For Echo chapter 1, click here. Here is chapter 2 of my novel Echo. As always, feedback, constructive criticism or plot ideas are encouraged. Your thoughts help me grow as a writer.
2.
Under Danielle’s skin, I awoke in the middle of the night and felt a presence in the room, energy stronger than the wind that made her windows creak or the rain that poured down deeply down the roof, so deeply that I thought I was drowning. When she tossed her body to the other side of the bed, I felt the energy crawling up the hairs of my leg. Clutching my necklace, I pulled my corner of the blanket and pinned it over my head.
The notion of God’s wrath came to mind. My church equated sex with sin and virginity until marriage as a surefire path to heaven. My parents almost shunned my sister from the family when they found out she slept with her long-term boyfriend. In our house God’s wrath was selective, yet real. This energy didn’t feel like God though and I remembered he forgave my sister when she confessed her sins. Maybe it was just a gust of wind and maybe he could forgive me.
Still, our family priest’s threats of hell shook my bones and caused me to toss in my sheets for what seemed like hours. He used Sunday sermons to describe the pain of being burned by fire hotter than the lava from the earth’s core and the process of skin dissolving into ashes under that temperature. Our sins, no matter how minor, would land us there. I fell asleep believing that the good I achieved up until that point would be in vain. I dreamt about losing free will.
Danielle left her bed in the morning and gathered her clothes from our messy pile on the floor. The cross dangled over the pillow with a few loose strands of hair. My hands stroked the cotton a few times and traced the imprint of her head. Friends told me their first time involved cuddling in the morning followed by breakfast. Jackie’s first time, on a school trip to Paris, resulted in wine and a walk to the Louvre. The orange cat popped its head out from under my bed and glared at me. I glared back in silence for a minute and collapsed to the pillow, unable to move.
By the time I dressed and went downstairs, Richard was the only one left in the house. He sat quietly at the kitchen table eating his cereal and reading a text message on his phone. He stirred the marshmallows in his bowl and didn’t acknowledge me when I pulled up a chair next to him. If he knew, his face revealed no sign of emotion about it.
I poured myself a bowl of cereal and forced a smile when he gave me eye contact.
“How’d you sleep?’
“Good. I slept on the floor of the living room. Where did you sleep?”
“I… slept upstairs.”
“You’re lucky. Danielle never lets me use her room.”
His facial expression remained blank as I studied it. For whatever reason, he didn’t know about last night and he didn’t care to know. I put my bowl in the sink and headed outside.
Danielle and her friends lifted crates of supplies into the back of her pickup truck, bickering about the plans for the day. My mouth muttered something along the lines of “do you guys need help?” but, they were too engrossed in their conversation to notice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mac” she said to the chubby redheaded guy. “Keri, tell your boyfriend we can get into Higgum’s Trail without worrying about the cops arresting us. Live a little, Mac. We’re just hiking.”
“Don’t expect me to tell him that.” The smoke from Keri’s cigarette fogged the lens of her glasses. “He’s never been hiking in his life.”
“Says the girl who wears a hoodie and cargo pants in ninety degree weather. Yeah, you’re a real fuckin’ expert on hiking, Keri. You’ll die of lung cancer or some shit before you make it to the top.”
“Ha. Not before your fat ass succumbs to a heart attack.”
“Enough!” Danielle jumped out from the cargo area and steps in between them, placing Keri and Mac’s arms to their sides. “I’m honestly sick of your fighting, so I’m going to separate you two like children. Mac, you and Richard are going in Zach’s car. Keri, you’re coming with me. And if you guys fight the whole time, I’m going to make sure the Red Bear eats you alive.”
“Don’t joke about that shit, Danielle.” Mac’s freckles seemed to multiply as sweat dripped to his chin. “That bear is the real fuckin’ deal. I saw him on a field trip when I was in the third grade. I’ll never forget it. He was watching us from a cliff.”
“I’m sure you did, Mac.” Danielle looked at me when she said this. She dug her fingers into her jeans and bit her lip. When she blinked, her green eyes appeared to reflect the trees that swayed above her. I tried to read the expression in her eyes and decode the words that lay behind them. “We all have our own reasons for going on this trip and despite all common sense telling me otherwise, I think we can find it.”
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m willing to put blind faith in it.”
The three greeted me and commented on my uncombed blond hair. Mac joked that I had “sex” hair.
“Mac, Higgum’s Trail will take you to that cliff you’re talking about, the one that overlooks the radio tower museum. And if you guys want to set up base there, there’s an abandoned camp site just outside the cliff.”
The three nodded and complimented me on my knowledge of the area. I wasn’t sure if the barren patch of land once existed as a designated campsite, but my grandpa told my siblings and me that Dr. Plinko slept there for several nights on his search for the bear. Years before that hiking trip, he claimed he found the geologist’s compass in the dirt and showed it to us. Its silver body was rusted, but the needle worked fine. My grandma later told us that he found the compass in a gift shop.
As Richard walked down the driveway, I noticed the three changed their tone of voice when they spoke to him. Richard seemed un-phased by it, but I felt slightly offended for him.
They explained the agenda to him in simple terms, like he was a simple minded boy. I knew Richard wasn’t simple minded. He was quiet and not too social, but displayed an understanding of what was going on. Richard and I carried hiking backpacks full of tent equipment to my car while Mac carried a six pack of beer.
“I thought we’d pre-game a little before we entered the park.”
Richard rolled his eyes at Mac as he tossed the backpacks in the trunk and muttered obscenities under his breath.
“Oh come on, buddy. If you’re ever going to get the balls to tell Danielle how you really feel about her, you’ll need a little something to help yah.”
I bit my lip deep enough to draw blood.
“Shut up, Mac. Not now. She’s right over there.”
“Danielle’s in the truck. She can’t hear you. Now is as good as ever, bud. You have liked this girl since your junior year of high school. Grab a beer and grow some balls.”
He took the case from Mac’s hands and hurled it in the backseat.
“No need to be a prick, bud.”
I kept a close following distance to Danielle as we drove to Echo Mountain National Park. Whenever we reached an unmarked road, she accelerated to sixty miles per hour and blasted classic rock music out the window. Richard looked out for cop traps and Mac chugged a few bottles of beer.
“Sure you don’t want one?” Mac asked, fidgeting with the dials on the radio. I shook my head. “Whatever, bro. This is like my morning coffee.”
“Hey, Mac. Tell me about that field trip you went on.”
He took a strong sip from his fourth bottle and gazed out the passenger’s side window at the many rows of evergreens. His mouth struggled to form the words needed to tell the story.
“It… was me and my third grade class at that radio tower museum. I was bored as shit, so I wandered outside with a couple of my friends. We were just talking about the damn bear too, how he ripped apart some kid on a field trip ten years before. We…don’t know why, but the kid was judged. Anyway…my friend Bobby saw the bear from that cliff. We only saw his red outline. The rest of him was hidden by shadows. He…looked at us and then he disappeared.”
“How did you know it was the bear?”
“Richard, we’ve talked about this many times before. I saw a bear with red fur. Bears that I know of have brown, black or white fur, not red. I know the legend about the bear is true because Dr. Plinko existed and wrote about it in his journal. Also, many people have seen the bear and gone to him for judgment. Therefore, the bear is real.”
“How do you know for sure though? How can we trust their-”
“Richard,” I interrupted. “You kind of sound like you don’t believe the bear exists. What brings you on this trip?”
“You’re just doing this to impress Danielle.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
I bit my lip deeper this time.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
For the first time, Richard spoke with inflection in his voice. Mac raised an eyebrow.
“I want to find out if he actually exists. Everyone in this town has their own stories about him. I want to believe in them, but the only evidence we have is a grainy, black and white photograph from 1901 and a digital one from a marine in 2005 that could have been altered.”
“Oh, come on, bud. What about the hundreds of people who said they saw him? What about the people who had good or bad luck because of him? Can they all be wrong?”
My head nodded subconsciously at each of Mac’s questions, but Richard’s points troubled me. Hundreds of people claimed to see or receive judgment from the Red Bear over the past century, but only two pieces of evidence existed. Despite this, I knew my grandpa gained fortune after encountering the bear. A week after his encounter, his stock share in Ford rendered him $50,000, enough money in 1945 to secure his family’s finances for the decades that followed. The Gibson family had proudly accepted his fortune as evidence of the bear’s existence.
After a minute of quiet contemplation, Richard replied, “Millions of children around the world believe in Santa Claus. Does that mean they can’t be wrong?”
Richard and Mac continued to debate this topic while I tried my best to follow Danielle without getting too absorbed in the conversation or, driving into a tree. The legend of the Red Bear had always created disagreements among people in Connecticut, but that never stopped hundreds of hikers from investigating the legend themselves each year. When we pulled into the park, we saw dozens of hikers in apparel related to the legend. Red Bear hats, shirts, headbands and even tattoos decorated the parking lot along with an overload of cars.
“Shit, all the crazies are here.”
“Sadly, I think we’re one of them,” I said to Mac. He rolled his eyes. “We planned our whole weekend around this.”
“No, we planned our whole weekend around it. Danielle just invited you along.”
Mac, through his obnoxious demeanor, had a point. I knew none of them, not even Danielle. As we parked, I wondered if I had any business joining in on this group of longtime friends. The four friends gathered by Danielle’s pickup truck, talking and laughing. Danielle looked out from the circle at me, swallowed and blinked a few times. She rocked back and forth on her heels. She barely spoke and her focus waned in and out of the conversation.
My focus wandered too. A young boy of no more than ten walked toward some bushes near Higgum’s trail. The trail, located a couple hundred yards away from the parking lot, was enclosed by a fence with a red, square shaped sign fixed to the bars. The boy bent over the bushes and opened his backpack to empty it.
“Hey, Zach.” Danielle placed a hand on my shoulder and tapped her fingers on the blade. “How do we get onto Higgum’s trail without anyone noticing?”
I felt her breathing increase.
“Don’t answer that, Zach.” Mac stepped in between us and shoved his stomach toward her. “She knows how many people have been arrested for trespassing. I can’t arrested for that again.”
“You wouldn’t have been arrested if you dropped some pounds and knew how to run from the cops.”
“Shut your face Keri. It’s not like you did any better.”
“Mac, Keri, come on. We won’t get arrested. Zach knows this trail better than any of us.”
Richard walked away from the circle and moments later, I followed. The others didn't bother to notice. Mac and Keri yelled at each other. Danielle tried to mediate. I sensed that Richard found himself in the middle of these fights too often. I sensed that he walked away too often.
“Hey Richard, wait up.”
He started walking faster in the direction of the trail.
“They always fight. I hate it when they fight. It’s so stupid.”
“I know how you feel. My best friends back home fight a lot too, but I’m sure they get over it.”
“They don’t. They never do.”
The young boy now sat by the bushes with his legs cross, hurling trail mix through the stems. He waved to his someone in the distance, but no one waved back. No adult in the parking looked in his direction or appeared worried. Even the adults with children were too preoccupied with their cell phones to notice their surroundings. Richard continued to walk in the boy’s direction.
“Where are you going anyway?”
“That kid. That kid shouldn’t be over there.”
“I know. But it’s not really any of our business.”
After a few minutes of talking, I convinced Richard to walk around the park with and cool off. A group of paranormal experts with camera equipment passed us on the way back to the parking lot. The Fleetwood Paranormal Society-I recognized them from a social networking website. Despite the ninety degree weather, they wore black shirts with red lettering and faded blue jeans. The five of them looked over thirty with thinning hair and smile lines. They hunted ghosts, UFOs, and creatures of the wild, but produced no more evidence than blurry photographs and scrambled audio files.
We overheard the group mention the radio tower museum and the ghosts that supposedly haunted it. In 1929, brothers Thomas and Calvin Huick wanted to erect the tallest radio tower in Connecticut for their station, Skyline Radio, which played the best blues and jazz music in the state. According to legend, the land owners warned the Huick brothers of a guardian that watched over the mountain. They disregarded the legend and continued with the building process. When the construction completed, the Huick brothers held a commemorative ceremony and waved to the crowd from atop the tower. Moments later, a strong gust of wind knocked them from the tower and scattered their bodies among the forest.
“That’s crazy,” I said softly to Richard. “I’ve never heard of that one.”
“How do we know that actually happened?”
“So, you’re a skeptic, huh?”
A tall, lanky man with blond dreads scattered under a beanie approached Richard. He told his group to continue on without him. I put a palm over my face. The man towered over Richard by at least a foot. He combed his goatee with his fingers and scoffed at Richard.
“You skeptics think you know everything. I’ll tell you what, skeptic. There is plenty of evidence of the Huick brothers’ death. I’m talking about newspaper articles, photographs.”
“I know that, but how do you know some guardian of the mountain made that happen?”
Richard raised his tone, crossed his arms and stared him dead in the eyes. The man’s face grew red and he clenched his fists by his waist.
“The Red Bear, he’s the guardian of the mountain. He watches over all of us here. This is his property and if you build anything you’re not supposed to, you will be judged.”
“How do you know the bear judged the Huick brothers’ and it wasn’t an act of nature?”
“Look, kid. I don’t know how to make it any more obvious to you, but after the tower was built, the Fleetwood Flier reported dozens of hikers dead, missing or attacked within the same month. You can’t possibly call that a coincidence.”
“Sure I can. Hikers go missing all the time.”
As the two raised their voices, hikers gathered around us to see what the commotion was about. Richard never lost eye contact with the man and he countered each point. Richard wanted hard evidence, but the man continued his arguments of speculation. I believed in the bear’s existence, but found myself agreeing with every one of Richard’s points.
“I've never seen him like this.”
Danielle stepped into the crowd with Mac and Keri and tapped me on the back.
“I didn't know that kid could fuckin’ talk like that,” Mac shouted. “Hey Richard, calm down.”
Keri nodded and wrapped her arm around Mac’s waist. When Danielle spoke to me, I heard a tremble in her voice.
“That’s Michael Corrigan. He’s probably the most well-known paranormal investigator in the state. He just signed a contract with some science fiction channel. See those cameramen over there. They’re probably filming a special today and they’re filming Richard. They’ll probably put him on TV. I don’t like this.”
“I don’t either.”
In truth, I loved every minute of Richard’s argument. Michael Corrigan knew nothing more about the legend than any of us and Richard exposed him for it. Corrigan’s crew would edit the footage later, but in that moment, Richard controlled the conversation, the crowd and the opinions of his friends. I saw his friends no longer look at him like a child.
“Shut the camera off. Shut the damn camera off.”
Michael’s cameramen reluctantly did so, but the crowd stayed.
“I know your type. You’re shy and socially awkward, but when it comes to crapping on people’s beliefs, you’re the biggest, loudest asshole around. Spend a night in that tower with us. I dare you. You won’t be a skeptic anymore.”
Michael Corrigan, and the crowd moments later, disappeared and left Richard shaking with his arms still crossed. Expressions of shock fixated to his friends’ faces. Danielle, Mac and Keri took turns exchanging glances, trying to figure out what to say or how to say it.
“That was amazing!” Danielle hugged him and Richard sank into her grasp. Mac snickered and Keri pulled a cigarette from her jeans’ pocket. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that before.”
“Yeah, that was pretty epic, bud. You even looked at him and not your shoes.”
“Hey Mac, there’s no need to be a dick to him.”
Those words emptied from my mouth without my control. Mac, Keri and Danielle flashed their shocked expressions. The curls on Mac’s head glowed like embers under the sunlight. I swallowed and took one small step toward him.
“Look. I know I don’t know you and I know I’m not part of your group. I get that. But I know you should treat your friend a little better. You’ve been nothing but a dick to him the whole time. He just told off the biggest paranormal investigator in the state and all you can do is patronize him.”
“Zach…” Richard mumbled.
“Can you believe this guy?”
“Well, you are a dick…” Danielle and Keri said in almost unison.
A blood curling scream of a child echoed through the park. The boy-a large, black paw was dragging him with its claws feet first through the bushes. The claws punctured through his shorts and tore through his cartilage. I sprinted toward the boy so fast that I felt as if my heart was trying to escape my chest. I didn’t notice who was behind me. When I reached the bushes, I dove toward the boy and grabbed him by his body. The boy screamed in my arms and rapidly twisted his body. A second black paw appeared from the bushes, slashed the boy’s chest and clung onto it. I hollered at the top of my lungs for help.
“Don’t move. Please don’t move,” I whispered with tears streaming down my face, clutching his spine against my heart. “I can’t get you free if you move.”
People by the dozens ran toward our direction, but only older gentlemen with a gray uniform, who wore a camophlage, tackle box hat and a curly haired girl approached us. I punched the paw that clung to his chest and heard a giant roar that knocked me backward. The bear unhinged its claws from the boy and swung them at my face. We toppled to the ground.
Two shots fired.
The bear poked its menacing black head out from the bushes and growled at the warden. When the bear opened its mouth, blood dripped from its ghostly white teeth. The older man fired his pistol again and the disappeared. He chased the bear and fired a few more shots. A woman in the same colored uniform instructed the crowd to not step toward the boy.
I recognized the curly haired girl from the drive-in. She knelt over by the boy with me and put pressure on his mangled leg with a bandanna.
“I need you to take your shirt off and to try to clot the wound on his chest as best as you can. Medical personnel are coming, but he can’t afford to lose any more blood.”
I took my tee shirt off, bunched it up and clotted the wounds, four deep claw marks to the side of his heart. His blood drenched the shirt and stained my hands. He faded in and out of consciousness and his breathing was weak. I said a prayer for the boy as I struggled to stop the blood. My mother said this prayer as my grandfather was dying in the hospital.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.”
I looked into her eyes as we clogged the wounds together. Her brown eyes seemed to tell me she didn’t think the prayer would help, but she didn’t have the heart to tell me that. She knew it calmed me down and a few people in the crowd started to join me in prayer too. Danielle, Richard, Mac and Keri stood in the middle of the crowd, frozen in fear.
A few minutes later, the boy’s parents appeared along with Michael Corrigan and his camera crew. I recognized the parents from the parking lot. With their cell phones between their fingers, they hovered over the boy and began to sob uncontrollably. The mom tried to grab for the boy, but the girl shouted at them.
“The best thing you can do for your son right now is not to move him. He can’t afford to lose any more blood.”
“He’s my baby! My baby, Avery.” the woman shouted, trying to grab for him again after adjusting her white collared shirt. The husband, a short bald man with thick rimmed glasses attempted to hold her back by her waist. “Give him to me. You’re not a paramedic. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m a nursing student and I’m the best chance of keeping your child alive. The rangers didn’t have their medical available, so I volunteered. If you want your child to live, you will stop grabbing for him right now.”
“Why the hell weren’t they available?”
“An old guy fractured his knee at the radio tower museum. They had to carry him down. Now, would you please not move your child?”
When the lady tried to reach for her child again, the female park ranger escorted her away from the scene. With our hands thick with blood, we continued to apply pressure to the wounds and monitored his breathing.
“How far is the closest hospital from here?”
“Fleetwood doesn’t have an actual hospital. The paramedics will be coming from Enfield.”
By the time we heard sirens and saw lights flash in the distance, the Avery’s chest barely moved.