Echoes of the Dead

by Aaron Polson

  Kelsey planned better on her second foray from the house. She wore her thick, downy coat, the navy blue coat her father had purchased for her before she started college her freshmen year. It had been tucked deep inside her apartment closet, almost lost to time and dust, but after the funeral, she’d found it. She stuffed her hands deep inside the pockets and stamped her feet.

  “Almost got it,” he said. The engine coughed, but remained dead. “Damn. My fingers are cold.”

  “Where did you learn to do something like this, anyway?” Kelsey asked.

  “The Army is good for a whole lot of education, Kels. I learned plenty of lessons which were never written down in anyone’s regulations.”

  His fingers pinched wires together. The engine sputtered and caught this time, growling to life with a full, throaty hum. He twisted the wires in place and slid to the ground. “That should do it,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. He nodded to Ben. “You coming along?”

  “No.” Ben’s flashlight drooped toward the ground. Enough snow had fallen to hide the bottom of the RV’s tires. “I can’t leave Wayne and Nick… and Howard. I should stay here in case—”

  “I’m going,” Kelsey said. She looked around at Sarah. “We’ll both need to go to help bring back enough cars.”

  Sarah shivered and pulled her collar close to her neck. “I don’t know if I can drive in this, Kels. It’s a mess out here. Why don’t we all just get in the RV.?”

  Ben shook his head. “Too much gear. I doubt more than one person can ride in the back. I’ve got to stay, regardless. I can’t leave my crew.”

  “Leave the gear here,” Johnny said. “We’ll dump out all your shit. You can pick it up later.”

  “Like hell you will. Who would pay for it? Besides, I’m not doing anything before Wayne and Nick get back. I can’t let you do that. I can’t just leave them here, either.”

  Johnny’s jaw tightened. “Your choice.”

  “It’s just a little snow,” Kelsey said, feigning more courage than she felt. “We’ll need you, Sarah. We can bring the cars back, no sweat, and get out of here before it gets bad.”

  Sarah pressed her lips together and nodded. “Okay,” she muttered. “Okay. It’ll get me out of here faster.”

  Two figures watched from the living room window. Kelsey waved and allowed her gaze to travel up, past the porch roof and over a second floor window. A dark shape moved, black on black. Frigid air caught in her chest. Someone was on the second floor. Howard? No—it couldn’t be Howard. They’d combed the house looking for him. They’d looked in every room, even the cramped, unfinished basement. She moved a few, hurried steps toward the RV where Johnny sat hunched over the steering wheel with the driver’s door wide open.

  “Coming Kels?”

  “Yes. Sarah, too.”

  “Ready and willing.” Sarah hugged herself. “I should have brought a warmer coat.”

  Kelsey patted her arm. “We planned on staying inside, remember.” A dark figure moved through shadows in her mind’s eye. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Sarah ceased her self-hug and clasped Kelsey by the arms. Her eyes narrowed, searching Kelsey’s face. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  “No,” Kelsey lied. “Just ready to go.”

  “Get in already,” Johnny hollered from the open RV door. “This battleship is ready to set sail. We’ll be back soon, if we can.”

  “Once you get to town, just call the number I gave you,” Ben said, waving toward the RV. “His name’s Don. He’s kind of a good old boy, but I’m sure he won’t mind opening up at night for a war hero.”

  Johnny grunted and pulled the door shut. He rubbed his hands together before adjusting the mirror and shifting the gear lever to D1. He looked at Kelsey who had taken the passenger seat. “Ready?”

  “More than you know,” she said. “Sarah’s strapped down in the back, too.”

  “As tight as I can manage,” Sarah shouted from the vehicle’s cabin.

  The transmission groaned as the RV lurched forward. Kelsey caught herself against the dash. They moved in a slow, jerking motion toward the untouched white sheet of snow which had covered the drive. On either side, dark shadow-lines of grass broke through the pristine surface.

  “Not much to go by,” Johnny said. The RV jerked and slid slightly.

  “Are you sure you can drive this?” Kelsey asked. Her heart had begun a steady drumming in her chest. “Especially out here. It’s pretty slick.”

  Johnny offered a laugh tainted with mock-bravado. “Oh sure. If you’ve driven a Humvee over the dusty backcountry roads in Afghanistan, you can drive a rolling tin can anywhere, snow or no snow.” He hadn’t mentioned his service since Kelsey first spoke with him in the hospital four months before.

  She shifted in her seat, one hand clutched the arm rest while the other still pressed against the dash. Every sway felt as though the big vehicle would give up and spin sideways. A prayer worked in her memory, a broken rhyme of sorts from the little girl she used to be. The grown woman, the PhD candidate and logical thinker wouldn’t allow superstitious nonsense, but the little girl worked through a lifetime of fear.

  “Keep me awake Kels.” Johnny smiled although the rest of his body—tense shoulders and white-knuckled hands—suggested something other than happiness. “I’m doing about fifteen with this snowpack. It’s a lot worse than I thought.”

  She took a tiny breath and turned away from the glowing white blobs of snow caught in the RV’s headlights. “So… I was wondering about the Army. I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” Johnny’s tight smile slipped into a cool, expressionless line. “I went to a dusty hell-hole halfway around the world, watched guys just out of high school get blown up, and I came home.”

  A cold stone weighed Kelsey’s gut. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I had some pretty fucked up ideas of bravery and courage and everything when I left. I thought maybe I would forget…” He paused and glanced sideways. “You know. Jared. The house. I ran away to the Army to forget that God-forsaken place, and here I am, volunteering to have a sleepover.”

  “Same here,” Kelsey said. “I mean, not the Army part but showing up again after all these years.” She studied her hands, wishing foolishly that she’d painted her fingernails like Sarah had done with her toes. Would Johnny care? Did it matter? She pulled her hand from the dash and folded it in her lap. “I’ve had dreams.”

  Johnny, bent forward with eyes on the narrow strip of white, didn’t respond. They drove for a minute in silence, a stillness broken by the RV’s swishing windshield wipers. Johnny continued to squint into the bright warmth of the big vehicle’s high beams. He blinked hard and said. “Me too.”

  “About Jared?”

  “Too many lately,” Johnny said. “I figured they must have had something to do with my PTSD. I’ve had trouble since coming home, Kels. Too much trouble—guilt I guess. Two other guys in my Humvee bled to death on the dirt-packed roadside in that fucking country, and I escaped with a few cuts and bruises. I watched a kid five years younger than me get blown to hell. Life isn’t fair. I figured my Jared dreams were echoes of what had happened over there, of the horrible shit-storm I lived through and all the guilt—”

  “I think Sarah’s had them, too,” Kelsey said, lowering her voice.

  Johnny nodded. He brushed sweat from his forehead. “Driving through a damn blizzard and I’ve got sweat in my eyes. How the hell does that happen?”

  “How does any of this happen? I’m just glad to be going. Staying in that house again was a mistake.” Kelsey looked from the side window, running a finger through the condensation. “We’ll get the cars and get down the road before—”

  The figure came out of nowhere, a hunched man lumbering up the incline toward the road. Panic seized Kelsey, firing white-hot needles over her arms and neck. She didn’t think. She acted. The name Johnny shot out of her mouth as she reach
ed to pull the steering wheel to one side. A scream echoed inside Kelsey’s head. Glass shattered. Steel bent in a thunderous roar as the RV toppled sideways, spun across the county road, and landed in a ditch.

  Chapter 24: Aftermath

  Something warm and wet and sticky clung to the side of Kelsey’s face; she was aware of little else. Cotton filled her ears and her eyelids felt too heavy to move. Once she did, she found her world hung sideways like a television tilted too far. She tried to move her head, and the pain came, pain and noise together like a ten penny nail driven into her skull. They’d crashed. The RV had landed in a ditch, and the world was sideways because the RV lay on its side. The truth came with the rhythmic pound in her head. Kelsey pulled on the seatbelt, trying to pry it loose.

  “Unnnnh…” Johnny’s eyes flickered. A thick matt of bloody hair covered the top of his head.

  “Johnny?” Kelsey released the seatbelt. She reached for the man below her. “Johnny, can you hear me?”

  “Unnnnh…”

  The seatbelt held Kelsey in place—the RV had slid to a stop on its driver’s side, so she was hoisted in the air. The taut belt cut into her left hip and pressed the soft flesh of her right breast. She thought for a moment and slipped her right arm under the belt. Free now to the waist, she reached down and touched Johnny’s arm. His eyes opened.

  “Unnnh… Kels?”

  “Here. I’m stuck, though. The belt is holding me in place.”

  “My head. Oh, God.” Johnny’s fingers searched the damp patch above his forehead. “I’m bleeding.”

  “Me, too, I think,” Kelsey said. “Look, I’m going to try and get this belt loose. Then I’ll help you, okay?” Despite the pain in her hip and light throbbing in her head, Kelsey understood she was in better shape than Johnny. “Don’t try to move.”

  “What about… Sarah?”

  Kelsey closed her eyes and pulled on the belt, trying in vain to release the catch. She relaxed and released a puff of air. “I haven’t heard anything. Let me get loose.”

  She pressed her feet against the dash and pushed hard, hard enough she could release pressure on the seatbelt. Her thumb fumbled for and found the release catch, and Kelsey forced it down until the mechanism clicked. She lost balance immediately, sliding a few feet until she was able to brace her body against the dash and armrest on Johnny’s chair. His head lolled to the side.

  “My fucking head…”

  A cold, creeping sensation squirmed through Kelsey’s guts as she remembered why they’d crashed.

  “There was a man,” she said.

  “What?” Johnny turned his head, squinting. “What man?”

  “On the side of the road… Running.”

  Johnny’s eyes searched in front of the RV. The headlights warmed a patch of snowy ground. The snow continued to fall, tumbling through near-black sky. Big, clumpy flakes dropped in lazy zig-zags until a gust of winter wind sent them skittering in mad whirls through the dark air.

  “There’s nothing out there,” Johnny said.

  “I saw him. I saw something.” Kelsey clambered away from her seat and squatted on the wall between the cab and RV’s main cabin. Aside from the headlights, no other illumination spilled into the RV. She shifted her weight and leaned toward the back. “Sarah?”

  No answer.

  “I think I can get my belt loose,” Johnny said. “We’re going to need to get out of here. Get back to the house. We can’t stay here.”

  “Sarah?” Kelsey crept toward the vehicle’s dark innards. The walls groaned with each step. “Sarah, are you okay?”

  A seatbelt clicked, and Johnny grunted. “I might have sprained something in my left arm. Maybe broke it…”

  “Sarah’s not answering.” Kelsey’s heart began to beat, thud, thud, thud, a quick, violent pace knocking against her ribs. Sarah was dead, she felt it in her chest with each rapid heartbeat. Sarah was dead. Her fault—she’d convinced Sarah to ride in the RV. She’d startled Johnny, grabbed his wrists and sent them off the road. She swallowed. Her sweaty palm slipped against the smooth RV wall.

  “Here,” Johnny said. A tiny blue-white light shone from behind Kelsey. “I found a light in the glove box. Take it.”

  “No. You should go first. If she’s hurt—”

  “Just go. You’re closer. I don’t know that I can crawl through there sideways, anyway.”

  The flashlight felt cold and metallic in Kelsey’s hand. She waved the beam in front of her, revealing a mass of jumbled cardboard boxes and overturned AV equipment. Black cables snaked from racks which had once been mounted on the cabin walls. The tiny light circled the clutter until it fell on a hand toward the back.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Kelsey covered her mouth with her free hand. “She’s hurt.”

  “What can you see?”

  “Just a hand. Everything else is a mess back here. Boxes everywhere. She’s close to the back of the RV.”

  Johnny groaned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m… I’m fine. Just trying to open your door and climb out. I might be able to open the back entrance.”

  Kelsey crawled forward until her feet slipped off the edge and she could stand. She’d cleared the small hallway between the cab and main body. A small tremor shook through the vehicle. She spun around, flashlight in hand, and found an empty cab. Johnny had managed to get out. He’d get to Sarah. He’d be able to help her. She turned back toward the rear.

  The hand moved.

  “Sarah?”

  Thump, thump, thump. Kelsey closed her eyes, letting a prayer play over her lips, muttering a silent wish that Sarah would be okay. She waded into the piles of boxes, pushing several aside as best she could. Cushions hung from a bench to her left; the world turned askew. A snap and click sounded at the back. She froze. The white world appeared in a rectangular flash. A dark shape loomed in the sidelong box.

  “I can see her.”

  Johnny.

  “Is she—”

  “She’s in bad shape, Kels. Something struck her. Something hit her in the head.” The Johnny shape bent out of sight. “She isn’t responding.”

  “Is she—”

  “She’s breathing. Barely. Climb out through the cab and get back here. I can’t carry her on my own.”

  “Carry her?”

  “Like I said. We’ve got to go back to the house. We need shelter.”

  Chapter 25: Return

  Snow, wind, and the awful dread that yes, she was returning to the house hounded Kelsey on every heavy step back. Johnny, one arm held to his side under his coat with a makeshift splint and wrap, used the other arm to pull the sled they’d fashioned from seat cushions and a plastic storage door. Sarah—still unconscious but alive—rode on the sled. Kelsey trudged behind, her feet cold and wet and tingling with a numbness she didn’t want to imagine, her eyes charged and alert, searching the white-blotted world for any sign of the shadow-man who had darted into the road.

  “Just ahead, Kels,” Johnny said between labored puffs of breath. “I think the drive is just past these trees.”

  The trees, black and ragged marks against the late evening navy sky, were the same which hid Wayne and Nick hours before. Kelsey imagined they must have ended their search for Howard while they were gone. The two cameramen would be inside, warming themselves with the others: Erin, Daniel, Ben…

  And the dark figure she saw in a second floor window before leaving. The memory turned over in her stomach, cold and hard like a chunk of pond-ice. Her feet slowed.

  “Johnny?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his face puffed and red. “What’s up?”

  “The house—do you think something’s wrong there.”

  He turned to the left, following snow-covered ruts from the RV. After a moment, he stopped and held out a foot to catch the sled. “We drove through here about an hour ago. Look at this. Damn snow is coming down faster if anything. If it keeps blowing, the drifts could be several feet high by morning.”


  “The house, Johnny. What do you think is going on?”

  He shook his head. His hands went to his thighs, and he bent slightly, shoulders moving up and down under his heavy coat.

  “I don’t know, Kels.” He pulled the glove from his good arm with his teeth and blotted his forehead with the bare hand. “I thought the bathroom—the second floor bathroom—was one of Ben’s gimmicks. Something to stir us up.”

  “You thought? So you changed your mind?”

  “Shit, Kels. I don’t know what to think. Do you?”

  Kelsey shook her head. She imagined telling him about the figure on the second floor or the man at the roadside. Shadows. That’s all.

  “Let’s get Sarah inside, okay? We’ll all get warmed up and figure out what we can do about getting some help. I doubt mom and pop came out with dinner tonight.”

  “There’s a little food in the pantry, I think. Ben said so.”

  “I hope so.” Johnny pulled on the glove and turned down the drive. “I’m half-starving.”

  As they came to the house, Kelsey kept her eyes on the ground, facing away from the windows, especially the second floor window in which she’d seen—or thought she saw—an unidentified figure. She hurried up the porch to open the door and find help for Sarah, but the door opened before she touched it.

  Erin appeared. Her long blonde hair was pulled up and away from her face in a ponytail. She frowned as she read the look on Kelsey’s face. Her attention shifted to the lawn, and her mouth dropped open.

  “My God—what happened to Sarah?”

  Johnny puffed a big breath. “Wreck.”

  “The RV lost it on the highway. Johnny did his best, but it just sort of spun.” Kelsey pushed a strand of mousy hair from her face. “He’s hurt. We both hit our heads.”

  “Sarah?”

  “She’s out cold.”

  “Just a sec.”

  Erin vanished from the doorway, returning before Kelsey thought to move. Daniel was with her this time.