"Echo"
The
first time he heard it, the plaintive cry sounded like the wail of a tortured prisoner.
The hairs on the back of his neck fluttered and stiffened. It was as if he had cleared his
throat in a deep canyon, only to have the echo return as a scream.
Walt had been drinking for days, and had slept only hours along the way. He
was completely exhausted, almost drunk enough to feel sober again. A serious binge could
do strange things to the mind. He found himself pacing in concentric circles. He knew
there was no one else in the house. His wife had taken the baby, the furniture and most
everything else. Who or what had made that terrible sound? Perhaps a neighbor’s dog
had been struck by a car, and had crawled under the porch. Against his own
better judgement, Walt found himself moving down the wooden steps into the cellar. He
tried the light switch, but nothing happened. He felt terrified, but forced himself to
kneel on the cool, dank cement floor. Just enough moonlight to see. He started looking
behind the rusty tools and crumbling cardboard boxes. He found only graceful webs, dozens
of dead cockroaches, and several desiccated insects hollowed out by hungry spiders.
The cry came again, a sobbing vomit of agony. Walt stumbled up the stairs,
searching with bloodshot eyes. Perhaps a wounded raccoon, now running away from him and
back up into the house? But there was nothing in the living room but dirt and empty
bottles of beer and wine. The bedroom was deserted. The closet doors were Walt felt a sudden
chill, and an overwhelming urge to urinate. He shivered and lurched towards the bathroom.
The door was closed.
But hadn’t he left it open, only moments before?
Was he alone in this house, or had someone else come in, perhaps
while he was sleeping? Walt swallowed. The urge to pee abruptly disappeared. He knew he
was being cowardly, but he backed away from the bathroom. He was in no mood to be brave,
much less downright foolish. He began to look for a weapon. He had seen a shovel near the
back door. He went searching, stepping carefully in the yellow moonlight, trying not to
make the floorboards creak. He gasped in horror.
Two ghastly faces were framed side by side in the porch window: dark nostrils, pale
lips and bone-white teeth mangled and flattened against the dusty glass. Walt froze in
place, not believing his eyes. One of the apparitions pulled back and reassembled into the
sneering features of a teenaged boy. His mouth worked, as if chewing a stick of gum in the
moonlit yard. He turned to the other creature and said, in a high, clear tenor: it
happened in the bathroom. His voice echoed strangely, like that terrible scream.
Walt blinked and rubbed his face. He was seeing things, hearing things. How long
had he been drinking? He had lost track of the time. Since Janet had left with the baby, The telephone had already been disconnected, and now all
of the utilities were shut off. That’s why the light switch
hadn’t worked. Walt went back
into the kitchen and searched the cabinets, but he was out of booze. Nothing to eat,
either. Better get to the market. He
started looking for his car keys, realized he’d probably left them in the Ford after
the last run to the liquor store. He opened the front door.
A wave of thunder shook the house and lightning crackled through the
blackened sky. Suddenly it was pouring rain, and the huge figure on the doorstep was
soaking wet. Walt caught sight of a yellow slicker, wide shoulders, blazing eyes. The man
raised a massive leg and kicked at him. The door burst open, and Walt fell backwards,
trying to scream for help, but only managed a wheezing moan.
The rain stopped, the sky cleared. It was gone.
The vision had hit like a flashbulb, illuminating the darkness and then
retreating rapidly into shadow. Once again, a bizarre hallucination had nearly blinded him
and then just as suddenly disappeared. What the hell is going on around here?
Walt crawled back into the kitchen, trying to talk himself sober. He’d had
enough alcohol. It’s time to join AA and get my shit together, he thought.
Walt knew he was a young man, with time to marry again and start another family. These had
to be hallucinations, maybe even D.T.’s from withdrawal. He sat on the curling
linoleum,
And then that hoarse cry of agony again, drowning in echo. It seemed closer,
now; louder than before. Walt slowly turned his head, searching for the sound.
AAAAAhhhhhhhhhh it cried. Suddenly it was clear to him, the way a man
studying a foreign language suddenly makes sense of a previously obscure turn of phrase,
that the wail was saying dear god please stop, oh please let me die….
Was it coming from the bathroom?
The teenaged ghost had said: it happened in the bathroom.
Walt ran for the back door, his being filled with dread. He twisted the knob
but it refused to turn. He ran for the side door. The faces pressed up against the glass, it
happened in the bathroom, one said softly. The words fluttered like moths circling
towards the crematorium of a bug light. He screamed a silent scream of his own, and backed
away towards the center of the living room. He turned towards the front door.
Paramedics, rushing in with stretchers. They passed close enough for him to make
out the detailed stitching on the patches of their jackets and the name of the ambulance
company, and then like an old movie stopping and starting again they burst back into the
room and went by him and just vanished. Walt closed his eyes. When he opened them again he
was standing at the bathroom door. He could hear music, now. Old Doobie
Now
all the radios played was that rap junk. Maybe this was an oldies station? Either that,
or….
The house was haunted, and the radio was playing stuff from a quarter of a century
ago.
There was only one way to find out, of course.
Walt backed away again, shaking his head. Too much booze. Maybe he had done
some crystal meth to stay up and that was making him fucking psychotic. Better get to a
hospital or something, he thought. Get some help. And the cry came again AAAhhhhh
and it was coming from the bathroom for sure, and now he was moving back towards the
door as if pushed from behind, against his own will. Only one way to find out.
Walt ran and ran and ran, but like in a bad dream he couldn’t seem to
get anywhere by running. And the door burst open again and that huge figure in the
raincoat was coming in the front, and the teams of paramedics were coming in from the side
door, and the teenagers were at the back again, and he had nowhere else to go but
into the bathroom. Maybe I am dreaming…? He threw the door open and gagged.
Janet was seated on the toilet, fully clothed, with the baby in her arms. Her light
brown hair had been parted neatly down the middle by the bullet that had emptied her skull
and splattered the pink tiles. The second bullet had gone through the baby and into her
body. There was only a little blue hole in the baby itself, and the coat hid the rest of
the mess that had once been their stomachs. That cry again,
echoing off the tiled walls of the bathroom: AAAAhhhhhh. It was his own hoarse
voice, as he had somehow always known it would be. Walt turned and The house was haunted,
by a tormented soul never to know peace. AAAAAAhhhhhhhh…Oh
God please stop it, please let me die…. The first time he
heard it, the plaintive cry sounded like the wail of a tortured prisoner. The hairs on the
back of his neck fluttered and stiffened. It was as if he had cleared his throat in a deep
canyon, only to have the echo return as a scream. Walt had been
drinking for days.
Harry Shannon is a
former actor, singer/songwriter and film studio executive who is now a counselor in
private practice. He has sold fiction to Blue Murder, Twilight Showcase, Terror Tales and
several other magazines. He can be reached via his web site at: www.harryshannon.com. |
