Echoes

by Iain McLaughlin

  A tormented scream broke the silence, and a young woman in her early twenties slowly appeared by the table. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and her hands clenched into fists. As she became completely solid, she lurched, as though out of practice at standing. Her eyes snapped open and she reflexively grabbed for the back of the nearest chair. She steadied herself and looked around. Her eyes widened. She was home. For a moment, she was shocked, and then relief flooded her face. She ran to the door and heaved at the handle. The door refused to move. She pulled heavy curtains away from the windows. Beyond, there was only an inky blackness. She yanked the curtains closed again, as if not seeing the void outside would make it less real. She gripped the chair at the head of the table. Her chair. She felt an odd chill along her spine as she looked the length of the table at the empty chair facing hers. Despite everything that had happened, she wished that he was there with her. Nothing frightened him, especially in his own house. He would find a way to fight their way free. But he wasn’t there. Despite the familiar faces looking down from two hundred years’ worth of portraits, she was alone.

  Hunger began to ache in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t eaten since … she had no idea. Time meant so little to her now. She fell on the food, tearing a leg from the roast chicken. The years her mother had spent teaching her the most proper table manners and the decorum a lady should show in public were forgotten as she bit and chewed as quickly as she could. She drained the wine from the goblet and filled it again, carelessly splashing the red liquid across the table as she did so. In time, she slowed, embarrassed by her lack of manners. Even though she was alone, her upbringing demanded the strictest standards. She ate more slowly, picking delicately at the food. As she ate, she thought. There had to be a way she could escape. She would find it. God would not abandon her to the fate she had faced. He would protect her and show her the way.

  And then she heard the sound again. That awful noise. A sound like a demon tearing a scream from her soul. It was coming back for her.

  ‘No.’

  She ran to the door. Again it wouldn’t move. A second door, leading to the kitchens, refused to open either. She looked around the room desperately. ‘Please, God,’ she pleaded. ‘Protect me and save me from this thing. I am a good and honest Christian. Please, God, help me.’

  Even as she prayed, the lights began to fade from the candles and the fire dimmed. Dust began to reappear over the furniture, and the reeds covering the floor darkened with age and became brittle. The food on the table became transparent and began to disappear.

  She screamed, ‘No! I won’t go back!’ But even as her words echoed round the hall, she faded away, leaving no trace that she had been there.

  Chapter Two

  As soon as they entered the building, the warmth of the tower’s heating embraced Emily and Lechasseur. ‘Better?’ Emily asked.

  Lechasseur brushed the melting snow from his shoulder with his hat. ‘Much. I think I can feel everything again.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Even the big toes are reporting in for duty.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky you don’t wear shoes like mine.’ Emily shook more snow from her feet and looked ruefully at the low-heeled pumps. She’d be lucky if they weren’t ruined. Actually, she thought, she was lucky that her ankles weren’t ruined from trudging through snow in them – and shoes were easier to repair than ankles. She glanced over towards Honoré, who was standing by a display on one of the walls, reading the names on it. ‘Do they give any clue about where we are?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope.’ Lechasseur turned back to face Emily. ‘Other than that the building is called the Dragon Industry Tower. And that it seems to be filled with the most boring sounding companies I ever heard of. Insurance, assurance, import, export.’

  ‘Boring?’ Emily tutted. ‘I think the word you’re looking for is respectable, Honoré.’

  ‘Respectable?’ Lechasseur nodded towards the symbol on the glass doors. ‘With that on show?’

  Emily’s smile faded and she flicked a hand at two doors at the far end of the lobby. ‘There, too,’ she said. ‘And there,’ she added, indicating a subtle carving of the symbol cut into the front of the reception desk. Even with its polished, honed, corporate appearance, the horned symbol still brought a chill to Emily. She tried – and failed – to suppress a shiver. ‘Perhaps not so respectable,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe things have changed,’ Honoré offered. ‘Or maybe it’s just a coincidence’ He sounded far from convincing – or convinced.

  ‘Let’s see what we can find here.’ Emily moved around the reception desk and picked up a newspaper that lay face down on the desk. ‘December, 1995,’ she read. She gave the back page a cursory look, then handed the paper across to Honoré.

  He scanned the front page briefly. Something about a movie named ‘Goldeneye’ ran in a banner along the top, with a handsome, dark-haired man looking grim while holding a gun. An actress with short reddish hair and wearing what was, to Lechasseur’s eye, a very brief swimming costume, was leaning against him. ‘Since when did a movie make front page news?’ he muttered, then opened the first page of the paper. His lips pursed into a slightly wicked smile. ‘Must be cold there, too.’

  Emily peered over his shoulder. A topless blonde girl smiled out from page 3. ‘So, in 1995, men are obsessed with women and football.’

  ‘Well, that hasn’t changed since 1950,’ Lechasseur shrugged. ‘And they still go to the movies.’

  He looked around the reception area. A marble floor with a slightly differently coloured central aisle led to a set of four elevators. Corridors stretched off at right angles on either side of the elevators. The walls were decorated in light colours and highlighted with glass and shining metal. He didn’t like it much. It was too sterile for his tastes. It felt like a designer had put it together to show how clever he was, without worrying about whether people would like working there or not. Or maybe this was just the way the fashion in architecture had changed since 1950. He remembered 2020 Tokyo, and the clinical design on show in that time. Either way, Lechasseur still didn’t care for the place, though he noted with interest that Emily seemed completely at ease with the antiseptic surroundings.

  The lights flickered, startling Lechasseur slightly. Emily didn’t seem to have noticed him jump, though she did look a little uneasy as she turned to face him. ‘It must be the weather disrupting the electricity,’ she said.

  ‘Must be,’ Lechasseur agreed, adding another item to his list of reasons to hate snow.

  ‘The wind’s certainly strong enough. I can hear it in here.’

  Lechasseur nodded. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that Emily mentioned the wind, he could make out a hollow, echoing sound just on the edge of his hearing.

  ‘That’s not right.’ Emily’s head was tilted to one side. ‘It’s getting closer.’

  ‘Louder?’ Lechasseur corrected.

  Emily shook her head firmly. ‘Closer,’ she repeated.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Lechasseur answered. ‘Wind doesn’t move like that.’

  Emily’s eyebrows shot up in irritation. ‘I know that,’ she responded, a little more snippily than she had intended. ‘But how does it sound to you?’

  Honoré concentrated on the sound. Emily was right. ‘It does sound like it’s getting closer,’ he conceded. For a second, he was reminded of the sound of German artillery as it had whistled through the air, getting louder as it came closer, before it detonated and the screams started.

  Emily pointed along the corridor to the left of the lifts. ‘I think it’s coming from this direction,’ she said, and without waiting for Lechasseur, she strode off.

  ‘What do you expect to find?’ Lechasseur called, running a few steps to catch up with Emily.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Emily answered. She chuckled wryly. ‘Probably an open window with the wind whistling through it.’

 
; ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘Of course, it’s far more likely to be something hideous and terrifying, ready to bite our heads off.’

  Lechasseur glowered. ‘You had to go and spoil it.’

  ‘You’re not nervous, are you, Honoré?’ Emily smiled.

  ‘Why don’t we just keep looking for this open window of …’ He stopped abruptly, and the smile on Emily’s lips died. The sound they had thought was the wind had become clearer and far more distinct – and unmistakably a woman’s scream. A long, almost impossibly drawn-out scream, that finally and abruptly cut off.

  Emily grasped a door-handle. ‘She’s through here.’ She twisted the handle, but the door stayed resolutely closed. ‘Locked.’

  ‘Let me try,’ Lechasseur said, moving past Emily and leaning his weight on the door.

  The scream sounded again, this time even closer, and the fear was obvious. ‘Try again,’ Emily said urgently.

  ‘I’m trying.’ Lechasseur barged his shoulder against the door as he turned the handle. Again nothing happened.

  ‘’Ere, what the hell are you lot doing there!’

  Emily and Lechasseur spun round. Approaching them at speed from the corridor on the far side of the lifts was an elderly man in a uniform that appeared to have been designed for someone much younger – flashy epaulettes, shiny buttons, a gaudy red stripe down the sides of the trousers and a carefully-designed but painfully tacky logo reading ‘5-Star Security’. To his credit, the guard – whose name, Dorkins, was displayed on a tag pinned to his breast pocket – carried the uniform with better grace than it deserved.

  Lechasseur, realising that it must appear as if he and Emily had been trying to break into the office, attempted to rescue the situation: ‘Erm, this isn’t what it looks like. You see, we heard a woman screaming and …’ He broke off his feeble explanation as he realised that Dorkins was no longer listening to him, but was now staring over his and Emily’s shoulders at the locked door behind them, an expression of mounting terror on his face.

  Lechasseur and Emily both turned to see what had seized Dorkins’ attention. To their utter astonishment, the spectral figure of a young woman in Regency clothing was passing straight through the door and looming towards them along the dimly-lit corridor. Instinctively, they ducked, while the terror-stricken Dorkins flung himself to the floor.

  Honoré threw his hand across his face for protection. As the figure passed, the trailing cuff of her sleeve passed through him. There was no pain from the contact, only an icy chill, as if she had drained all the heat from his body as she passed. ‘What was that?’ he gasped.

  ‘I’m no expert,’ Emily said quietly, ‘but I’d say it looked like a ghost.’

  ‘I hoped it was just me.’

  Ignoring Dorkins’ feeble protests, Emily and Lechasseur hurried after the pale figure. The ghost stopped suddenly and spun towards them. Her mouth was open in a silent scream; her face filled with terror. She stretched out her hands towards them, pleading. She slipped by them and rose higher, her form fading as it ascended through the ceiling.

  ‘I never believed in ghosts,’ Lechasseur said quietly.

  ‘I don’t know if she was a ghost or not,’ Emily answered. ‘But did you see the expression on her face?’

  Lechasseur nodded. ‘Terrified. But so would I be if I was … whatever she is.’

  ‘She went through the ceiling. Do you think we should follow her?’

  ‘Are you seriously asking me that? Personally, I’d rather turn myself in to that security guard.’

  ‘Honoré.’

  ‘All right,’ Lechasseur grumbled. ‘We ought to follow her. You’re right.’

  Emily pressed the button for the lift, carefully avoiding looking at the horned symbol. ‘Aren’t I always?’

  ‘Can I plead the Fifth on that?’

  A bell chimed, and the lift door slid silently open. ‘Saved by the bell.’ Emily stepped into the lift and Honoré followed. ‘Where to?’

  Lechasseur hit the button for the top floor. ‘Where else for classy folks like us?’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Not bad.’ Lechasseur took in the lift’s interior. Ornately decorated panels featuring a fire-breathing dragon – representing Dragon Industry, he assumed, and far more welcoming than the company’s logo – reached almost halfway to the ceiling. Heavily polished mirrors filled the top half of the walls. The interiors of the doors featured two dragons posed so that when the doors slid shut, battle was joined.

  The lift gave a slight lurch as it reached the top floor. There was a subdued chime and the doors slid open. Emily and Honoré moved out onto the landing. They had two choices. To their left there was a pair of doors marked Giovanni Imports; to the right, the plaque on the doors read Christopher and Jones, Financial Services.

  ‘Do you have a preference?’ Emily asked.

  Lechasseur grimaced. ‘Never much cared for titles like Financial Services,’ he said. ‘Too much like a loan shark trying to sound legit.’

  ‘So it’s the import business for us?’ Emily reached for the doors and they swung inwards easily. ‘Unlocked,’ she said. ‘Lucky for us.’ She pushed the doors wide open to reveal a set of offices decorated in warm, friendly colours. They stepped through the doors …

  … into nothingness.

  Faster than their eyes could register, the offices disappeared and they were standing – floating? – in a jet black void.

  ‘Emily?’

  ‘I’m all right. Did you see what happened?’

  Lechasseur looked round quickly, trying not to show any panic. ‘It was too fast for me,’ he said. ‘Can you see anything at all?’

  ‘No.’ Emily grasped at the air around them.

  ‘Hopefully, you’re going to tell me the lights just went out.’

  ‘If they did, why can we still see each other?’ Emily hunkered down and wafted her hand through the space where a floor should have been. She ran her hand under both their pairs of feet without encountering any obstruction. ‘And we don’t seem to be standing on anything, either.’

  Lechasseur laughed uncomfortably. ‘You know, if this was a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this’d be the time we’d fall.’

  He took a deep breath and looked around again. The view hadn’t changed – still pitch black all around them – but he forced some confidence into his voice. ‘Okay, I guess we have to find a way out of here.’

  ‘At a wild guess, ‘ Emily said thoughtfully, ‘I’d say we take that door?’

  ‘Door?’

  Some way ahead of them – they could only guess at the actual distance – a door had appeared. A regular, wooden door, like the front door of a house, painted a reassuring blue. ‘I’ll be …’ Honoré breathed.

  ‘I think it’s getting closer.’

  Sure enough, the door was growing larger, the panels becoming clearer, the handle and letterbox growing more distinct.

  ‘Are we getting closer to the door or is it coming closer to us?’

  ‘Or both?’ Emily offered.

  The door stopped a few inches from where they stood, entirely incongruous in the void surrounding them.

  Emily ran a finger gingerly around the letter box. ‘It’s solid enough.’

  Lechasseur rapped his knuckles on the door. The sound was reassuringly wooden. He was surprised by the lack of an echo. For some reason, he had expected the sound to reverberate.

  ‘Are you expecting an answer?’ Emily asked. ‘A butler telling us we’re expected and asking if we would care to have some tea?’

  ‘If somebody puts a door in the middle of, well, wherever this is, my guess is that they want us to go through.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Emily answered, testily. ‘And I imagine there’s only one way to find out what’s waiting inside.’

  ‘We look through the letterbox?’ Lechasseur
suggested, hopefully.

  Emily twisted at the handle and pushed the door open. Without waiting to see what lay through the door, she stepped across the threshold.

  ‘Wait!’ Lechasseur threw up a hand to stop her. Too late. ‘I really wish you hadn’t done that,’ he grumbled, and then, for the second time in an hour, Honoré Lechasseur followed Emily through a door into the unknown.

  • It’s all right, Patience. Patience.

  • No! No, I can’t be here again, Joan. I won’t be!

  • What happened to her?

  • I can’t be back here.

  • Patience, you’re safe here. You know you’re safe.

  • What happened? Where did she go?

  • Is she all right, miss?

  • Go away, Mary.

  • Did you go home, milady?

  • Leave me alone.

  • I just want to know …

  • Go away!

  • Joan, what’s happening?

  • Alice. Take Mary away from here.

  • How do I do that?

  • You’ll find out. You just do.

  • But …

  • No buts, Mary. Go with Alice.

  • Yes, miss.

  • Patience? Patience?

  • I thought I was free, Joan.

  • You’re safe enough, Patience.

  • I don’t want to be here. I can’t bear it.

  • Your name’s Mary, isn’t it?

  • Yes, miss.

  • Alice. Call me Alice.

  • Oh, I couldn’t do that.

  • Why not?

  • Well, it wouldn’t be proper.

  • Of course it would. It’s my name.

  • No, I couldn’t. The mistress would never stand for it.

  • Why?