Echoes

by Michelle Rowen

  “You won’t believe what Bree Margolis said to me,” I told Helen in Art class. We were making paper mache sculptures. Mine was supposed to be a tower from a fantasy novel I’d read, but it was turning out to be disturbingly phallic-looking since I lacked any fraction of artistic talent.

  “What?” Helen’s sculpture was of an eagle and she was so far along that she’d started to paint it.

  “That she has nothing to do with spreading any rumors about anyone, including me. She said it’s...” I hesitated. “That it’s somebody else.”

  Helen’s lips thinned as she dabbed highlights on the eagle’s wing with white paint. “What a liar. I overheard her with one of her friends talking about you. It’s definitely her. Who else could it be?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like anyone even cares.”

  The idea that Helen was actually the one spreading cruel and untrue gossip around school made me want to laugh. Bree was a total liar. Even when we’d been friends she liked to make up fake stories to get herself out of tight situations. Definitely a talent, but not one I had to admire her for.

  Just like what she’d said about the Upyri. She’d seen a good opportunity to scare me, that was all. I was already scared enough as it was and that little exchange hadn’t helped one bit.

  The rest of the day dragged until it was time for World History. When Ethan showed up he didn’t even look in my direction once, despite my trying desperately to get his attention. When the bell rang, he was gone and this time I was too slow to catch up to him.

  Peter was waiting for me at my locker when I arrived.

  “Hey, beautiful. Want a ride home?” he asked.

  This was surprising. He normally spent time with his buddies after school. Football, basketball, whatever was in season. I got the weekends. They got the weekdays.

  “You don’t need to suck up to me,” I told him. “I said I forgive you for the pool thing.”

  “I can’t just be a nice guy? Or would you rather walk?”

  I wasn’t complaining. A chauffeur would really be nice right about now.

  “Do you want to go to the mall?” I asked.

  He slid his arm around my back and directed me to the door. “Sorry, but right after I drop you off I have plans with the guys.”

  He had the grace to look guilty. He was trying to get on my good side again by offering the ride. Nice to know he cared.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just keep avoiding my mother.”

  “You’ll become a pro at it.”

  “I think I already am.”

  Peter dropped me off in my driveway and I went inside. I tried to avoid my mother who was lurking in the kitchen when I got home, and I attempted to remain calm and think about things that didn’t include fire and death. I ended up watching a lot of television and going to bed early.

  In my nightmares I was running very fast, but knew the creatures chasing me would catch me and devour me. I woke up and turned on all the lights, as if that would help, and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. What seemed bad during the day turned into a true horror movie in the middle of the night.

  A hundred years, Bree said. Whatever this Upyri was, it hadn’t been around for a hundred years.

  But it was here now.

  My fear was here to stay, and it was eating away at me like acid. I had to find out whatever I could on my own and then make my decision about what was true and what were lies.

  On Wednesday, I ate lunch with Helen and Peter and everyone else, but my mind was a million miles away. I scanned the cafeteria for Ethan, but he was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t been in class this morning. If he was purposefully trying to avoid me, he was doing an excellent job.

  “Hello?” Peter said after last class. I leaned against my locker, staring off into the distance, lost in my thoughts. “Earth to Olivia, come in, Olivia.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Don’t bother. I think her brain’s gone on vacation.”

  I blinked as their voices finally got through to me. “Yeah, sign me up for Florida, please. I’ll leave tonight.”

  “Is there something wrong with you this week?” Peter asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” I cleared my throat and grabbed my bag out of my locker. “I’m fine.”

  “No she’s not fine,” Helen said. “But she refuses to tell me what’s bothering her.”

  “Nothing’s bothering me,” I insisted. I didn’t want to tell them anything, but I was failing miserably at acting normal.

  “We’re still okay, right?” Peter said. “You’re not thinking about ditching me on Saturday night, are you?”

  That got my attention. My gaze snapped to his and I realized he was grinning.

  Okay, he was trying to be funny, not serious. As if I’d dump him right before prom.

  “Strange,” I said, shaking my head. “I keep forgetting about Saturday.”

  Peter and Helen exchanged a glance.

  “Now I know what’s wrong with her,” Helen said. “Her brain’s been abducted by aliens and taken to another universe. Do you need a ride, Liv?”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks anyway. I need to stop at the library downtown on my way home.”

  “The library? Who goes to the library anymore?”

  I didn’t flinch. “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “My phone’s acting glitchy this week so it would take forever to search for anything. And my mother’s always on the computer and getting it away from her would require actually speaking to her.”

  “The library,” Helen said. “Fun, wow. I think I’d rather watch paint dry.”

  Normally, I’d agree. But I hadn’t been lying. I’d dropped my phone last week and ever since, it hadn’t been working properly. My father always went to the library downtown to do research. He was the editor for a local magazine and liked to do things, as he said, “old school.” I didn’t want to use the library in the school, either. Not nearly enough privacy.

  Or, a little voice reminded me, you could just ask Bree about your little research project. She might be able to tell you exactly what you need to know.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen, at least, not yet. If this didn’t work, then I wouldn’t be left with many choices, especially if Ethan kept dodging me.

  I stayed with another group of kids walking home from school until I got to the library and I found a computer in a private corner. I didn’t have tons of research to do. Just one very specific word that had burned itself into my brain ever since Monday night.

  I already had a foggy idea of what I’d find, but I needed to know for sure. What I’d heard from Bree years ago was still in my head, distant memories that haunted me like ghosts, from her and her family who embraced all things strange.

  My hands were cold as ice as I phonetically typed it in to the search engine: U-P-I-R-I.

  And hit enter.

  There were a bunch of webpages listed, some of them in different languages and some about video and role playing games. But it didn’t take very long at all until a couple words immediately stood out from the rest of them and my breath caught.

  Upyri.

  Upyr.

  Vampyr.

  Vampire.

  Upyri was another term for vampire—a vampire that was actually a disembodied wraith that could possess a human corpse. It had to then drink blood in order to survive.

  Did that mean the old man and the woman had been vampires? Actual vampires?

  It was impossible. Just doing a quick internet search didn’t mean anything. A word was just a word. Vampires didn’t exist in real life.

  Feeling stunned and sick to my stomach, I quit the browser and pushed back from the computer. This little research trip had proven one very important thing to me, something I think I already knew.

  Bree had definitely been trying to mess with me. She’d taken my fear and uncertainty and twisted it into something ridiculous just to scare me more than I already was.

  Vampires.
Right.

  The only person who could help me was Ethan. I was going to find him and demand he tell me the whole truth about what happened Monday night.

  I didn’t want to be afraid of something that might not even exist. There had to be a reasonable explanation for everything. More reasonable than tales about blood-drinking vampires who hadn’t been seen for a hundred years.

  I headed to the exit feeling stronger than I had before.

  It only lasted a few moments.

  Upyri. The woman with the knife had said that word. It had definitely been that word. She’d said my death would mark a new beginning for the Upyri.

  And then she’d tried to kill me.

  My anger faded, leaving only the sick feeling in my gut. What I’d seen the other night had been impossible to believe—normal human beings didn’t spontaneously combust like that. Normal human beings didn’t completely disappear leaving a burn mark behind as the only sign that they’d ever been there in the first place.

  The idea that something like the Upyri could exist, could actually be here in Ravenridge—every part of my sensible and logical side wanted to fight it. I’d wanted to learn the truth and deep down I’d known that truth might be hard to accept.

  Ethan hadn’t wanted to tell me anything at all about what had happened, but he’d tolerated my questions. Then when I’d specifically mentioned the word Upyri, he’d walked away from me. I didn’t understand why he’d want to keep something like that from me, waving it off as a figment of my imagination or the result of a couple ounces of vodka consumed at a birthday party. If the Upyri had targeted me, if they’d known my name in particular, then I needed to know why and how I was supposed to protect myself if more of them came after me.

  My brain ached from trying to sort through what I’d seen and read. It was far fetched and made me want to throw up, but maybe—just maybe—it was true.

  As I pushed though the side exit of the library, somebody grabbed me from behind. All my thoughts shut off except for one—fight for my life. I dropped my backpack and I fought against whoever it was, wrenching my body from side to side, using every ounce of strength I had, but it wasn’t nearly enough to help me break free.

  “Your fingernails are very sharp, Olivia. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?” The male voice seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  I tried to scream for help, but he clamped his hand over my mouth and dragged me across the small, empty parking lot. He pulled me down a short flight of stairs, which led into a large park.

  Finally, the man let me go in a shaded, grassy area. Nobody else was around, but I could hear the hum of traffic on Main Street just past the thick line of trees. It was hot out and sweat dripped steadily down my back.

  Now I recognized him. He lived a couple doors down from us and ran the local used book store. My mom used to talk to him all the time when she took me in with her to buy her secondhand romance novels—Mr. Watkinson. I’d liked him. When I used to have my stand out in front of our house as a kid he always bought a glass of lemonade and told me to keep the change from a five dollar bill.

  Other than being dragged into the park by him against my will, there was another reason I didn’t relax even a fraction at seeing it was him. It was a conversation I’d heard between my parents this morning.

  My father said it before he left for work and my mother had been making breakfast. I was trying to slip past the both of them and out the front door without being pulled into yet another family conversation.

  “I just heard from John across the street. Mr. Watkinson had a fatal heart attack.”

  “What?” she exclaimed. “Oh, that’s horrible! He was such a nice man!”

  He nodded. “Only sixty-three years old. Such a shame.”

  Mr. Watkinson watched me carefully from six feet away. He looked so normal. Healthy. Alive. Which would be extremely difficult to do if he’d died from a heart attack.

  I wanted to deny it, to find any other answer, but my mind kept coming back to what I’d just read on the Internet.

  “What do you want?” I demanded as fiercely as I could despite the tremble in my voice.

  “Olivia, dear, you look terrified.”

  I struggled to breathe. “I don’t typically have conversations with dead people.”

  He smiled and wrinkles fanned out from his eyes. “As you can see for yourself, I’m very much alive. A single day can change a great deal.”

  “What do you want?”

  “That’s a very complicated question.” He straightened his navy blue tie. “I didn’t want to do this alone, but I’m having difficulties finding my friend again.”

  “What friend?”

  “The one from the other night. She’s missing.”

  This only made me more confused as I remembered the old man who’d seemed weak and pale, but whose grip was like an iron vise. “But that wasn’t you. That—that was somebody else. A father and daughter.”

  “Yes. They were in a car crash. She was driving. She’d had one too many glasses of wine before getting behind the wheel.”

  I was so confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do they have to do with you?”

  “She’s my companion, has been for a very long time. I am...” He frowned. “It’s difficult for me to focus. So many new memories to sort through. Hard to find my way, especially without her to help me.”

  I gaped at him. “That old man wasn’t you.”

  “A different shell, yes. But it was still me. Just because our bodies are destroyed, doesn’t mean we truly die, Olivia.” He smiled then. “Do you know that Charles Watkinson lost his wife twenty years ago to breast cancer? He was devastated and never recovered, never remarried. His memories are quite a distraction.” He pressed his hands to either side of his head, his pleasant expression fading. “Fighting the echoes only makes them stronger.”

  It shouldn’t be possible, but...it was.

  He’d been the old man the other night, but that body had burned up, been destroyed.

  Mr. Watkinson was dead. But his body—his body had been possessed by an Upyri. The realization that everything I’d just read was true hit me so hard I staggered back a step and bile rose in my throat.

  “You want to kill me,” I said thickly when I’d found my voice again. “If that was really you the other night, you tried, but you failed.”

  He clasped his hands in front of him. “Failure is not an option.”

  “But why? Why me?”

  He shook his head. “That you don’t know how very rare and special you are will help make this much easier.”

  He didn’t have a weapon this time, but that didn’t make me fear him any less. I’d felt his grip on me before. He was much stronger than his appearance might suggest.

  “Take one step closer to me and I’ll scream!” I held up my hands. “I’m not the one you want. You’re wrong!”

  His gaze scanned the length of me slowly, starting at my feet and ending at my face. “You’re the one she wants. And I will be the one to bring you to her. Soon everything will be better for all of us. Forever.”

  I attempted to dodge him, but he grabbed hold of my throat. I clutched at his arm to try to pull him away, but his grip was too strong.

  I clawed at him with every bit of strength I had, but soon I began to see dark spots bursting in front of my eyes.

  As my vision darkened, someone approached from behind Mr. Watkinson and grabbed him by the scruff of grey hair on the back of his head. He let go of me and I gulped big mouthfuls of air.

  Mr. Watkinson staggered backward just as a knife plunged deeply into his chest. He gasped in pain and surprise, then grabbed hold of the knife sticking out of his chest and pulled it out with a loud grunt.

  Ethan now stood behind him.

  “You again,” Mr. Watkinson growled. “I will see you crushed into dust and thrown into the river that runs through this town, boy.”

  Ethan glared at him. “We’ll see about that.”


  “You have no idea what I really am.”

  “I know exactly what you are. Just burn already, would you?”

  The old man finally stumbled backward and dropped heavily to the ground. He looked directly at me and I could see fury in his eyes. Then he screamed so loud it felt as if it pierced my eardrums as the fire appeared out of nowhere, a raging inferno that devoured his entire body before it extinguished, leaving nothing behind but an uneven circle of scorched grass.

  I gaped at Ethan as I waited for my vision to clear, for my heart to stop pounding a thousand beats a minute, for my breath to reduce to a rate that wouldn’t make me hyperventilate.

  His gaze moved to me. “Are you okay?”

  My mouth worked but no sound came out. I just nodded.

  Ethan drew closer and inspected my throat, sweeping my hair back off my shoulders. “It’s a bit red right now, but I don’t think it’ll leave a mark.”

  I caught his wrist before he pulled away. “You followed me to the library after school, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged off the backpack from his shoulder I’d dropped at the top of the stairs and handed it to me. “Here. You need to go home now.”

  When I grabbed it he started walking away. I ran after him.

  “That’s twice now that you’ve saved my life, Ethan,” I said, feeling stunned and confused to my very core. “You said you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  He glanced at me over his shoulder and our gazes locked. “Actually, I said it would be better if you forgot about what happened.”

  “How can I forget any of this when people are trying to kill me?”

  “I guess you can’t.”

  “What did he mean when he said he’ll return again?”

  “What part of it was difficult to understand?”

  Exasperation welled inside me. “That he said it just before he disappeared. Before he died.”

  “He’s not really dead. But he’ll be gone for a bit as he summons the energy to find another shell.”

  “Ethan, tell me what you know about what’s happening. Please.” My voice broke.

  “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”