Scream Catcher Read Online Free

none of that.
    He’s going in and nothing can stop him. Burns has asked for him by name and Jude is the only member of the L.G.P.D. who can enter into the cabin in the hopes of talking the crazy man into laying down his weapon or, at the very least, releasing his wife and thirteen-year-old daughter. This is what Jude has trained for. This is why he fought so hard for the transfer to V.C. in the first place.
    Handing over his service weapon to his father, Jude makes his way up the slope until he stands atop a concrete doorstop covered with a doormat that says “Go Away!” Jude knows how much Burns must mean it. You don’t set up inside a cabin off Elizabeth Bay because you need a break from civilization. You do it because you want out.
    Slowly approaching the door, Jude is surprised to hear his voice tremble when he barks, “It’s me, Mr. Burns! Jude Parish, L.G.P.D! I’ve come to help you!”
    What happens next seems to occur in a sort of timeless haze, so that Jude doesn’t know if events are occurring swiftly or slowly. All he knows is that the door is opened, and a shotgun barrel stares him in the face. He enters into the cabin only to hear the big wood door slammed behind him. It’s then a bearded, sweating, panting Oscar Burns screams, “They promised! They promised!”
    Jude feels his legs turning to rubber, his lungs constricting, mouth going beach-sand dry, eyes focused beyond the shotgun barrel to a mother and daughter huddled in the far corner of the empty cabin. They are dressed only in pajama bottoms and tops, faces painted with terror.
    Adrenalin begins to fill Jude’s veins and capillaries. All warmth leaves his body, and a sickening coldness replaces it. Bright white lights flash behind his eyeballs, and his body freezes up.
    Then comes a team of Glens Falls S.W.A.T. crashing through the back doors and kitchen windows. Screams and the stomp of jackboots fill the small cabin.
    Burns raises the shotgun barrel up, presses the stock into his right shoulder, aims point blank for mother and daughter. Jude is only a couple feet away from Burns, but there is nothing he can do. He is paralyzed by the frigid demon.
    What follows are explosions and blood and spattered brains.
    What follows is violent death.
    But what follows for Jude Parish is nothing but darkness and regret, as he collapses to the cabin floor and loses consciousness …
    Mack reaches out over the seat back, practically places his hand up against his adoptive son’s face. With a quick snap of his fingers he breaks Jude out of his memory trance.
    “That tragedy … that horrible shit. It’s five years gone now; five full years behind you. Let it go, kid.”
    Jude feels the all too familiar lump in his stomach, a dull pain in the space between his eyes. He might be glancing out the open window onto a murdered man, the rubber sheet that covers the corpse now stained with blood. But somehow he’s also looking inward at a beautiful mother and daughter, their faces blown away by the actions of a madman.
    “I had a window, Mack. I had a fucking window of opportunity to disarm Burns and I froze up. I saw that little girl’s brains paint the walls.”
    Mack smokes, exhales a thin blue stream.
    “Under the circumstances—with S.W.A.T. crashing the party like that—you did all that could be done.”
    Looking up into his father’s face, Jude works up a smile. But there’s nothing shiny happy about it.
    “Blame S.W.A.T., Mack,” he says. “Go ahead. It’s easier that way.” Then, shifting his gaze downward, he stares at hands folded tightly in his lap. “But you can’t blame them for what happened this morning. Because what happened under this morning’s circumstances was my fault. I should have stopped that murder from happening.”
    Mack bites his lip, tosses the now spent cig out the open window, exhales the last of the blue smoke.
    “Look on the bright side, kid,” he says. “At least you got a good look at our perp.”
    “But did