Echoes of the Dead

by Aaron Polson

  “Let’s get her inside,” she said.

  Within a few minutes, they were in the living room and peeling away the wet and snow-crusted layers they’d worn on the trek from the wreck. Kelsey had on a man’s coat, too big by two or three sizes, which had kept her upper body warm. Her legs felt like cold Jello in her jeans, but she loathed the idea of climbing the stairs to the second floor for a clean, dry pair. Daniel, Ben, and Erin managed to move Sarah onto the couch.

  Ben dropped into the chair opposite Johnny, his face drawn and pale.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Johnny leaned on his good arm, his face still red and damp from the exertion of pulling Sarah on the sled. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back slightly. “I don’t know. We were doing okay but only a mile, maybe a mile and a half down the way. Kelsey—” He cut off and eyed her where she sat, knees pulled to chest, on the floor. “Kelsey said something to me, and then the whole damn RV sort of skidded out from underneath us. There wasn’t anything I could do.”

  Ben rubbed his face. “Sarah. Is she?”

  “Fine, I hope. Pretty serious concussion. We should check her eyes and keep watch.” Johnny rubbed his sore arm. “As for this… I think this is just a sprain.”

  “Your head,” Erin said from behind the couch. “It looks like you’ve lost some blood. You too, Kelsey.”

  “What about the camera guys?” Johnny asked. “Did they make it back?”

  Ben’s face went still more pallid. He shifted in his chair. The quick glance he shared with Erin and Daniel made the ice-thing in Kelsey’s gut squirm.

  “Ben… What is it?” she asked.

  “The radio. The two-way… We were getting nothing but static, and then something. I suppose it was Wayne. It sort of sounded like Wayne.” Ben began shaking his head. “He kept saying there is no house. No house. That’s all we could make out through the white noise.”

  “No house? They must have been lost,” Johnny said. “They could have gotten turned around in the trees out there. It’s dark.”

  “No.” Ben looked up. “I tried to answer them, but it was like they couldn’t hear me. Maybe they couldn’t.”

  Johnny slumped back, his eyes focused on nothing—or better yet, something beyond the wall upon which they were focused. They’d lost him to memories; Kelsey had seen the look before—not on Johnny’s face but her father’s, a man who experienced a tour of duty as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The thousand-yard-stare.

  “What now?” Erin asked. Her face, young and smooth and beautiful, took on a childlike simplicity, a frightened expression. “They sound lost. Maybe we should go and look for them.”

  “No.” Kelsey spat the word. “Not tonight. Not with the storm.”

  “But that’s just it, isn’t it? The storm. They could need help.” Erin was almost pleading like a child begging a piece of candy from a parent.

  No, Kelsey thought, they don’t—or at least not any help which could be given by anyone inside the house. She studied Erin and shifted her attention to Daniel. They were the only outsiders left now, the only two inside the house who hadn’t been there five years before. The house—or something inside the house—had eliminated the crew. In a matter of time, she imagined, it would target the other two as well. Best not offer them as willing lambs to the slaughter.

  “We should stay together,” she said, trying to comfort Erin with a smile.

  “But the snow. You and John were almost frozen.”

  Johnny stood up and moved to the window as though he was in a trance. He brushed aside the curtain and peered into the darkening landscape. Kelsey moved away from him, uncertain of the far-away look in his eyes.

  “Kelsey’s right. We stay together,” he said. “Especially you and Daniel.”

  “Why us?” Daniel asked. “I don’t understand. Is this something to do with the show?”

  “The show? God no. You’re new. You weren’t here before.” Johnny didn’t turn around as he spoke. From her vantage at his side, she could still see his eyes, the far-away look. He was somewhere else, lost in memory; she suspected five years ago.

  “What do you mean?” Erin said, leaning against the couch.

  “He means you weren’t one of the original four. That the house is trying to—” Kelsey paused, surprised at herself for such an outburst—surprised at Johnny for speaking what she’d been turning over in her own mind. “Eliminate you. At least separate you from us, like the crew.”

  Erin’s face twisted, Kelsey assumed from a blend of confusion and frustration. “Mr. Wormsley? Do you buy this? What do you know about this?”

  Ben shook his head. His face remained pale and drawn, a tired, worn-out face. “Nothing,” he muttered. “I didn’t know anything about the bathroom upstairs, either. Now we’re here… We have nowhere to go.”

  “Erin?” Kelsey touched Erin’s forearm. “Please stay with us.”

  “You’re all talking like a bunch of scared rabbits. Lunatics. You’re suggesting the house wants to kill me. I can’t believe that. It’s nonsense.”

  “Of course it’s nonsense. Any other time, any other place, I’d feel like you do. But something’s different here. Remember what you told me in the basement?”

  Erin’s face was blank.

  “About fear—about what you feared?” Kelsey squeezed Erin’s arm.

  Erin nodded.

  “You know something,” Kelsey said. “Tell me.”

  Tears started to well in Erin’s eyes. She pulled her wrist away from Kelsey and shook her head. “It’s all nonsense. This is part of the show. Part of the show.”

  “No,” Ben said. His eyes had taken on the far-away look of Johnny’s. “No… I didn’t… I wouldn’t have left those men out there. Or the accident. Sarah. I’m lost…”

  Erin began backing away from the others, groping with one hand behind her back as she moved toward the stairs. “I’m getting my coat and I’m going outside. I can’t leave the crew—not after how they sounded on the radio.” She turned and jogged up the stairs, her footfalls vanishing after she was out of sight.

  “I’m going with her. Upstairs at least,” Kelsey said. “I don’t think she should be alone.”

  “I think that’s a very good idea, Kels.” Johnny turned to Daniel. “Help me grab the couch from the other room. We’re all spending the night down here, together, and sorting this out in the morning.”

  Chapter 26: Knock, Knock

  Each step which led to the darkened second floor hallway weighed on Kelsey’s shoulders. She swallowed hard, thinking of Brit and Caitlin, ridiculous memories of Tremors and boys in shiny silk shirts, anything which could transport her away from the house and the snow and the image of a strange shadow shifting across the second floor window as they left in the RV. Her memories faltered. The hallway dark was complete. Her fingertips tightened on the stair rail until they went numb.

  One more step, Kels.

  A light glowed from Erin’s room; the door sat open a few inches.

  “Erin?”

  A shape shifted in the room, casting a shadow across the light from the doorway. Kelsey held her breath, biting her lip. It was just Erin, of course. Just Erin. She released the rail and walked down the hall, all too aware of her own footsteps, tiny stocking-muted thumps on the hardwood. She forced her eyes to steer clear of the hall’s opposite end, the stretch of darkness leading to the bathroom—the now empty room which memory held as a bathroom.

  “Erin?”

  “Yes.”

  Kelsey pushed the door open and found Erin on her bed, head in her hands. Red blotches covered her cheeks, and her eyes were blotted with tears.

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be so damn stubborn. I can’t seem to get the image of those men out of my head.”

  “Wayne and Nick?”

  Erin nodded. “Howard, too, but different. Wayne and Nick are blue, buried in snow. They’ve frozen to death, or at least they will. I see it, Kelsey, just l
ike anything else. Like a memory which has already happened.”

  Kelsey stepped into the room and approached the bed. “But it hasn’t. They were on the radio.”

  “An hour ago. Maybe more. They’re lost out there, and they’ll die, Kelsey. I know it.”

  Kelsey sat on the edge of the bed, her hands shaking—fighting fear which burrowed deeper into her gut. “You saw Howard, too?”

  “It’s dark where he is. Very dark.”

  “Is it cold?” Kelsey asked.

  “Not exactly. Just dark.” Erin wiped her eyes. “I don’t mean to be all melodramatic. I’ve been able to do this—this thing,” she touched her temple with one finger, “since I was a little girl. I’ve had dreams about people and events which were true. Stuff I wouldn’t—couldn’t have known about any other way.”

  “Do you mean like—”

  “Like I’m psychic, I guess.” Erin took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t want to talk about it or anything. It’s pretty lame, I suppose. I don’t want the attention really.”

  “Why did you agree to come here?”

  Erin pulled a pillow to her chest and crossed her arms over it, squeezing tight. “It seemed like a chance to find out, you know, something about what has been happening to me my whole life. I’ve tried to talk with my advisor about it—about parapsychology and psychics—and he just laughed.”

  “I know the type,” Kelsey said.

  “Yes. Well I’ve done some research—there are labs all over the place, Princeton, MIT, places with solid reputations which study psychic phenomenon. Anomalous mental experiences or whatever they like to call them.”

  Kelsey nodded. In the blue room, under the bright lamplight, the house didn’t seem as threatening. She patted Erin on the shoulder, hoping to offer what comfort she could. “We can’t go outside tonight, Erin.”

  “Do you really think something—this house—is trying to hurt us? Trying to separate us?”

  “I did.” Kelsey’s gaze drifted toward the lamp on Erin’s bedside table. “I guess I do. It’s crazy really, but out there, in the snow, I saw a man on the roadside. Just before the accident, he came up toward the highway…”

  “Is that why Johnny swerved?”

  “I grabbed his arm, Erin. It was my fault.” An empty pit opened in Kelsey’s stomach. “I did it.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “No. I’d seen the man before—or at least his shape.” Kelsey glanced toward the door. Hallway shadows listened to them.

  “Where?”

  “Here. In the house.”

  Erin shuddered. Kelsey pulled away her hand.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. Just like your visions, Erin, I’m not kidding.” Kelsey closed her eyes, opening them again as she looked away from the door. “I’m not kidding. I saw it—him—in a window on this floor.”

  Erin stood. “Jesus.”

  “I think I know who it—”

  Kelsey’s next words caught in her throat. A pounding noise sounded from the floor above them. Both women stared at each other, their wide, white eyes revealing they’d heard the same thing.

  “Upstairs,” Erin said. “No one is upstairs.”

  “We would have heard one of the others if they’d gone up, wouldn’t we?” Kelsey realized her fingers were tugging at the bed coverings. She forced them into her lap. “They would have gone up the main staircase, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Should we—”

  “Go up?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “I don’t know if I can. It took about all I had to come up here and find you.”

  “But if it’s Wayne or Nick or Howard…”

  “It wouldn’t be Wayne or Nick.” Kelsey stood up and stepped toward the bedroom door. “We should go to talk to the others first, get Johnny or Ben or—”

  The pounding started again, thud, thud, thud.

  “It’s not footsteps.”

  “No,” Erin said. “It’s not even close to footsteps. More like someone trying to get our attention. C’mon, Kels. We can do this without the boys.”

  Kelsey’s back stiffened. She wanted to be brave and climb the final flight of stairs and flip on the lights and whistle for the thudding whatever to stumble into the hallway and join them. She wanted to walk through the darkness as brazen as a little girl exploring a monstrous cave. She wanted those things, but dread hung on her heart like a cold, damp cloth.

  “It’s Howard.” Erin closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m almost positive. He’s gotten himself stuck on the third floor. Maybe in a closet. That’s why I’m seeing the darkness. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Why didn’t we find him earlier?” Kelsey asked.

  “I dunno. It’s a big house. The others got distracted before they poked around in every nook or cranny. But we’ve got him now.” Erin pulled her door open. Light spilled into the hallway and warmed the wall. “You won’t let me go outside, at least let me go upstairs. You can come with. I bet Howard was the man you saw in the house.”

  Kelsey closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Erin. Something is wrong about this house. I came up because I didn’t want you to be alone—”

  “Is just a house.”

  “Just a house. How do you explain the bathroom?”

  “Bathroom? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.” Erin stood in the open doorway. “Ben opened the door,” she said. “When you and Johnny and Sarah left.”

  “The door?”

  “In the bathroom. What used to be a bathroom.” Erin grinned. “It was a storage closet. Nothing but a few empty shelves. I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner. I wish Sarah could have seen it. Maybe she wouldn’t have freaked.”

  “It was locked.”

  Erin shrugged. “So he forced the lock. I dunno. He just told Daniel and me it was empty. Are you coming?”

  “A closet?”

  “Yes. Are you coming?”

  Kelsey moved away from the bed. Her head spun, and her eyes lost focus momentarily. “Yes. Yes…”

  Erin flipped on the hallway light as they left the blue bedroom. “I thought I left this on, did you turn it off?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “It was dark when I came upstairs.”

  “Funny.”

  Erin rounded the corner of the stairwell and started up. Kelsey paused before climbing from the second floor. The lights were off upstairs, too, darkness covering the third floor. Whoever—whatever made the thumping sound did so in the dark.

  “Erin?”

  “Come on, Kelsey. He could need help.”

  “Why hasn’t he called out? Why hasn’t he said anything?”

  Erin paused at the landing between the second and third floors. Kelsey couldn’t see her face, but she imagined the younger woman thinking about her questions—good questions with important answers.

  “He could be hurt,” Erin said. “His heart—he could have had a minor attack.”

  Kelsey put her first foot on the step. “Okay. We’ll check, and then—”

  “If it’s Howard, and he’s hurt, we might need help. I don’t think we could carry him.”

  “We stick together,” Kelsey said as she took a few more steps toward the third floor. “If he needs help we both go down and get someone else, okay?”

  “Good.”

  Erin arrived on the third floor just ahead of Kelsey. The lights revealed a hall similar to the one below but longer. A window opened to the sky at either end, and the hallway wasn’t as tall as that on the second floor. From outside, the house’s roof slanted at the third story, indicating each room would be smaller and with a sloped ceiling. A musty odor floated in the air, an unpleasant staleness which accompanied old houses.

  “Do you smell that?” Kelsey asked. “It wasn’t this bad down below.”

  Erin tilted her head to one side. “This is more what I would expect. A good, old-fashioned haunted house smell.”

  “It’s a little like my grandmother’s house.” Kelsey’s
gaze traveled over the dark wood-paneled wainscoting and delicately patterned wallpaper upon which tiny brown pineapples lay in diagonal rows against a light yellow background. She pressed a finger against the wall, feeling the subtle texture. She’d seen the wallpaper before, years before, and tried to clutch the memory.

  “Kelsey?”

  “Yes?”

  “I think we should take the rooms on this side of the house. The noise—the thumping was overhead in the blue room.” Erin waved to her right. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Kelsey said. “I’m fine. Just remembering. This wallpaper… Grandma had yellow wallpaper in her kitchen and dining room. I don’t remember little pineapples, but there was a pattern in brown.”

  “So it’s the same paper?”

  “Maybe. I can’t really be sure.” Kelsey pulled her hand from the wall. “It’s just funny… Same look, yes. My memories aren’t as crisp as the paper.”

  The wall shimmered. Kelsey imagined it had, at least, like a mirage miles ahead on a highway, a glint of silver and then nothing. She thought of being a small girl, how she would ride on the bench seat in the front of her father’s truck and imagine they were chasing the bits of liquid silver on the road. Her ten-year-old self would lean forward, perched at the edge of the bench while the seatbelt pulled at her tiny chest. She imagined leaning forward would give her the advantage she needed in the chase, but she never caught the mirage, of course. When her father found her in the midst of her little game, he laughed and laughed, filling the cab with the hearty, full-throatiness of his voice.

  Kelsey backed away from the wall. Her fingertips tingled. “Did you see that?” she asked.

  “What?”

  Kelsey rubbed her hand against her jeans. “Nothing. I must have blinked. I’m tired.”

  “Howard?” Erin knocked against the wall, walking toward the first door. “Howard is it you? Please knock if it is.” She came to the first door and tried the knob. It gave, click, and the door tilted inward.

  “It’s dark,” Kelsey said.

  “Here.” Erin leaned through the rectangular opening. A click sounded from inside. A single, naked light bulb hummed and popped at the ceiling center. “Oh crap. Should have brought the flashlight.”