Echoes (Book 1): Echoes

by Caplan, A. M.

  “Good. You are in dire need of supplies, and I think I should take a better look around. Assess things a little more broadly. Can you be prepared to leave in an hour?”

  She set down her empty mug and folded the blanket.

  “I’ll be ready to go in thirty.”

  It was closer to fifteen; high maintenance, Hannah was not. Since the clothes she had fallen asleep in were mostly clean, she quickly changed her coffee-stained sweater and washed her face, half of which was the color of a ripe eggplant. She looked briefly at her concealer and decided that she needed about a half gallon more than was there, so she skipped it. A minute after yanking a brush through her hair she clomped down the stairs in her boots.

  Asher was waiting at the bottom, holding her heaviest coat and a winter hat he must have dug out of her coat closet. She grabbed her bag, the one he’d rescued from outside the grocery store, and slung it across her chest.

  She almost went down on the ice, two steps out of the door. He grabbed her by the elbow and righted her, then went ahead of her.

  “Do you think it will start?” She dug around in her purse for the car keys but didn’t hear the expected jingle. He pulled them from his pocket and clicked a button, the locks popping up on command.

  “I unearthed it and checked it this morning before you woke up, in case we should need it. It appears to be working just fine.” He went to the passenger door and opened it for her. She didn’t protest. Last time Hannah drove the car she’d hit him with it, so she figured that entitled him to be behind the wheel. Maybe not to rummaging around her place for the keys, but she’d apply that against shooting him.

  “What is it?” she asked, her eyes scanning the tree line where he was staring, frozen.

  “Nothing,” he said while they got in, but he was intent on the rearview mirror as they started up the driveway.

  Instead of making the left into town they had turned right, toward Newton, taking the long route around by the highway. The grocery store there was larger but more expensive, the kind where you had to pay for the luxury of having too many choices, a florist, a nail salon, and a bank branch.

  “Do you drink milk in your coffee or cream?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Asher. Earth to Asher.”

  “I beg your pardon?” He was staring through the front window of the store and out into the parking lot. “Cream.” He didn’t look at Hannah when he spoke but started scanning the faces around them. She wondered if it was all due to the current situation, or if part of it was that at his size you were just more prone to be on guard, knowing you were more noticeable than the average person wherever you went. Hannah didn’t really stand out in a crowd and was accustomed to—and perfectly fine with—blending in.

  “What is it?” she asked, looking over the list she’d made in the car. He was far away again, now scanning the people around them.

  “Nothing. I saw a face I thought familiar.”

  It was familiar to Hannah. They rounded the corner, and when she reached up for a box above her head she almost ran into a bleached blonde in a tight coat, lips painted bright red. The same obnoxiously bright shade of red Hannah had last seen at the Shur Shop.

  “Oh, Hannah! How are you? I was just thinking I should give you a call and see how you were doing. I’m so glad I ran into you.”

  Hannah was seriously confused. Last time she’d run into Sheila the woman could barely contain her amusement at Hannah’s misfortune. Now she sounded like her long-lost best friend. Then she realized Sheila had gotten an eyeful of Asher.

  “Well now, who’s your friend? Aren’t you gonna introduce me?” Sheila asked, her voice syrupy.

  Hannah looked at him with a grimace, scraping for an explanation.

  “Oh, um, Sheila, this is . . .”

  Asher nodded at her from behind the cart, forcing a sliver of a smile on his face.

  “Tony. Tony Barilla. I knew Hannah’s uncle. We were friends from the. . .” His eyes flicked to Hannah.

  “From the air force,” she added, knowing how completely unconvincing it sounded. Sheila wasn’t the least bit bothered though, and she beamed, wiggling past Hannah to get closer to Asher, holding out a manicured hand for him to shake.

  “Well, I am pleased to meet you, Tony. I’m Sheila. Sheila Gates.”

  If Sheila mentioned anything about knowing her uncle intimately, Hannah was going to punch the smile off the woman’s face and go on the run.

  “Are you just visiting?” Sheila said. Asher nodded, dropping her hand and trying to move away, but Sheila took another step toward him. He looked a little uncomfortable as she tapped a long red nail on the handle of the cart. “You gonna be stayin’ long?”

  He looked squirmy enough for Hannah to have to fight the urge to laugh as she edged her way closer to the turn of the aisle in an effort to escape.

  “At present, I have no immediate plans to leave.”

  This was news to Hannah, and it made Sheila smile. God, the woman was a freaking shark, an apex predator.

  “No, you’re not from around here, are you? But my, you do look familiar? Have you ever been in the Shur Shop in Milltown? I work there, though I admit to cheating on them to shop here. Better selection, you know.” She winked at him. “Our little secret.” Sheila was looking at Asher closely, head tilted to one side. “Now where have I seen you?”

  All of a sudden, Asher threw her a dazzling smile and leaned forward over the cart handle.

  “You must have an amazing memory, Sheila. I believe I was in that store. It is incredible you would remember me after only ringing up my groceries one time.”

  Hannah thought Sheila’s face was going to break, the quizzical look replaced with a grin that made her lipstick crack in the center. Asher turned to Hannah, engaging smile still pasted onto his face.

  “Do you have everything you need, Hannah? It looks like it might snow and I would like to get back in case the roads get icy.” She didn’t have everything on her list, but she’d do without toilet paper and bread to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Sheila.” Asher pushed the cart forward, bumping Hannah with the front to get her out of the way, not waiting for a response from Sheila.

  They blew through the self checkout and loaded the car without looking back.

  “Way to turn on the charm there. Might have been a bit much though; Sheila might decide to follow you home,” Hannah said. “Still, nice job, Tony Barilla. Would have been a little less obvious if we weren’t in the pasta section.” Apparently he didn’t think it was as funny as she did. “It went slightly better than my last trip to the grocery store, anyway.” Still nothing, just her voice and the click of the blinker.

  Finally he spoke. “I did not mean for you to see me. I wish that you had not.”

  “What do you mean, you didn’t mean for me to see you?”

  He didn’t answer right away, silent as they drove out of town. He finally spoke after they had turned onto the highway.

  “I did not intend for us to actually meet,” he said. “I was aware of who you were, after you hit me. I kept an eye on you because I was attempting to figure out why I kept running into you and waking up in the same town again and again. That is the strangest part. Never in all my years have I found myself in the same place after dying more than once, certainly not repeatedly.”

  She didn’t think that was remotely the strangest part.

  “I was here for some unknown reason, and then you continued looking for me, and there were descriptions and pictures of me all over. I stayed nearby longer than I intended to, to see how far you would dig and at what point you would leave it alone and the interest in finding me would die down. I was concerned it was because you knew what I was, though I could not imagine how. I discounted the idea after a time, seeing that you were just stubbornly looking for a normal missing man.”

  “So you were here, watching me.”

  “In the beginning. Not that it w
as a difficult task. You only left the house to look for me. It was worrying; you looked like death, growing paler and thinner by the week.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, well, you could have done something about that.” Hannah said it light-heartedly, but inside, it angered her, that she had gone through everything she had trying to find him.

  “I know this, and I had every intention to. I had decided to walk to your door, knock, and give you some made-up explanation, anything, to make you stop looking. Then I could leave town confident my face would cease showing up on posters and online. And I still thought maybe my happening to reappear here in the same vicinity was a fluke, some random occurrence.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Her words were clipped. He could have saved her so much pain. If he had showed up, even if he hadn’t told her the whole truth, at least she would have known he was real and she hadn’t killed him. It wouldn’t have answered all her questions, but at least she would have known she wasn’t completely crazy.

  “I was going to, Hannah. I swear to you I was on my way to do just that when you were struck by the car trying to reach me. Oblivious me, I did not even know you had seen me until they were pulling you out from under that vehicle.”

  He was staring straight ahead, intent on the road, and she saw his expression harden, his jaw tighten. “You would have had me then, you know. It would have been better if you had, I think now, but I fled, knowing the questions it would raise when the authorities arrived and found a man they did not believe existed.”

  Asher shook his head. “I should have risked it, if I had known what would happen the next time you caught sight of me. Or maybe I should have just left the area for good, because the next time I saw you was when I passed you on the road walking. Instead of leaving I followed you to the grocery store. It was a mistake. I should have driven away right then. I should not have gone there and waited for you to come out, because if you had not seen me then, you would have been okay. Now that I have met you, I know you would have been. But I stayed, and you saw me.”

  He was gripping the steering wheel, knuckles whitening.

  “And then I managed to make it infinitely worse. I picked up your things, thinking I would return them to the porch, make sure you were okay. When I got there I saw the broken window and the blood. I was about to go in, but a man pulled up to make a delivery. I was thankful, since I imagined he would see what I saw and call for help.”

  The steering wheel gave off a strange grinding noise, and Asher let go, color returning to his knuckles. There were now sizable finger-shaped divots crushed into the wheel.

  “Geez, take it easy on the car. It’s the only one I have.” She was slightly less angry now, partly because the look on his face was so agonizingly sad.

  “Hannah, I was certain whoever it was would do the right thing, or I never would have left. I know now that they did, just not immediately. When I returned I could not believe the snow in the driveway was undisturbed. There were no lights on, no smoke from the chimney, and the window was still broken. I will not deny I thought you were dead. I came into your freezing, wide-open house expecting to find your corpse. Needless to say, I was surprised.”

  He actually smiled then, a small, wry smile.

  “It happened again, and I woke up outside in the snow. It took me some time to put myself back together, find clothes, car keys, and come back to confirm you were safe, especially now that you had watched me die a second time only to have my body disappear once again.”

  They drove in silence for a moment, a thin line of slate sky visible above them between the walls of frost-tipped green. The heavy clouds of a coming storm loomed overhead.

  “I was almost too late, did you know that?” His eyes were staring fixedly at the road, his face in profile appearing cut from stone. “When I put myself together and came back you were not in the house. The front door was hanging open. I could see your tracks, but at the road there was no way to know which way you went. I went back to where it happened, when you hit me, and then I drove to the only other place I could think of. I never imagined for all of the time you spent sitting, looking at the water, that you would go in. I saw you leaning over, reaching out over the river, like you were flying. I yelled your name, and you let go. This is my fault. All of this happened, is still happening, because of me.”

  They were waiting at the crossroads close to her house, stopped at the intersection of the paved and the dirt, and he paused, putting his head down on the steering wheel.

  “I heard you call my name.” She laid a hand on the crook of his arm, tentatively. “I heard you call out and I lost my grip. I didn’t let go, I slipped and when I went in, you came in after me. Asher, I’m glad to be alive. I couldn’t make the world make sense, and it became my entire life, and that was wrong. How I handled things was a mistake I almost didn’t live to see the error of. Blame yourself all you want. Whatever happened, whoever you are, whatever you are, when it’s all said and done, you risked your life to save mine, and I’m grateful for it.”

  Hannah had been angry, but what she had just told him was true, and remembering how close she’d come to dying had snuffed out a great deal of her rage. She paused for a moment, then laughed out loud.

  Asher picked his head up to look at her.

  “Well, I guess you didn’t actually risk your life. According to you, you probably would have just woken up on my couch or something. But still, the end result was the same, and I appreciate the effort.” She punched him in the arm playfully, and he shook his head, which she told herself was in amusement.

  “Come on. It’s going to start snowing any minute. We better get home before it gets bad, or Sheila comes looking for you.”

  14

  Hannah’s phone started ringing the moment she set foot on the front porch. Juggling both shopping bags into one hand, she rummaged around in her bag until she found her house key. Ignoring the ringing, she unlocked the door and held it open behind her with her foot for Asher, who was bringing up the rear with the rest. By the time they were inside, the phone had rung itself out.

  “What is it?” She balanced the bags on the counter in the kitchen, still dark with the towel over the window. Asher looked on alert, as he had been the entire time he hustled her out of the car and quickly to the door. She couldn’t imagine what he was anticipating, but he looked like an animal sniffing the air for danger.

  “Maybe nothing. Just a feeling.”

  Her phone began to ring again and she sighed with annoyance, pulling it out of her bag. “Shoot. It’s the sheriff.” Two missed calls from him, the third still ringing. Great.

  “Answer it.”

  She shot Asher a glare in response, but he was right. She would prefer not to answer it, but if she avoided the sheriff’s calls there was a chance he would just stop by. If her suspicion about why he was calling was correct, he would definitely be stopping by.

  “I guess I better.” She made a face and hit answer. Sheriff Morgan didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

  “I’m on my way to your house. I’ll be there in five minutes, and your friend better be around when I get there.”

  Funny how she’d previously been dreaming about this very moment. Being able to convince Sheriff Morgan the man she’d hit was real, and with the added bonus of him still being alive. Knowing one hundred percent she hadn’t completely lost her mind and proving it. Everything she’d hoped for neatly tied up in a bow. But now that it was happening, it was going to be little more complicated.

  “Well, Mr. Barilla, any idea how we should handle this one? I mean other than telling the truth, which I don’t think is going to fly. We could, but he’s threatened to have me committed before, and this won’t convince him that was a wrong move. Maybe we can share a rubber room.”

  Asher wasn’t smiling. He was looking at her in a way that made her think he did have an idea, and that she wasn’t going to like it.

  “Hey, Sheriff Morgan.” Hannah opened the door and let him in, trying
to look sheepish. He actually had his hand resting on his gun, and the strap across the top was undone.

  “Hannah. I just got a phone call from Sheila over to the Shur Shop. She swore to everything holy that she just saw you in the grocery store in Newton with the man whose face has been plastered on every phone pole and board in this town for going on half a year.”

  Hannah took a deep breath.

  “He’s in the kitchen.”

  The sheriff stopped short, like he’d expected her to deny it, despite believing Sheila enough to be standing on Hannah’s doormat.

  Asher—Tony for the moment—was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. He looked a little less giant and threatening sitting down, at least that was what they were hoping. The sheriff was glowering down at him from the kitchen doorway, hand still uncomfortably close to his gun.

  “Hannah, I really hope you have a good explanation. I see a real live missing person sitting at your kitchen table.” Oh sure, now he believed there had been a missing person. He took his hand off his gun and crossed his arms, which was a small improvement. His stiff hat was still on, almost touching the doorframe, which wasn’t.

  “Coffee, Sheriff Morgan?” Hannah asked, sidling her way toward the sink.

  “No, Hannah, I don’t want coffee. I want an explanation.”

  She set the coffee pot back down and turned around. This was where they hadn’t agreed. Hannah wanted to tell the sheriff everything had really happened the way she’d been saying it had since the beginning, but that Asher—Tony—had walked away and been in a coma until now or something. The problem was that explanation would have raised some questions they couldn’t answer, like why there wasn’t a mark on him, where his blood had gone, and where he’d been the whole time since then. They’d needed a story that would encourage the least amount of follow-up, so they’d settled on a different version of the events.

  Hannah took a deep breath and did her best to sell the sheriff a big fat lie.