“Darling,” his wife called.
He began to unwrap the small object.
She was in the parlor door behind him now, but her voice sounded as remote as the fading footsteps along the dark street.
“Don’t stand there letting the draft in,” she said.
He stiffened as he finished unwrapping the object. It lay in his hand, a small revolver.
Far away the train sounded a final cry, which failed in the wind.
“Shut the door,” said his wife.
His face was cold. He closed his eyes.
Her voice. Wasn’t there just the tiniest touch of petulance there?
He turned slowly, off balance. His shoulder brushed the door. It drifted. Then:
The wind, all by itself, slammed the door with a bang.
The Screaming Woman
My name is Margaret Leary and I’m ten years old and in the fifth grade at Central School. I haven’t any brothers or sisters, but I’ve got a nice father and mother except they don’t pay much attention to me. And anyway, we never thought we’d have anything to do with a murdered woman. Or almost, anyway.
When you’re just living on a street like we live on, you don’t think awful things are going to happen, like shooting or stabbing or burying people under the ground, practically in your back yard. And when it does happen you don’t believe it. You just go on buttering your toast or baking a cake.
I got to tell you how it happened. It was a noon in the middle of July. It was hot and Mama said to me, “Margaret, you go to the store and buy some ice cream. It’s Saturday, Dad’s home for lunch, so we’ll have a treat.”
I ran out across the empty lot behind our house. It was a big lot, where kids had played baseball, and broken glass and stuff. And on my way back from the store with the ice cream I was just walking along, minding my own business, when all of a sudden it happened.
I heard the Screaming Woman.
I stopped and listened.
It was coming up out of the ground.
A woman was buried under the rocks and dirt and glass, and she was screaming, all wild and horrible, for someone to dig her out.
I just stood there, afraid. She kept screaming, muffled.
Then I started to run. I fell down, got up, and ran some more. I got in the screen door of my house and there was Mama, calm as you please, not knowing what I knew, that there was a real live woman buried out in back of our house, just a hundred yards away, screaming bloody murder.
“Mama,” I said.
“Don’t stand there with the ice cream,” said Mama.
“But, Mama,” I said.
“Put it in the icebox,” she said.
“Listen, Mama, there’s a Screaming Woman in the empty lot.”
“And wash your hands,” said Mama.
“She was screaming and screaming…”
“Let’s see, now, salt and pepper,” said Mama, far away.