Final Scream Read online

  Final Scream

  By David Brookover

  © 2015 David Brookover

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written consent of the Publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published and printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1 Three days ago

  2 One day ago

  3 Present Day

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The ramshackle Queens Warehouse District that thrived decades ago along the upper East River bank was now the ideal sanctuary for criminals. Police patrols routinely avoided the maze of abandoned edifices like the plague. There were literally dozens of rat-infested warehouses for criminals to hole up. Plan their next heist. Escape from the law. And there were no security guards for miles either.

  It was felon heaven.

  Unfortunately, that’s exactly where the NNC supernatural investigators Nick Bellamy and Neo Doss stalked an evil killer in the deepening twilight after the orange sun submerged beneath the Manhattan skyline.

  A ruthless witch.

  Thick gunmetal clouds insulated the stars and moon from New York City, cloaking the unlit areas along the East River in impenetrable blackness. A brisk spring breeze chilled their faces and watered their eyes as they furtively advanced toward one of the murky, boarded up monoliths. They avoided the decayed front entrance and stole around the hulking four story structure to the rotting wooden docks overlooking the river. Several single doors punctuated the narrow vertical spaces between twelve enormous cargo bay accesses.

  Nick and Neo warily stepped over and around the missing or rotten timber risers as they ascended the steps leading to the dock’s deck. Upon reaching their goal, they both pulled out their guns and scanned the gloom through infrared goggles that converted the impenetrable night to green and black objects.

  There was nothing in sight except for several brown, cat-size rats feeding on what appeared to be a dead dog.

  They approached the door swathed with the heaviest mold and dark islands of rot. Neo put his former NFL defensive lineman shoulder to good use when he softly rammed the door. The minor crackling impact shattered the rusted hinges and hurled the door across the inside floor, scattering several startled rats in its path. Clouds of greenish dust particles exploded in its wake. The men stopped dead in their tracks and listened for any reactionary movement triggered by the skidding door, but the vast sea of night stayed as quiet as a tomb.

  Nick charily stepped inside. The interior reeked of decomposition, rat feces, and pungent mustiness. The strong malodor permeated his lungs and mouth, and the warehouse’s stink and sour flavor disgusted him. Once he determined the coast was clear, he waved Neo inside. The big man’s olfactory senses recoiled the same way.

  A sudden clink-clink of a metal object bouncing off the concrete floor echoed throughout the warehouse. Nick and Neo stiffened, vigilant. Years of FBI training taught them not to peer in the direction of the noise because the startling clink might very well be a ruse. Instead they stared straight ahead with their peripheral vision on high alert.

  Footfalls. Soft, but unmistakable. Ahead. To the left. Nick silently gestured for Neo to break off and head in that direction while he crept forward with an eye glued toward the footsteps. He understood they might have only roused a homeless person or a druggie, but they still needed to be vigilant because of the discreet stirring. The hidden trespasser might well be their witch.

  Philippa Rizzo.

  She was an otherworldly sorceress out to rid the Earth of humans, no matter how long the task took and how many people she murdered. Philippa was number one on the FBI and CIA’s Most Wanted hit lists. She was wanted, all right, and the poster copy declared she was wanted alive. But veteran law enforcement personnel read between those lines and realized Philippa was wanted dead or alive, but mostly dead. Sorceresses were difficult to incarcerate because they escaped so easily, so there was an unspoken understanding to save the country the expense of a trial by killing them. In the case of bounty hunters, they brought in the wanted victim’s head to the Bounty Claims Office as proof to claim their financial reimbursement.

  But Nick and Neo weren’t bounty hunters. They were two of the three equal partners of NNC, Inc. (Nick, Neo, Crow, Incorporated), and they functioned as supernatural investigators working directly for Homeland Security, FBI Director Rance Osborne, and the president of the United States. However on this night, all three of them issued orders to NNC to locate and execute the notorious witch. Philippa Rizzo was a high level national security risk. She had to be eliminated at all costs.

  So NNC, the supernatural investigative and national security firm, was paid handsomely for their tracking efforts in the Queens Warehouse District, whether they succeeded or failed their assignment. But Nick detested failure, and so did Neo. They vowed to take the witch out tonight, come hell or high water.

  Suddenly, a brilliant light flared to Nick’s left, and a blinding fireball whizzed out of the darkness in his direction! He dropped flat to the floor, ripping off the blinding infrared goggles in the process. The sizzling fireball barely missed him, its intense magical flames singeing his back. His blackened shirt was sliced in two.

  Nick’s temper flared, which generally triggered a physical transformation as a defense mechanism. The orange glow radiating from his exposed skin gradually grew brighter, and his ice blue eyes turned into bulbous black orbs. A vivid orange color displaced his blond hair like a creeping dye.

  Philippa launched another fireball at Neo, who squeezed his massive body behind a crumbling wooden support. When the fireball collided with the post, the dazzling magical explosion splintered the wood and the termite colony inside. The support bowed inward, knocking Neo back several feet. Into the open. An easy target for Philippa Rizzo’s next fireball.

  As she reared back to angrily hurl the fireball of all fireballs, she detected an enormous garnet smoke ring speeding out of the darkness toward her. Before she could swing her body around and regain her defensive balance, the smoke ring passed through her.


  Philippa Rizzo’s body disintegrated on the spot. There was no physical trace of the murderous witch left to hand over to Rance Osborne or the president.

  Still shaken, Neo staggered across the darkening battleground and fist bumped Nick.

  “Nice going,” he said. “You pretty much saved my hide.”

  Nick grinned. “Pretty much? I definitely saved your hide.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “Well, another witch down, and God knows how many more still exist.”

  Nick slapped Neo’s brawny shoulder after he lit a victory cigar. “Look at the bright side, my man. Witches are good for business.”

  1

  Three days ago

  Final Scream was Jack Brunnel’s brainchild and was both the Oracle Network’s ultra-successful reality television show and its cash cow. Most of Jack’s colleagues interpreted his extreme self-confidence and air of authority as arrogance. He insisted on absolute loyalty and obedience from everyone who worked for him, including the disparate reality show contestants. The twenty-six-year television veteran’s gray-flecked hair was long and unkempt, but in contrast his beard was meticulously trimmed. A slight paunch belied his strict exercise regimen and partially concealed his prized Jungle Jim belt buckle securing his rugged camouflage hiking shorts. Typically he wore a plain white sleeveless T-shirt, a battered New York Yankees baseball cap, and low cut Converse Chuck Taylors sans socks.

  He slumped in a folding canvas Director’s chair inside the boat’s production control center and analyzed the displayed scenes on each of the eight show monitors. A daylight aerial shot of the lush island with the title’s snipe position at a diagonal was nothing short of breathtaking. Final Scream: Terror Island. Although Jack considered the island’s name a little on the hokey side, his boss, Maggie Wentworth, the president of Oracle Network, had specified that the island’s droll Polynesian name be changed to Terror Island to boost viewership. High ratings were the name of her game. And nobody fucked with Maggie. She was volatile by nature, and her black heart didn’t skip a beat when firing a contrary employee.

  In fact, she and that Ulrich Strasser asshole were the ones who recommended rather strongly that he produce this year’s Final Scream show on this particular South Pacific island. Why, he had no idea, but he yielded to their wishes. What other choice did he have? Oracle and its parent company, Chrysalis International, owned the damned show. Bought the rights from him after the first wildly successful season.

  He shifted his attention to the monitors displaying the activity in the two opposing contestant campsites. The Stout Hearts and the Lion Hearts. The contestants in both camps appeared relatively calm, but their demeanors would drastically change once night fell. He’d witnessed it before. The contestants’ pulses would race, their eyes would glaze over, and their mouths would be sand dry.

  The object of Jack’s reality show was to be the last contestant standing who managed to avoid screaming during the entire eight-show series. He and his staff chose twenty contestants from the hundreds of potential candidates. No pansies allowed. Once that tedious task was concluded, his staff would subject them to a final gauntlet of startling and frightening circumstances designed to make them scream. If any one of the final twenty broke down and screamed, then an alternate would be chosen and tested.

  Both the Stout Hearts and Lion Hearts were encouraged to invent their own scream-inducing traps for the enemy camp, thus eliminating the competition. After the contestants of one camp were completely eliminated, then the contestants of the surviving camp were pitted against one another. Group cannibalization. And that dog-eat-dog contest produced a winner—the person who refused to scream during the entire one-hour eight-show series.

  Jack stretched his arms and legs in the creaking canvas chair and chuckled to himself. He and his nefarious television crew also devised what he referred to as “Scream Traps” intended to eliminate the screamers. But this year the real entertainment for his staff was spying on both groups as they tramped through the closely packed jungle at night and set their traps. Their sordid imaginations were piqued to horror level. Every single one of them was primed to scream their lungs out, but they just weren’t aware of it yet.

  Jack had seen this behavior dozens of times in past shows. Final Scream: Witch Acres was shot in a haunted farmhouse outside Salem, Massachusetts, home of the famous witch trials. He produced Final Scream: Phantom Chateau inside a Transylvanian mountain forest retreat and Final Scream: Mystic Marsh in the isolated Scottish wetlands enclosing three ancient cemeteries. The eerie surroundings and frightening back stories for each location prompted anxiety and dread in even the most stoic of the previous contestants. Their screams were merely a horrible fright away. Part of the reality show’s appeal was unmasking the truth about the contestants and their false bravado over the course of the season.

  Jack clasped his hands behind his head and sighed. Maggie insisted the first show this year be taped live, no holds barred. No editing. Because of the time difference, Final Scream couldn’t actually be broadcast everywhere in the United States and Canada simultaneously because the show was produced at night. But enough places would see it live and start the social hoopla associated with the opening show. Free advertising for the other time zones. The live feed would uplink to the Oracle satellite, where it was beamed down to their California studios for broadcast distribution to the appropriate time zones. But there was no denying Maggie’s whim generated numerous technical and directorial headaches for him.

  Jack unrolled the island’s topographic map, where the location of the many wireless infrared television cameras had been cleverly concealed from the contestants. If one of them took a crap in the woods, Jack taped it for posterity. However, if any one of the contestants wandered beyond camera range, Jack would warn that person over the show’s public address system to move back in bounds or face instant elimination. Jack’s voice would then be edited out of the final show video.

  But that was in the past. By going live now, Jack couldn’t use the public address system to warn contestants. His voice would be heard by the television viewers, and that was a no-no. So, he would bite his tongue and begrudgingly allow the contestants to roam anywhere on the island.

  Brunnel stood and paced the cramped area before calling in his crew. The rented boat and its sophisticated electronic equipment gently dipped and rose beside the dock. The Pacific Ocean pummeled the other three, mostly rocky sides of the remote island. There were narrow white sandy beaches here and there, but they were rare. The cove’s briny breeze pervaded the control center and fogged some of the equipment’s glass screens. His pace increased. The show—his baby—was about to air live in less than an hour. Maggie’s insistence on a live presentation inadvertently placed his sterling reputation in jeopardy. If something could go wrong, it would, and his editors couldn’t lift a finger to stop it.

  Jack slathered on the mosquito repellant, clomped up the steps to the deck, and poked his head out the door. Twilight. He promptly recognized the jungle cacophony. Mosquitoes the size of horseflies back home in Iowa buzzed his head like parasitical dive bombers. He slapped his neck and swore. That case of mosquito salve a Honolulu pitchman sold him wasn’t worth its weight in feathers. If anything, the stuff seemed to attract the bloodsuckers!

  He considered it a bad omen.

  He quickly barked at his crew to assume their stations. The production of Final Scream: Terror Island was about to commence. He quickly descended to the control center.

  His assistant directors in both camps gave their charges a last minute pep talk before giving Jack their thumbs up and rapidly retreating into the jungle. Their assignments were completed. The rules reiterated. The course boundaries reexamined. Both teams’ watches were synced. The competition would commence in three minutes.

  Jack held his breath. This was it. Do or die.

  Suddenly, the boat rocked and pitched as if caught in a perfect storm. The crew members flew off their chairs and rolled like pin ba
lls against the walls. Jack Brunnel and his chair were viciously launched into a sharp corner that snapped his neck like a dry twig. The rising half-moon cast fast moving shadows through the bow windows into the control center. The production crew lay dazed and bleeding on the polished floor, unaware of the loud slapping on the teak deck and in the stairwell.

  Several eight foot long, fish-like creatures descended the slender stairs with their sinewy arms and hands. The creatures’ multicolored scales shimmered in the boat’s interior lights as they attacked the prone production crew. The dazed men didn’t put up much of a fight. The flopping invaders easily ripped out their throats before dragging them upstairs to the deck, where they tossed the bleeding and twitching staff members to the ravenous and screeching sea beasts floating beside the dock.

  The four beefy Oracle security guards heard the ruckus and peered out from their onshore shanty by the dock. Their brilliant flashlight beams quickly illuminated the killer creatures, and the guards instantly opened fire on them with their automatic rifles. Six of the fish-like beings were sliced and diced in the first round, and the guards became overconfident.

  But it wasn’t to last.

  When the security guards paused to change magazines, a herd of eight-legged, boar-shaped creatures the size of rhinoceroses thundered toward the shanty. Within seconds, the shanty was reduced to wooden slivers and the guards were trampled to unrecognizable goo in the sand.

  Gruesome shrieks resonated all through the jungle from the Lion Hearts and Stout Hearts’ camps. Panic flung them in every direction, where the jungle carnivores hid and picked them off one by one. The night monsters converted the freaked out contestants into succulent meals.

  The infrared cameras recorded the grim slaughter and beamed the grisly images to the Oracle satellite high above. The network’s California studios were about to receive their unedited reality show, but Maggie Wentworth would definitely have to modify its title if she intended to broadcast it to John Q. Public.

  Final Scream: Bloodbath.