A Stir of Echoes (22 page)

  Then I knew I couldn't. It might, after all, be something else. The house was not old. Its builders might have buried some trash there-plaster, wood scraps, bits of cement.

  Swallowing, I crawled toward the mound; and, as I did, the doubt began to fade in me. Because it seemed as if I heard someone speak a word in my mind and the word was
yes.

  It was very cramped by the mound and I had to lie almost prone as I dug. In the silence the only sound was the sprinkling thud of the wet, brown earth as I tossed it aside. I tried to ignore the rising pulse of awareness in my mind. Hurry, it seemed to say,
hurry.
I held myself back. I'll be glad when this is over, I told myself, glad when we can return to a semblance of normal living. Perhaps I could find a legitimate medium who could teach me to control this ability completely, this "wild talent." Then it couldn't hurt us, then I could-

  A retching sound tore from my lips and I lay staring at the hand I had uncovered.

  Little flecks of dirt were skittering from the edges of the hole and bouncing from the fingers. I couldn't take my eyes from them.

  Abruptly, then, I plunged the shovel blade into the earth and backed off as quickly as I could. "All right," I mumbled. "All right, it's done. It's done." Now there was the proof and it was done.

  Outside, I stood quickly and brushed off my shirt and trousers. I put back the screen, then walked to the kitchen door, turning off the lantern.

  In the kitchen I put the lantern on the table. Anne turned quickly in the living room and looked in at me. She didn't say a word. I went in.

  "Oh," I said, surprised, "hello, Elizabeth." She was sitting in the green chair wearing her topcoat. She nodded once.

  "I told Elizabeth to come over if she felt lonely," Anne said. It was only something to say to fill time, I knew. There was only one thing on her mind.

  "Well…" I glanced at Elizabeth. "Have you- told-?"

  "No."

  Elizabeth was staring at my clothes. I looked down and saw that they were stained by the wet earth.

  "Well, did you find anything?" Anne blurted suddenly.

  I swallowed. "She's down there," I said.

  "Oh, God."

  There was a rustle from the other side of the room. "So," I heard Elizabeth say.

  When I turned, she was pointing the Luger at me.

TWENTY-ONE

  LIZ, WHAT ARE YOU-" ANNE GOT NO FARTHER. She stared blankly at the pistol.

  I stood without a word looking at Elizabeth's pale, tension-sick face. For all my talk, I thought; for all my celebrated awareness, I was as astounded by this as if I'd never sensed a thing.

  "Liz, what is this?" Anne said.

  Elizabeth's eyes were terrible to look at.

  "You," I said, incredulously,
"you?"

"Don't you talk to me like that,'
Elizabeth said; and I twitched as her finger started to tense on the trigger.

  "Elizabeth?" Anne didn't understand. It was obvious by the confused, distraught sound in her voice.

  "You had to meddle, didn't you?" Elizabeth said to me. "Had to meddle."

  "Elizabeth," I said, "put… put that gun away."

  "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she said. "You'd like it if the police had taken it away from me. But they didn't-because Frank said it was an accident. Wasn't that nice of him?" All the contempt and hatred she'd been repressing for months seemed to edge her voice.

  "What
is
this?" Anne demanded to know.

  "May I sit down?" I asked Elizabeth.

  "May you sit down," she echoed scornfully. "What's the difference what you do?"

  I sat down slowly so the movement wouldn't startle her. I put my hand over Anne's.

  "Liz?" asked my wife.

  "Don't you make a pretty picture," said Elizabeth, ignoring her. "A pretty picture." It started as scorn but ended in almost a sob.

  "Elizabeth, put that gun-"

  "Shut up!" A tear sped down her cheek but she didn't seem to notice it. "I don't want to hear anything from you."

  "Elizabeth, what is it?" Anne asked, still not knowing.

  "Elizabeth is the-" I started to tell Anne.

  "Stop whispering!" Elizabeth ordered.

  "Liz, you'll wake up-" Anne broke off as, with a bolt of panic, I squeezed her hand sharply.

  "-Richard?" finished Elizabeth, her eyes glittering. "Your
baby?"

  I heard Anne gasp in a breath of air. "What…?" she murmured.

  "Tell us about it, Liz," I said, quickly. "If we can help we'll-"

"Help
-
"
Her laugh was a sick, convulsive sound. "You're going to help me? You're going to give me back my baby? You are?"

  I swallowed dryly. "No, Elizabeth," I said, "but we can help you with the police."

  She sat up straight in the chair, the skin tightening across her bloodless cheeks.

  "You'll never see the police," she said. "You'll never see anyone. You're a meddler. A damn meddler. I heard you when the Sentas' were here. I heard. I was outside on the porch. I heard. Damn
meddler
-!" Her voice broke again and she drew in a rasping breath to hold back the sob.

  "Elizabeth…" Only a faint sound from my wife.

  "You'd like to know how I killed her, wouldn't you?" said Elizabeth. "How I killed that-
bitchl"

  The word coming from her lips sounded hideous.

  "That's what she was," she said. "She didn't care. No, she didn't care. It was al-always open season on men for her. Always. Any man. Any one. Even husbands,
any
husband."

  I heard Anne sob slightly. Good old Frank, I thought, good old,
good
old Frank.

  "It wasn't-wasn't enough she was stealing her own s-sister's husband," Elizabeth said. "No, n-no, that wasn't enough." The gun wavered in her hand. "She had to branch out, had to get some other husbands too.
Any one,
any one would do. So long as they'd-
get in her filthy bed with her."
Elizabeth spoke the last words through clenched teeth, her body trembling with mindless fury.

  "Liz," I started but she paid no attention.

  "I found out," she said, nodding, "I found out. Everybody thinks I'm so-so stupid. Poor old Liz.
P-p-poor old Liz.
Doesn't know a thing, not a thing. Poor old Liz. Just-just a stupid old-" Another gasped-in sob shook her body.

  I started up.

  "Sit down!" she shouted fiercely; I shrank back quickly. She glared at me and it was obvious there was not much left in her that was sane. It was little wonder after what she'd been through.

  "I found out," she went on, nodding, a terrible, humorless smile on her lips, "I found out. Frank thought I didn't know but I did. That's why he let me have a baby. You didn't know that, did you? I had to bargain for it. I had to make a bargain-"

  Suddenly, her free hand clutched across her cheek and one eye. "With my own husband I had to make a bargain so I could have a baby! That's wonderful, isn't that w-w-wonderful?"

  "Liz, don't," I muttered. It was sickening to listen to her pitiful voice spilling out all the horrors she'd had to live with.

  "Oh, you're going to hear all of it," she said, extending the Luger toward us. I pressed close to Anne, ready to jump in front of her if I had to.
"Every single dirty detail
of it," she said.

  She sank back against the chair.

  "Frank went out that night, I don't know where. Who cares where he went? Probably out with some girl, with some cheap-" She stopped and shuddered fitfully, lips pressed together, her face the mask of a demented woman.

  "I saw Sentas come over here," she said. "His wife was out. So he came-
creeping over here."
Her voice was a contemptuous whine. "Like a dog who smelled the air and knew there was a
bitch
around."

  Little Elizabeth; shy, quiet Elizabeth.

  "He wasn't here long," she said. "It didn't take them long. Then he came out. The house was dark so I went over. The door wasn't locked. And I went in.

  "She wasn't in the living room. I knew she wouldn't be. There was only one place she'd be, one place her kind would be. Lying on a bed. So I-I-" She seemed breathlessly excited at the memory. "I picked up the poker-that one over there; you didn't know that, did you? And I went in the bedroom."

  It was deathly still in the room-except for the harsh breathing of Elizabeth Wanamaker, who had wanted only to have a baby and be loved.

  "She was still dressed," she said, her voice hard and savage. "She still had her dress on. The black one!" she said to me, smiling for an instant; awfully. "The one you asked me about, remember? With-with the Aztec symbols on it? She hadn't even taken it off." Her voice was a hating whine again. "She'd just pulled it up over her hips. That's all! That's all she needed. Pull it up like a-like a-"

  She flung a talon of a hand over her eyes again and there was a horrible sob in her chest, racking her. "Oh, God!" she cried, "Oh,
God}.
I killed her and I'd kill her again! Again and again and again and again and again!" A line of spittle ran across her jaw. She didn't even notice it.

  She sat there, panting.

  "I killed her," she recalled with renewed relish, "I hit her on the head while she was lying down. She got up and I hit her again. She fell on the floor. I hit her again. She crawled into the hall and I went after her. I hit her again. She crawled into the living room. I hit her again. I hit her again. I hit her again. I hit her again."

  She went on and on in a mechanical voice, droning the same four words. Until, suddenly, she stopped and looked at us.

  "So," she said, "aren't you surprised, Anne? Surprised what your little Liz can do? What she can do to
bitches?
And to husbands who sleep with bitches?"

  "Elizabeth." Anne couldn't look at her. She lowered her eyes and closed them.

  "Elizabeth," I said.

  She looked at me.

  "Listen," I said. "Let us help you. You're not well, Liz. No one is going to punish you for something you did when you weren't well. You-"

  "Well!" she said, half speaking the word, half laughing it. "Not well!
Oh.
Oh, aren't you bright? Aren't you brilliant? I'm not well. Isn't that smart of you."

  She leaned forward, deadly calm again, with that sudden mad reversal of mood.

  "I don't care what happens to me," she said. "You understand?
I don't care.
I lost my baby. I lost it. I can't have any more. I lost my husband, I don't want any more. I killed a woman-a bitch. I tried to kill a man. You think I care what happens to me now? You think anything could hurt me now?
Do
you?"

  "Do you want to hurt more, Eliz-"

  "Yes!" she flared, her lips twisting back from clenched teeth. "Yes, I want to hurt! I want to hurt! I want to make other people know what it is to-to- to
suffer!
I want to make people know!"

  "Elizabeth, if you put that gun down, nothing will happen to you," I said. "If you don't-"

  "Nothing will happen!" she cried, laughing again, louder. "God, you're funny! Oh,
God,
you're so funny!"

  "Mama?"

  We were all statues at the sound. I felt my heart leap in my chest like a thing alive. Anne gasped, then was soundless. Elizabeth's eyes darted toward the hallway.

  Suddenly she lurched to her feet.
"Yes!"
she said.

  "No!" I was up and blocking her way before I knew what I was doing. With a deranged cry, Elizabeth flung up the pistol and fired. Anne screamed; and something smashed across my skull and sent me flailing back with a grunt. I felt myself falling; then, driven only by instinct, I was on my knees trying to stand, something hot and wet running across my right eye. I saw Elizabeth lunge for the hallway and I dove at her, my nails raking over her shoes.

  Suddenly, a piercing shriek ballooned the walls of the house. I slapped at the hot liquid gushing over my eyes, falling back against the sofa.

  Elizabeth came backing from the hallway, an expression of utter terror on her face.

  "No," she mumbled. "No. No."

  She stumbled and caught herself, her eyes following something.
Something that moved after her.
I couldn't see anything but I suddenly knew what it was. I heard Richard crying.

  "Get away," Elizabeth said, her voice a hollow, inhuman sound. "Get away…"

  Her heel twisted under her and she fell back. A scream tore apart her lips. "Get away!" she howled. She jerked up the pistol and fired at the air; the explosion rocking deafeningly through the room. Richard screamed. With a choking, gagging sound, Elizabeth scuttled back one-handedly across the rug, saliva threading across her shaking jaw.

  "No," she cried. Abruptly, she raised the Luger to her own head and pulled the trigger. There was a clicking sound as the hammer hit the empty chamber. She pulled the trigger again, again; in vain. Then, with a wail of absolute terror, her eyes rolled back and her head thudded heavily on the floor.

  I sat staring at her lying there. Anne bent over me, her eyes wide with fright.

  "S'all right," I mumbled. "Take care Richard…"

  Then I was in the night.

  I came to in an unfamiliar bed. Anne was sitting nearby, looking at me anxiously. As my eyes fluttered open, she took my hand.

  "You're all right?" she asked.

  "Sure." I blinked and looked around. "Where are we?"

  "Inglewood," she said. "In the hospital."

  "Oh." Then I remembered. "How's Richard?" I asked.

  "He's fine," she said. "He's outside in the waiting room. Some nurse has taken a fancy to him; she's reading him a story."

  "Thank God," I said. "When Liz started for the-" I grunted as a dull wave of pain ran across my head. "What happened to me?" I asked.

  "A bullet grazed your head," she said.