Echoes (Whisper Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Slut.

  The rage grew, surging through his veins. He saw her in his mind, with Alex, riding him in a pit of fire, plunging her arms into his stomach and tearing out his entrails as he grunted in the agony of climax followed by the silence of death.

  He pulled away from her touch, and took a cautious step back, almost falling over a half bag of cement which had been abandoned by the work crews. He was staring at Emma, horrified by the things he was thinking and unsure where the rage which was building inside him was coming from. Even Alex had dropped the cocky act, and was frowning at Cody. Like the others, he didn’t know what to do.

  “Hey, man, are you okay? You don’t look so good,” Scott said as Cody continued to back off.

  He wanted to tell them he was fine, and he was going home no matter what the rest of them did. However, much like the alien thoughts invading his head, the words which came from him and spoken in his own voice weren’t his.

  “There’s someone in the hotel.”

  Everyone gazed into the shadow-draped foyer, trying to see through the heavy gloom which was unwilling to give up its secrets. Cody remained outwardly neutral, although inside he was battling to regain control of his body and tell his friends he hadn’t actually seen anything, but the last thing they should be doing was to enter the building. Every fiber in his body screamed at him to do something, yet whatever was inside his head writhed and grew, sending tendrils of fury and darkness further into his body. He could imagine them like an aggressive mold, growing without obstruction, filling his arteries and veins, even the very cells making up his being with their polluted presence. He could almost see cold, skeletal hands on his wrists holding him in place. His only hope was the others would see and somehow understand what was going on. Alex looked into the dark, then back at Cody and the girls, before his face melted into his familiar god-awful cocky grin followed by the equally annoying hyuck hyuck hyuck laugh.

  “Maybe you saw a ghost,” he said, glancing at the girls for approval. “Maybe they’re coming out here to shoo us away, to banish us from their lands for daring to trespass.”

  “Hey, cut it out!” Scott said. Alex, however was on a roll, and now had the attention of the girls.

  “No, it’s true, maybe the old and dead things have come back to finish what they started.”

  Hyuck hyuck hyuck

  Cody watched him and, easing off on the fight a little, he allowed the rage into him. He looked at Alex: those bad, uneven teeth; his acne; the wispy ghost of first facial hair on his cheeks.

  Hyuck hyuck hyuck

  Cody imagined letting the fury out, unleashing all the power of whatever festered inside him onto Alex. He saw it in glorious clarity. Peeling flesh from muscle, popping his eyeballs and feeling the warm jelly inside seep over his hands. He saw himself tearing open the boy’s stomach, watching the cavity steam as it made contact with the cold air, and he heard himself cackle as he squeezed stomach tripe above his head to the intoxicating chorus of those voices.

  “Maybe it’s him. The guy who died here,” Emma said, her eyes bright with excitement.

  Her words killed Cody’s train of thought, giving him back a little control.

  “A lot of people died here,” Scott said as he kicked his trainers in the dirt. When he noticed he was the focus of their attention, he blushed and began to fidget, swaying from one foot to the other. “It’s no secret,” he said, keeping his eyes on the ground. “It’s all public record. Don’t any of you read?”

  “We know what happened here, hell we’re not stupid,” Alex hissed, trying to turn the attention back on himself. “Maybe your buddy saw a shadow, or maybe he’s just fucking with us to try and freak us out,” he added, glaring at Cody, not knowing how close he was to being attacked.

  “You wouldn’t lie to us, would you, Cody?” Emma said, looking him in the eye.

  He stared back at her blankly, horrified at the images of flaying her flesh from bone and feasting on entrails which exploded in his mind like fireworks.

  “I know what I saw,” he heard himself say to the group. “It was a man.”

  “Ooooh, maybe it was the spirit of Michael Jones, haunting the place he built, the place where so many died,” Alex said, chuckling and trying to impress the girls.

  “It was Donovan.”

  “It’s not funny, Cody,” Carrie said, linking arms with Emma and staring at the shell of the building.

  “Maybe it is,” Alex said, looking at them in turn, a sly smile on his face. “Maybe he’s still haunting here, looking for people to murder. I heard nobody really knows how many he killed. I heard it could be as many as twenty people.”

  “My Grandma Molly knew his mother,” Emma said, her voice crisp in the silence. “They used to be best friends. Her, Donovan’s mother, and their friend Petunia. They were always together. Everyone in town knew them well.”

  “Are you serious?” Carrie asked. Emma nodded

  “None of them used to talk about him, about Donovan. They all knew about him though. Grandma Molly never recovered from his mother Annie’s murder. I remember my mother having her over at the house and trying to get her to open up, but she completely refused to even talk about it. She passed away three years ago from a stroke. After, when we went through her diaries, there were some pretty disturbing things in there.”

  “Like what?” Scott asked.

  “Stuff Annie used to say when she was drunk. Grandma Molly always used to look after her, make sure she got home safe when she was a little worse for wear. Annie would tell her things, mumble to her in her sleep about her son. Did you know Donovan wasn’t even his real name?”

  “Bullshit!” Alex said.

  “It’s true. My grandma told me,” Emma countered

  “His name was Freddy,” Cody said, his tone flat and emotionless.

  “How the fuck do you know?” Alex said.

  He shrugged. He didn’t know how he knew. The words had just left his mouth of their own accord. That was the least of his worries. The images of mutilating his friends were growing more and more vivid, while the arousal in his groin had returned, pressing painfully against his jeans.

  “He’s right,” Emma said, turning to face Alex. “Freddy Donovan was his real name. He changed it after he was released from a mental facility.”

  “Oh yeah, where?”

  “Creasefield. Just out of town.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I have,” Scott interjected. “We drive past it when we head out of town to see my brother.”

  “Wherever it was, it still doesn’t explain how you know about it,” Alex said, glaring at Emma. “And you,” he added, nodding at Cody. “You think you saw him inside?”

  Cody nodded, hating the violating feel of those cold phantom hands restraining him. At the same time he was sickened by how much he was enjoying the sexual pleasure of the violent images racing through his brain.

  “Freddy, huh?” Alex said to Emma, tipping her a wink. She nodded, keeping a close eye on Cody.

  “YO FRED!” Alex said as he walked into the lobby. “You in here my man?”

  “Alex, cut it out!” Emma said, smiling and looking at Carrie.

  “Hellooooooo,” Alex called out, his voice echoing through the empty building. He walked behind the half-finished reception counter, and banged on the steel elevator doors. “Anyone home? Fresh new victims for you, hellooooooooo.”

  Encouraged by the brazen way in which Alex was stalking around the building, the girls followed, linking arms as they laughed with him, and poked around the lobby, stepping over rolls of cable and around the general clutter of a building site. Cody didn’t move. He was more concerned with the increasingly violent thoughts in his mind. He saw snatches from the past: a man hanging from the sign above the road; a woodcutter, blue-skinned and frosted with ice, bloody stumps for ears he’d cut off himself held in one hand, whilst he scooped dirt into his mouth with the other; a tribal girl being stalked through the woods and slaughter
ed by a dagger-toothed man. He felt these things as if he were there. He could taste the blood, he could feel the fear.

  “Hey, what’s wrong, man?” Scott said, taking a step closer.

  “I’m fine.”

  Like someone flicking a switch, the fog lifted. The icy hands melted away, and took with it the awful visions. Cody was back in control.

  “You sure? You don’t look too good.” Scott said.

  “Why don’t you just get out of here?” Cody replied quietly so the others didn’t hear. “You don’t have anything to prove to anyone, especially not a prick like Alex.”

  “I could say the same about you. Come on, Cody, we both felt how weird it was last time. I don’t think we should be screwing around here, you know? Why don’t we just get out of here and leave this prick to it?”

  “I… I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Cody looked into the foyer. Alex stood between the two girls, an arm around each of their waists as they walked three abreast, his hand inching closer and closer to Emma’s ass as they laughed and joked.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Who? Emma?” Scott said, lowering his voice. “Forget about her. We’ve been through this. I don’t think she’s into you. You’re not her type.”

  “Why, what’s wrong with me?” Cody hissed.

  “Nothing man, I just think she’s more into a different kind of guy.”

  “Someone like Alex?”

  Scott shrugged, and kicked at the gravel. “Maybe. So what if she is? What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me. We talked about this before, about how we were sick of being outsiders and wanted a chance to hang around with the popular kids.”

  “I know.” Scott sighed.

  “And here we are trying to do it and you seem dead against it.”

  “I’m not against being here as such, I’m more against Alex. He’s a manipulative prick.”

  “I know, but he’s popular. This is our chance to make people take notice of us.”

  “Do you think it’s safe?”

  Death.

  Fire.

  Screaming.

  Pain.

  It was there for the briefest of seconds, and was immediately hidden by Cody’s confident smile. “Of course it is. Look man, I’m sorry I was such a dick to you about this. Especially last week.”

  “It’s fine. Forget about it,” Scott mumbled.

  “No, it’s not fine. I was a pretty shitty friend to you, and I feel bad about it.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “No it’s not. I was a dick.”

  Scott looked at his friend and grinned. “You’re always a dick, so no change there.”

  Cody smiled, and for a second, almost forgot about those awful visions which seemed to have left an oily residue in his brain.

  “Hey, Cody!” Alex shouted as he spun around, grinning like an idiot between the two girls, his hands perilously close to sliding from waist down to ass. “The girls think we should spend the night here in the hotel. See if we can find this ghost you think you saw. Whaddya ya think? Hyuck hyuck hyuck!”

  “I never agreed to that,” Emma said with a grin as she gave Alex a playful slap on the chest. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “You girls are welcome to bunk in with me. I’ll protect you,” Alex said, not even trying to hide the sleaze anymore. “Hell, maybe they have beds in the rooms already.” He tipped a quick wink to Cody as he slid his hand into sacred territory.

  Emma laughed and grasped his hand, sliding it back to a more acceptable position on her hip. “Beds in the rooms before they even have windows? I doubt it.” She looked right at Cody as she said her next words, and the message was clear to them all. “Besides, you’re not really my type.”

  “I can make you change your mind if you just give me a chance,” he fired back, sliding his hand back down. Emma pulled free and distanced herself from his groping hands.

  “I didn’t come here for this. I came here to get scared, and this place, as creepy as it is, just isn’t doing it for me.”

  Alex was watching Cody and wearing the cocky grin which said he wasn’t going to give up until he had worked Emma’s defenses down. As much as Cody was desperate to get as far away from the hotel as possible, he was determined not to let his would-be rival win this one.

  “If it’s scary you want, I know just the place where we can camp for the night.”

  “Cody…” Scott said, knowing what was coming next.

  “It’s a place just across the river. If you want scares, that’s where the action is.”

  Alex and Cody locked eyes, and this time it was Cody who grinned, causing his rival to falter just a little.

  “What do you say Alex… you in?”

  “Yeah,” he stammered. “Yeah man, of course I’m in. Lead the way.”

  Cody turned and walked to retrieve his backpack as the others followed. Those brutal and violent images began to come back, and yet now they didn’t seem so bad. He thought, given long enough, he could almost get used to them.

  II

  Seventeen year-old Emma Barrett stumbled through the woods, her best friend Carrie beside her. Ahead, Cody, Alex, and Scott led the way, although she noticed the snipes and jibes had stopped along with the laughter and jokes the second they’d crossed the river. Although it was her fault in a way they had come here instead of camping at the site of the hotel, she was beginning to regret mentioning it. She couldn’t explain it, yet somehow things felt different over on this side of the river. The light was fading fast, and their shadows were merging into the gloom, with full dark probably less than an hour away.

  Swatting a persistent fly away from her face, she stepped over a moss-covered boulder to continue after the boys. She knew well enough they were both keen on her. She wasn’t stupid, and she was no stranger to the attention of boys and how to make sure they stayed interested. It was Carrie who had told her how to do it. Enhance the positives. Hide the negatives.

  Of course she hadn’t really seen any positives at first, but again Carrie had helped her. She showed her how to dye her hair from the indistinct dirty blonde it used to be to the jet black it was now, and also how to use makeup to enhance her eyes, which were a deep blue and by far her best feature. The rest was just cosmetic enhancements, like clothes which showed just enough skin to get attention without being labeled a slut or worse. As much as the new look had really helped her confidence, she still felt like a fraud and was the same shy, withdrawn girl on the inside. She would never admit it, but she would much rather be tucked up on the sofa with a good book than cold and tramping through the woods.

  Alex glanced over his shoulder and grinned at her, a gesture which she ignored. He held his stare until he almost lost his footing on the uneven ground, which finally made him turn back to the path in front.

  Although she flirted a little, she really wasn’t into Alex. He was too loud, too cocky. She only let him put his arm around her because she wanted Cody to notice. He was one of the few she thought really had seen her for who she was behind the hair dye and the lip piercing. She was pretty sure he liked her too. Getting together should have been a straightforward thing, if not for the complication which presented itself out of left-field recently.

  She glanced at Carrie, who was walking head down, watching the ground to make sure she didn’t fall. Although she was mostly buried under her bobble hat and jacket, Emma could see the profile of her nose, and the determined frown as she tried not to fall and break an ankle in the growing darkness.

  Emma was sure she had fallen in love with her.

  She had always liked boys, and had never even entertained the notion of being gay, but the two of them had a little too much to drink at Royston Green’s seventeenth birthday party a couple of weeks earlier, and had kissed. Neither had mentioned it afterwards, both of them content to act as if nothing had even happened. However much she tried though, Emma couldn’t stop thinking about it. Somehow
it had just seemed right. It was infinitely less complicated or embarrassing than dealing with the emotions of boys. Her uncertainty bred distraction, which in turn became confusion. How she would deal with it from here was still a huge question mark, especially now her feelings towards Cody had grown of late. She supposed it was all part of life, and something she would have to deal with as it came to her. Up ahead, the boys stopped walking, and it was only as she tore herself back to reality that those first icy fingertips of fear began to touch her skin.

  The clearing was bigger than she’d expected it to be. Although the trees at its edges were thick and gnarled, nothing grew in the circle. It was completely bare. Emma inhaled, and could taste the electric charge in the air. It was almost as if it had an oozing, slimy texture against her skin. Perhaps worst of all was the silence. She strained her ears and listened, but couldn’t hear a single creature moving through the undergrowth. She glanced at the others, wondering if it was just her who had reacted in such a volatile way, however, the faces of her friends told the pretty much the same story. Even Alex, who just a few moments ago had been so confident and self-assured, was now frowning as he tried to make sense of what was happening.

  “What is this place?” she said, her words flat and without resonance, killed dead by whatever atmosphere existed in the circle.

  “Nobody knows for sure,” Scott replied. “People say this is where the Gogoku village once stood. Legend says the elders went crazy and killed everyone in the village before burning it down and sacrificing themselves in the fire. That’s why people say nothing grows here.”