Lost Echoes

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Kayla, lips trembling, looked at Harry. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t as tough as I thought.”

  Harry could see the spots on her breast clearly now. They were dark and raw. He reached out and touched her knee. “It’s okay. Really. You couldn’t have done anything else.”

  “You are one understanding son of a bitch,” the chief said. “Me, I’d want to beat her with a goddamn chair leg. Just break it off and go to work. Want to know something? None of this had to happen, you know. What we did long ago, it was a drunk thing. Your father was with us, Kayla. He wanted to get him some too, but then he got cold feet. Chickenshitted out. Sobered up and then felt like he was better than me and Pale. Got him a conscience. Which, considering he was fucking around with every stray piece of tail he could find, wives, daughters of people he knew, was kind of a hoot. And we’d backed him up on that rape thing. Shit, he didn’t rape that woman. She was willing. Your dad, he was a cocksman. I’ll give him that. He could talk one of God’s own female angels out of a piece of ass, get her to suck and swallow. He was that kind of guy. Smooth as a Slurpee.”

  “He didn’t murder anyone,” Kayla said. “He didn’t rape that woman. He wasn’t like you. And I don’t believe that was the only time with you.”

  “You want to know something?” the chief said. “You might be right. I’ve done some bad things.”

  “You’re doing a bad thing now,” Harry said.

  “This is about survival.” The chief leaned back in the chair and studied Harry for a long moment, said, “What I want to know is this: How’d you know what happened in that shelter? Out there on Humper’s Hill…. Yeah, Kayla told me all about it. Between cigarette burns. She tells me it’s visions. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it? You know some other kind of way, don’t you? Some witness told you, didn’t they?”

  “It’s just like she said,” Harry said.

  “No, it isn’t. I don’t buy that for a minute.”

  “That’s all I can tell you, because it’s the truth.”

  “There’s someone else saw us, isn’t there? Some witness.”

  Harry shook his head.

  The chief leaned forward and struck Harry a sharp blow across the jaw with the back of his hand. Then he put the automatic against Harry’s forehead. “You ought to just go on and tell us. No use being brave now. What’s gonna happen is gonna happen, but it could happen quicker. You know, you pull a fish out of the water, you can let it die gasping for air on the bank, or you can get it over quick with a sharp blow, a cut. You want to be that gasping fish?”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I could make it tough on the girl instead of you. Would that help you talk?”

  “If I knew anything, believe me, I’m not that brave, I would have talked already. You think someone was hiding inside that little shelter watching? You really think that?”

  The chief pulled the gun back and let it rest across his knee again. Harry thought about jumping him. It might be the thing to do, take his chances here.

  The chief got up and walked across the room, leaned against the wall, the automatic hanging by his side. Harry realized his chance was over.

  “Sounds, huh?”

  Harry nodded.

  “That’s some wacky crap. Makes my goddamn skin crawl thinking about that kind of woo-woo shit…Whatever. We’re gonna have to get it over with. There’s a late movie I want to record. Got it all set up, but forgot to turn it on. You know something? It’s a musical. Wouldn’t think I’m a musical kind of guy, but I am. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, that’s the one. Sound of Music. Seen it ten times. West Side Story, maybe the same.”

  He looked at his watch. “I got enough time to do what we got to do and get back, push the button, so let’s get this show on the road. Sounds? The past hidden in sounds. That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Well, even if it isn’t, I’ll deal with any witnesses when they show. There’s a time when you got to cut your losses and just take it as it comes. Something I’ve learned about life. You should have had that lesson, just let all this shit go. Done that, you’d be banging tail tonight, having eggs and coffee tomorrow.”

  The chief raised his pistol, waved it at Harry. “Untie her, help her button up there, then let’s go out the back way. Come on. Make it pronto. You got to twist the wire apart on her wrists; it’s kind of wound together there. You’ll see where it’s gathered.”

  When Tad heard the car door open, he started to call out, but then he heard a voice he didn’t know say, “Goddamn, that stinks,” so he remained silent.

  Pale parked his car next to Harry’s, and when he got out he looked around carefully before opening his trunk pulling out a heavy package wrapped in thick plastic.

  He laid the package near the back left side of Harry’s car, opened the left rear door with Harry’s key. He looked down at the heavy plastic package, at the dark shape inside of it. He looked around the dark alley again, quickly unwrapped the package. A stink came out of the opening and nearly knocked him down.

  Turning away, he took in a deep breath, then, using gloves he pulled from his coat pocket, he returned to his work, lifted Joey’s ripe body out of the wrappings and placed it on the backseat behind the driver’s spot.

  “Goddamn, that stinks,” he said.

  He quickly folded up the plastic, returned it to the trunk of his car, removed his gloves, dropped them inside as well, and closed the trunk lid.

  Tad could hear the plastic unwrapping, feel the car shake as the door was opened and something was put on the backseat. He had an uncomfortable feeling it might be Harry’s body.

  Damn. He had been right. This had been some kind of trap, and now here he was, Mr. Helpful, locked in the trunk trying to remember the goddamn Flintstones theme song.

  Even with what was going on outside, he kept trying to remember the damn thing. Wasn’t there something about Bedrock in it, that being Fred Flintstone’s hometown?

  Goddamn. Forget the fucking Flintstones.

  Now he heard another voice.

  “Get in behind the wheel. Give him the key, he’s driving.”

  Tad felt the sensation of the car door opening, heard it slam. Then the doors on the other side of the car, front and back, slamming not quite in unison.

  Okay. That meant at least three or four. Someone was behind the wheel, someone beside the driver, and one or two in the back. All four doors had slammed, and the car had moved in such a way to indicate that.

  And, oh, let’s not forget another rider.

  A big dumb-ass in the trunk.

  The car started up. Tad heard another car engine turn over nearby. Okay. That means there may be five. Or more. Someone has got to drive the other car, and there could be someone with him. And if I weren’t inside the trunk I could probably count them and be sure.

  The car began to move.

  “You know where Humper’s Hill is, boy?” the chief asked. The chief was sitting in the backseat, the automatic close to Kayla’s head. Harry was at the wheel. Joey’s body was propped on the backseat across from the chief. Sergeant Pale was in his car, following.

  “Never heard of it,” Harry said. No use making it easy.

  “Sure you know. It was part of one of those sound things…. All right, you listen to me. We’ll do it your way. I’ll give directions. Get cute, and your girl gets one in the back of the head…. Goddamn, your friend here stinks.”

  “Being dead will do that,” Harry said.

  “You’ll be stinking soon enough,” the chief said. “You thought that body on my couch was some funny shit, didn’t you? Well, when they find your bodies, and who knows when that’ll be, you’ll have this guy with you, all trussed up. And the way I’ll see it, if I’m still chief, it’ll be read like this: You killed him. You and your girlfriend. For what, who knows? But you trussed him up, killed him for whatever reason…. Fun, maybe. Just to see if you could. And you took him out to Hump
er’s Hill to dump him, but, goddamn if you didn’t fuck up, and the car gear slipped, and in a moment of panic or excitement you put your foot on the gas thinking it was the brake, and damned if the whole kit and fucking caboodle of you didn’t go over the side.

  “Out there, there’s a pretty good drop, youngsters, and it’s my feeling it’ll kill you. And if it doesn’t, well, there’s always me climbing down there and giving you a tire iron to the head. No one will be the wiser to what happened. No connection to me. And, hey, they may never find you. Considering most people go there to get laid, you’re just gonna be something for the kudzu to crawl over.

  “Another way you can look at it to make you feel a little less blue is, you’ll be part of the cycle of life. You know, the worms, the soil, all that shit. I think about death, I think about that, and it gives me some comfort. How about you? Cheered up?”

  “Fuck you,” Harry said.

  The chief leaned over and clipped Harry’s ear with the automatic. Harry swerved.

  “Pay attention to the goddamn road. You’ve turned over your boy back here.”

  Joey, legs still bound behind him with his hands, lay on his side on the seat now. He looked like an old man from the decay. His face hung loose, and parts of it were coming off on the seat covers.

  “Goddamn,” the chief said, and rolled down his window.

  Tad caught bits and pieces of the conversation. He could also smell Joey. The trunk was filling with an odor like a slaughterhouse.

  He pulled the tire iron out from under him, then removed his belt, took out his Swiss army knife, and carefully began cutting from the belt a long strip of leather. He found a loop in the trunk lock and ran the strip through it. He pulled the loose end of the strip back and looped it around his left wrist so when he popped the trunk he could keep it from swinging open. He took the tire iron and put it in under the lock and applied pressure. It was like trying to lever the world with a toothpick.

  Following the chief’s direction, Harry went the route he already knew but didn’t admit to. He thought about Tad. If he looked around, he was bound to have figured out something was wrong. Surely he didn’t just get out of the trunk and go to the movies. That didn’t make sense.

  But where was he?

  He looked out of the corner of his eye at Kayla. She was steaming, he could see that. She was past being scared. She was starting to get mad. He had seen that look before, when she punched his ass long ago, and the other day when she slapped him, pushed his arm behind his back.

  She was pissed.

  Pissed she had been found out so easy.

  Pissed she had been surprised and tied to a chair.

  Pissed she had been burned with cigarettes, threatened with a lit cigar to her nether regions.

  Pissed she had betrayed him.

  He wished he could tell her it was okay. He understood. Pain is pain is pain, and no one is that tough.

  Well, maybe Tad. He had a feeling Tad might be as tough as they came.

  Tad put the tire tool down and took a deep breath.

  This sucked. He was going to go over a cliff in a car trunk. He had thought of a lot of different ways he might die, but that wasn’t one of them. Novel, he had to admit, but not his choice. Probably, if he were ever found, he would have a spare tire up his ass, maybe a taillight in his teeth.

  The situation was, as the philosophers said, not good.

  He held his phone light close to the lock. So far he had managed to put some scratches on it, but when it came to scoring: lock, one. Tad, the big old fucking shit-covered goose egg.

  He studied the lock for a time, then took out his pocketknife again.

  He opened the pick blade, stuck it in the lock, went to work, hoping he’d hit a combination.

  He hadn’t been at it thirty seconds before he broke the pick off in the lock with an unpleasant snapping sound.

  Tad folded up what was left of the pick, put the knife in his pocket, and shifted so that he was on his side, his head supported by his arm.

  He said to himself: Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.

  After a few seconds of continued communion with the universe, he returned to the tire tool, went back to trying to quietly lever the trunk lid open.

  57

  When they started up the road toward Humper’s Hill, the chief said, “Stop.”

  Harry stopped.

  “Put it in gear, slide over next to her.”

  Harry did as instructed.

  The chief quickly came over the seat, fell in behind the wheel. He stretched his right arm out behind Harry and Kayla and put the gun to Kayla’s temple, rested his left hand on the steering wheel.

  “Anyone gets squirrelly, I’ll blow your gal’s head all over the inside of this wreck. Got me?”

  “Yeah,” Harry said.

  “Figured I’d drive the rest of the way, case you wanted to take me over the cliff with you. You thought about it, didn’t you?”

  Harry didn’t answer.

  When the car stopped, Tad, having finally broken the lock, and having mashed the back of his knuckles, lifted up the trunk just enough for him to slide out, pulled the lid closed with the strap of his belt, and tied it off where the trunk lid snapped closed.

  Then he rolled off the road like a tumblebug, out into the darkness and behind a clutch of trees. The car went on up the hill, and then a second car came up the road, lights bright.

  Okay, Tad thought. I’m loose. I’m angry as a hive of hornets. And Harry is in trouble.

  He put his hands in his coat pockets, found the darts again by being poked.

  “Ouch,” he said, watching the second car climb up the hill.

  Tad moved through the darkness, climbing alongside the road as fast as he could go. He couldn’t remember how far it was to the top of the hill, but he thought it wasn’t far. He certainly hoped so. His legs were getting tired, and he felt a little winded, and the limbs and brush were tearing at his body, and he needed to pee. These days he always needed to pee.

  He took a deep breath, put everything out of his mind, continued to climb. A wind was moving gently through the trees, and he imagined it at his back, lifting him up the hill.

  The chief parked the car at the edge of the cliff, put it in gear, got out, and poked the automatic through the open window. “What I’d like you to do, Mr. Sound Man, is slide back behind the wheel, and then put it in gear and put your foot on the gas.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind,” Harry said. “Just shoot us. I’m not driving this thing over the cliff.”

  “I will shoot you, you know?”

  “Do it. Make some bullet holes. I don’t think you’re as certain of this shit as you act. You want us over that cliff, you’ll have to drive us.”

  The chief looked at his watch.

  “Like I care about your movie,” Harry said. “I get one thing out of this, make you miss your recording, that’s better than nothing. Learn to set the timer, you dumb son of a bitch.”

  “All right,” the chief said. He reached through the window, got hold of the gearshift, put it in neutral. “Me and Pale, we thought about this. We didn’t expect it to be easy. Would have been nice, but…”

  Pale’s car lights came up behind them and the car bumped up against Harry’s car, started it rolling.

  As the chief pulled his hand back, Harry leaped for the gun. He grabbed it, turning it up to the ceiling. A shot went off, knocked a hole in the roof, made Harry’s head ring. The car picked up speed. The chief lost his footing, but Harry hung onto his hand. The car got bumped again and charged over the edge, dragging the chief with it, but at the last moment he twisted free and fell for about ten feet. He landed on a rise of dirt and stopped, the gun tumbled from his hand. He grabbed at a clutch of roots. They held him.

  The car went sailing through the air, ducked over the edge, and disappeared from the chief’s view. He heard it hit. Several times. Bouncing.

  He started working his way back up, hanging onto old
roots and vines, thinking once he got up there, he’d have to go back down. Get another gun, climb down there and make sure they were finished, or at least hurt so bad they weren’t going to recover. Maybe he could beat them to death with something. That would be satisfying. That would be good. He hung from a vine and looked at the glow of his watch.

  He still had time to set the recording, if everything went smooth from here on. Shit, worst-case scenario, he could buy the DVD.

  Tad saw the car go over just as he came to a line of trees on the top of the hill, saw the headlights of the other car shining on the burnt ground. His heart went over with Harry’s car. His stomach twisted; it was like that day he heard about his wife and son.

  Maybe, just maybe, Harry and Kayla were alive and the car was on top of that sonofabitch Chief Asshole.

  Christ, don’t let it happen twice. Don’t let me lose my boy again.

  Tad watched as Pale got out of his car quickly and ran over to the edge. Tad took that moment to move into the opening, his hand dipping into his coat pocket, bringing out the six darts. He shifted all but one to his left hand.

  As he trotted toward Pale, Pale turned, saw him, reached inside his coat.

  Tad couldn’t really see the guy’s face, but he could see his shape, knew where his target was by reflex. He flicked the dart.

  Sergeant Pale saw what looked like a black spot jump up in front of his eye, and then he was hit, thinking at first a bug had flown into his face, into his eye, but when the pain started he knew better.

  He screamed and grabbed at the dart, twisted his body, dropped to one knee, pulled the dart free, and most of his eye came with it.

  “You bastard!”

  Tad kept coming at a kind of slow trot.

  Pale tried to get his gun out from under his coat, but another dart hit him in the hand. He jerked it back, saw the dart standing up on the back of his palm, saw with his good eye a big man running toward him like a locomotive.