The Scream Maker
By Jack Ewing
Nothing penetrates the consciousness like a woman’s scream. I’m not talking about an ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill scream, like when her husband spills coffee on the new table cloth, or even like when she sees her two-year-old standing on a chair, reaching for a pot of boiling water. I’m talking about one of those screams that pierces to the very center of your being, like the cold winter wind whistling through the trees. I’m talking about a scream of sheer terror. That’s the sound that sent chills up and down my spine, shocked me out of my day dream, and snapped me instantly back into the here-and-now. A moment earlier the only danger to myself and my family was the possibility of me dozing off at the wheel, but my wife’s scream changed all that. Her first expression of hysterical panic was followed by yelling: “Jack, Jack, that snake, that snake.” Without even looking, I knew what surely must have happened.
