The Echo Room Read online

  Was that why he was here? Was this some kind of punishment?

  “You steal food?” she asked.

  “Food, blankets, shoes. I used to trade my comic books for what I needed, but those ran out a long time ago.”

  She narrowed her eyes, intrigued or concerned. Either way, guilt settled over Rett.

  “Mostly I just steal stuff back from whoever stole it from me in the first place,” he said. And he didn’t do it just for himself. He stole back stuff for the smaller kids, too. Soon everything will be better, he’d promised them.

  Her stony gaze told him she wasn’t buying the innocent act from the boy who’d introduced himself to her covered in blood.

  He hefted the wall up now, ready to drop the subject. Bryn only stood there, eyeing him and making no move to explore the room beyond.

  I guess she needs proof I’m not actually into attacking people.

  Rett backed away, turning so she wouldn’t see the humiliation on his face. “You check in there. I’m going to look around the rest of the place. See if there’s some way out of here.” He skulked toward the lounge, where a ladder led up from a ledge behind the couch.

  Behind him, he heard Bryn duck under the wall, eager to get away from him. Can you blame her? he asked himself, and felt anew the horror of that dark stain he’d found on his clothes. He paused halfway up the ladder, stunned by the traces of blood on his hands. I did something bad, he thought. I might have done something bad. I wish I could remember.

  He thought of Walling Home, stolen beers pressed into his hands, nicked food smuggled under his shirt. A hundred other things that might have landed him here, in this strange prison. The wrench he’d hidden in the yard. Garrick’s broken knuckles. I didn’t want to do any of those things.

  Above the ladder: a dark space. A room someone might be sent to as punishment. Rett’s muscles tightened at the memory of another dark space—a box he’d climbed into, on the edge of Walling’s property, clutching his last issue of Shine Fall. He’d lain inside the open firewood box, hoping to catch sight of a meteor shower promised on the news, a hundred shooting stars. But Garrick had found him. He’d closed the lid and trapped Rett inside to punish him for escaping a beating in the yard the day before—the day Rett had defended himself by bringing a wrench down on Garrick’s knuckles.

  Rett had tried to tell him about the meteor shower: I need to see it. Like Hikaru in Shine Fall, who’d wished his way home on a shooting star. But Garrick knew. Knew Rett loved that two-page, star-spangled spread in Shine Fall. Knew Rett hoped in the magic of wishing. Garrick picked that night to get his revenge, to shut Rett in the box so he couldn’t see the shooting stars …

  After that night, Rett started drawing his own comics. Scrap-paper issues, filled with magical artifacts—amulets, wands, keys—found just when they were needed most. There’s always something that can help. There has to be.

  He groped along the wall for a light switch, unnerved by the darkness. His hand came upon something else instead: a lever. There’s always something. But the lever didn’t want to budge. He pulled harder, finding within himself a spring of frustration left over from that memory of the dark box, from the image of Bryn’s frightened eyes, from the thought of I did something bad.

  Some machinery shifted behind the wall as the lever came down, but nothing else happened.

  “What’s up with this place?” he mumbled. “Is everything broken?”

  Rett’s eyes were adjusting to the dim light coming from below, but he still couldn’t make out much more than a few beds and a wall of drawers. No doors, no window. No way out, other than the hatch in the floor. No sign of water, either.

  Then it occurred to him: maybe the lever didn’t work because the power wasn’t on. Maybe if he could find a way to get the electricity going, the lever would activate … something. He just had to find a main switch, probably somewhere on the ground floor.

  He slipped back down the ladder. Quick and quiet, so Bryn wouldn’t know he’d been up in that room. He paused, confused, feet on the last rung. Why do I care if Bryn knows I was up there?

  He didn’t know her. Didn’t trust her. Except—she did seem familiar. Her hair? Her eyes?

  Her voice. That song.

  He turned from the ladder to find her standing there. His heart lurched. “Bryn.”

  Her jumpsuit glowed in the brightening light from the window in the high ceiling. “Find anything up there?” Her voice was strained, but at least she was talking to him. We could help each other, you know, he told her silently. I promise I’ve had practice at it. More than fighting or stealing. Would she believe him if he told her?

  “I found a lever,” he said. “But I don’t think it works without—”

  “Did you look in the drawers?” she interrupted.

  How did she know there were drawers? She’s already been up there.

  Rett shook his head. “There isn’t any light up there. You haven’t seen a way to turn on the power, have you?”

  “No, but I saw some power cords in there.” She nodded toward the room she’d just come out of. “Look around for yourself.”

  Rett hesitated. But his curiosity got the better of him. He ducked under the wall.

  The room was a mess.

  Tangled power cords, first-aid kits, empty canvas bags, sets of tinted goggles like strap-on sunglasses, coils of rope and nests of carabiners, a box of compasses. All jumbled on the floor. Rett bent and slipped a compass into the pocket of his jumpsuit without really thinking. He pulled a pair of goggles down around his neck. It was all he could do not to stuff his pockets full of carabiners. Old habits … he thought. He sneaked a glance at the opening behind him, suddenly embarrassed at the thought of Bryn coming into the room and seeing him hoarding junk.

  The power switch, he reminded himself. But he couldn’t find anything like that along the walls or inside the cabinets.

  He surveyed the mess again. Why did everything come in sets of six? Six water bottles, six first-aid kits, six pairs of goggles.

  … Five backpacks.

  He untangled the nylon sacks and counted again: five.

  A half-opened box tipping out of a cabinet held a couple dozen tubes of mysterious green goo. He took one with him to search elsewhere for a way to turn on the power.

  He discovered Bryn leaning against the couch in the lounge, arms crossed, like an unassuming security guard. Or a villain born of desperation, ready to strike.

  But she didn’t make any sudden moves, so he asked, “Any idea what this is?” and held up the green tube.

  Bryn’s arms flexed as she pressed herself farther back against the couch’s edge. “A light stick? Try bending it.”

  Rett followed her advice. It made a cracking noise and the green goo began to glow. He beamed at Bryn. Surprise flickered across her face at his smile, and for a moment Rett thought he might finally win her over.

  “You’re a genius,” he said.

  “Maybe I just wanted to hear something crack.”

  Rett’s smile faltered at the aggression she loaded into the word crack. He quickly composed himself. “Should we take a better look at that lever up there?” He pointed his glowing tube at the ladder behind her.

  Bryn just stood with her arms folded, blocking his path to the ladder. Guarding it? Rett thought. Why?

  So much for winning her over.

  “I thought you were looking for a way to turn on the power,” she said at last.

  Rett didn’t think he could bear to see her flinch away from him again, so he dropped the idea of climbing the ladder. “Maybe I should check the other rooms for breaker switches.” He waited a beat for an answer that didn’t come. Then he ducked through the open doorway, into the office where he’d first found her. Maybe there’s a circuit breaker in here.

  A desk and a pull-out stool took up most of the small space. A narrow door stood to the left. Rett opened it to find a toilet and sink. He tried the taps. Nothing. He swallowed against the scratchy f
eeling in his throat, but it gave him no relief. He opened the toilet in a sudden burst of desperation. Dry as the sink.

  The back wall of the bathroom was really another narrow door, which slid aside to reveal an identical bathroom. A mark on the second bathroom’s far wall caught the light from Rett’s glow tube. He froze. For a moment, he saw the emblem from the cover of his Shine Fall comic—the last of any issue in his collection, the one he refused to trade away. It was his only physical connection to his mother, who had spent their hard-saved money to buy him all six issues in the limited-run series the day he’d come home early from school because he’d made himself sick worrying about her.

  But as Rett lifted his glow tube, he saw it wasn’t an image of a shooting star glowing before him. It was a triangle enclosing a lightning bolt.

  And just to the side of it jutted a handle.

  The wall was a door.

  It felt like a wish come true. And even before Rett popped the door open, he knew what he would find behind it.

  A power supply.

  I guess this place is too small to stick the door somewhere easier to get to. He crept through, into the cramped space beyond. The green glow from his plastic tube hit on a bank of switches, a row of metal cylinders. “We have power!” he called as he threw the breakers and the cylinders hummed to life.

  Now let’s see what that lever in the top room is good for. He turned, and his foot sent something clattering over the metal floor.

  The light from his glow tube glinted off the object: a small rock, as shiny as if it were made of metal. “Where did you come from?” Its smooth surface glinted in the green glow from the light stick. Rett slipped the rock into the pocket of his jumpsuit with the compass, another artifact he couldn’t help hoarding.

  A strange noise greeted him as he stepped back into the office: wood clattering against metal.

  Bryn was tugging aside an accordion-fold partition he hadn’t noticed before, forcing the wood-and-metal slats with a long metal pole. All thoughts of the lever in the upper room left Rett’s mind for the moment.

  There’s another room here, Rett realized just as Bryn managed to finally shove the folding slats aside.

  Rett’s pulse pounded as he took in the details of the newly revealed room: stark white sheets on a narrow bed, pill bottles in glass-front cabinets, splints scattered over wall-mounted shelves. Things he would expect to find in a hospital.

  He shrank back with dread. Everything was sterile and neutral and blank.

  Just an empty room, he told himself. Nothing to be afraid of.

  And then, as if to prove him wrong, blood bloomed in Bryn’s palm. Rett stared in shock.

  Then he realized—

  She must have cut herself on the slats.

  Without a word, he flew from the room, ducked into the supply room where he’d searched the cabinets, and yanked out a bin he had found earlier. Reached inside and then ducked back under the wall—

  He stopped short.

  Bryn stood an arm’s length from him, wielding the metal pole like a baseball bat, her face a mask of fear and resolve.

  Rett’s muscles locked. He waited for the blow.

  Waited a moment longer, his lungs heavy as stone.

  The blow didn’t come.

  Bryn’s gaze had gone to the object Rett held out to her: a roll of gauze.

  She looked from it to the blood dripping from her hand and then to Rett’s expression. He’d never meant to scare her. Could she see that? Did she know what he knew, what he’d known since the first moment he’d met her and seen her face shadowed with pain?

  They were the same.

  They both desperately needed things to be better.

  Bryn lowered the pole. “There was someone else here,” she said, as if it were a reasonable explanation for why she had almost bashed Rett’s head in.

  “I know.” Rett’s breath came fast in his tight lungs. She’s not swinging. “But I swear I didn’t hurt them.”

  “Then how did you get blood on your clothes?”

  Something cold trickled down Rett’s spine. “I … I don’t know.” He watched the pole in her hand, pretending that if he kept his eyes on it, she wouldn’t raise it again. “Let me help you with your hand.”

  He reached out, but she took the gauze from him instead, her fingers grazing his palm, and drew back out of his reach.

  “Fine,” Rett said. “It’s fine. To be honest, I could use a little personal space.”

  6:06 A.M.

  “What’s inside the pack?”

  Rett stood leaning in the far corner of the main room, keeping his distance while Bryn sat in the lounge, wrapping her wounded hand. He’d thought she might need help with the gauze, but she clearly didn’t.

  In response to his question, she reached into the half-open pack balanced on her lap and brought out several Mylar pouches.

  “Is that—?” Rett took a few steps closer. The labels on the pouches read DRINKING WATER.

  Rett couldn’t help himself. He darted forward and seized one of the pouches from the seat next to Bryn, barely registering that she flinched away from him as he did so. His throat constricted as he tore away the Mylar tab. Then water was pouring into his mouth and he was almost choking with relief. Finally.

  Bryn just watched him while he reached for another one and drained it as quickly as he had the first.

  “You’ve had these the whole time?” he asked her.

  She was leaning away from him, her bandaged hand cradled to her chest. He took a few steps back, feeling guilty for having made her nervous again.

  “I just found them a minute ago,” she said. “The backpack was on the floor behind that folding partition.”

  She hadn’t opened a pouch for herself.

  “It’s not poisoned or anything,” he assured her. “Or anyway, I haven’t keeled over yet, and that’s got to be a good sign.” He gave her a brief smile that she didn’t return.

  She examined a pouch, as carefully as if it were a piece of evidence in a murder trial—one unit of poisoned water, which the male victim swallowed without urging. Then she finally pulled the tab and drank.

  Rett was about to reach for another one when it occurred to him that there might not be any other water except what was in that backpack. And the door out of this place was jammed shut, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. There was still that lever in the upper room to check, but unless it opened a hidden exit—which Rett highly doubted—they were stuck here for who knew how long.

  Bryn seemed to read his thoughts. “Should we save some of these?”

  “Yeah.” Rett tried to make it sound casual, but his voice came out a little too high-pitched. “I think we should check that lever in the room up there. It’s the only idea I have right now.”

  He pointed at the ladder, but Bryn just rummaged in the pack like she hadn’t heard him.

  Rett fidgeted. “Unless you have a better one?” He sat on the couch, careful to leave some distance between them.

  Not enough, apparently—Bryn pulled down a hinged table that was bracketed to the wall so it could serve as a barrier between them.

  “I’m willing to go along with whatever plan you have, at this point,” Rett said, eyeing the table like it was a door she’d just slammed in his face.

  He looked up to find her gazing into her open backpack. Even relieved of its water pouches, it bulged like a big, black grub.

  “We could charge these up.” Bryn pulled several small black devices out of the pack and arranged them along the edge of the table. “So we can turn them on,” she added, and prodded the buttons on one to prove they had no charge.

  “What are they? Phones?”

  “We’ll find out when we turn them on.” She watched him for a moment longer, her hazel eyes liked chilled honey, and then she asked, “You don’t remember … anything?”

  The way she said it made Rett uneasy. “Do you?”

  Bryn leveled her cool gaze at him. She looked awa
y and shook her head.

  I wish I could tell if you were lying, Rett thought. He was no good at reading her. One minute he thought she might let him help her—and the next, she’d come at him ready to introduce the inside of his skull to a metal pole.

  Like my head doesn’t hurt enough already. He skimmed a hand over it, grimacing at the dull ache that still pushed back at his touch. At least the water had helped a little.

  “Are you always this guarded?” Rett asked her. “Or just when you’re trapped in a weird place with a stranger?”

  Bryn examined her bandaged hand. “You forgot bloodstained. A bloodstained stranger.”

  Rett cleared his throat. I did change my clothes. “… Who’s really good at checkers. And at doing funny voices, but please don’t ask me to perform right now because I’ll feel like an idiot impersonating SpongeBob in a bomb shelter.”

  “This isn’t a fallout shelter.” She pointed at the skylight—a fragile barrier to an atomic blast. “And I’d prefer political impressions over cartoons, if you’re taking requests.” One corner of her mouth lifted, almost a smile.

  Warmth spread through Rett’s chest. “What, like the president?”

  “Say ‘extreme weather patterns’ and I’ll laugh my head off.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That everything he says is bullshit,” Bryn said evenly. “That droughts and heat waves don’t cause cancer.”

  Rett sat back. Cancer. “My mom…” Did Bryn already know his mom was sick? What did she mean about cancer?

  “You grew up in a boarding facility,” she said.

  Rett felt a twinge in his gut. “How did you know that?”

  “Walling Home.”

  Another twinge.

  “I finally remembered your face a few minutes ago,” Bryn said. “You look different, though. Kind of … ragged.”

  Rett’s face flushed. He pulled at the front his jumpsuit, as if straightening his clothes would help.

  “I’m from there, too,” Bryn said.

  Rett’s bewilderment vanished. Yes, he’d seen her there. That’s why he’d thought he recognized her earlier. She looked different, too. It might have been the way the dim light shadowed the hollows of her face.