The Echo Room

by Parker Peevyhouse

  Bryn stood frozen, gazing at the distant horizon turning from black to blue. “It’s almost morning. We’re going to wake up again with no memory. This is when it happens, isn’t it? Something’s out here, and it’s going to make us forget.”

  Rett stopped to look up at her. Her gaze darted frantically around the landscape. “Just help me and we’ll—”

  “We should get back inside. We shouldn’t be out here.” Bryn edged away, slinking back into the narrow opening behind her. Her free hand went to the scar hidden under her hair. “Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it coming.”

  Rett turned and studied the blue-lit ridges in the distance. A shiver of fear went down his spine. He looked down at the unconscious man. A man he was about to shut out of the depot for whatever dangers were coming this way.

  We can’t leave him out here, Rett decided.

  “We have to get inside,” Bryn said again, her voice high with panic.

  “Help me with him,” Rett said. But Bryn had already vanished into the depot. “Bryn!”

  All at once, pain exploded inside Rett’s head. He dropped to his knees, arms wrapped around his skull. Hot needles shot down toward his spine. The pressure was unbearable; his head was going to explode any second.

  He staggered to his feet. What’s happening? The pain had come out of nowhere. It was mounting still, and Rett only knew that he had to escape it. He threw himself toward the door of the depot. “Bryn,” he groaned. The pressure eased as he stumbled inside. But only a little. His skull still seemed ready to burst.

  What’s going on?

  The thing in his head. Something had gone wrong with it.

  “Rett?” Bryn cried.

  Rett could barely see her through the spots of light exploding in his vision. He gripped his head, willing the pain to stop.

  “What’s wrong?” Bryn cried. “What’s happening?”

  Rett collapsed against a wall. He thought he heard Bryn move to the door, and then there was a heavy squeal of metal. Rett caught sight of her heaving the door shut. Blocking out whatever had prompted Rett’s pain.

  Rett clawed at his skull, willing the pressure to release. A loud banging echoed through the depot and sent the pain moving through his head in waves: Bryn was slamming the fire extinguisher against the door’s rusted bolt.

  Rett let out a mangled cry: “Bryn, stop!”

  The bolt finally scraped into its housing and Bryn dropped the extinguisher.

  Rett slid to the floor and hurtled into oblivion.

  5:37 A.M.

  Someone is calling to me …

  But I don’t want to wake …

  I …

  Rett opened his eyes to blue morning light filtering into a metal room. His skull felt as if it had been put in a vise. He moved his fingers carefully through his hair and found a long scar running along his scalp.

  “Rett?”

  He rolled his head toward the sound. A girl with short brown hair peered at him, worry etched into her dirt-streaked face.

  “Rett?” she said again. “Are you okay?”

  His head throbbed. He closed his eyes and opened them again, took in the sight of striped metal walls. “Where am I?”

  “Inside the depot.” The girl handed him a Mylar pouch. “Drink this. I found it in the medical room with the backpack and everything—right where we first found it.”

  Rett squinted at the label: DRINKING WATER. But why was it in a pouch? He didn’t care—he was so thirsty. He pulled the tab and drained the pouch in one go. “Got any more?” he croaked.

  “We should save it.” The girl gave him a pitying look. “But the backpack—”

  “What happened to my head?” Pain pulsed through Rett’s skull.

  The girl studied him for a moment. She seemed worried about something. A shock of dark red caught the edge of his vision and he looked down to find blood on his jumpsuit. Am I bleeding? He pushed himself upright with a surge of alarm and probed at the stain with careful fingers.

  “It’s not your blood,” the girl said.

  Rett struggled to his feet. He almost didn’t want to know—Whose blood is it? Did I do something bad? He looked around for some clue that would tell him where he was. Doorway to the left, corridor to the right. He stepped toward the short corridor and saw a heavy door at the end, bolted shut. He turned back to the girl. “What is this place?”

  She hesitated. “You don’t remember?”

  Rett limped to the heavy door. He tugged at the bolt but it didn’t budge. It was bent at one end, jammed into the housing. On the floor lay a fire extinguisher that must have dealt the damage.

  “I didn’t know what was happening,” the girl said behind him. “You were outside and then you came in. I only knew something had hurt you—was hurting you.”

  Rett tried to make sense of what she was saying. But all he could think was, The door is jammed. He turned to face the girl, who was padding down the hallway toward him on dirty bare feet.

  “At first I thought that guy was hurting you.” The girl pointed at the door. “There’s a man out there. He had a gun.”

  His gaze went to her hip pocket, to a bulge there and a glimpse of metal. Alarm rang through his body. A gun, she has a gun.

  “But I think it was something else,” she went on. “Something to do with an electrical signal or … I don’t know. Whatever caused that aurora. I think being inside shielded me from the effects of whatever it was. Maybe the walls block signals somehow.”

  Rett couldn’t follow anything she was saying.

  “I got the door closed,” she said. “I thought that would make it stop.”

  “You did that? It’s jammed,” Rett said.

  “I thought maybe he was hurting you.”

  Rett’s gaze dropped to her pocket again.

  “Can you remember anything?” She was frantic now, her words coming out in desperate spurts. She pushed her fists together, as if it took physical effort to get out her jumbled explanation. “We’re here because Scatter sent us. They want us to find something. We woke up outside and came up here to the depot for safety. But there was a man here already, and he had a gun. We got him outside and then something happened to your head.”

  She reached out like she might touch him.

  “Don’t come closer,” Rett barked. At the same time, his hand went to his head, to the scar he had discovered moments ago.

  “There’s something in your head.” The girl held her hands up as if to calm a spooked animal. “Scatter put it there. I think something went wrong with it a minute ago, and that’s why your memory’s gone now. It would have happened to me, too, if I had been outside with you.”

  She slowly lifted her hair with one hand to reveal a shaved swath and a long scar.

  “See?” she said. “They put something in my head, too.”

  Rett gaped in horror. He found he had backed right against the door. To his left was an open closet. He lunged into it and pushed the narrow door shut.

  5:41 A.M.

  Green light glowed at Rett’s feet, where a cracked plastic tube leaked luminous liquid onto the floor. In just a moment, everything would come back to him. Any moment now.

  But it didn’t.

  His breath came fast as panic flared. He dragged a heavy plastic bin to block the door, and then noticed what was inside the bin—more jumpsuits like the one he was wearing. He pulled out one that looked to be his size. He couldn’t bear to look again at the blood smeared across the fabric at his torso.

  He watched the barricaded door while he stripped off the soiled jumpsuit and zipped up his new one. He’d have to go out there eventually. For one thing, thirst raked at his throat.

  But the girl. She had a gun.

  He was trapped in this place. That was the worst of it. No getting out if she got violent. He pictured the scar running half the length of her skull and shuddered. He reached to touch his own skull, to feel the scar running through his cropped hair. He jerked his hand away. What hap
pened what happened what happened? He tried to squash his panic while he searched his memory for answers. He could find only fragments: a medical lab, a woman with an angular face, a green light in the sky.

  The girl said Scatter had sent him here, and something about that rang true. He remembered a woman wearing a lab coat with a logo of jagged lines, her voice edged with frustration: If you haven’t managed it yet, you never will. There’s only one way left to do this. You’ll have to find it …

  Pain sliced through his head. The walls suddenly felt too close. He had to get out of here.

  He dragged the plastic bin away from the door. Opened the door and peered into the hallway. No sign of the girl.

  He crept out, noticing the grit beneath his bare feet. Dizzying trails of footprints covered the floor of the main area.

  Where did the girl go?

  From an open doorway ahead—a loud clatter.

  Rett’s heart lurched. He spotted a handle on the wall to his right and jerked it up. The wall lifted away to reveal a room like a lounge on a spaceship. I need to find a way out of here. He turned away from the strange space.

  And there it was, right in front of him: a rope, leading up to an opening in the ceiling.

  I can’t climb a rope, he thought.

  But the idea of the girl emerging from an open doorway, gun in hand, sent enough adrenaline through him to make him try. He heaved himself upward.

  Adrenaline must be more effective than I ever realized, he thought, marveling at the strength his arms and legs found to climb. Something about the way his muscles strained against his sleeves felt wrong—almost as if he were borrowing someone else’s body. People always feel stronger in emergencies, right?

  At the top, he clambered onto a shelf, and then out through the opening in the roof.

  All around was jagged wasteland, spires and buttes like rows of teeth in a gaping maw. No end in sight.

  Rett’s breath came fast as panic washed over him.

  No—there’s got to be something.

  His gaze roved the metal roof.

  Solar panels took up much of the space. A metal contraption sat to one side, its hinged panels like the petals of a closed flower. Is that an antenna? Rett wondered. A way to call for help? He eased over the rounded metal roof, trying not to advertise his escape, and wrenched the panels outward, confused again by his sudden strength. With a clunk, the panels fell open to the sun. But no button, no way to turn the thing on.

  The girl had said that something outside had hurt him. Or no, it was something about a man—a man with a gun. But she’s the one with a gun, Rett thought. She’s the one who jammed the door shut.

  Still—where was the man? Rett peered over the rounded front of the building. Below, a figure lay sprawled in the dirt.

  “Hey!” Rett shouted. Doubt seized him immediately. Maybe the girl hadn’t been lying—maybe the man really did have a gun. He watched the figure for a few moments more, but the man didn’t move. Dead, maybe. Fear swept through Rett. No, just unconscious, he told himself, and he tried to believe it. Still, he scrambled back up to the roof’s peak, sending down a spray of dust and gravel in his wake.

  What now?

  He had no water, no shoes. No hope of crossing a treacherous wasteland. He had only two choices: stay outside in the wasteland with a man who might be dead, or go back into the building with the armed girl.

  His thirst decided for him. The girl had given him that Mylar pouch of water. There were probably more in the shelter. And maybe a phone, or some way to call for help.

  He climbed back down the rope, one thought on his mind: he had to keep himself safe from the girl. He needed a weapon.

  The fire extinguisher.

  He landed on the metal floor, wincing at the noise his feet made. In a moment, he had the fire extinguisher in his hand.

  “Rett?”

  The girl’s voice came from under a half-lifted wall. Rett shrank against the wall of the corridor and held the extinguisher ready.

  “Rett?” she called again, a note of worry in her voice. “We don’t have much time. We have to be ready.”

  Rett lowered the extinguisher. There’s something about the way she says my name.

  The girl ducked into the room. She started when she saw him standing in the corridor, but her surprise quickly turned to concern. “Are you okay?”

  Rett wasn’t sure what to say. The distress in her eyes unsettled him. Why does she care? “You mean, other than being trapped in the middle of a wasteland with a stranger?” he said.

  “A wasteland.” She frowned at the rope swaying between them. “Did you go up on the roof?”

  Rett felt like crumpling. Who cared what he had done? He was caught in a metal trap, and it didn’t matter if he escaped because the world outside wasn’t any better. “Where are we?”

  “Rett, I’m sorry, we don’t have time for this.”

  There it was again, that dip in her voice when she said his name. Rett hadn’t heard anyone say his name that way in a long time.

  “Something’s coming,” she told him. “We have to work fast, before it gets here.”

  Rett was lost in confusion. “What’s coming?”

  “Honestly? You don’t want to know.”

  Rett had a sudden vision of a dark shape eclipsing the morning light. He shook it away and thought, She’s right, I don’t want to know.

  “I got together everything we might need,” the girl said, her words coming in a rush. “So we can go up on the roof and shoot a flare and see if anyone comes to help us. And if no one does at least we’ll have—”

  A noise like thunder came from the other side of the heavy door. Someone was banging on the metal.

  Rett went cold.

  The girl turned to him, accusation in her eyes. “He’s awake. Earlier than he should be. What did you do?”

  Rett opened his mouth and shut it again. He had no idea what she meant, but it was clear he had done something bad in waking the man. “I thought … maybe … he could help…”

  The girl considered, her anger suddenly in check. “He had that logo on his cap. He said he used to work for Scatter. But he didn’t know anything about why we’re out here.” She shook her head. “He had the gun. He’s not interested in helping us.”

  Rett couldn’t follow anything she was saying, but she didn’t seem to care. She ducked back into the room she’d come from without another word.

  Something’s coming, Rett thought, shivering alone in the main room.

  The man outside is awake. The girl inside has a gun.

  What do I do?

  He wanted to hide again. Barricade himself in a room where no one could get to him.

  She knows my name.

  Somehow, she knows me.

  He followed her instead.

  “We have to get onto the roof to shoot the flare gun,” she said as Rett came in. “But if he gets up there, too…” She opened a cabinet and pulled out a long metal pole as if sliding a sword from its scabbard.

  Rett shrank back.

  “Hey,” the girl said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s for him. In case he tries anything.”

  Rett couldn’t take his eyes off the metal pole. He shifted his grip on the extinguisher, trying to decide if he really needed it after all. His gaze traveled to the girl’s pocket, where the butt of a gun showed. “Are you going to tell me anything else about what’s going on here?”

  “Like what?” She turned to eye a button on the wall labeled with odd shapes. “We’re kind of in a hurry here.”

  “Like your name, maybe?”

  She stopped, turned to him. He thought he saw pain in her eyes, but the next moment it had vanished. “Bryn.” She turned back to her work. “Ward of the state, just like you.”

  Rett’s grip on the extinguisher loosened.

  “At Walling Home, just like you,” Bryn went on. “We got ourselves signed up for a job and now we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. We thought we
were supposed to find something but when we got to the coordinates, there was nothing there. So now we’re starting over.”

  Rett reeled at the slew of information.

  A job, finding something—that was vaguely familiar. But the rest …

  “We graduated out,” Bryn said. “Workhouses are closing, no place for us to go, so we took a job with a company called Scatter. At least that’s what we think. Problem is, the job’s impossible to finish. The best we can do now is send up a flare—” She touched the butt of the gun in her pocket, and Rett flinched.

  He couldn’t help it. He kept envisioning her raising her arm, aiming at his forehead.

  She looked at his hand tightening around the fire extinguisher and went rigid. “What’s that for?”

  “I was going to ask the same thing about the gun in your pocket.”

  Bryn put a hand over the bulge at her hip. “I told you, I took it from the guy outside.”

  Rett studied her for a moment. Her hazel eyes glowed with challenge.

  “Would you rather I left it with him?” she asked. “He had it trained on you not thirty minutes ago.”

  Rett shivered.

  Bryn pulled the gun out of her pocket and laid it on the cabinet top. “How about we leave it right there? Does that make you feel better?”

  It made him feel worse, actually, seeing the scarred grip, the dusty barrel. He moved his hand toward it with the hope that touching it would bring some sense of familiarity.

  Bryn’s hand shot out to block him. She laid her palm over the gun. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Rett’s hand hung in the air, halfway to the gun. He lowered it to his side.

  “We need to take it up on the roof,” Bryn finally said, and slowly slid the gun back toward herself.

  Rett laid his hand on top of hers to stop her. Her face went tight but she didn’t move. She watched Rett slide the fire extinguisher onto the cabinet top. “Now neither of us has a weapon,” Rett said. “Okay?”

  Their hands still rested together on the gun. Rett moved his away. Bryn’s fingers were curled loosely around the guard. She hesitated and then turned from the cabinet, leaving the gun.

  Her shoulders slumped. She seemed completely lost, for once. “We’re screwed, Rett. This isn’t going to work. No one’s going to come for us. There’s no way out of here.”