One Last Scream. Kevin O'Brien

at last. He’d assured Ina that the culprit probably wouldn’t be back. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I keep a hunting rifle in the bedroom closet. We’ll be okay.”

      Now, Ina watched him reach into the closet for that rifle. Cocking the handle, he checked the chamber to make sure it was loaded.

      “Better bag this prowler on the first shot, Mark,” Jenna said, still sitting up in bed. She tossed her sister a droll look, then went back to her Vanity Fair. “The great white hunter only keeps one bullet in that stupid gun. The rest are in the kitchen drawer downstairs. He hasn’t fired that thing since—”

      “Oh, would you just give it a rest?” Mark hissed. “Can’t you see she’s scared?”

      “All I see is a lot of drama,” Jenna remarked, eyes on her magazine.

      Mark ignored her, then brushed past Ina and started down the hall.

      Frowning at her older sister, Ina lingered in the bedroom doorway for a moment. Finally, she retreated down the corridor and caught up with Mark on the stairs.

      Like a soldier going into a sniper zone, Mark held the rifle in front of him, barrel end up. He paused near the bottom step. Ina hovered behind him. She was trembling. She looked at the front door and then the darkened living room. Logs still smouldered in the fireplace, their red embers glowing. The cushy old rocking chair beside the hearth was perfectly still. Ina didn’t see any sign of a break-in. Nothing was disturbed.

      Mark crept to the front door and twisted the handle. “Locked,” he said.

      Ina put her hand on his shoulder and sighed with relief.

      He squinted at her. “Did you really see something outside?”

      Ina scowled at him. “Of course. Why would I make that up?”

      “All right, all right, take it easy,” he murmured.

      Heading toward the kitchen, Mark stopped to switch on a lamp. Ina stayed on his heels. He checked the kitchen door. “We’re okay here, too,” he announced. Then he unlocked the door and opened it. “Stay put. I’ll look outside.”

      “No, don’t leave me here alone!” she whispered.

      “Relax. I’ll be two minutes at the most. Lock up after me if you’re so nervous.” He ducked outside.

      Shivering, Ina stayed at the threshold for a moment, then she closed and locked the door. What was she supposed to do if he didn’t come back? She imagined hearing that gun go off, and then nothing. She couldn’t call the police; she couldn’t call anyone, because they had no phone service in this goddamn place.

      Ina gazed out the kitchen window. She didn’t see Mark, and didn’t hear anything outside. The refrigerator hummed. It was an old thing from the sixties. The avocado color matched the stove. Gingerbread trim adorned the pantry shelves. The framed “Food Is Cooked With Butter and Love” sign—along with the worn, yellow dinette set—had been in Ina and Jenna’s kitchen when they were growing up. But these familiar things gave her no comfort right now.

      And it wasn’t much help knowing Jenna was upstairs—if she should need her. What could Jenna do?

      Her sister was being a real pill tonight. Maybe Jenna knew what had happened between Mark and her. Had Mark said something? This was their first weekend together since she and Mark had “slipped.” That was how Mark described it, like they’d had an accident, a little catastrophe. “It was a mistake. It never should have happened. It never would have happened if we weren’t going through this awful time right now. We just—slipped, Ina.”

      It had been a rough summer. Mark and Jenna’s 17-year-old son, Collin, had drowned in May, and his death had sent the family into a tailspin. Collin’s sister, Amelia, became unhinged and almost unmanageable. They had put her on some kind of medication, and that helped. But there weren’t any pills Mark and Jenna could take to remedy their confusion, anger, and hurt. In their pain, they lashed out at each other.

      One afternoon in early August, Mark came down to Seattle from their home in Bellingham, and he met Ina for a drink at the Alexis Hotel. He’d come to her for consolation. But they ended up talking about her problems with George. They also ended up in a room on the fifth floor—and in bed together.

      She couldn’t believe it. Mark, her brother-in-law, of all people. She’d known him for eighteen years and, yes, when he’d first started dating Jenna, she’d had a bit of a crush on him. In his late twenties, he’d been a cute guy, but he’d gained a lot of weight and lost a lot of hair since then. Appearances were very important to Ina, and she’d married the right guy for that. She loved hearing her girlfriends describe George as a hunk. He taught history at the University of Washington, and she relished walking in on his classes from time to time. Whenever George introduced her to the class as his wife, Ina could tell which ones had crushes on him. She’d get these dagger looks from several girls (and often a guy or two) sitting in the front row. She knew they wanted what she had. Her husband was six foot two and kept in shape with visits to the gym three times a week. Sure, his thick black hair had started to gray at the temples, and his pale-green eyes now needed glasses for reading, but those specs made him look distinguished—and even sexier. Mark couldn’t hold a candle to George in the looks department. Yet her slightly chubby, balding brother-in-law had made her feel incredibly desirable in bed that afternoon at the Alexis. She’d never felt so sexy and attractive, so validated.

      Still, as they were leaving the hotel, Mark started saying it had been a horrible mistake. They’d slipped. They were nice people—and married to nice people. This shouldn’t have happened. He blamed it on his grief and the number of drinks he’d had. (Only two scotches; she’d counted.) But Ina knew better. He’d always been attracted to her, and what had happened in the Alexis that afternoon had been long overdue.

      She, too, regretted “slipping,” but a part of Ina still wanted Mark to find her desirable. Even if nothing ever happened again, she wanted to be desired. And for that she deserved her sister’s snippy attitude tonight.

      She took another look out the window. The trees and bushes swayed slightly in the wind. On a quiet night like this, she thought she should have been able to hear Mark’s footsteps. But there wasn’t a sound.

      A chill raced through her, and Ina rubbed her arms. She glanced at the doorway to the cellar, open just an inch, and beyond that, darkness. They should have checked down there—in the furnace room and the fallout shelter. Mark and Jenna used it for storage. It was a perfect hiding place.

      Moving over to the sink, Ina grabbed a steak knife from the drain rack. She checked the cellar door again. The opening seemed wider than before. Or was it just her imagination? She told herself that if someone was on those rickety old basement steps, she’d have heard the boards creaking. Still, she studied the murky shadows past that cellar doorway. With the knife clutched in her hand, Ina hurried to the basement door and shut it.

      The clock on the stove read 12:20. Mark had been gone at least five minutes. How long did it take to circle around this little house? Something was wrong. “C’mon, Mark, c’mon,” she murmured, looking out the window again.

      She thought about calling upstairs to her sister. Why should she be the only one worried? But Jenna was probably asleep already.

      Ina unlocked the kitchen door, opened it, and glanced outside. The cold air swept against her bare legs and her robe fluttered. Shivering, she held on to the knife. “Mark?” she called softly. “Mark? Where are you? Can you hear me?”

      She waited for a moment, and listened.

      Then she heard it—a rustling sound, and twigs snapping underfoot. “Mark?” she called out again, more shrill this time. “Mark, please, answer me…”

      “Yeah, I’m here,” he replied, emerging from the shadows of an evergreen beside the house. He carried the hunting rifle at his side, and seemed frazzled. “You were right,” he said, out of breath. “Something was out there. I don’t know if it was two-legged or four-legged, but I chased