Lost Echoes

by Joe R. Lansdale

“I’m no good. Don’t know how.”

  “I can teach you.”

  Harry shook his head. “I think that would be a waste of your time.”

  “Oh, there you are.” It was Talia.

  “Hello, dear,” Julia said. “I was trying to steal your date.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Talia said. Mother and daughter sparred with their eyes.

  “I’ll just get a drink now,” Julia said. “You two enjoy. And show the boy how to dance. He says he doesn’t know how.”

  Julia, like a bloodied bird, glided away on the light and the music, dancing as if with a partner.

  “She’s quite charming,” Harry said.

  “She’s a bitch,” Talia said. “She’d fuck you, you know? That’s how she is.”

  Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He was beginning to feel as if the world was not in fact round, but awkward-shaped and rare of gravity and hard to stand on.

  “But don’t feel too proud,” Talia said. “She’s fucked the waitstaff before. Both the men and the women. Whoever was willing and didn’t mind a little extra money.”

  Harry looked in the direction of the waitstaff, standing by the counterful of food.

  “All of them?”

  “No. She fucks them, pays them, and fires them. This is a new lot. Some of them won’t appeal to her. Though she has a taste for almost anybody.”

  Harry didn’t know what to say to that either, but it didn’t exactly swell his pride.

  “Let’s get a drink,” Talia said.

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Just tonight.”

  “I made a promise to someone.”

  “For me.”

  “Nope. Not even you. I’ll have a soda, some iced tea maybe.”

  “You’re starting to be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.”

  They got drinks, Talia a beer, him a soda, and pretty soon they were dancing. Harry wasn’t good at it, but Talia helped by dancing very close and giving him pointers. Before long she was back at the bar, getting another drink. As the night wore on and she drank more, her dancing got wilder. By midnight she was riding his leg like a horny dog.

  Once, over by the food counter, Harry saw one of the boys he had seen that day on campus with Talia. Kyle. That was his name, When Harry turned back to Talia, he saw she was watching the boy as well, and he felt a little twist inside. Nothing big, just a little one, like a washerwoman had twisted a wet rag sharply to wring out the water.

  “Let’s get some air,” he said. “Out back, away from the band.”

  “All right. Oh, I’m tipsy.”

  “Honey. You’re drunk.”

  “Just a little.”

  They went out the back way, through the big carport, and looked about. The stars lay down on the tips of the pine trees and the glow from the front field lights fled over the top of the house and dissolved into a silver film before reaching the trees.

  “There’s a place I want to show you,” Talia said. “It’s kind of cool.”

  “We’re leaving?”

  “No. It’s out back, down the wooded trail. I used to play there. It’s a kind of a root cellar, or storm cellar. Not that we need one or use it for that. But Mom and Dad liked the idea, and it was a playhouse for me. When I got older, Daddy took it over.”

  She took his hand began leading him across the yard, toward the woods. “He goes there to get away from my mother. He and some of his friends go there to play cards. Or used to. He hasn’t been there in ages now.”

  “Won’t it be kind of worn down? Dangerous?”

  “It was well made. Sealed tight so water doesn’t get in. Oh, shit.”

  Talia tripped. Harry caught her.

  “Maybe I did drink too much,” she said.

  “Just a little. You’re not full-fledged drunk. You want to go back?”

  “No. Not at all. Come on.”

  The shelter was out in the woods. It was standing partially out of the ground, made of thick concrete. The entrance looked like a tomb.

  Talia took hold of the door handle and tugged.

  Nothing happened.

  “It’s a little heavy and I’m a little drunk.”

  Harry pulled. It slid back smooth and easy. “It’s been recently oiled. I can smell it.”

  “Like I said, Daddy keeps it up.”

  “Don’t we need a flashlight?”

  “It has electricity.”

  Talia reached inside and hit a switch and the place lit up. It wasn’t a bright light, but it was light. It hung down on a long black cord, and there was a bulb contained within wire mesh, and the light through the mesh made the room appear as if it were contained within a spiderweb. The light showed a drop of stairs, and Harry could see a bed against one wall, and he couldn’t see much else.

  They left the door open, and as they went down he was surprised to discover it was quite roomy. There was even a bookshelf and some books. There was a doorway that led somewhere. There were spiderwebs, and one wall was crumbly. A roach ran under their feet, and Talia made a noise and jumped.

  “I can stand snakes, spiders,” she said, “but I can’t stand a roach. Oh, I’m dizzy.”

  Talia sat on the narrow bed.

  “What’s through the door?”

  “The generator. Runs on kerosene. There’s a toilet too. It’s got a big septic tank. You wouldn’t believe. Daddy wanted to make sure everyone got to shit. A lot.”

  “Kerosene?”

  “It’s old-style.”

  Talia patted a place beside her. Only a little dust came up.

  “Your dress is going to get dusty, and this suit you bought me.”

  “We’ll dust each other off. If you know what I mean.”

  Harry sat.

  Talia leaned to him, and they kissed. Her lips tasted like what she had been drinking, but it wasn’t bad. Her perfume reminded him of orange blossoms. She ran her hand under his coat and pushed at the inside of it. He removed it, laid it at the foot of the bed. He slipped the straps of her dress down. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t need one. In a few years, probably, way she was built, the size of her breasts, she would, but right now—perfect. As he kissed her again, he took hold of her left breast and gently squeezed it, let his thumb and finger play over her nipple, felt it go stiff.

  A breeze came. The door was caught by it. It slammed and the light cord shook—

  —and the world went to pieces and so did the kiss. Colors leaped into Harry’s head, and the colors screamed.

  39

  Puzzle pieces, like a Picasso painting, flew through Harry’s cranium, wrestled together briefly, then there was light and the light went back and forth and the shadows did the same.

  It was the light on the cord, and the room was fresher-looking. There was a large man coming down the stairs, and Harry knew then that the slamming door had shaken the bulb on the wire. The room leaped from bright to shadow and back again as the bulb went this way and that. The man on the stairs was carrying something bundled in what looked like a blanket. The blanket moved.

  Harry was looking up the stairs, and in another way he was overhead and looking down, but he couldn’t see the man’s face because he wore a hat and it was low on his forehead and the collar of his long coat was turned up and the bundle he carried, which he carried as if heavy, was partially in front of his face. As he worked his way downstairs, turned at the bottom, one end of the bundle struck the bulb sharply, and it swung harder and hit the wall and exploded against the wire mesh of the fixture and the shelter went dark.

  A pause and silence.

  A snapping sound.

  A burst of flame.

  A match had been struck.

  In the glow Harry could see the bundle on the floor. The man bent over it and the flame licked his face, but even in the match light it was still too dark to make out his features.

  The match went out.

  Another was lit.

  The man went across the room to a shelf. He walked as if his fo
ot hurt. He took down a candle and lit it. The candle wavered and the light in the room wavered. The big man opened the bundle. A young man was inside. Not a kid, but a little guy. Even in the dim light Harry could tell the man was redheaded and freckle-faced.

  The young man had a rag in his mouth—no, a sock—and his hands and legs were tied with what looked like wire. His head had a large red raspberry on it. Harry knew then that the big man had slammed the redhead’s head against the door outside, and the whole thing had been recorded. He watched as the frightened young man, out of the wrapping, tried to scootch away on his butt. He didn’t get far. He came up against the wall.

  The big man stood, his shadow falling over the young man like a tar-covered slat. He bent, dragged the kid to the center of the room by his feet, spun him on his butt, wrapped his left arm around the kid’s neck, hooked his hand into the bend of his right elbow, slid his right hand behind his victim’s head and began to choke—

  “That hurts…too tight, Harry.”

  —and the room was full of colors, the sound of the young man struggling, trying to free his neck arteries from being crushed. All of this, the nerves screaming, the muscles snapping, these sounds were as loud in Harry’s ears as firecrackers popping. Then the young man made a spitting sound, and his feet, tied together, rose up and hit down, and did it again, and went still. The big man continued to squeeze, and he bent forward, putting his weight on the back of the young man’s neck—

  “For God’s sake, quit it.”

  —and there was a snapping sound so loud it made Harry feel as if his eyes would bulge out. The big man let out a breath that reminded him of a tired man lying down to rest, then all was—

  —bright light and Talia screaming, “You’re scaring me. Stop it! Stop it!”

  Harry snapped back. His fingers ached and his mind felt drunk.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Harry had hold of Talia’s arms, and he was squeezing hard, so hard his fingers hurt, and he was hanging on as if for dear life. Her dress was down and her breasts swayed in the light as she struggled.

  He let her go.

  “Sorry…Sorry. My God, Talia. My God…There was a murder.”

  “What?” Talia said, standing, slipping her arms through the dress straps, looking at Harry as if he had fallen out of the sky dressed in a gold lamé jumpsuit.

  “Right here,” he said. “In this room. There was a murder.”

  “A murder? What are you talking about…? You hurt my arms, you son of a bitch.”

  “And I think your father did it.”

  40

  Outside the air was easier to breathe and the sky was full of all those shiny yard lights. The backyard was stuffed with people, because Talia, mad as if she had been dipped in acid, had burst out of the shelter screaming, running toward the house, leaving Harry, coatless and confused.

  She brought the crowd back with her. She was no longer drunk. She had snapped out of it.

  So now he stood there, out of the woods, away from the shelter at the edge of the yard, watching as they swelled around him like a great flood of well-dressed water.

  “What are you doing to my daughter?” Talia’s dad said. “She said you hurt her.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Harry said. “It was an accident. I swear. I had…I had a vision.”

  “Do what?” her father said.

  “A vision.”

  “He’s crazy, Daddy,” Talia said. “I didn’t know he was crazy.”

  “It’s okay, Talia.” It was the boy who had been in the crowd at school, at the burger joint, the one he had seen Talia look at while dancing. Kyle. All sorts of ideas and questions, and even some sad answers, came to Harry as he watched the boy slide up and put his arm around Talia’s waist.

  “She wanted to show me the storm shelter,” Harry said.

  “I did,” Talia said. “And then he was all over me. Look at my arms and wrists…. Well, you can’t see them in this light, but they’re bruised. Bad.”

  “I ought to beat you down, boy,” her father said.

  “It was an accident, I swear.”

  Talia’s mother arrived. She wobbled out of the crowd and looked at Harry and smiled. “You’re cute, you know it?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Mr. McGuire said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, punched buttons. Then to Harry: “I’m calling the police.”

  “The police?” Harry said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “He said you killed someone, Daddy,” Talia said, clinging tightly to the boy.

  “What?” Mr. McGuire said, then, into the phone: “Oh, police. Yes. Yes.”

  He gave his name and address, clicked off the phone, dropped it into his front pants pocket.

  “Killed someone?” Mr. McGuire said. “Me?”

  “He said he thought you killed someone,” Talia said. “You, Daddy.”

  “In the vision,” Harry said, “he looked like you.”

  “Killed who?” Mr. McGuire said. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know, a redheaded man, had freckles.”

  “No shit. A redheaded man with freckles. Did he have on a funny hat? Maybe some goddamn galoshes?”

  “No,” Harry said. “The man, the one big as you, he had on the hat. But it wasn’t funny.”

  As they talked the crowd had begun to mumble, and now they came closer and closer to Harry, and he felt as if he were going to faint, as if he were tucked too tightly in cotton and all the air was being sucked out of the universe by God’s own vacuum.

  “I killed someone, and I had on a hat?” Mr. McGuire said. “A redheaded man with freckles?”

  “He might have been you. The size he was…I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t you.”

  “Now you’re not sure. Son, you need to make sure you stay on your medicine.”

  “I think you might be right,” Harry said.

  Mrs. McGuire said something, but Mr. McGuire yelled her down. She said, “You’re always such a shit. I’m going back to the house.”

  And away she went, adrift and a-stumble toward the house.

  They all stood there, Harry in the center, the crowd talking amongst themselves, breathing alcohol into the night air, and Harry, like some kind of sculpture, waited while they looked at him.

  About ten minutes past forever the sky began to vibrate with red, blue, yellow, and white lights that wrapped around the golden light from the front yard and twisted it into a knotty rainbow.

  The police cars had arrived.

  With lights flashing, no sirens, three cop cars pulled into the back driveway and parked, doors opened, and cops poured out. The crowd split and the cops came up beside Mr. McGuire.

  One of the cops was Kayla.

  41

  “Before we go any further,” the sergeant said, “my name is Sergeant Tom Pale. This scar on my face, I know it can be distracting, so I’m gonna tell you how I got it, so maybe you’ll quit wondering, ’cause I know you are. Everyone does. I want your mind on the business at hand, not this thing. A naked guy on PCP was using a Sheetrock knife on cars in a parking lot, scratching them up. I was on call. We got into it. I arrested him. By myself. Which was some real work. So that’s where the scar came from. I got the cut, he got his nuts squashed and lost hearing in his right ear. So that’s the scar story, all right?”

  Harry said, “All right,” because the sergeant was correct; he had, in fact, been focusing on the scar. It was quite a doozy, ran from the sergeant’s left eyebrow under his eye, across his cheek, and cut deep into his lips. It had a kind of leathery look, and a shine like a sugary doughnut. It made the sergeant’s left eye look a little squinted.

  The sergeant said, “So let’s go at the important business again. He lit a candle that wasn’t there, this big guy in the hat and coat, and he strangled the redheaded guy who was all trussed up? That right? After he lit this candle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Strangled him dead?”


  “I believe so. Yes, sir.”

  “He lit a candle? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But there weren’t any candles in the shelter. What did he do, put it in his pocket, take it with him?”

  “The candles were there when it happened.”

  “But not now?”

  Harry shook his head.

  The sergeant pursed his lips, brought his fingers together, steeple-style. “And he had on a long coat, collar turned up, and was wearing a hat? It ain’t that warm, son. That don’t sound right, him dressed like that.”

  “I know how it sounds.”

  “And the guy, what’d he do, crawl through a crack in the wall, hide under the bed? He didn’t come out with you, did he? Didn’t say anything to you?”

  “He didn’t know I was there.”

  “Ah. Because…?”

  “It happened in the past.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. Just wanted to be sure. So this guy from another time—”

  “The past. And it was the memory of him, not actually him, that was there.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So the guy from the past, he wasn’t really there, except in the sounds, which only you can hear?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You see the killer’s face?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t dream it?”

  “I didn’t dream it.”

  “This kind of thing, you said it has happened before?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You on any kind of medication?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Spent any time in, you know, hospitals?”

  “I suppose you could say I’ve seen a few doctors. But, no, outside of tonsils, no real hospital time.”

  The sergeant considered this silently, as if trying to mentally phrase his next question before asking it.

  Kayla came into the room. When she came in her perfume came with her. It was strong and unique, just the way it had been when they were kids. The room had a long table and a couple of drink and snack machines, a short table with a coffeepot and a microwave on it. There was also an empty box of doughnuts—ambrosia of the law—on the counter.