Echoes of the Dead (18 page)

“He—he died two weeks ago. I didn’t want to say anything.” Kelsey pulled her hands away from her face. Tears had begun to well in her eyes. She felt a sob clog her throat. “I didn’t want to do this.”

Sarah hugged her. She put both hands around Kelsey’s back and pulled her close, squeezing until Kelsey felt the press of Sarah’s breasts and her own lungs burned.

“Oh honey. Nothing is worth this agony. You and I will hit the road. Find a nice café and eat until we feel like exploding.” Sarah frowned. “Sorry… Not a funny joke.”

“Ben has our keys and cars,” Kelsey said.

“Easy enough. We should jet before the snow gets any worse.” Sarah stomped down the hall toward the stairs.

Johnny said something, but his voice was lost to the throb of blood in Kelsey’s ears, a thick, rhythmic thump which wiped away her ability to focus. The world blurred. Shapes moved in the non-bathroom. Kelsey pulled herself away from the others and hitched onto Sarah’s trail. It was time to go. Howard was gone. Time to leave before the house swallowed another of them whole.

Ben was at the base of the stairs, just inside the foyer. One of his hands was still on the knob. He pulled the door shut and took a step toward the ladies. “Where are you going?”

Sarah grunted and pushed past him, heading for the door. Ben’s face shifted away from its Hollywood façade. He turned to Kelsey.

“What’s going on?”

“We found your little trick on the second floor,” Kelsey said.

The door clicked open. Sarah paused, staring at Kelsey.

“Second floor? Did you find Howard?” Ben asked.

Sarah stepped away from the door. She hadn’t crossed the threshold yet. Kelsey was watching; she watched Sarah stop just before breaking the invisible plane which would have taken her out of the house and burned up her chance at the money. Cold air meandered over the threshold.

“No,” Sarah said. “But the second floor bathroom—what the hell did you do to it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Kelsey edged down the final steps and moved behind Ben. The front door was open a crack, and through the opening a sliver of white world could be seen. The snow was coming faster now—big thick flakes falling, falling… Snow spread in a blanket at least one or two inches thick. It would blow and drift over the road.

“I locked it, Sarah. Nothing more.” Ben’s face had gone pale. “What’s wrong with the bathroom?”

“It’s gone.” Sarah said.

Kelsey worked her fingers around the doorknob. Sarah had stepped away, closer to Ben.

“Gone?” Ben asked.

“Gutted. It’s an empty room. Nothing.”

Kelsey opened the door, held her breath, and stepped outside. She moved quickly. Once she’d made the decision, she didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t hesitate. The winter air wrapped her arms and legs almost immediately. Gooseflesh sprouted on her exposed skin. She took a few, wobbling steps onto the porch. The white world outside the house forced Kelsey to shield her eyes. Even with the lights inside the house, gloom and shadow clung to the interior. Outside, with the snow-covered ground, she was blinded.

Ben crashed through the door and skidded past Kelsey, stumbling down the stairs until he stood in front of her, blocking her path.

 “You can’t go,” he said.

“What? Did the highway patrol shut us down already? It’s not snowing that hard.” Sarah stepped through the door and moved toward the edge of the porch. She held out a hand, and caught a few fat flakes to prove her point. “I’m not going to hang out after what you did in the bathroom.”

Ben’s face went slack with confusion. “Bathroom? What’s this crazy talk? I figure you two were going because of—”

“The second floor bathroom, Ben.” Sarah pressed her fists into her hips, arms bent at her sides. “You had the tub, the sink, the toilet—everything removed. And what’s with the door? You freaked me out with that one.”

A gust of wind kicked up a swirl of snow across the front lawn. The iron-grey clouds hung low and heavy, menacing with an impending barrage of snow to shame what had already fallen. Kelsey hadn’t seen winter clouds so menacing since they skidded into the ditch five years ago. Since Jared vanished. She edged back toward the front door, feeling behind her for the opening. Maybe she shouldn’t have stepped outside, but now it was too late. What was done, was done.

“We didn’t do a thing to the bathroom.” Ben shook his head. “I thought locking the door would, you know, amp up the mystery.  I didn’t think… Well, I didn’t think anyone would want to use it, given the history. We didn’t do a thing to it. The bathroom was there last week, before you came. I—”

“Consider the mystery amped,” Sarah interrupted. “Amped me and my friend Kelsey here right out of the fucking house. Where’s our cars? I want to fire mine up and get the engine warm.  Kels is going, too.”

Kelsey shook her head. “Those clouds,” she said.

Ben turned, tilting his face skyward. His lips fell into a frown, at least enough of a frown for Kelsey to register it as such.

“Throwing off your plans?” Sarah asked.

“It’s going to dump on us,” Ben said. “It’s December. It never snows this much in December. Not like this.”

“Blame it on global warming or climate change. Whatever.” Sarah folded her arms and stepped off the porch. Her feet sank into the new snow. “Where’s the cars, Wormsley?”

“The cars are…” His gaze flicked between Sarah and Kelsey. “Somewhere else.”

Kelsey pushed the door. A warm puff of air escaped into the frigid outdoors. “Where?” She asked. “What have you done?”

“They’re in a little town. Muskotah. There’s a tow service we paid to watch them for the week.”

A small, growl-like sound escaped Sarah’s mouth.

Kelsey glanced over her shoulder, examining the darkness in the house.

“We’ll take the RV, then.” Sarah set her jaw.

“Kelsey.” Lines spread around the edges of Ben’s face. “Please reconsider. The weather…”

“You go in there, Ben Wormsley. You check out the bullshit in that bathroom.” An infusion of anger rattled through Kelsey’s bones. “You see what we saw—the bathroom, empty. There’s an extra door in that room, Ben. It wasn’t there before. Something is wrong.”

“A door?”

“A door where the exterior wall should be.” Kelsey’s hand dropped from the front door.

“That’s impossible…”

“That’s what I said.” Sarah waved her arms. “So hook us up with the RV keys and we’ll get the whole bunch on the road.”

Another gust of wind stirred a wide swirl of white. Kelsey shivered, a pure, unrestricted reaction to the cold. Neither she nor Sarah had taken their coats when they decided to warm up the cars, cars to which they had no access. Snow had covered the ground, now, all except for longer strands of stubborn brown grass which reached from mounds of white.

“We should go inside,” Ben said. “Wayne… He has the keys to the RV.”

“Where’s Wayne?” Sarah asked, one foot on the bottom porch stair.

Ben nodded toward a stand of trees behind the RV. The trees were not much more than a grey smudge against the heavy white. “Out there. Looking for Howard.”

“You’re kidding.” Sarah brushed snow from her shoulders. “This is a joke, right?”

Ben shook his head. “I’m afraid not. But they’ll come in, soon I expect, and we’ll get out of here, okay?”

“What about your little radio?” Sarah asked.

Ben shrugged. “Dead. They went dead when this storm kicked up. We stopped getting any signal, even from each other. I don’t understand it.”

“Great.” Sarah stomped up the stairs, passing Kelsey. She paused just inside the door. “Just fucking great, Ben.  We’re trapped in hotel hell, again.”

After Sarah disappeared, Ben’s eyes met Kelsey’s. She saw terror in his eyes, as real as the flakes gathering on the grass or the cold, dead grey fingers of the trees beyond. Real fear, the uncontrollable thing which nibbled the edges of reason and seeded doubt in even the firmest minds.

“I didn’t plan any of this, Kelsey,” he said. “Please believe me.”

Ben lay on the couch, eyes closed, with his hands folded over his face.

“Start from the top,
Mister
Wormsley. Explain what a brilliant idea it was to have us trapped here—to lock up our damn vehicles in some bum-fuck Egypt impound yard.” Johnny’s nostrils flared when he spoke. “Because right now, with this snow storm and no way out, you’ve really fucked up.”

“It’s not an impound yard,” Ben said. “It’s just a tow service. I just—”

“Does it matter?” Sarah asked. “We’re stuck. Until Wayne and Larry—”

“Nick,” Erin said.

“Whatever.” Sarah scowled across the room at Erin. “Until they come back with the RV keys, were done. Locked up until God knows what happens to the rest of us.”

“No other autos?” Daniel asked. His brown eyes pled; Kelsey felt the fear and hurt.

“Nothing but the RV.” Johnny leaned over the back of the couch. “We could hotwire it.”

Ben sat up. “No. It’s a rental—”

“And I want out, Wormsley.” Sarah kicked the couch. “I don’t care if you lose your precious deposit. This snowstorm isn’t letting up, and we have no way of knowing how long it’s going to last. I don’t want to be stuck here any longer than I have to be.”

“You were ready to stay for a week when it meant twelve thousand dollars.” Ben rubbed his neck. “Now, you want out? Nothing’s changed.”

Kelsey had been moving toward the window across from the couch. She paused, fingering the long curtains. The sky had begun to deepen outside, hinting at sunset even though the heavy clouds covered the sun. Snow continued to fall, a steady tumble of fat, white flakes.

“I know I want to leave, Ben.” Kelsey tapped the window. “The snow isn’t stopping. We’ll be stuck here, for good, if your camera guys don’t get back soon. They’ll be popsicles if they don’t return, too. What time is it?”

Erin produced her cell phone. “I have 4:35. At least the clock still works. I don’t even have a roaming signal out here.”

“None of us do,” Johnny said.

“What about food, Ben?” Sarah asked. “Will Mr. and Mrs. Small Town be able to deliver?”

Ben rubbed his forehead. “Deliver… I don’t know. We have a little food, some cans and boxed stuff, in the pantry. Not enough to keep us going for the week, but we won’t starve.”

“Won’t starve? Wonderful. So we might be eating crackers tonight, everyone.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Sounds tasty.”

Kelsey pressed her palm against the glass.  She felt a quick jab of cold dance through her arm. A vision of Jared—Jared as she remembered him five year ago—flashed through her mind. He was cold, the blue-white of a frozen man. Dead. They had to leave. She turned around. “Johnny, if you can hotwire the RV—”

“I can try,” he said. “I figure it’s a shot.”

“Maybe our only shot,” Sarah said.

“Shot for what?” Erin asked.

Kelsey turned to her. “Get out. Get some contact with the outside world at least. Ben?”

“I don’t know why you want to go…”

Sarah kicked the couch again. “Don’t be an asshole. If you didn’t do anything upstairs… If you can’t explain it, I’m not sticking around to find out who or what can. That’s just fucked up.”

Ben stood.  His mouth opened and he held up a hand, but stopped short of protesting. He slumped back onto the couch, defeated, and propped his head in his hands. “Do whatever you have to,” he muttered.

~

Kelsey, Sarah, and Ben watched as Johnny worked under the big vehicle’s dash. Ben clutched a flashlight and knelt next to the door, shining yellow light toward the broken-open steering column. A few wires trailed from the opening.

Kelsey planned better on her second foray from the house. She wore her thick, downy coat, the navy blue coat her father had purchased for her before she started college her freshmen year. It had been tucked deep inside her apartment closet, almost lost to time and dust, but after the funeral, she’d found it. She stuffed her hands deep inside the pockets and stamped her feet.

“Almost got it,” he said. The engine coughed, but remained dead. “Damn. My fingers are cold.”

“Where did you learn to do something like this, anyway?” Kelsey asked.

“The Army is good for a whole lot of education, Kels. I learned plenty of lessons which were never written down in anyone’s regulations.”

His fingers pinched wires together. The engine sputtered and caught this time, growling to life with a full, throaty hum. He twisted the wires in place and slid to the ground. “That should do it,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. He nodded to Ben. “You coming along?”

“No.” Ben’s flashlight drooped toward the ground. Enough snow had fallen to hide the bottom of the RV’s tires. “I can’t leave Wayne and Nick… and Howard. I should stay here in case—”

“I’m going,” Kelsey said. She looked around at Sarah. “We’ll both need to go to help bring back enough cars.”

Sarah shivered and pulled her collar close to her neck. “I don’t know if I can drive in this, Kels. It’s a mess out here. Why don’t we all just get in the RV.?”