Dead Echo

  *

  It had been years since he’d left the Dead Kids Brigade, as he bitterly thought of his string of foster homes and orphanages, but no matter how long he lived the conversation with Donald Brown would loom large in his head. He still remembered how smug and self-confident the older man had seemed alone in that room with a boy mostly ignorant of the machinations of the world. It brought a violent flame to his mind, thinking of him there in that other time. But regardless of the bile there was no denying the importance of the conversation. He remembered everything: the weather, Percy Applewhite’s pansy-ass, the smell of the Confidence Room, the weight of the matter on the rest of his life. He’d felt it then, and now, he knew his instincts had been right. It was the other Momentous Moment of his Life. The second, because he knew the first had been The Fire, which was like a rock lodged in a vacant space in his head. But the meeting with the fancy lawyer had proven what he’d felt all along, the idea, the by-God conviction, that he was meant for something…unique. He had not been cut from common cloth. The lawyer had proved that, unknowingly Tomas remembered and smiled, with the contents of the file folder. Most kids in his predicament were set adrift when they became “of age” as those pricks like to call it. He, on the other hand, was one of the infinitesimal percent who actually came into something when the State had had enough. But, he couldn’t forget of course, those other comments Brown had tossed about so frivolously, those things about Tomas being a “mystery man” and his strange periodic disappearances from public record. That was the final piece. The final key that had set the thing straight in his head. He’d listened cautiously to every word, sniffing for any clue that the man may have been onto him. Because, in point of fact, that was the very thing he thought the man had come for when Percy announced him. And then, to sit through those interminable minutes as the lawyer went through papers Tomas had not read, naming off the many places he’d been on his journey in the Dead Kids Brigade. It had been a wonder to him, really, those places. Brown had not mentioned a one that had been the scene of a crime, almost as if he’d been somehow invisible at the most opportune times.

  He thought about her again, this Patsy Standish, imagined what it would be like in her bedroom, in her shower. Since the hardware store he’d dreamed of her almost every night. His imagination having no bounds, the dreams illustrating this point consistently until he could barely think of her without getting a hard-on. So intense had these fantasies become, one night a week ago he’d awoke in a sweat, his cock so tumescent he could barely stand to be in bed with himself. He’d gotten out of bed nude, opened the drawer of his nightstand and taken out the Colt .45 he kept there. In his half-awake, half-asleep state he’d actually considered going over there, breaking in, actually making the dreams real. Because, after all, he knew it could be, right this moment; all it would take was a little convincing. But breaking into her house in the middle of the night was another story. That bit of persuasion would have to be done with the .45. He’d hefted it in his hand, appreciating the weight, the power. He’d even stood up and walked over to his chest of drawers, fully intending to pull on a pair of shorts and finish the whole business, but at the front door he’d wavered.

  Something dissuading him at the cusp.

  Because he possessed the Power of Darkness; he’d acquired it years before in California. Another one of those “mystery” places Brown had referred to years ago, the one in between St. Paul and Concord. In St. Paul he’d been assigned to the foster care of William and Philomena Brumfield, both attorneys, and childless. A successful couple in their mid-30s with a three bedroom, two-story house on almost two acres just outside the suburban sprawl. They mainly handled accident cases, especially Great Lakes’ injuries and deaths, and their success in these matters apparently freed them up for other, professedly, more humanitarian purposes. Tops on their list was child welfare and they each did many pro bono hours every year espousing everything from labor laws to sexual predation to unfit living conditions. Hardly two years would pass when the local papers or television stations didn’t choose them for an “expose” article on the good they did their community. And at about these same intervals they would take on foster children for anywhere from six months to 15 years. Race never a factor.

  How Tomas had come into their radar he didn’t know. The facts were he’d simply been driven out to their home one day when he was twelve and dropped off with the couples’ fat, island housekeeper. She claimed Dominican Republic citizenship and quickly won him over with her cooking and attention. She, too, had no children of her own. She said she’d never been married nor intended to and that was that. He was brought there at the end of a long, hot summer spent somewhere in Tennessee (the name had long since escaped him) and it was no more than a week or two after arriving that school started. His language difficulties and sporadic attendance caused him to fall behind and the first semester passed in a roller coaster of ups and downs.

  Up until New Years Eve he’d not even known the house had a cellar.

  Then, late that night, well after he’d gone to sleep (the maid, Maria, had tucked him in once his movie ended; the Brumfield’s had gone out for the night) he heard his bedroom door open. He’d trained himself to be a light sleeper; being bumped from pillar to post had a way of keeping you on your toes. He’d opened one eye, glanced around the dark room. The line of the door, two heads near it, together, in the darkness. He could hear them whispering though he could not tell the words. He feinted sleep, putting his ears on high-alert. It seemed to him an argument because every few minutes the voices raised, though not by much, became almost vehement. Seemingly one of them trying to convince the other of a point. And as they talked the faint, lingering smell of alcohol began to drift in the room. Right before the bedroom light was switched on Tomas distinctly heard the phrase “it’s going to happen, and you know it.” He had no time to consider its import because the couple were moving toward his bed.

  Tomas continued with the act, came up rubbing his eyes vigorously, glancing left to the clock radio, registering 3:17. The Brumfields still had on what Tomas took for their “work clothes” but he’d never seen them so disheveled. Both bore down on him with bloodshot eyes and the smell of alcohol got steadily stronger the closer they got to the bed.

  It was the first time Tomas had ever felt fear in their household.

  It would not be the last.

  William sat down first, his wife standing just off his left shoulder. He looked at Tomas and reached up to loosen his already loose tie. His hair was no longer parted; now it hung down in the front almost to his eyes. He coughed and Tomas got a greater whiff of alcohol. He suddenly felt defenseless and wished he’d slept in his clothes. William opened his mouth and began to speak.

  “There’s something you have to see,” he said and glanced back to his wife who’d peeled around his shoulder and now stood a foot from the bed. She still looked indecisive; he just looked drunk. Regardless, he smiled and patted the bed. Stood up and looked down at the boy, expectantly. Philomena took a step back. Their intention obvious, Tomas pushed back the covers and slid over to the side, putting his feet to the thick, comfortable carpet that blanketed the room. It was cold and goosebumps broke across his body. William looked back at his wife and nodded again, firmly this time. Philomena looked back at the boy and moved to the door. William also moved toward it and motioned the boy to follow. He did so, too tired to question, but uncomfortable in front of the two in just his underwear.

  William disappeared into the hall and Philomena followed, leaving the light on as she left the room. The house was quiet as Tomas passed through the doorway and turned right. His bedroom was upstairs, a short walk to the staircase which led down to the foyer by the dining room. He could hear William clumping down the stairs now and saw Philomena in the darkness, her hand on the banister, waiting for him to catch up. She let him pass her by, barely catching a glimpse of her husband’s back, almost at the bottom of the stairs now. He kept a tight grip on the ra
iling because he could not escape the feeling she would suddenly dart forward and shove him down the stairs if he didn’t.

  By the time he got to the landing William had gone on, bumping several times against the wall as he headed for the door underneath the stairs Tomas had considered a broom closet or some such since he’d been here. Of course, why they would take the pains to lock such a door had crossed his mind a time or two, but people were entitled to do what they wanted in their own homes, weren’t they? Now he wasn’t so sure. He could feel Philomena closing in from behind as he stopped ten feet away and watched William fumbling with a set of keys he pulled from his pants’ pocket. Just for a moment Tomas wished Maria was here, but William stopped the thought cold when he found the right key and placed a steely stare on the boy shivering before him.

  “It’s time,” he said and unlocked the door, pulled it away from the wall. He reached into the darkness underneath the stairway and flipped a switch. Tomas heard a click and the area within the doorway was suddenly infused in a deep, red glow. William started down without another word. Tomas hesitated until a hand came down on his shoulder. Philomena, her face carved from stone. She pushed him gently and Tomas stepped through the door and into the glow.

  His eyes didn’t have to adjust to the difference; the glow only seemed to bring things out in contrast though the darkness still held a mighty grip. A short set of steps led down. The room broke open to the right and he went down, still followed closely by Philomena. A strange smell reached his nostrils and he fought to keep down a coughing fit. Silence appeared the rule down here.

  The room below the staircase was a little bigger than his bedroom, from what little he could see. There could have been doors or other passageways toward the back walls, but again, things were so deep in shadow it was impossible to tell. Several of the places he’d been forced to stay had insisted he go to church and though he’d never liked it much there was no denying an altar of sorts held center stage here. It was surrounded on two sides by couches, and directly in front was a bed, set directly into the floor like a pit. On the wall, directly behind the altar, burned a red pentangle, a five-pointed star, its points connected by a circle. He didn’t know much but he knew some; that star was the sign of the devil. Other, less familiar signs glowed redly eminent around the room. He thought for a second of the Fire that’d burned the coin’s image into his hand. He suddenly closed his fist and ran his fingertips along the ridges.

  William walked behind the altar and turned to face them. His eyes had changed in a dark, menacing way though his voice came out mellifluous, no longer slave to the alcohol. Tomas forgot about Philomena when the man pointed a finger at him. He smiled but in the darkness it was like a shark’s. “Boy, it’s time,” William said again. “Everything in its time and yours is now.” He raised both arms from his sides and tilted his head back. His hands splayed wide. “This is the chapel of Lucifer, our master,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tonight you will join us.” Tomas became absolutely sure he’d find the door at the top of the stairs locked if he raced back up there now. “Come here and sit down,” William said, pointing to the couch on the left. “There are certain initiations….” Tomas did as instructed and by chance caught a glimpse of Philomena standing close to where he’d left her.

  She was completely naked now, her clothes in a pile beside her.

  Then she walked over quietly and lay down on the bed. Tomas looked from her, wide-eyed, at her husband. No longer even remotely tired. Scared, yes, a little, but the sight of this first live naked woman went a long way in dispelling that too. William was getting undressed also. When he was finished he came around and stood at the foot of the bed, his dangling penis disturbing as Tomas watched it. His wife lay before him, her legs spread wide. “For You,” the man said, though he was not looking at Tomas when he said it. Then he stepped down into the pit with the bed and began to do things to the woman Tomas had only heard of in whispered conversations.

  And after awhile he joined in. It was part of the initiation, they said.

  He was a month past his thirteenth birthday.