Loman - The Echoes

The Echoes

-a novel-

by Arthur Loman

1 - The Elliott Inn

Astoria, Oregon Summer,1865

The howling was animal. Ragged. The whole inn seemedto brace with every scream. The innkeeper pounded on the door.

She needs toget to the hospital! he yelled. Better not stain themfloors!

His answer came as a fresh howl of pain.

The innkeeperhadn t wanted to give the young couple aroom in the first place. The woman was huge with baby, might givebirth at any moment, and looked awful besides. Pale and blank-eyed.Trembling worse than an autumn leaf in a breeze. Smelled of vomit.He didn t relish someone giving birth inone of his new rooms, or, even worse, dying while doing it. But theman was charming, persuasive, and passed him a sheaf ofbills.

The Elliott was not a month old and practicallyempty after a rumor had bounced around town that it was lousy withbedbugs. The innkeeper needed the money.

Another scream that seemed to push the very limit ofhuman vocal chords shook the day. The innkeeper pounded the dooragain, the whole panel flexing.

I ll fetch thepolice! Leave the room this instant!

Then came silence, and, shortly after that, thepitiful crying of an infant. The innkeeper lowered his fist andlistened to footsteps approach. The door opened. There stood theman holding a naked, squirming baby, still caked in greyafterbirth, the whole room giving off heat and a tangy, earthystench.

Go and fetchmilk, the man said.

What? The innkeeper peered around his shoulder intothe small room, barely big enough for the bed it kept. The mattresswas a mess of covers. Bloody rags lay heaped in onecorner.

But the woman? There was no trace of the woman.

2 - H ome

New York, NewYork Fall, 2017

Damian Merritt lay on a mattress on the floor in hisroom in the Sunnyside Hotel. The walls, as he heard multiple peopledescribe them, were paper-thin. Whenever his neighbors came orwent, it sounded as though they were in his room.

In his head.

With the twinmattress dragged to the floor next to the boxspring, there was nofloor left. The bed had felt too high for him. He was naked andsweating. The air conditioner rattled on, but it was broken ; all he felt blowing from itsgrill was more heat. Still,h e had a blanketnearby. W ithout warning, the chills would come again and it would beall he could do to not freeze to death.

Outside, a man wholived across the hall stomped to his door and took out his keys. Itwas this way every day. Damian couldnt understand why the man, whohad told him his name was Oscar, though hed heard him introducehimself to others as Warren, didnt figure out some kind of systemto find the key to his door quicker. A dab of nail polish. A pieceof tape. Something. The high, bright tinkling of keys knockingagainst each other felt like beetles dropping into Damians brain.Beetles that came alive and crawled through his thoughts and invaded his body, making him itchfrantically.

This is me, Oscar told whomever it was he had convinced tocome home with him. But Ill be out of this shithole soon. Addict,addict, ad dict, schizo,ad dict.

Damian pictured Oscarpointing to the doors up and down the hall, naming the sicknessesof the people within. He wondered which addict had beenhim.

And that s what he was. In a way. But h e couldnt seek help. He looked at his hands and foundfingers jerking wildly, bending back and forth, unnatural, like heknew his whole body was. The pinky on his left hand flickeredout vanished then appearedagain. Neither here nor there. That washim. A flickering image of aman, without enough bandwidth to maintain the picture. What would adoctor make of that?

The end was close. He tried to convince himself hewas more interested than afraid.

-

That night,improbably, he found sleep. And he dreamed that Amy came. The onlywoman in the universe who could understand what was happening tohim. The only one he knewwho d gone through it aswell . She knelt on themattress. She readjusted his pillow and brushed out his long,greasy hair.

You need ahaircut, she whispered, amused. And a bath.

-

When he awoke, it wasmidday, and crisp, fall light filled his room. Hed slept for 12hours, or more. He studied his hands; they were steady. He felt more solid than he had inmonths. And h e washungry . R avenous. There washole within him, dangerous and in needof filling. He rushed to getdressed and his pillow rolled off the mattress. And there, in anindent from its own weight, rested a black brick , about the size of a phone . Smooth and shiny on all sides. No way in, though clearlyman-made. It was as heavy as a glass of water, and when he pickedit up, he found a note stuck to the back inAmy s hand.

Keep this with you, always.

3 - Million DollarMerritt

Joseph, Oregon Summer,1886

Lloyd Merritt lay in his cell, quietly losing hismind. Memories and senses jumbled together so that when he heardthe zip of a rope being pulled through the bars, he imagined it wasLaney, her fingers scoring the bed sheet as she reached up to touchhis face.

She was pushed out of histhoughts by the grizzled face of his father, looking much than whenLloyd had last seen him. He was whispering something. Over and overagain. Lloyd strained to hear. Don t go! Don t escape! Serve out your time!

Then there was ascreech and a crash . Lloydjumped to his feet. His cell door lay on the ground, twisted andbent for how it had been yanked free. And somewhere he heard ahorse whinny and then the hard rhythmic pounding of agetaway.

Getaway. Get away.

Lloyd ran from hiscell, down the short hall, and out to the sagging porch of theWallowa County Jail. The town of Joseph sat as a coven of huddledshadows worshipping the greater shadows of the Wallowa Mountains.He surveyed the valley floor, half lit by a huge summer moon trying to spot his rescuer. But it was empty.Quiet.

He would run. Thatwas clear, even before his feet got toit . Already, though he haddone nothing, it was too late to turn back. Where was Red? AndSheriff McCoy?

As if to answer hisfirst question he heard a groan. There, bound and gagged in thedust, lay Red. The old jailor had blood on his face, blackin the moonlight , and his left eye was swollen shut. Lloyd crouchedbefore him and relieved him of his pistol and tobacco.

Who sprung me, Red? Who do I gotta th ank?

Lloyd lowered the gagonly to have the skinny peacock scream for help. He shoved the gag back in until the man choked and wentquiet.

A horse blusterednearby. An Appaloosa named Cherry , Reds pride and joy. Red and Cherry, the dumbass and hisidea of being cle ver. Lloyd went and untied her.

Youre a good girl ain t you a goodgirl?

Red groaned and thrashed about.

Don t worry, Lloyd said. I ll take good care ofher.

He mounted the horseand held his breath. It had been a long while sincehe d ridden threemonths and it felt as though horses had growntaller. He felt as high as the jail sroof .

A brief flutter ofjoy took wing in his chest. He broke the damn thing sneck . It was too early to knowanything and the sun would soon come. For now, the main thing wasto run.

-

Lloyd pushed Cherryto her very limits, hugging the horse about the neck from time totime and promising her shed have the cold water of the Lostinesoon enough. As he rode, he looked back to Joseph often, but wasalways met with wide-open scrubland andsilence.

It would not last, heknew. If Red hadnt been found yet, he soon would be by SheriffJohn McCoy, a punctual son of a bitch. The sheriff liked toarrive shortly after nine, see to any paperwork, and be back in the saddle roaming the town as quickly as possible.

Lloyd harred Cherry on.

As he rode, thequestion of who had freed him buzzed after his thoughts like a flyafter a cows rearend. Though h is story had made the national newspapers, he didnt know of anyone in theentire country who might have done something like this for him.Save one. And she was supposed to be dead. Hed held her bloodydress in his hands.