Dead Echo

by C.G. Banks

  *

  Twenty minutes later saw her back at the kitchen table, gently placing the biscuits, one by one, into the depths of the picnic basket. She’d come across it, oddly enough, at the back of her bedroom closet, not a week ago. There she’d been, on hands and knees (and that was indeed a trick these days, and not an altogether wise one for a hermit like her; she’d many times wondered how someone would find her one of these days, mummified into the recliner’s embrace, most likely) windshield-wipering everything on the floor before her to either side, and suddenly, right back there at the corner, there it was. She’d taken it out and looked closely, the missing shoes forgotten in this new discovery. Because to the best of her knowledge she’d never owned such a thing. She had a vague memory of her mother possessing one much like it, but surely not this one lost back here in the depths of the closet. No.

  And that had been part of it too.

  Because right then it’d been like a bell going off. Time to meet the neighbor.

  She placed the last biscuit in, recalling these last few strands of thought. She bit her lip and shook her head. Knew she was on the very edge. Almost afraid to look over, afraid she’d see nothing but miles and miles of emptiness leading straight down. Perhaps to oblivion. Most likely to oblivion. More and more, the thought tugged. But she’d never been a coward with the gift, call it bane or benefit, she’d long since ceased to classify. It was time and she was going. She’d already peered through the living room curtains. The woman’s car was in the garage and it was just before eleven. She closed the picnic top and folded the handles upright. Hefted it up off the table to her side. It was not heavy; it felt right, and that at least, she hoped, was a good thing. She had on a simple blue pants suit with a white blouse. As usual Reebok running shoes on her feet. She’d never jogged a day in her life and even now couldn’t remember the reason she’d bought them the first time. Ahh…she shook her head and stared across the kitchen toward the living room, toward the front door. All this was just stalling, all these petty thoughts. She walked across the tiled floor and through the entranceway between the kitchen and living room. The TV was off (she never turned it on in the morning until noon, sort of like an alcoholic with his drink, she figured) and the room was suffused with a gleaming warm embrace from outside. And just then the brief familiar hum through the vents before the air conditioner compressor kicked on. It was going to be another hot one.

  It suits, she thought, and passed through the room to the front door. Opened it and stepped outside, pulling it shut behind her. She always left it unlocked unless she were sleeping and had never thought twice about it before. Now she found herself looking back at the doorknob, focusing on that tiny little keyhole. Wondering if she even knew where the keys were. “Come on, woman,” she chided. “You could do this for a week.”

  She turned away from the door then and walked briskly down the walk that led from her front door to the street, taking an idle swoop by an incongruous hickory tree planted beside the driveway. Several of her yardmen had told her the tree would never make it in this climate but there it stood. Hadn’t complained yet. The thought set to break her mood and she smiled, glancing up into its tangled branches. Then she was past it and the only thing before her remained the woman’s house. Everything else inferior beside it. Now she was to the road. She shifted the picnic basket to both hands in front of her and crossed over. And it was as she passed down the length of her neighbor’s driveway that the singularity of the day began to address her.

  She was utterly, completely alone.

  Right now, here in the very heart of a budding day, there was that. A fleeting instant’s thought of standing alone once in the woods, years lost in the past, laid a cold hand on her soul from her chin to toe tips. Against her will she pulled up short. Set the picnic basket down on the concrete and looked around slowly. Nothing. No humming motors nor kids playful yelling over a block. No darting birds between the houses. Nothing.

  But she could feel eyes upon her. From everywhere. Like she was naked and parading around out here for the enjoyment of every pervert in the world. She suddenly felt the unaccustomed dirtiness mix with the cold inside and her eyes drew up into slits. She turned and looked back down the driveway, toward the carport.

  There was almost a smell…almost, my God.

  She bent quickly and retrieved the basket, knowing if she didn’t do so immediately she’d be heading straight back across the road for her house with her tail between her legs. She rubbed her free hand over her dry lips and willed herself forward, pressing her eyes for any hint of motion from anywhere. She passed to the left of the car (parked in the center of the carport) and came up short against the storm door. There was a doorbell right beside it. It even glowed a dull, sickly yellow, a color to the smell she could feel. She looked only a moment before reaching out and punching it back into the wall. When it rang the sick little light winked out as if trading energy for death.

  Then she rolled back on her heels and waited.

  A moment later she heard someone fumbling with a lock (strange, that, she thought offhand) and subsequently the door was pulled back. The woman standing before her looked much older than she remembered. But then again, that wasn’t quite right. No, because it was really more than that…haggard. Those black circles underneath the eyes, the lank hair. The T-shirt she had on was faded, a single hole in the right shoulder. Elizabeth tried to smile, attempting to hide the unease she felt building like some bleak thundercloud. “Hello,” she said and held up the basket like some pagan offering. Later on, in the stillness of her home, she would wonder if that had, in fact, been the case. The woman’s eyes left hers and glanced down, her mouth a tight line of stress.

  “Hello,” Elizabeth said again. “I’m your neighbor from across the street,” and she pointed in that direction, glad for the moment to look away and compose herself. When she looked back the woman was again staring at her. With something more than curiosity, more than question. Somewhere deep down inside seemed to lurk a sense of need, of relief even. The woman’s eyes widened, seemed momentarily surprised. She looked down at the basket and her hands started out.

  “Oh, okay, yes, a neighbor,” and Elizabeth relinquished it to the younger woman’s grasp.

  “That’s right, honey,” she found herself saying as she was led inside.