Echoes of the Dead (16 page)

“Remember that guy you dated sophomore year? The one with the extra nipple?”

Kelsey laughed. “Donnie. I almost forgot about Donnie. We only went out twice, and the first time doesn’t count.”

“Whatever. I think the two of you were destined for one another. Didn’t he have a name for the nipple?”

“Mister Nasty.” Kelsey giggled again. She hadn’t laughed so much since her father’s funeral, and the warmth which spread through her chest felt good. “Donnie called the spare Mister Nasty.”

“Donnie was nasty, wasn’t he?” Sarah capped the nail polish. “Didn’t he jack off in front of you once?”

“Our second and final date. We’d gotten back in the car after watching a movie, and he whipped it out in the parking lot.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Did he have an extra, you know—”

“Testicle? I didn’t grope around in the dark to find out. But he started stroking it right there, talking gibberish about how Angelina Jolie made him hot and how I reminded him of Angelina Jolie.”

“Not even close. Sorry sweetie, but you don’t have the lips for it.”

“Or the hair. Or the tattoos. Whatever. So Donnie climaxes and shouts ‘Say my name.’” Kelsey closed her eyes, savoring the memory. “Of course I’ve forgotten his name and say Derek.”

Sarah covered her mouth and muttered through her fingers. “No you didn’t?”

“He didn’t notice. Good thing it was his car. Ugh.” Kelsey shook her head and flopped back onto the bed. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you that part of the story.”

“Maybe you did. Maybe I just didn’t remember.” Sarah hopped from the end of the bed and walked to her suitcase. She stuffed the nail polish in a little zipper pouch on the side. “Why did you always get stuck with the weirdoes?”

“The good ones where already tagged and bagged.” Kelsey closed her eyes, thinking of Johnny. Always Johnny—she couldn’t scrub him from her fantasy.

Sarah moved to the window and pushed the shade aside. “Damn snow is still coming down.”

Kelsey propped herself on one elbow. “Maybe we will get stuck out here. Maybe Erin’s right.”

“Whatever. I still think Erin’s a spoiled little bitch.”

“Can you at least call a truce until—” Kelsey stopped in mid-sentence as the lights flickered. “Not again.”

“More power outage? Please. I bet Johnny’s right about Ben.” Sarah turned away from the window.

“How so?”

“It reeks of foul play. Ben’s got some kind of plan to amp up the drama and keep us all at each other’s throats.”

“Really?”

“Are you
that
naïve, Kels?” Sarah blew on Kelsey’s toes. “The guy stinks since coming back. Hollywood has seeped under his skin and done something to him. It’s about as cliché as all this haunted house crap—Kansas boy lured astray by the demons of Hollywood—but in Ben’s case I’d say right about on.”

“But it didn’t stop you from coming.”

“A stack of money had a little something to do with my being here, you know. It’s not like it would be easy to walk away from twelve grand. Only now…” Sarah paused and took a breath.

“Now what?”

“Now… With everything… I’m not sure I should have come. I’m not sure how much I can stay here, Kels.” She dropped on her bed.

The lights flickered again, sputtering like a candle in a light breeze. The room went dark.

“It’s this bullshit, too.” Sarah sat up. “I’m not going to take it, Kels. There wasn’t anything in our contract about being guinea pigs or anything. I’m going to find Wormsley and give his sneaky ass a piece of my mind.”

“Sarah…”

“Are you coming?” Sarah rose and moved toward the door, a solid shape moving in a sea of shadow. “Or you going to take a nap and sleepwalk through the rest of the week?”

A light assaulted them as they rounded the stairwell landing. 

One television camera was mounted with bright lights for shooting in the dark. Kelsey shielded her eyes and followed Sarah into the room; it was impossible to see who was behind the camera, but there was only one. She imagined it was Wayne, the man who’d so rudely called both of them bitches in the bathroom on the third floor. The others were already sitting or standing—Johnny and Daniel on the couch, Erin in one chair, and Ben on his feet, pacing.

“Oh, Kels. Sarah. I’m glad you’ve joined us.” Ben looked at them, but he didn’t smile. His lips twitched, but remained set. “We… We have a bit of a problem. Other than the lights, I mean.”

Sarah scowled. “What’s going on? If there’s a problem, what’s with the camera? Couldn’t we kill it?”

Ben’s face twisted slightly. He paced across the room, opposite Johnny. “It’s for the light. We’re only shooting for the light.”

“So it’s not recording?” Sarah said as she sat in a chair.

Ben reddened. “We—of course we’re recording.”

Johnny grunted.

“The problem is… Well, a member of my crew has gone missing.” Ben’s arms flopped to his sides as he finished speaking.

The cold crept into Kelsey’s arms again, slithering across her skin like a living thing. It wormed into her shoulders and dribbled down her back like thick drops of frigid water.
Missing
. A crew member was missing.  The word echoed in her memory, bringing back police cars and acres of snow…

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Howard,” Ben said. “Our sound man. Wayne’s outside checking the RV again, but nobody’s seen him since after lunch.”

“He was working on the second floor,” Daniel said. As always, he dropped his head after speaking. “Erin and I were talking, and we saw him.  He was doing something in the hallway.”

“That’s right.  We were chatting after lunch, and he had his big microphone up there, like was recording the wall. Weird.  I went into my room, and Daniel—”

“I went upstairs. I was feeling a little tired, so I thought I should lie down.” Daniel laid a hand on the side of his face.

“I saw him, too,” Kelsey said. She glanced at Sarah. “But on the third floor. That was before lunch.”

Johnny passed the empty chair and moved to a window. The grey clouds sagged as though laden with moisture. Snow blurred the world. Erin’s chair squeaked as she shifted position. The big grandfather clock in the foyer continued to
click, click, click
.  It wasn’t ticking away fast enough for Kelsey.
Click, click, click
… 

“He’s got to be here somewhere,” Ben said. “I mean it’s not like—”

“Don’t say it,” Johnny said as he wheeled around. Malice flashed in his eyes. “Of course he has to be here, somewhere. So let’s look for him.  Didn’t you guys have radios or some other way to communicate, two-ways that would work even though cell phones are dead in this fucking black hole?”

Ben looked at his hands. “We… Yes, we had radios. Have radios. Howard left his in the RV this morning. Said it interfered with his work.”

“Well it’s not like he’s treading water in a shark-infested sea, is it?” Sarah asked. She leaned forward, hands on her knees. “He’s a big boy.”

“He’s supposed to be working,” Ben said.

“Your problem, not ours,” Sarah replied. “Now the lights, that’s a different—”

The door interrupted Sarah, banging open with a sudden ferocity. Wayne strode from the porch, his nostrils flaring. He glared at Ben, and then, as though suddenly realizing other people were in the room, his shoulders relaxed. “Can I see you for a minute, Mr. Wormsley?”

Ben nodded.  He joined Wayne near the stairs. Both spoke in hushed tones. Kelsey, closest to them, only heard snippets of the conversation. She peeked over her shoulder. They’d seemed to be disagreeing, and now Wayne looked mad, ready to level Ben with his big, meaty fists. Her attention flipped to the rest of the room. Sarah leaned on the arm of the chair, Daniel was sitting next to Johnny, still studying his hands. They were like little playthings. Dolls almost, captured in the house by the camera. It’s bright, glowing eye still held them like flies in amber. Her gaze dropped to her feet. She was outside the circle, probably a good place to be. Bad things were going to happen, and Howard was just the start.

“I want to know what we’re going to do about power. Whatever happened to this mystery generator Worm-boy brought?” Sarah twisted in her chair and faced the camera. “Yoo-hoo, camera guy.  I’ve got a question for you.”

The light shifted slightly.

“Can you speak, or are you dumb?”

The light dropped toward the floor. “Hell yeah I can speak, but I’m supposed to be like the wallpaper, kid. What do you want?”

“A phone. I figure you guys must have a satellite feed, some way to reach the real world while we’re all cooped up. We need to get some utility work taken care of, and pronto. Lights, camera, all that action.” Sarah waved a hand in the air.

The lights flickered, almost on cue, and sputtered to life.

“What a load of crap. Must be magic,” Sarah said. A wide grin split her face. “I have the touch.”

“You are touched, maybe,” Johnny said.

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come. Ben had stepped back into the room, his face ashen and drawn.

“We need to find Howard,” he said.

“Sure, okay. Of course we do,” Johnny replied. “Good thing the lights are back. Maybe he—”

“Damn the lights,” Ben said. “Howard’s missing.”

“Maybe he turned them on,” Johnny finished. He looked at Wayne. “Where did you guys find the breaker box yesterday? We should make sure everything is squared away before running off to play hide and seek.”

Wayne shook his head. “No breakers. We checked yesterday.”

“But the lights…” Ben rocked back on his heels. “How?”

“I don’t understand the big deal about Howard.  Maybe he’s taking a union break,” Sarah said.

Wayne stepped closer. “Howard’s got heart problems. I found his meds in the truck. Empty.” He held up a small bottle. “If he’s had an attack and can’t get help… It could be ugly.”

Johnny stood. “Okay. Right. We can split into teams and take a look.” He glanced at Ben. “I suppose our deal—not leaving the house is off, considering?”

Ben stiffened. A touch of color returned to his face as he shook his head. “No—no. Wayne, Nick, and I can search the grounds. You’ve signed a contract.  He’s most likely to be in here, anyway.”

~

Kelsey followed Erin into the basement, both of them armed with small portable flash light from the crew’s contingency kit. The stairs, much like those leading to the second and third floors, looked as though they should creak and groan—covered as they were with weathered wood and nails—but didn’t make a sound as the women descended. Once below floor level, the walls became rough wrought limestone held together with thick lines of grey mortar. The temperature dropped, too.  While rather comfortable on the first and second floors, it became rather chilly below.  Kelsey rubbed her arms, wishing for a sweater or jacket or, better yet, no need to go into the basement at all.

“I didn’t expect it to be so much colder down here,” Erin said.

“Probably no open vents.”

Erin paused a few steps from the bottom and glanced over her shoulder. “Vents?”

“Furnace vents. I’ve heard the fan kick on, that whispering sound you can hear upstairs. There are big, cast iron wall registers in most rooms.  I noticed several yesterday when we took the tour. Our bedroom has one; I’m sure yours does, too.  The registers date back a lot further than the furnace.”

“How do you know?” Erin asked.

“My father. Dad was an HVAC guy for years. The sound—the whispering from the vents—that’s a forced air unit.  If this house is as old as Ben says, the furnace wasn’t original equipment.”

Erin continued to the final step. Her yellow beam swung around in an arc. “This house is strange.”

“How so?” Kelsey asked as she joined Erin on the hard floor.

“Just off somehow.  I keep expecting creaking wood and old doors to blow shut with a bang. Standard haunted house fair. But nothing. This basement even looks a little like my Uncle Joe’s, and that place isn’t haunted at all. You were here before. You explored the place, didn’t you?” Erin asked.

Kelsey shook her head. “No. Once we found the body… There wasn’t much we wanted to explore. The police did the work. They did the searching.”

“How’d you get out? Wasn’t it a big snowstorm?”

“Yeah. The biggest problem was our car in the ditch. We trekked back out to the main highway and flagged a truck. The snow had slowed down… I wasn’t going to spend another minute in this place.”

“And now—it’s strange. It should be haunted, but it’s just
here
.”

Kelsey held her light high and made a sweep of the basement. It didn’t run under the entire house, but one side, the portion under the kitchen and parlor. To her left several unfinished walls—simple 2 x 4 stud construction—showed where someone had once held plans for the space. The wood was brown and somewhat dark, showing at least twenty or thirty years of age.  Even so, the boards were clean—no signs of water damage or dry rot common to a basement. To the right, she found the furnace, a tan unit which had been installed within the last dozen years. “Who said the house was haunted?”