A Whisper To A Scream (2 page)

He’d wait until she left school, and followed
her home. Then, he followed her to the mall. He made mental notes
and familiarized himself with every aspect of her schedule until he
had it memorized.

Regina Taylor’s murder took ninety days to
plan. Adam only needed thirty minutes to commit it. He loomed over
her body, lying in an open hole in the ground. He watched as the
blood flowed out of the gaping slash in her neck and out on to the
muddy soil. He had satisfied his blood lust…. for now.

Search parties formed after Regina went
missing. Of course, Adam Jacobs was the first person the police
questioned; being that he was her boyfriend. They even took him
into custody as a suspect. Adam turned on his charm when
questioned, flashing his brilliant smile, being polite and
cooperative. But that didn’t seem to work the same with the
detectives that were working Regina’s case, as well as it did
everybody else.

The detectives were fishing since no body was
ever recovered. Adam had thought that out before he slaughtered
her. Regina Taylor was buried in a rural area just outside the city
in a place the detectives would never find because it was outside
their jurisdiction. The entire Chicago police force ransacked
Adam’s room, trying to find any sign of evidence. They had nothing.
And luckily for Adam, his father was one of the most prominent
defense attorneys in all of Chicago. Ultimately, Adam was released
and no charges were ever drawn up. Adam proclaimed his innocence,
even though it was a flat out lie.

As his father escorted him off the premises,
a short, round detective lingered in the parking lot. “I know what
you are!” he shouted as Adam and his father passed him. Adam looked
over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah. And what exactly am I?”

“A monster…”

Crocodile tears formed in Adam’s eyes. “Shut
up!” Adam shouted, on the verge of fake hysterics.

“You leave my son alone!” shouted his father.
“You hear me!” The detective glared at Adam, turned around, and
walked inside the building.

When Adam arrived home from the police
station, he shut himself away in his bedroom. Numerous questions
bounced around in his brain. Did he feel sorry for killing Regina?
No. Being that he was an emotionless robot, he felt nothing. Did he
want to kill again? Yes. Without a doubt. But, did he want to be
the monster the detective figured him to be? No.

There were several instances when he tried to
suppress his urges. He remembered one time in particular when he
locked himself in the closet. Not even that worked. When the urge
to see a crimson red river flowing from a human being overwhelmed
him, he kicked down the closet door.

He stood in front of the mirror in his
bedroom and touched his face. “You’re a monster,” he said aloud.
“No one can help you.”

His father interrupted his thoughts when he
strolled into Adam’s bedroom. “Son, we need to talk,” he said,
plopping down on the bed.

Adam immediately clammed up. The only time
his father came around was when his mother called him at work and
informed him that either Adam or his sister had done something
wrong. He swallowed hard. “What’s up, Dad?”

Perhaps his father had heard about some
evidence that would implicate Adam as the murderer of Regina
Taylor. His heart began pounding. Perspiration formed under his
arms.

His father crossed his legs. “I’ve been given
a job offer out of state. Your mother and I have discussed it and
we’ve come to the decision that I should take it.”

“Oh yeah.” A wave of relief washed over Adam.
“Where at?”

“Burton, Ohio.”

“Do I have a choice in the matter?”

“No.”

“Well, then. Just tell me when I should start
packing my things.”

His father patted his arm and walked toward
the door. “Thanks for being so understanding, Son.”

“No problem, Dad.”

His father walked out of the bedroom and
closed the door. The way Adam saw it, Burton, Ohio would be his new
beginning. A new town, a new future. He would be stronger. He told
himself that he wouldn’t allow himself to succumb to the
temptations that had overcome him in the past.

Chapter 2: High school

Katie Halston is the number one reason why I
hate high school.

“Book job!” Her annoying, loud voice fills
the hall as her orange fist connects with my English Lit book.

The mountain of books I’m holding topples
over and spreads out along the faded wooden floor.

“Hey! Fuck you leather face!” I shout as she
turns her back to me.

Katie sneers, glancing over her shoulder and
waves at me. She looks like her typical self, fake blonde, curvy,
overly tan. I once heard a group of jocks refer to her as sex on a
stick, whatever that meant.

“Fuck who Miss Graham?” A voice squeaks
behind me.

I cringe; sweep my books up off the floor,
and spin around to face Ms. Winkle, my first period English Lit
teacher. Sure, she appears to be a nice, sweet old lady on the
outside, but on the inside, she is vicious and lethal. A real
stickler for handing out detentions.

Blood floods my cheeks. “No one Ms.
Winkle.”

I hear Katie laughing at the opposite end of
the hall and it takes everything in me to keep my mouth shut.

“Well, you can think about not using that
naughty word in detention.” Ms. Winkle jerks open the first drawer
of her desk, grabbing a detention slip.

“Ugh,” I mutter softly, hoping that the devil
in a Mumu won’t hear me. I am wrong.

“Ellory Graham!” she squeaks distastefully.
“Would you like to earn yourself another one?”

“No.” Would you like to pull that stick out
of your ass?

Ms. Winkle seizes a pen from her pen jar,
fills the slip out quickly, and walks over to me, smacking it down
in my hand. I crumble up the slip; tossing it at the trash can once
she has her back turned.

As I turn to walk down the hall, someone
slams into me and digs their textbook into the corner of my back.
“What the hell?”

My face instantly relaxes when I see it’s my
best friend, Wren. “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed
this morning,” she chirps.

Wren’s parents went through some kind of
weird bird obsession and that’s how she got her name. It was either
Wren or Robin. She was glad they picked Wren. “At least it’s
unique,” she’d say. I agreed with her. There aren’t very many Wrens
that I know.

Actually, she’s the only Wren I know.

“What’s wrong with you today?” she asks,
probing my eyes for answers.

“I just don’t want to be here.”

“Do you ever?”

“No.”

“Well then, suck it up. We don’t have much
longer until graduation.”

Graduation, the word is like orchestra
hitting a crescendo. I can’t wait to get out of this hell hole.

Wren and I amble down the hall to our
lockers. “So you got another detention, huh?” Wren asks.

I’m not a stranger to detention, in fact, it
seems like the after school classroom that its held in could be my
permanent residence. I guess that’s what you get for always telling
the world how you feel. I’ve never been the type to just keep my
mouth shut. I always feel that honesty is the best policy.
Unfortunately for me, my honesty always gets me into trouble.

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have. Katie Halston.
It’s all her fault, she gave me a damn book job.”

Wren frowns. “You didn’t have to say the ‘f’
word.”

A tiny grin forms on my face. Ah Wren, she’s
always so proper. No swearing, no partying, not an ounce of rebel
in her at all.

“Wren, I wasn’t going to just let her knock
my books out of my hands without saying anything back.”

“You should have, you got in trouble.”

I snatch my books from my locker, slamming
the door. “I don’t care if I got in trouble. I’m not going to let
someone like Katie Halston treat me like a doormat.”

The feud between me and Katie has been going
on since the sixth grade. I try to remember what started it. At one
point we were best friends. Better than best friends, we were
Siamese twins, connected at the hip. And one day during the end of
the sixth grade year that all changed overnight. She grew boobs and
adapted a bitchy attitude and I was left in the dust.

From that moment on, the war began. I mean,
sure, she did her fair share of bitchy things to me, but I could be
just as bitchy. One time, I told the whole tenth grade she inserted
a foreign object in her you-know-where. I even went as far as
telling everyone she had to go to the emergency room to have it
removed. That scored me a lot of points. Who wouldn’t believe a
story like that about the school slut, right?

Wren and I continue down the hall. I’ve got
journalism next period. She’s got Advanced Trigonometry.

“Ells, you should be worried you know,” she
declares. “All of those detentions go on your permanent record. How
will you ever get into a good college?”

“I’m not worried about it.”

Wren is the type of person who has fifty Ivy
League acceptance letters spread out on her desk at home. “What
about your future?”

I shrug. “The future is inevitable. I still
have time.”

She nods, disappointment highlighting her
soft features. Sometimes I think Wren wants to convert me into an
image of herself. That will never happen. She’s my best friend and
I love her, but I imagine being like her takes way too much
work.

The hallway comes to a fork. Students hustle
past us trying to make it their classes on time. The sound of
rubber soles squeaking against the linoleum echoes and ricochets
off the neutral toned walls. Wren stops just before we part ways.
“See you at lunch.”

I nod. “See you later.”

Wren turns right and I make a quick left.

There are some good things about living in a
small town and going to a small school. For one, even when the
hallways are crowded, they really aren’t crowded to the point where
you feel claustrophobic. Two, that makes it easier to run to class
and be on time.

The bad thing about living in a small town
like Burton, Ohio is that we’re a gossip factory. Everyone knows
everybody else’s business. And I’m talking like everything,
secrets, sex-life, and bowel movements.

Depending on who was in the doghouse each
week that person’s business was aired out around the school and
town until the next best piece of juicy, dripping gossip came
along. This week, it’s my turn.
Yay, me.

Thanks to my new BFF Jimmy Beam, I managed to
earn quite a reputation for myself at a party last Friday. I guess
I played tongue twister with a few of the attendees. Not that I
remember much of it. I mean, come on, I was in drunken haze. I
didn’t know the extent of my actions until I arrived at school on
Monday and my actions were on full blast.

OMG. Did you hear about Ellory Graham?

Burton High is the radio and I am that
annoying song they play on constant rotation a million times. And
to make matters worse, one of the guys I made out with was Blake
Forrester, Megan White’s boyfriend.

Megan White is Katie Halston’s wing woman,
the second most popular girl in school. We’d never had any problems
in the past, but now she has a personal vendetta against me. She
won’t rest until she assassinates me.

Maybe she should consider keeping her
boyfriend on a shorter leash.

When I enter Journalism, I notice her sitting
in the back of the classroom. Ugh. Normally, I sleep through
Journalism so I completely forgot I have this class with her.
Great…just great.

Our eyes meet. She glowers and I look away.
She’s a fire-breathing dragon. Her face is about to go up in
flames. Suddenly, Megan coughs, “Slut!” Then she cackles.

I heave my books on top of my desk and rotate
around, slanting my eyes. “It’s not my fault you lack in satisfying
the opposite sex.”

Here’s the 411 on scandalous hookups. If the
guy is involved with another girl she automatically assumes the
romp is the other girls fault. Why? It’s not like I randomly sought
Blake out and said ‘hey why don’t you cheat on your girlfriend with
me?’ I’m not that type. What I did with Blake was a mistake. I wish
Megan could understand that.

“Oh and you would know all about satisfying
the opposite sex, right slut?” Her voice is emotionless. Her eyes
hard.

I give her a deceitful leer. “And so does
your boyfriend, yum.”

That shuts her up. Her eyes bug out and for a
second they look like they’re about to pop out of her skull. I plop
down on the soft cushioned computer chair feeling triumphant. I’ve
won the battle, but I know it will be a long shot before I win the
war.

****

At lunch, I stroll to the back of the filled
cafeteria. Chatter circulates through the room and students scurry
back and forth with their bright colored lunch trays. I try to peek
at what’s on one of the trays as a freshman boy passes, but I can’t
get a good look.

The last table in the back left corner is
where me, Wren, and our friend Molly always sit. Wren picked this
table when we were sophomores because it’s directly in front of the
heater and in the winter the school gets a little drafty.

Molly’s ginger-red hair is pulled back in a
ponytail and it hangs gracefully down her back. A sophomore boy
with chubby cheeks and freckles hangs from his bench with an open
can of pop. He’s sneaky, trying to dip Molly’s hair in the fizzling
refreshment. I stop in front of him and glare. He takes one look at
me, and sits back in his seat.

I don’t terrorize the underclassmen, but I’m
extremely loyal to my friends. I’ll cut a bitch for them. Plus Wren
and Molly couldn’t fight off a mosquito.

Molly has her head buried in a book. She
pushes her brown tortoise shell glasses up and puts her face
closer. Any closer and she’ll be sniffing the pages.