A Strangled Cry

A STRANGLED CRY ERIK CARTER Copyright © 2023 by Erik Carter All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 More Silence Jones Missions Also by Erik Carter Acknowledgments CHAPTER ONE Clifton, Virginia The 1990s Children were an easy target. Naturally. So the man considered himself fortunate that the beginning stage of his undertaking involved a child. Had the parameters been different, he might have been forced to engage a full-grown adult, possibly armed. Fate had been kind, however. His first kill was going to be a little girl. He crouched in the darkness of the forest, watching the trio of children through the trees. The girls’ faces strobed orange and yellow with the light of the campfire in front of them. A scent of burning wood lingered in the air; the man smelled it, tasted it. He assessed the girls—their faces on the brink of impending maturity; long beanpole legs; chipped nail polish of homemade manicures—and placed all three around the age of twelve. They wore T-shirts bearing images of country music sensation Chelsi Nichols—that wild-red-haired beauty with vivacious energy and a 100-watt smile to match. The children had brought a portable stereo with them, and they were playing Nichols’s most famous song, keeping the volume low—just a gentle background ambiance to their conversation. The muted notes carried off the tree trunks. The man watched silently as the girls giggled and guffawed and whispered and shouted around the fire. They were rooted to their upturned logs and had been like this for half an hour. Patience was key; eventually, the group would have to disperse. After all, the concert was to begin in less than three hours, and the venue was thirty miles away. If fate continued to shine favorably on the man, when the girls finally left, they would head in different directions. The man needed one of them alone. Just one. He continued to watch. * * * Seated at the fire with two popular girls, Heather fought to maintain her composure. The forced smile was making her cheeks ache. Heather had never been alone amongst the other girls’ clique—not outside of school, anyway. Despite her efforts to feign sophistication, her bouncing knee and the nagging sense of not belonging threatened to give her away. The other two girls—Regina and Jessica—were grinning. Their affability hinted not at innocent exuberance, though, but at impending mischief. Like Heather, they wore Chelsi Nichols T-shirts featuring the singer’s broad smile and trademark red curls, which were augmented by loud graphics and garish fonts. Regina and Jessica’s shirts were brand-new; Heather’s was old. Like, really old. At least seven months’ worth of heavy use—wearing it to school, washing it, sleeping in it, washing it, wearing it to her grandmother’s in Maryland on the weekends, washing it. The shirt was well-faded but well-loved. Next to Jessica’s feet was a small radio with a CD player. Of course, all three girls had brought a copy of Chelsi’s latest album to the campfire, but it was Regina’s CD playing through the tinny speakers. For the last ten minutes, the trio had been looping Chelsi’s mega-hit, “Cabin Nights, City Lights.” Once more, Chelsi’s voice belted out the chorus. The young, the old, Chelsi sang in butter-smooth tones. The broken and the bold. The three girls were sixth-graders. In Caldera Heights School District, sixth grade was still elementary level, not middle school. Heather had felt childish and restrained all school year, knowing that only ten miles away, Wynona Middle School encompassed grades 6 through 8. If it weren’t for a cruel twist of fate and a few imaginary lines on a map, Heather would be a middle schooler. As it was, she was still an elementary school student. A kid. Now, at the campfire, however, Heather was beginning to appreciate her mandated naiveté, because Jessica’s continued pressure to drink alcohol was making Heather feel more than uncomfortable… …she felt panicked, like she should bolt off, just go running away into the trees. Jessica was thirteen, the oldest of the trio at the campfire. The girl hadn’t been held back a year; rather, Jessica’s birth month put her among the oldest in sixth grade. Heather was twelve, as was Regina, less than a year younger than Jessica, but Jessica had always used her slight age advantage to augment her already considerable popularity. In a few hours, Jessica and Regina would go to the concert with some older kids; Heather was going with her mother. Jessica had called the campfire meeting to “pre-game.” Heather hadn’t known what that meant, but it hadn’t taken her long to figure it out. Jessica held up the styrofoam cup again, reaching it in Heather’s direction. She grinned and gave the cup an inviting shake. The crushed ice and liquid sloshed inside. “Come on, Heather,” Jessica said. “I only put, like, that much in.” With her free hand, Jessica extended a pair of fingers a half-inch apart. “If I took any more, my old man woulda noticed. He watches his bottles like a hound.” Regina snickered. “No, he watches them like a drunken middle-aged accountant.” Jessica whipped around on her friend. “Shut up, bitch.” Though it was a harsh command, Jessica smiled when she said it,