious ruby red liquid flow from the tip, only to feel depressed
when the clotting factor set in and his finger ceased to bleed.

During school, he did his best to contain his
urges. Yet, he wanted to be front and center every time a classmate
fell on the playground. He had rushed toward Marnie Parker as she
scraped her knee against the blacktop. “Ahh!” she wailed.

Adam knelt down in front of her, fanning his
fingers across the open gash on her knee. “Wow,” he gasped. He
scooped up a dollop of blood and rubbed it into his palms.

Marnie winced and slapped his hand. “Adam,
what are you doing?” she cried. “That’s gross!”

Adam shook his head. “No. It’s
beautiful.”

Tears dripped down Marnie’s cheeks. She slid
against the blacktop, backing up into a chain link fence—terrified.
“Stop it,” her voice quivered, “or I’m going to tell the
teacher.”

Adam’s blood lust was overwhelming. And it
wasn’t long after the Marnie Parker incident that his classmates
started to notice him lurking, waiting for someone to fall. Or
Adam, even pushing down his classmates himself. He then decided to
stay away from the kids in his class.

He thought that if he kept to himself, he’d
be able to hold his urges back. But staying away from his
classmates had the opposite effect.

By age twelve, he began experimenting with
animals. Pricking his own finger, waiting for kids to hurt
themselves, and his own diluted fantasies were simply not enough
anymore. He wanted to see the life flow out of something living, to
shiver in delight when he saw the red, sticky substance pour out of
veins, like hot magma spouting from a newly-erupted volcano.

His sister’s pet hamster, Eddie, had been his
first victim. He strapped Eddie down with rubber bands on top of
his biology book and cut into him eagerly with a pocket knife. Ah,
Eddie. He didn’t even see it coming.

Adam gasped excitedly as all of the hamster
blood ran down the side of his text book. He watched, mesmerized as
Eddie squirmed, squeaked, and took his last breath.

After draining the creature, Adam sat back
and examined it. He knew what he’d done was awful. But why didn’t
he feel awful? Why was he so different? He was certain that nobody
who was sane would understand him. And why would they? He enjoyed
watching blood pour out of flesh. He was obsessed with killing and
death. That was not and never would be normal.

He stared at the dead rodent for a long
period of time, waiting for the tears to fall out of his eyes.
Normal people cried when they did something terrible, so why
couldn’t he?

It was simple. He was devoid of emotion. He
was numb—like a living robot—programmed to act like a human, but
wasn’t human at all.

From that moment on, he decided to put on an
act. He bought books on acting, practiced different facial
expressions in front of the mirror, and adapted perfect
manners.

He had to pretend like he wasn’t a freak. And
if he could do that and do it well, then maybe it would hide the
monster lurking somewhere inside of him...

A week later, he had sat in his tree house,
binoculars in hand, canvasing the neighborhood for stray cats.
Victoria, his kid sister, poked her head through the hatch. “Adam,
what are you doing?”

Adam lowered his binoculars as a trusting
grin spread across his lips. “Nothing. Just bird watching.” That
was an excuse he used often.

“Have you seen Eddie?” Victoria asked, a tear
dribbling down her cheek.

Adam set the binoculars down. “No, I
haven’t.” He got up and walked over to the hatch. “But I’ll help
you look for him.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and patted it
lovingly. Of course, he’d help her look—and after they’d been
looking for a while he’d fabricate a lie about Eddie running away.
Even if Adam didn’t help her, she’d never find the mangy rodent
because Adam made sure that after he was through with Eddie, he
flushed his body down the toilet.

****

Months passed. Then years. By the time he
reached the eleventh grade, he learned to perfect his little act.
He exuded charm and charisma. He was also blessed with
romance-novel good looks. Parents adored him. Girls flocked to him.
And his teachers had nothing but good things to say about him
because he was a straight A student. He even joined the football
team and became a star athlete. Nobody would believe that the
innocent young man he portrayed was capable of anything wicked and
evil.

Only Adam knew the truth. And it wasn’t until
he was alone, left with his own morbid thoughts that the real Adam
came out of hiding. He’d close his eyes and envision blood flowing
like a river. He thought of the story in the bible, where as part
of the seven plagues, God turned a whole river in Egypt into blood.
He wanted to swim in that river. He wanted to feel the blood splash
against his skin. Adam told himself that having these thoughts was
the only way he could appear to be normal on the outside.

He fought like a champion gladiator to
control his urges and for years, he had kept them at bay. Then, out
of nowhere, they resurfaced, hitting him like a slap in the face.
He had sat across from his girlfriend Regina Taylor at the movies.
He couldn’t look at her face. He found himself staring at her long,
slender neck. She had such a beautiful neck.

Then, he closed his eyes and imagined her
neck, creased with red, as the blood drizzled down the front.
Regina caught him staring. “Adam,” she scolded, “Snap out of it and
watch the movie.”

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t feel sorry. He
was angry that she caught him and interrupted his fantasy.

He shook off his dazed look and turned toward
the projection screen. In those few seconds he had made up his
mind. There was no way he could push his urges to the side. Just
from sitting next to her in the movies that day, Adam knew that he
wanted to—no—knew he had to kill Regina Taylor.

Adam started his plan by just observing her.
He was the ultimate strategist, plotting everything thoroughly. He
kept himself out of sight, often wearing disguises; clothes he
purchased from a local thrift store, wigs, sunglasses and shabby
baseball caps.