Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

All right, he thought. I got to do it. Got to be brave, the way my old man is brave.

Harry put on his clothes, turned out the light, pushed up the window, and slipped out the way he had slipped out the night he and Joey and Kayla had gone down to the tonk.

But now it was just him, all by his lonesome, and the sky was so big and the world was so wide and the shadows amongst the old cars and the trees were so dark.

He went softly by his parents’ window, trying not to crunch anything underfoot. He traveled across the road and down the hill at a smooth run. He knew the place well, so all he needed was a bit of starlight. He knew all the places around his home; he had played on every inch of that ground. Unless there was a new gopher hole or a snake, he was cool out there in the dark.

He went down and leaned against the honky-tonk, next to the window Joey had broken out.

He started to climb in, but hesitated.

There was nothing but darkness in there, and he didn’t even have a flashlight. What the hell had he been thinking?

Just looking inside made him nervous. The dark gave the impression of crawling, and the place looked even more desolate than when he and Joey and Kayla had been here last. He could feel bumps moving across his back, arms, and neck, like cold-legged beetles. He took a deep breath, took hold of the windowsill. A piece of glass stuck him. He jerked his hand back and bit the glass out and spit it away. He rubbed his bloody palm against his blue jeans.

He leaned over and looked closer at the sill, found some safe spots, put his hands there, and—

He couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t make himself do it.

He realized he was breathing fast, and it was making him feel dizzy, weak.

He made it as far as his yard, stopped to catch his breath and look over at the old cars next door. They were really ratty now, having been brutally bitch-slapped by weather and time.

He had loved those old cars once; now all he could remember was the last time he was in one of them, long ago, and that he had been scared. He didn’t remember exactly what scared him, but he did remember he had been frightened out of his wits and had never played there again.

Scared.

That was his theme song.

Scared with a chorus of Scared Again.

A memory or two unraveled, frayed. And it hit him.

When he was a kid, that’s what had happened, out there in the car. Stuff like that night in the honky-tonk. It’s why he had quit going to the cars. He had seen faces and heard sounds. He had almost forgotten, or had tried to forget, had tucked it away, but now it was coming back to him.

Harry took a deep breath, went over to the car that was once his favorite. The one that had frightened him those long years ago. He put his hand on the driver’s side door, hesitated.

“You got a second chance here, boy,” he said out loud. “You don’t have to be a pussy twice in one night.”

He opened the car door and slid inside, leaving the door open. The seat wobbled and a rat screeched and ran out from under it. Harry let out a little yell. The rat bailed through the open door. Harry watched its starlit shape hump across the ground and into the woods.

Damn .

Maybe that’s what had scared him that long time ago.

A rat. A screeching rat. That could explain things. He was young and hadn’t seen it. It had startled him and made him run.

Yeah. That explained a lot of things.

“I’m not scared,” he said.

He pulled the door shut. Hard.

When the door slammed the sound was like the gate of hell had slammed, and there were other sounds, a whine, and a screech that was near deafening. A scream. Then there were psychedelic lights and flying colors, and the car was new and smelled fresh and clean and the world was bright and full of sunlight and there was a blur of cars out there on the highway and heat waves rippled and he could hear the wind whipping past, and hair, not his own, flicked long and wild in the wind from the open window.

A woman was sitting inside of him.

He didn’t know any other way to understand it. She was inside of him, and suddenly something dark appeared. A car, crossing an intersection, and Harry threw up his hands as they collided, and the woman inside of him, she jumped out of him, her head striking the steering wheel, and when it did a red haze filled his vision and splattered against the windshield.

To his right, a doll was thrown forward.

A large doll.

It hit the window hard, shattering it, making glass shards jump: then the doll twisted into a U shape, ricocheted off the inside of the car, passed through him once, striking the woman, bounced back against the glass, came to rest on the floorboard in a wad.

The doll leaked.

Only it wasn’t a doll.

It was a little girl.

He couldn’t tell much about her looks. She didn’t have any. Just a mess of blond hair with runs of scarlet in it, her face a nest of broken glass and a pool of blood. The blood was coming faster now. The car was coated in it.

He thought: Seat belts. Where are the seat belts?

He fell forward and hit his head against the steering wheel and the car went dark and dull and empty and turned old; the door screeched as he jerked it open and let out a yell.

He yelled more than once.

He yelled a lot.

His parents came out of the house and found him lying in the yard on his back, looking up at the stars, still yelling.

9

There were lots of doctors for the next few years. Doctors with charts and tests and even medicine that made him tired and a little loopy. It was supposed to help him focus. It was supposed to help him with his delusions. It made him feel bad.

A little later, he would think, yeah, I felt bad, but I was numb. And numb, that was good.

But back then he didn’t know that.

So, he quit taking the medicine, thought: Okay, maybe I’m a fruitcake with extra nuts, and maybe I’m not. And if I am a fruitcake, then I probably don’t know it. But I know this: My parents don’t have any money, and I’m costing them a ton because I might be nuts.

So I got to quit being nuts.

Or whatever is wrong with me has got to stop.

I’ll just stop now.

And he did stop.

Sort of.

He was sixteen and had his license. Had his first chance to go out and see the world from behind a steering wheel, and the truth of the matter was, he was frightened.

There had been other episodes.

One night, while riding in a car with Joey, who got his license first, he had “an experience.” It wasn’t the same as before. The car door closing was fine. The ride was fine. Then they hit a bump and the glove box snapped open and the lid dropped down with a reverberation, and it jumped on him.

Different this time. Milder. Just a bumpy ride at midday, a black man yelling as a car came out of nowhere. Just a fender-bender on the right side that knocked the glove box open, that and a high kick start on a rush of adrenaline. The driver even started to smile, happy he hadn’t gotten twisted into the metal. Then the man’s face fell off like melted black wax and the world Harry knew came back and it was all over.

Joey was sitting behind the wheel looking at him when he came out of it. Joey pulled over, said, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Quit jumping. You’re fucking me up, man.”

“What?”

“You’re hopping and screaming. Ain’t even any music on.”

“Shit,” Harry said.

“That’s what I almost did.”

“Is this car used?” Harry asked.

“Yeah. It is. What you think, I get an old model and no one’s ever driven it? Like it’s been sitting on the car lot for a few years till I buy it?”